IAQ

Infrequently asked Questions

 

Ok this one might get a bit rambly so bare with me here…Soemtime I get really annoyed at websites. Especially those which offer to send me goods for money, I would name and shame but I really can’t be chewed, so here is the problem I have. Well couple of problems…

 

Firstly, why do these sites carry so many things that I want. I have now cycled three to four baskets on the www.thinkgeek.com and www.routeone.co.uk websites each, everytime I am clocking anywhere between 70-100 pounds of goods, each time different things…damn them. But the main gripe I have is not that I cannot afford such things, or that there are things which grab my eye, because if this was the case I would have not shown the restraint I do now. No the problem I have is “FAQ’s” (yes I do pronounce that FACKS / FAX).

 

It would seem that during the tenure of some webdesigners / technical support all they seemed to be doping was wasting their time idly browsing the internet looking for cool things and cycling through hundereds of potential shopping baskets on various websites…yeh and what if I do I don’t have to write FAQ’s, and that’s my point. Sometimes people you shouldn’t be allowed to write FAQ’s without actually collating the subject matter first or shall we call them Frequently Asked fucking Questions! Let’s break the phrase down here, so as to extract it’s full meaning…

·         Frequently: adverb, often; many times; at short intervals.

                  I don’t know about you but I think this implies that you get asked something a lot, many times over such as. “I no longer have access to my email account. Why can I no longer access your                       website”

·         Asked: Verb, to put a question to, to inquire of.

                  Kind of self explanatory…right?

·         Question Noun, a sentence in an interrogative form, addressed to someone in order to get information in reply

                  This is the main part of a FAQ right, the actual questions. This is never much of a problem as FAQ’s generally only contains questions.

 

So there we have it a reasonably comprehensive breakdown of the definitions of a FAQ (courtesy of www.dictionary.com plus I can highly recommend the iPhone app from the same site). With such a simple definition you’d think it would be hard to screw up an FAQ. Wrong, apparently it is surprisingly easy, and a lot of places contain the incomprehensible IAQ, or Infrequently Asked Questions. These beasts lurk in the darkest recesses of the internet, fabled mythical beasts which are becoming more and more real. It’s easy to fall into a ravine if you are walking with your eyes closed, and it seems many sales teams / web designers have forgotten to wake up. The main one I noticed (And one for which I paraphrased my question earlier for the “Frequently” example) is www.facebook.com (as if you need the link).

 

A while back my email provider, Lycos, went under as a search engine and took everything with them. Lycos was not my main mail account by any means, it was my spam account (I have at least four email accounts all used for different things…) and as thus I directed all of my FB traffic there. I didn’t want to wade through tonnes of crap and i'm too lazy to alter the settings; however this is where the snag occurred. Apparently the FB “Team” sent out an email or something to confirm my account details, or at least tested the address was valid, (possibly when the received thousands of Mailer alerts they got the picture) and my account was disabled. I tried to change my password / email, but could not log in to the site at all, even the support pages. I trawled for what felt like hours through their supposed FAQ system, I used their search function combinations of black magic and ritual sacrifice just proved bloody and useless. I gave up, and launched a new FB account realising the time it would take to get it set up to my specs again…(this was pre twitter when I still cared about FB). I tried to search the help one more time, and then after just clicking on a seemingly unrelated link (I can’t remember the path now, as if it were a dream) it took me to a page of links one of which was the unlock procedure for my situation…(I understand that a lot of people trying to change email etc are either scamming or have been scammed but some of us are innocent) it also told me not to open a new account (crap…)

 

Anyway, the point is I had to resort to opening that new account cos FB fucked up their own FAQ! Now I am stuck with an account which points to my Google mail address (linked to my iPhone ffs) and forwards all the crap to me. After about an hour of FB spam I altered all of my settings (Another hour or so) so I would only receive email about Wall posts (something almost defunct thanks to status comments) and friend requests, and even these I find a bit much.

 

FB are not the only culprits they were however the ones I had the worst experience with, feel free to post your own experiences with IAQ’s below!

 

Luke out!