FAQs about FAQ

Among other things, the FAQ FAQ asks (and answers) What was the first FAQ?

Eugene Miya is usually credited with being the author of the first

FAQ. Although, in his words, "I didn't do the very first FAQ, but I

probably did the first one of an informational nature." [...] In 1982, while acting as an official NASA presence on the gatewayed

ARPAnet mailing list SPACE[-Digest]/net.space news groups, he tired

of seeing "dumb answers" to recurring questions. The situation as

Eugene saw it was that the answers to these questions were are often

poorly thought out, inconsistent, and uninformed. Furthermore, the

posters of the questions often weren't trying to find the answers

from books, magazines, or other references. They also weren't paying

attention to previous answers to these same questions. Rather, they

were just taking the easy way out - email the question and wait for

the answer.

Eugene therefore decided to start a series of monthly posts in 1983

to rectify this sorry state of affairs. The mechanism of periodic

postings was also a way to provide information to those who didn't

have access to the archives.