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Author: codefusion Message #: 45730
Subject: How the BIS FAQ was made.


I thought it may be worth saying how this FAQ was put together in case anyone came along later and wondered.

Initially it came about due to my bone idleness, the board needed a FAQ, but like everyone else I preferred to post than to waste time doing something even slightly useful ;-)

First I outlined the plan on the board here. It was well received, the questions and ideas started to come in almost straight away, as did the names of those who volunteered, with almost no pressure ;-) , to answer the questions. After a week or so I compiled the list of questions that would hopefully be answered. Some folk decided to ask and at the same time answer their own questions, that was fine too, it added to the mosaic that the FAQ was to become. The list of questions was compiled and broken up into sets of 3 questions, and divided between the mugs, errr, sorry, I mean volunteers. I also sent the full list to everyone in case anyone had too much time on their hands :-)
All I had to do now was wait, and the FAQ would write itself. The answers started coming back, and were all of outstanding quality, after another week (or so, probably closer to two) I put them all in one document and printed it out. 17 pages!! (ok, that included notes, ideas and references, but it still scared me!) 17 pages of excellent material. It had originally been my intention to credit each answer to the person who answered it, however, as I compiled it, it became clear that this was not a good idea. It would have broken the flow of the FAQ too much. More problematically, some of the replies were similar and there was often more than one answer to a single question, so I merged the answers where possible, joining them by editing them and adding a few words of my own, it would not have been fair to attribute my words to others. The solution was to credit all the volunteers at the end. I hope this is acceptable to the people concerned. In a later version I hope it's possible to give better and more precise credit. And that was about it, the final compilation was easier that I thought due to the quality of material I had to work from. The final stages were numerous revisions (by Emma and myself), and proofreading (by Barb - but don't blame her for any mistakes, I made a few revisions after that stage). A couple of late answers were squished in, and there stood the final FAQ.

I hope you enjoy it

To everybody who helped:
I thank you for your time and effort, you have done an excellent job.
This is your FAQ, you can be justly proud of it.

Finally here's a question that fits better here than in the FAQ, from Mizzie (she made me include it) :-)

------------------------------------------------
Q. Who is responsible for providing this
FAQ feature?
A.It's top secret, but we have learned:
Codesmith compiled it with invisible
ink during an assignment in a cupboard;
using her laptop, Emma transcribed it
to a ghost-writing mode.
Frightened by an elk that had wandered
through Improve The Fool, MickeyMoose
knocked a bottle of spirits onto TMF's
motherboard. The hamsters escaped as
lamb sensors turned tail and automatically
generated this Foolish post-out.
Cheers to Codey and Emma!
------------------------------------------------


codey


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