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An FAQ for Hacker News?

25 points by NewWorldOrder ↗ HN
If there was an FAQ section that had threads to frequently asked questions, it would go a long way to acclimating newbies. It would also serve as a tremendous resource for everybody. An FAQ section could also help ease some of the frustration some veterans of Hacker News have when they see questions that have been answered many times already.

I think some of the comments are really good, but after a while the thread "disappears" & and the next newbie asks the same the question. Consequently, some veterans get frustrated.

If threads are put in a FAQ section, then people would get the benefit of what users have said in the past and any new things users decided they wanted to add to the various threads.

Thoughts?

18 comments

[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 54.3 ms ] thread
amrithk
Thats a great idea. There;s a wealth of information (links, posts etc) in HN and it would be nice to easily access a submission that was posted in the past.
mattmaroon
How does the recession affect my startup?
kirubakaran
'Ask not if the recession will affect your startup. Ask if your startup can affect the recession.'

(This is quote is being published by the author under Creative Commons Attribution license)

maneesh
Would you say An FAQ or A FAQ? Not to be mean, just not sure---cause pronounced it sounds like 'an' but spelled looks like 'a'
sant0sk1
"an" is used before words starting with a vowel sound. Not words starting with a vowel character. This is a common mistake.

Since FAQ is an acronym, the "F" here does not sound like your average "F". Phonetically it could be represented as "EFF".

While "an FAQ" looks strange, it is grammatically accurate.

dangoldin
Well that depends on how you pronounce FAQ. As soon as words like that get colloquial, they are pronounced as one word instead of as a list of letters (fak vs ef-ay-que).
slapshot
The New York Times style guide is a handy way to tell: If the Times puts periods between the letters ("A.C.C." for the basketball conference) then it's to be pronounced as individual letters. If the Times puts no periods between the letters ("NATO" for the treaty organization) then it's to be pronounced as a word. That decision is then used to figure out whether there's an "an" in front of it.

The beeb (BBC) works in a similar way. Things that are spelled out are put in all caps ("ACC") and things that are pronounced are put with only a leading capital ("Nato").

Of course, that's just the journalism wonk in me speaking.

pdubroy
Don't you mean the B.B.C.? Or are we calling it the beebuk now? ;-)
slapshot
Look at the example of the BBC's style guide. If you're using the BBC guide, then things that are all-cap are said using letters. If we wanted to call it the "beebuk" then it'd be "Bbc" (like "Nato").

We just need all high school teachers to find time between teaching basic literacy to teach kids one style guide for these sorts of things.

redorb
I think "veterans" should be a little more understanding; realizing we were all one time a "newbie". I would even suggest we realize that a "newbie" isn't necessarily a newbie at everything; most of the time they can bring a valuable skill set to the community.
hernan7
Yeah, please add that "what music do you program to" question to the FAQ if you're so kind.
epi0Bauqu
Done. Here's the link for all interested: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=132026

Note (to all reading this) that it is a wiki so feel free to add anything I missed (or delete anything that sucks). I doubt there are many false positives, but there may be a bunch of false negatives.

I plan to batch update it weekly (probably on Mondays) for the previous week.