FAQ
FAQ is an abbreviation for 'Frequently Asked Questions. It is sometimes pronounced as an acronym, fack, and sometimes as the initialism F.A.Q. (Since it originated in the text medium of USENET, there is no agreed-upon pronunciation.)
The FAQ is an Internet textual tradition originating from periodic summary messages posted to USENET newsgroups in an attempt to reduce the continual reposting of the same basic questions. On USENET, posting questions which are covered in a group's FAQ is often considered inappropriate, as it shows that the poster has not done the expected background reading before asking others to provide answers. Some groups may have multiple FAQs on related topics, or even two or more competing FAQs explaining a topic from different points of view.
A text consisting of questions and their answers is often called a FAQ regardless of whether the questions are actually frequently asked (if asked at all). This is done to capitalize on the fact that the concept of a FAQ has become fairly familiar online. In some cases informative documents not in the traditional FAQ style have also been called FAQs. One large collection of such documents is GameFAQs, where most so-called "FAQs" have nothing in common with the meaning of the name, other than containing a FAQ (and even then, they may not be frequent, or even asked, questions).
The term "FAQ", and the idea behind it, has spread offline as well, even to areas not related to the Net at all. Even bottles of bicycle chain lubricant have been marketed with accompanying leaflets titled as a "FAQ".
There are thousands of FAQs available on many subjects. Several sites catalog them and provide search capabilities -- for example, the Internet FAQ Consortium.
Wikipedia has its own Wikipedia FAQ collection.
While the name may be recent, the format itself is quite old. For instance, Matthew Hopkins wrote The Discovery of Witches in 1647 in FAQ format. He introduces it as "Certaine Queries answered,".... Many old catechisms are in a question and answer format.
See also: FAAQ
External links
Referenced By
AFAIK | Abbreviations used online | Alt.suicide.holiday | Banjo-Kazooie | Banjo Kazooie | Carniverous plants | Carnivorous plant | Chip's Challenge | Computer and IT acronyms | Cow-orker | Cow orker | Dilbert/Cow-orker | Distributed crawling | Distributed web crawling | Documentation | FAAQ | GameFAQs | GodHatesFags.com | How-to | HowTo | ICYDK | IMDB | Insectivorous plant | Internet Movie Database | Internet Movie Databse | Internet chat acryonym | Internet slang | Invisible pink unicorn | Japanese family name | Japanese name | Japanese names | LMAO | Liaden universe | Line of Succession | Line of Sucession | Linux Documentation Project | List of Internet topics | List of computing and IT abbreviations | List of computing and IT acronyms | List of initialisms | Netiquette | Order of succession | PHP-Nuke | Phpnuke | Project Galactic Guide | QBert | RinkWorks | Rofl | Ruby language | Ruby programming language | SPISPOPD | TINC | TLAs from EAA to HZZ | TLDP | Talisman board game | The Linux Documentation Project | There is no Cabal | USENET | Walkthrough
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