A frequently asked questions (FAQ) list is often used in articles, websites, email lists, and online forums where common questions tend to recur, for example through posts or queries by new users related to common knowledge gaps. The purpose of a FAQ is generally to provide information on frequent questions or concerns; however, the format is a useful means of organizing information, and text consisting of questions and their answers may thus be called a FAQ regardless of whether the questions are actually ''frequently'' asked. Since the acronym ''FAQ'' originated in textual media, its pronunciation varies. FAQ can be pronounced as an

initialism An acronym is a type of abbreviation consisting of a phrase whose only pronounced elements are the initial letters or initial sounds of words inside that phrase. Acronyms are often spelled with the initial letter of each word in all caps wi ...

, "F-A-Q", or as an

acronym An acronym is a type of abbreviation consisting of a phrase whose only pronounced elements are the initial letters or initial sounds of words inside that phrase. Acronyms are often spelled with the initial Letter (alphabet), letter of each wor ...

, "FAQ". Web designers often label a single list of questions as a "FAQ", such as on

Google Search Google Search (also known simply as Google or Google.com) is a search engine operated by Google. It allows users to search for information on the World Wide Web, Web by entering keywords or phrases. Google Search uses algorithms to analyze an ...

, while using "FAQs" to denote multiple lists of questions such as on United States Treasury sites. Use of "FAQ" to refer to a single frequently asked question, in and of itself, is less common.

Origins

While the name may be recent, the FAQ format itself is quite old. For example, Matthew Hopkins wrote ''The Discovery of Witches'' in 1648 as a list of questions and answers, introduced as "Certaine Queries answered ...". Many old

catechism A catechism (; from , "to teach orally") is a summary or exposition of Catholic theology, doctrine and serves as a learning introduction to the Sacraments traditionally used in catechesis, or Christian religious teaching of children and adult co ...

s are in a question-and-answer (Q&A) format. ''

Summa Theologica The ''Summa Theologiae'' or ''Summa Theologica'' (), often referred to simply as the ''Summa'', is the best-known work of Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), a scholastic theologian and Doctor of the Church. It is a compendium of all of the main t ...

'', written by

Thomas Aquinas Thomas Aquinas ( ; ; – 7 March 1274) was an Italian Dominican Order, Dominican friar and Catholic priest, priest, the foremost Scholasticism, Scholastic thinker, as well as one of the most influential philosophers and theologians in the W ...

in the second half of the 13th century, is a series of common questions about Christianity to which he wrote a series of replies.

On the Internet

The "FAQ" is an

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

textual tradition originating from the technical limitations of early mailing lists from

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

in the early 1980s. The first FAQ developed over several pre-Web years, starting from 1982 when storage was expensive. On

ARPANET The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) was the first wide-area packet-switched network with distributed control and one of the first computer networks to implement the TCP/IP protocol suite. Both technologies became the tec ...

's SPACE mailing list, the presumption was that new users would download archived past messages through

FTP The File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a standard communication protocol used for the transfer of computer files from a server to a client on a computer network. FTP is built on a client–server model architecture using separate control and dat ...

. In practice this rarely happened, and the users tended to post questions to the mailing list instead of searching its archives. Repeating the "right" answers became tedious, and went against developing netiquette. A series of different measures were set up by loosely affiliated groups of computer system administrators, from regularly posted messages to netlib-like query

email Electronic mail (usually shortened to email; alternatively hyphenated e-mail) is a method of transmitting and receiving Digital media, digital messages using electronics, electronic devices over a computer network. It was conceived in the ...

daemons. The acronym ''FAQ'' was developed between 1982 and 1985 by Eugene Miya of NASA for the SPACE mailing list.Hersch, Russ
FAQs about FAQs
. 8 January 1998. http://www.faqs.org/faqs/faqs/about-faqs/ . The format was then picked up on other mailing lists and

Usenet Usenet (), a portmanteau of User's Network, is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was developed from the general-purpose UUCP, Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up network architecture. Tom Truscott and Jim Elli ...

newsgroup A Usenet newsgroup is a repository usually within the Usenet system for messages posted from users in different locations using the Internet. They are not only discussion groups or conversations, but also a repository to publish articles, start ...

s. Posting frequency changed to monthly, and finally weekly and daily across a variety of mailing lists and newsgroups. The first person to post a weekly FAQ was Jef Poskanzer to the Usenet net.graphics / comp.graphics

s. Eugene Miya experimented with the first daily FAQ.

Modern developments

Non-traditional FAQs

In some cases, informative documents not in the traditional FAQ style have also been described as FAQs, particularly the

video game A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual fe ...

FAQ, which is often a detailed description of gameplay, including tips, secrets, and beginning-to-end guidance. Rarely are videogame FAQs in a question-and-answer format, although they may contain a short section of questions and answers. Over time, the accumulated FAQs across all Usenet newsgroups sparked the creation of the "*.answers" moderated newsgroups such as comp.answers, misc.answers and sci.answers for

crossposting Crossposting, also known as x-posting or xposting, is the act of posting one message to multiple information channels; forums, mailing lists, or newsgroups. This is distinct from multiposting, which is the posting of separate identical messages, ...

and collecting FAQ across respective comp.*, misc.*, sci.* newsgroups.

In web design

The FAQ has become an important component of websites, either as a stand-alone page or as a website section with multiple subpages per question or topic. Embedded links to FAQ pages have become commonplace in website navigation bars, bodies, or footers. The FAQ page is an important consideration in web design, in order to achieve several goals of customer service and search engine optimization (SEO), including * reducing the workload of in-person customer service employees * improving site navigation * increasing the visibility of the website by matching/optimizing for specific search terms * linking to or integrating within product pages.

Criticism

Some content providers discourage the use of FAQs in place of restructuring content under logical

headings Heading can refer to: * Heading (metalworking), a process which incorporates the extruding and upsetting processes * Heading (navigation), the direction a person or vehicle is facing, usually similar to its course ** Aircraft heading, the directi ...

. For example, the UK Government Digital Service does not use FAQs because the service believes that their form primarily serves writers' needs and creates more work for readers.

References

External links

{{Wiktionary, FAQ, frequently asked questions
Original USENET examples
Jargon7767819960 Technical communication Initialisms