What should be in the FAQ?
Answers should refer either to a global issue (e.g. language issue, formatting issue of the FAQ itself) or to just a unit of information, so that voting and editing is easy.
5 Answers
The FAQ should contain a paragraph about other resources:
Have you tried the following online resources before posing the question?
- (List of online dictionaries) or Link to list of online dictionaries
- (List of etymological links) or link to the list
- Google Labs Ngram viewer http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%22Gutmensch%22&corpus=8&smoothing=3
- Wiktionary http://de.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Hauptseite
- Wikipedia http://de.wikipedia.org
- Wörterbuchnetz with 24 dictionaries, http://woerterbuchnetz.de/
I would like to have completely separate FAQ pages in German and English and a language choice button at the top of the page.
One of the most important points is, the FAQ has to clarify what is on-topic and what is off-topic. Until that is done, closing questions as off-topic is rather arbitrary.
Please compare the FAQ of some established sites like SO, SF or EL&U with that of sites in Beta like our.
German Language and Usage - Stack Exchange is for students having questions about German, expert speakers of German wanting to discuss the finer points of the language and translation questions from any language to German.
is a good start, but I think it needs improvement.
A paragraph on the used language:
We welcome questions in English or German. Do not be surprised if your question is edited to improve the language.
It should point out clear and direct the mechanism of this page:
- one question
- many answers to this question
- comments only for clarification
This is a thing I usually comment on new user that writes a follow-up question as answer. And while writing this answer, I realized I can point to the reworked tour-page.
Lets check the pages:
- https://german.stackexchange.com/tour Tour page
- it is written only there
- Headline: Ask questions, get answers, no distractions
- small body: This site is all about getting answers. It's not a discussion forum. There's no chit-chat.
- big pic
- https://german.stackexchange.com/help/stackexchange Our Model
- code of conduct: no hint
- expected behaviour: no hint
- (scrolling for listed questions hinting)
- How to not be a spammer : not here
- (nothing else sounds like)
- https://german.stackexchange.com/help/deleted-answers
- it is written here
- concerning about a deleted question - not where I would look up before a deletion
So I'd like to recommend to integrate the tour information into "our model" - because I assume the help section is the compendium of any helping topic.