[META] I'm curious about the process of how the FAQ is maintained.

by Jtwil2191

Sometimes as I read through it, I find answers that are several years old, occasionaly from before the sub's current standards of quality have been implemented. I'm curious if there is some ongoing/regular effort to curate posts for inclusion in the FAQ.

DanKensington

Link quality ranges from "pretty good" to "yeah nah mate", but honestly, the real problem is that there isn't quite much coordination. Hell, I as an FAQ Finder barely go into it; it's just too chunky and I have just a bit too much going on IRL and mentally to devote an evaluation and cleanup of the segments I am capable of seeing to. (Which doesn't yet get into the areas I have no expertise in - I suppose I could go through sections to rip out stuff from the Dark Ages, but that currently is a bit more commitment than I'm willing to offer right now.)

crrpit

The issue with FAQs (and to an extent also our booklist) is that they're impossible for any one person to manage, since no one has the requisite expertise (let alone time!) to manage the whole thing, and our principle has been to adopt a decentralised approach, relying on the flair community as a whole to update the lists in their own area of expertise. Naturally, this means that different parts are maintained differently (and has led to navigation issues - the logic of what goes where is idiosyncratic to say the least). For instance, I'm pretty happy with the state of the Spanish Civil War FAQ, because it's always been pretty self-contained and easy to see as 'my' section to be responsible for. But for other sections, for which there is no natural 'owner' or the previous person who looked after it has moved on, there's a lot of pruning that could usefully be done.

I would note that we are always open to reviewing items in the FAQ if you do spot an answer which is below our current standards. The easiest way to do so is via modmail, though I believe you can also report archived threads (just be clear about why you're reporting it).