Paul, here is the C++ sitehttp://www.parashift.com/c++-faq-lite/

Hey how about using a wiki ?" 'Wiki' is a composition system; it's a discussion medium; it's a repository; it's a mail system; it's a tool , we don't know quite what it is, but it's a fun way of communicating asynchronously across the network while dynamically sharing your ideas. "Original wiki idea was started by Ward cunnighamIts easy to setup i had a personal wiki system to maintain distinct threads of information which I have now taken offline. [will be back soon]Idea of wiki wiki web is anyone can edit the page , so the page is created out of everyone's collective opinion.Here is the basic underlying design principle

How about a Glass Bead Game?

Okay here are some pros and cons of the wiki-system:ProsPages get chained So if there is a page titled convertible bond then whereever that word is used on the wiki pages, itwould get linked onto the CB page. ConsIt can lead to somewhat of a chaotic structure with too many editors (too many cooks)and if not reviewed continuosly by a smaller group.Many of the wiki-engines have some form of controlled chaos , Where in some of the main structure can only be edited by a smaller group. But rest of the pages could be edited by multiple people. So some pages could be in a state of flux, at a certain point when the discussion has been thrased out, and most of the main issues are covered the page could be locked or commited to the main FAQ.I think one advantage if used judiciously is that all discussions on a topicgets centered on a page and linking between pages is trivial using keywords. So whereever the word stochastic volatility gets used it will have a hyperreference to the stochvol page.All of these are done by any of these "wiki engines" automagicallyand most of them are under opensource/gpl-ish licensing. Wiki or no wiki , i like this FAQ / Roadmap idea.

Paul, Paul... but an rtfm.mit.edu FAQ is exactly how it should all begin To search through all Wilmott posts would never work. Some of you spend more than 4 hours daily just reading every single post. Here is how it COULD work.1. Create an administered thread named QUESTIONS. People can post any questions they would like to see in the FAQ here.2. A team of senior members should then review the questions and choose, edit, categorize them to get to the final list.3. Create an administered thread for each one of these questions. People who answered the original ones when posted in Wilmott or people who asked them should copy / paste good answers and add / edit as needed. Note that copy / pasting is essential as it would make later work extremely easier.4. Again the team of senior members should then review, edit, finetune each answer before assigning it to the question.This will only get the project to look like a document good for printing on paper. However true functionality can only be achieved through indexing. So for the next stage I think you should:1. Create an administered thread where people post reference words that should be linked together.2. Have the same tireless team of senior members review and choose between them.3. Have some software do the actual linking work.This whole thing will work better if all the threads mentioned are made into a new TOPIC so that they dont get lost in the GENERAL or whichever of the existing ones and are closely administered. To that effect the tireless team of senior members should get delete-edit messages privileges.rgds,Dimitris

I personally would like to see a search facility that's somewhat more versatile than the current one. It should be capable of scanning the entire site for titles, authors, keywords, and excluding subsets of these. That would be as good as a FAQ. But then, that may not be available within this very version of the software.

It seems to me that this idea is going off in three different directions (not a bad thing).Bayes wants a book. That means concentrating on the non-timely and expert threads, primarily those concerning basic quantitative financial theory. Chats about the job market and current events would be dated by the time they got in a book, and someone who wants to buy a book with arguments over Iraq and religion will want to hear from experts in those fields.A book concentrates on answers, not questions. I have seen some good books based on FAQ structure. It's good for material that can be broken down into 200 to 1,000 word answers, rather than material that builds from basic concepts to advanced applications. Such books tend to be "hole-pluggers," good for all the important material in a field that doesn't fit into the standard textbook hierarchy. With a good one you see questions that had been dancing around on the edge of your consciousness but you had never formulated. Also good ones often have multiple answers.I think we have enough material at this site for such a book, probably even with annual updates. But it takes a lot of editing work. It would mean taking 5% of the threads and refining them.Quantie wants an alternative discussion format for the site that might produce something of lasting value, or at least a useful threading logic. This idea appeals to me intellectually, I'd love to see it as an experiment. The risk is diffusing the energy of the site. If some people starting working on wiki threads while others posted the standard way, we might lose critical mass from one without getting it at the other. When I built my Internet site I discovered that assembing the basic educational material was easy, most was already written. But hyperlinks and organization took a tremendous amount of time and energy, and I was not happy with the result. This was a much narrower field and I employed professional editors and experts to help. This idea treats questions and answers equally, you create something that serves for both.Several others want a better search/indexing/organization of the existing posts. Here the emphasis is on the answers, someone already knows the question and wants to be directed to the proper place. This would be useful, but I think it's different from an FAQ.I think all three ideas have merit, but the first is the most interesting to me. The key is the relative number of questions and answers. If there are a large number of questions, but only a few answers, the sensible thing is for people to read all the answers, like a textbook. I think this is the implied model for the book, idea 1. If there are a few questions but lots of answers, the key is hyperlinks so that you start by picking the question and can thread through all the permutations of answers. I think this underlies the on-line tools of idea 3. If there are roughly equal numbers of questions and answers, you want to arrange them in a balanced way, that's idea 2.All three of these situations are possible, depending on which topics you choose to FAQ and how you define questions and answers.

I prefer the suggestion by Plessas. The modification I would make to his suggestion is that the FAQ thread should be an archive thread - with read-only access to members. Questions qualifying as FAQs would be collected and posted to this thread by the administrator or whoever is assigned the read and write access. Members could have an option of flagging or voting for the inclusion of a particular post in the FAQ thread.This will ensure that the FAQs are accessible in the same easy way as these forums are, and avoid the need to buy a book (which could very soon become out dated given the amount of activity on these forums). All messages will continue to be posted in these forums as usual, but the work of organising the most useful questions and answers into a separate FAQ thread would have to be taken up by someone. This will avoid on the site, the diffusion of energy, that Aaron is mentioning.

VA the new forum I suggested is to be used by all members to post as I describe in my message. It is not the end product ie the FAQ. This will ease the collection of the material by those who will eventually edit the FAQ.rgds,Dimitris

>> It should be capable of scanning the entire site for titles, authors, keywords, and excluding subsets of theseOmar, that is already the caseif you want say "stochastic volatility" in Technical Forum in title or body, it works

I see the words 'team', 'someone,' 'administrators' and I see lots of actions and plans...but I don't see a long queue of willing volunteers. If something like this is going to be successful it has to be simple, and streamlined, and fairly automated. Don't over plan, it's the kiss of death.P

Drum roll...The Quantitative Finance FAQs Project Forum !!!P

You give them your little finger and they sit on your head!!!

kutilya, is that, like, a good thing or a bad thing?!P

[Deeply offensive posting removed - Head covered with ashes]