Writing a useful FAQ from the questions people keep asking

Most communities have a question that turns up every few weeks in slightly different words. The first time, people answer it gladly. By the fifth, the replies are getting shorter. By the tenth, someone writes “search first”, and a newcomer quietly decides not to ask anything else for a while.

Nobody in that story did much wrong. A question that keeps coming back means a lot of people are getting stuck in the same place, and the place has no signpost. A page of frequently asked questions can be that signpost, as long as it is built from what people really ask. Here is how we would put one together.

Collect the questions before you write a word

The weakest FAQ is the one written from a chair. Someone sits down, imagines what people might wonder, and produces a list of questions nobody has ever asked, all in the polite voice of a brochure. Start from the threads instead.

Set aside an hour to go back through the last few months of posts, and keep a plain note as you go:

• The question, in the asker’s own words. Copy the wording exactly. You will want it later.
• A link to the thread. Two or three for each question is plenty, ideally the ones with the best replies.
• A tally. One mark each time a different person asks it.

Then look for questions wearing different clothes. “Why is my loaf so dense?” and “Why won’t my dough rise?” may turn out to be one problem seen from two ends, and the replies will usually tell you whether they are.

Finally, ask one thing of every entry: did different people get stuck here, without having read each other? If so, it belongs. One person asking four times is not a frequent question, and neither is the thing you wish people would ask. Keep the first version small. Eight real questions will help more than thirty padded ones, and the ninth can go in when it turns up.

Our piece on summarising a long thread covers the same fair-minded reading. Here you are reading across many threads, and the result stays open for changes.

Write each question the way people ask it

Readers scan a FAQ looking for their own problem, and they will only spot it if it sounds like them. Suppose you look after an imaginary baking nook. “Troubleshooting fermentation activity” will catch nobody. “Why isn’t my starter rising?” will catch nearly everyone it should, and it also matches the words people type into a search box.

A few habits help:

• Write from the reader’s side. “How do I…” and “Why does my…”, not “How users may…”.
• Ask one thing at a time. A question with an “and” in the middle is usually two entries.
• Fold in the other names. If half your community says “starter” and the other half says “mother”, use both in the first line of the answer, so a search for either one lands here.

Answer first, then give the exceptions

An entry is a small, permanent reply, so the habits from writing a helpful answer all apply. Lead with the answer. Say what to do. Then say when the advice does not fit, and where to go next if it does not help.

Here is an invented entry for that baking nook:

Why isn’t my starter rising?

Usually it is too young, too cold, or both. A new starter (some people call it a mother) can take a week or two to get going, and a cool kitchen slows it down. Move it somewhere warmer and feed it on a regular schedule for a few days before changing anything else. If there is mould on it, this advice does not apply: most people here would throw it out and start again. Still stuck? Start a thread with your flour, your feeding routine and roughly how warm the room is.

That last line matters more than it looks. It tells people that asking is still welcome, and it tells them what to include when they do.

Most of your answers already exist in the threads, and borrowing from them is the whole point. Those words belong to the people who wrote them, though. Rewrite in your own words where you can, quote briefly where you can’t, and link back so readers can see the fuller discussion. Our guidelines ask the same of everyone here.

Some questions have no agreed answer. Say so rather than picking a side quietly: “People here disagree. Some swear by X, others by Y, and this thread has the best of both cases.” Readers can handle that.

Order it for someone in a hurry

Your tally has already done most of this job, because the most-asked questions should come first. Once you pass a dozen or so, group them under headings based on what the reader is trying to do, not on how the community happens to be organised. “Getting started” and “When something goes wrong” are easier to scan than a list of internal categories. Our own help page sorts its short answers this way, into reading, replying, writing and reporting a problem.

Think about where the FAQ will live, too. It needs a home someone can keep up to date. A guest reply here can’t be changed after it is sent, so a FAQ belongs in a post from a writer who will look after it. A longer post also gets a contents list at the top, which gives a reader in a hurry something to jump to.

Leave out anything that is not really a question. Rules can be linked, not restated, and news goes stale fast.

Give it a keeper

A FAQ goes out of date quietly, and an out-of-date one does more harm than none, because people trust it. So give it one or two named keepers and a few simple habits:

• Show a date. “Last checked in March” lets readers judge how far to trust it.
• Fix it when a thread corrects it. If someone shows an answer is wrong or out of date, change the entry and mention what changed.
• Prune. When a question has stopped coming up, cut it. A short FAQ gets read.
• Run the tally again. Every few months, go back through recent threads and see what has changed.

If a question is in the FAQ and people keep asking it anyway, resist blaming them. The entry may be hard to find, worded differently from how people think about the problem, or simply not answering what they want to know. Rewrite it first.

Point to it without shutting the door

A FAQ should make answering easier, and it should never make asking feel like an offence. The real test comes when you use it in a thread. “Read the FAQ” is accurate, and it leaves the person feeling told off. Compare it with this:

This one comes up a lot, so there is a good answer saved. Short version: it is probably the cold. The full entry is here, and if it doesn’t match what you’re seeing, tell us what’s different.

It takes a few seconds longer to write. The person gets an answer, a link, and an invitation to stay.

And keep listening to what comes back. “Tell us what’s different” is where your next entry comes from. Someone with an odd case the FAQ does not cover is doing you a favour, so when you see the same odd case twice, put a new mark in your note. Before long you will have your ninth question.