{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2026",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 2026,
    "subject": "FAQery",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1999-12-13T15:42:02+00:00",
    "last": "1999-12-13T15:42:02+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0028-0617@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "David Lebling",
        "address": "dlebling at shore.net"
      },
      "date": "1999-12-13T15:42:02+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) FAQery",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Perhaps the FAQ idea could be moved along by someone (or several someones)\nposting an actual entry or even (heroically) entries for the said document,\nin the style which they think would be appropriate.\n\nMost of the things I think about as FAQable are either very simple, with\nvery short final answers (example: \"Who was Severian's paternal\ngrandmother?\"), or require entire essays and even then don't always give a\nfinal answer (example: \"Who was Severian's mother?\"). (Even the simple\nquestions could spawn an entire essay, if the author wanted them to).\n\nTo my mind, the ideal FAQ entry for one of the complicated questions would\nrequire entensive research in the books and the list's archives to come up\nwith a comprehensive essay. To cover the range of opinion on even a \"simple\"\nquestion would be a daunting task (example: Severian said he never forgets\nanything. Is this really true?).\n\nI'm not terrifically worried about the idea of a FAQ as a spoiler.  I think\none could easily do a set of hints separately from the longer, more detailed\n\"spoiler\" answers.  I know my enjoyment of Wolfe has been increased by the\ncollective hive-mind of the list, even though every now and then someone\ndrops in a \"spoiler.\"\n\nVis a vis the \"Invisiclues\" idea, I remember it as being hard work,\nespecially those first answers that were supposed to give a gentle nudge\nwithout giving anything away.  All too often the first answer was a\nwisecrack.\n\nThe \"How to Read Gene Wolfe\" document would also be extremely useful.  In\nfact, I'd be willing to bet that NYRSF would publish it in an instant if\nsomeone wrote a reasonably good one.  I'd even guess that if someone wrote\nit and successively applied it to each Wolfe book in turn (_Castleview_\ncomes to mind...) he or she could monopolize NYRSF until their collective\nheads exploded.\n\n    -- Dave Lebling\n    (aka vizcacha)"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}