Talk:FAQ

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What does "FAQ" stand for?

"FAQ" or "F.A.Q." is an abbreviation for frequently asked questions." 173.249.64.220 (talk) 13:26, 30 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

"a FAQ" vs. "an F.A.Q."

I have seen both "a FAQ" and "an FAQ" recently. Since this article says FAQ is normally pronounced fack and F is not a vowel, may I suggest we endeavour to stick to "a FAQ"? -- SGBailey 08:01 Dec 17, 2002 (UTC)

There is no standard pronunciation. Some people think "F. A. Q." sounds too long or technical. Some people think "fack" sounds too much like a vulgarity. USENET is a textual medium, where people type words rather than pronouncing them, so there is not too much surprise that there are different pronunciations. The English article (a/an) depends on pronunciation of the following sound -- which is why some say "a historical moment" and others say "an historical moment" -- so it isn't going to be settled. --FOo

I've seen many people outside of the internet using FAQ exclusively as F.A.Q., and thus put my name down as a supporter of "an FAQ" over "a FAQ". 'Fack' sounds too close to another four-letter word beginning with f, and fax.

The introduction now mentions the punctuation (and choice-of-article) ambiguity. Steve Summit (talk) 04:36, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I never worried about "fak" sounding vulgar, but when speaking about plural FAQ (which is more often the case these days) it tends to get confused with "fax" or "facts." I've noticed long time users of "fak" moving to "F. A. Q." because less tech-savvy co-workers get mixed up. Durty Willy 03:47, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I decided to be bold and remove the citation needed tag on the pronunciation and just say that it can be either, which makes use of the first reference. Spalding (talk) 13:54, 1 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's also interesting to consider USENET FAQs as a textual tradition, genre, or form, much as "encyclopedias" or "sonnets" or "midrashim" are. There are things which are common in an FAQ aside from just questions and answers. For instance, definitions of commonly used terms, descriptions of officially unsettled topics (or those likely to provoke flamewars), and for that matter an authoritative tone which -- while it might not be NPOV, often tries to sound like it! --[[User:Fubar Obfusco|FOo]

change title to "FAQ List"?

Once upon a time, "FAQ" tended to refer to a single friendly-asked question, and a set of them was an "FAQ List". The article mentions this, but I'm wondering if the main title should be "FAQ List", with the obvious redirect from "FAQ". Opinions? Steve Summit (talk) 04:36, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know. I remeber a lot of usage of "FAQ list" but that doesn't seem to be seen very often these days. Instead, FAQ becomes pluralized into "FAQs," which seems pretty much covered by the current article, as disjointed as it is right now. Durty Willy 03:50, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What about the answers?

Sure, FAQs are a list of the questions, but where are the answers? How about Friendly Asked Questions and Answers? FAQA? I'm mostly joking but I do remember going to one site that had a FAQ with no answers, because it wasn't a 'FAQA'. --DevastatorIIC 00:29, 26 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You have to be on and understand Usenet. By the mid-1980s with the Great Re-Org, the convention in various news group hierarchies were to have moderated collections of vetted (I am trying to avoid using a particular word posts. The naming convention was *.answers, so we have comp.answers, sci.answers, misc.answers, alt.answers, etc. FAQA would be news.announce.newusers. The whole Usenet page still needs a lot of work. 198.123.49.110 (talk) 18:42, 27 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

pronounce

Isnt FAQ also pronounced as "fuck you"? Because those little questions are annoying from an expert view and some might think "Fuck you, your question is so fucking banal." —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 141.83.4.187 (talk) 13:11, 21 February 2007 (UTC).[reply]

No. 143.232.210.38 (talk) 00:12, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Nope. It was not like RTFM nor TFNG. 198.123.60.200 (talk) 22:23, 17 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

LOL. I am using this pronounciation. But it makes sense if you look at the word as fa-cue. Or: fa... OMG, I don't know how to pronounce, let's just spell the letter. 83.99.184.75 16:38, 1 April 2007 (UTC) (J7n)[reply]

Any semblence to the pronunciation of the world "fact" is purely coincidental and in fact, should be avoided. Not assurance that these lists contain facts. 143.232.210.38 (talk) 00:12, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That's FU :) Stevebroshar (talk) 08:29, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I guess if you pronounce it as fa-Q, then yes you get what you describe. Seems like a stretch to me. A childish stretch. Stevebroshar (talk) 16:37, 13 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

no Abby

Deleted the line "The newspaper "help" columns of "Ann Landers" and "Dear Abby" can be considered in the style of the (Q&A) format", since simply answering questions isn't the same as a FAQ-- in fact, it is pretty much the opposite of a FAQ, since the idea of FAQ is to provide a source so people can just go to the source, and not bother experts with friendly asked questions. Geoffrey.landis 14:57, 8 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

O OMEN EINAI O KALITEROS FILOS DAN BAM OMEN :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.202.36.52 (talk) 19:15, 19 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In the World Wide Web

"In the World Wide Web, FAQ nowadays tend to be stored in content management systems (CMS), or in simple text files." What's the point of this line?--188.177.168.226 (talk) 19:45, 4 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

FAQK?

In some places I have seen the abbreviation "FAQK" but have no idea where th K comes from. See, e.g., the satirical Wikipedia FAQK from a 2006 edition of Wired magazine. If anyone can source a definition of FAQK, it would make a good addition to this article. — ℜob C. alias ÀLAROB 16:04, 2 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Found this: FAQK: Often used informally, like in Wired where "K" might stand for the author (Kevin), making it a personalized FAQ. Also: Frequently Asked Questions knocked (FAQK) like Socrates” is a publication about seeking the truth by asking questions in the field of AI. Neither seems notable IMO Stevebroshar (talk) 16:43, 13 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Usefulness and relevance of FAQs?

I am tempted to add something about the common frustration with FAQs in that they are so often not questions that are frequently or even asked at all! This was parodied in just a few Dilbert cartoons that were certainly memorable for me. This link shows only two cartoons but I remember more, centering on Dogbert making them as obscure and ridiculous as possible, which I thought was hilarious, mainly because it rings so true,

http://search.dilbert.com/search?w=Dogbert+faq&asug=&view=list&filter=type%3Acomic&x=0&y=0

Does anyone else think adding this type of info would make sense? I did add the link on Infrequently asked questions about FAQs which was the result of a Google search "FAQ usability", and I think that the web page's references are great sources for further elaboration on this subject. Spalding (talk) 14:04, 1 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. FAQs were never asked by anyone. They are information presented in question-answer form about stuff a provider thinks people might wonder about or need to know. It's a way of presenting information. The term (frequently asked question) is a misnomer. But we all pretend that it's not. We don't seem to care whether anyone actually asked the question. We seem to get the point that the information is useful and participate in the fantasy that the term is accurate. Stevebroshar (talk) 08:36, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

An academic study of FAQ/RTFM

BTW: I published a study of FAQs and RTFM as a practice (as it relates to geeks and geek feminists) that folks might want to make use of in the article. -Reagle (talk) 13:08, 13 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

A FAQ versus An FAQ"

Regarding this edit, user Graph.williams (talk · contribs), please see the literatue:

Google	Scholar	Books
"a FAQ"	7.490	17.500
"an FAQ"	3.940	7.200

- DVdm (talk) 10:52, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have a point? ... "a FAQ" would be correct for the pronunciation as a word (fack) and "an FAQ" would be correct for saying the letters (F-A-Q). Since both pronunciation seem to be correct, then both "a" and "an" are also correct. Stevebroshar (talk) 08:40, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

FAQs vs. FAQ’s

There's this grey area I wanted to address, but before diving in and adding it to Wikipedia's page—being a novice—I thought better of it and decided to first bring it up to the current pool of editors. Its introduction is grey area number one.

Grey area number two is if it's a pronunciation issue, a classification issue, both, or perhaps paradoxically something else.

There's an unconscious desire to abbreviate the plural of FAQ in its apostrophe form FAQ's, yet FAQs seems to be the acceptable spelling standard to land on as its plural form. I can give references if needed, but a quick look at a handful of sites will prove the assertion. Webmasters I've contacted on the topic and to whom I've suggested similar edits all have conceded. I have screen capture examples saved to my computer if references are necessary.

As a standard, FAQs the most efficient using fewer characters, its intent is clear in its simple addition of the single letter 's' at its end, can be logically extended to the addition of 'es' in other initialism combinations if needed (e.g., address, addresses, although not initialisms), and with reasonable thought can be extended to creating the plurals of initialisms that are presented in all lowercase letters just as easily as it is here in the case of all uppercase letters in an initialism (i.e., FAQs, addresses, although, again, not a true initialism, but only given to show a clarifying example).

I don't know if there's a Wikipedia entry on the topic of pluralism (or whatever the linguistic term is for the changing of an item from its singular form to its plural form)—and calling it 'pluralism' is itself a slippery slope since pluralism is a political philosophy—but I'm attempting to be thorough in my introducing this talk page item, here, before seeing if it sticks. D0ugparker (talk) 16:27, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for bringing this up, D0ugparker. Your points about the pluralization of "FAQ" are valid. It’s clear that "FAQs" is the standard form, while "FAQ's" is incorrect. If you have references to support this, they would strengthen your case.

Regarding the linguistic aspect, while "pluralism" may not be the right term, discussing the rules for pluralizing acronyms could be beneficial.

Let’s collaborate on how to address these points in the article. Your insights are valuable for improving clarity! Hazel 667 (talk) 06:30, 26 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What is "grey area number one"? It's introduction? what introduction? huh? ... The second area is pronunciation, classification or something else? huh? ... Who has an "unconscious desire" to use an apostrophe? I don't. Do you? ... WRT plural: that's a mess since FAQ is usually considered to expand to "... questions" making "FAQ" plural and therefore making "FAQs" invalid (double plural). Yet we seem to use "FAQs". Oh well. ... Anyway, what is your point? What do you want to see changed in the article? Stevebroshar (talk) 08:47, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Misnomer

The thing that I find funny about "FAQ" is that the questions usually were never asked by anyone! So, it's basically a misnomer. Stevebroshar (talk) 15:10, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This aspect was covered, but I expanded it. Stevebroshar (talk) 10:22, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Since it originated in textual media, its pronunciation varies

WRT "Since the acronym FAQ originated in textual media, its pronunciation varies". The claim that textual media origination caused varying pronunciation seems OR and conjecture and needs backing or it needs to be weakened to a "maybe" or just removed. Stevebroshar (talk) 08:51, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I removed that claim. Stevebroshar (talk) 10:22, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]