An idea I've been thinking about lately, not sure if true, but interesting to think about –
over the last 20 years the dominant form of high-status text on the internet has changed from the "FAQ" to the "Take"
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In early internet we had forums like usenet and IRC. Newbies would ask the same questions over and over, and so insiders would create a list of Frequently Asked Questions, with answers.
The goal of the FAQ was to be canonical and accessible to outsiders.
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FAQs were living documents that would be updated over time.
It's a great format; every answer is motivated by a straightforward question a newcomer might ask. Bite sized and easy to read.
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Nowadays we have these big general-interest feeds and the ability for individual pieces of content to reach a lot of people quickly.
In this environment, the "take" thrives. A real-time reaction to an event or position.
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Takes are ephemeral. They are not living documents. They represent a moment in time. And often they are a reaction to something someone else has said or done. More antithesis than synthesis.
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Thinking about the large internet platforms for publishing text today, they can sorta be seen as Take platforms. Twitter, Substack, Medium, etc.
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FAQs aren't gone, of course, but there are fewer of them as a proportion of high-prestige internet text. When you find a good new one, it's always exciting, e.g. Laura Deming's Longevity FAQ:
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That's about all I have to say about this.
And I am aware this thread is a take. 😁
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Most of what I write in Nintil.com are FAQ-like things (nintil.com/longevity, nintil.com/what-is-alzhei, adamsmith.org/research/back-), I find takes to be like maybe a cherry on top or some nice spice on the side but yeah. I wonder. Maybe the FAQwriters are always
a small fraction of the internet, it's the takers that have taken over now that it's okay for them to share their thoughts.Maybe most people are unable or feel uncomfortable with the idea of writing field-spanning documents that aim to be "the" truth vs tiny bits of "one's truth"
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Yeah maybe we just lacked a mechanism for global take distribution, and now that we have it, they're everywhere.
Feels like an invasive species
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You are definitely one of the great modern canonical-text writers! A strangely rare breed
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Sometimes people I ask for feedback for what I write have lots of knowledge about the domain and I ask them that it should be them writing the FAQs, not me, but no one seems to ever have the time to write them
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