# "FAQ" listing?



## jonquiliser

As there are some very often newly posted, previously treated a billion times topics, regarding words or grammar, would it be possible to have some sort of sticky thread with links to some of those common themes? I know there is the search function, but apart from many people skipping to use it, there are actually some difficulties at times. You may for example want to know (as I did a moment ago) whether to say "than I" or "than me", but searching for that topic is not necessarily so easy as you don't know what previous threads might have been called (and if you search whole posts, the search will just produce too many, and too many useless, results). I found this quite ok, but other times I've done many searches, without good results, in spite of remembering threads about that specific topic. 

So, any chance of a "FAQ listing"?


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## TrentinaNE

In many instances, the dictionary will provide you a list of relevant threads, e.g., than me.

In the Italian-English forum, we have some FAQ stickies of a sort, e.g., the "I LOVE YOU" thread. This came about because there seems to be a never-ending stream of new posters who are interested whispering their "sweet nothings" in Italian.  We still have to shut down several threads a week that ask exactly the same questions as are addressed there, but of course, we don't know how many additional threads have been avoided. 

Elisabetta


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## jonquiliser

Oh, I've not wandered around the Italian forums much..! But seems good. I'd really appreciate something similar for example in the English forum - I know it would be kind of worksome to make a list like that, but perhaps it could work like the resources thread in Other languages; people can add suggestions, that are then added to the final list.


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## panjandrum

There are some very useful lists of threads to be found in the dictionary.
Try these particular entries:
Collective nouns
I have got
Who or whom
Relative pronouns

We really don't appreciate the powers of the WordReference dictionary.

I really wouldn't want to turn this into a list of lists, but are there any specific topics that you had in mind?  I may find this request moderated into oblivion - later.


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## jonquiliser

Hmm - yes, I specifically had in mind all threads that are locked, with a moderator note urging the thread starter to use the search tool  (although it seems that in many cases the moderator does that for us in that message!!) 

It wouldn't be something that excludes further discussion about any and all aspects of language (of course!), but rather to avoid threads that will just be locked, merged or deleted anyway. It would simply be a shortcut to some threads of much interest (i.e., that have caused many questions on the same topic). I take it that it wouldn't be so strange or controversial, as Alex and Trentina mention there already is such a thing in the IE forum. 

For example: 

*Guarantee / warranty*:
guarantee
warranty - guarantee
warranty=guarantee
warranty vs guarantee [these would obviously be links]

And there would only be ONE sticky thread with all these links-to-topics in them, creatively called FAQ for example - not a whole list of stickies.

Moderated into oblivion..?! No, please, no!


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## Jana337

In the Italian forum, we came up with two lists of FAQ: 
1. Love.
2. What we call "useful phrases for every occasion" - a mix of ever-recurring questions that junior members often ask, like "I can't help -ing", "happy birthday". 

Those are mainly FAQ for people who do not speak Italian and receive a love message or want to send a birthday card. Their lack of proficiency prevents them from working on their own attempts with the help of the dictionary - they typically go directly to the forum. We put up the stickies in the hope that at least some of them would read them. I believe it really helped. The stream of love threads in particular seems much more bearable. 

I wouldn't dream of compiling a sticky for topics like guarantee/warranty (or the IT-EN equivalents thereof). It would be too hard to maintain and, above all, it would be redundant because if you feed "guarantee" and "warranty" in the dictionary search window, you get exactly the results the sticky would ideally contain*.

Instead, we invest a lot of our time in renaming new threads, improving old thread titles we stumble across and mainly in teaching our members to use the dictionary first.

* In case you didn't know: If you like to search for threads in the dictionary, you can type in more words. You will not find a dictionary entry for *couldn't help* but scanning several *couldn't help *threads is certainly easier than wading through a long list of *couldn*'t threads or *help *threads.


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## jonquiliser

Well, yes, I suppose the warranty-thing is a bit too specific. And it's true that you can find that easily with the search function. But if you for example are wondering about whether to write "realise" or "realize", or "minimise"/"minimize" (as MANY people have done), what do you look for? You can obviously search those specific terms, but others before you with the same doubt might have asked for "trivialise"/"trivialize" - so it wouldn't be that easy. Perhaps you've been lucky enough to know it's a general thing about ise/ize, and you search for it and find someone who actually put that as a title (title searches are so much faster...) - but that really doesn't happen too often...

For that kind of queries I still think a FAQ list would be useful.


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## panjandrum

jonquiliser said:


> [...]  But if you for example are wondering about whether to write "realise" or "realize", or "minimise"/"minimize" (as MANY people have done), what do you look for? You can obviously search those specific terms, but others before you with the same doubt might have asked for "trivialise"/"trivialize" - so it wouldn't be that easy. Perhaps you've been lucky enough to know it's a general thing about ise/ize, and you search for it and find someone who actually put that as a title (title searches are so much faster...) - but that really doesn't happen too often...
> 
> For that kind of queries I still think a FAQ list would be useful.


A dictionary search for ise comes up with
THIS

where I find links to:
-ize v -ise endings
A rule for ise/ize ?
-ise and -ize endings in UK and US English

Part of the problem is that we don't require all members to undertake a training course in the use of all the forum's facilities.
If we did, they would find what they needed much more quickly.  
And they would take a great deal more care over the titles of their threads.
By the way, a dictionary search, which is more or less equivalent to a title search, is much faster than a search.


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## jonquiliser

Ok, I see. Perhaps the dictionary is sufficient then. I still wonder if it wouldn't be good with a faq-thread, but maybe I've not used the forum long enough to get more used to the search possibilities. Thanks for your time anyway!


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