Hardly anyone reads FAQ posts, and even fewer people read giant walls of text not organized into sections. Just post a link to a "canonical topic" in response to repeated questions.
Precisely. Individual, bite-sized responses to specific questions, indexed mainly for our own easy reference. When someone asks something that's been asked a trillion times, they just get a link to the canonical thread and (if necessary) their thread frozen for off-topicness. Having a stickied post that explains this will happen doesn't mean everyone will read it write right away, but it does mean they won't feel too hard done by when it's brought to their attention that a "standard policy" of the forum has pre-addressed their specific situation. People feel that there is an organised, professional mechanism in place rather than just a bunch of frustrated "oldies" trashing newbs. That difference is important--and in the canonical threads there can be a "don't post here unless you're either a newb or helping one out" rule. People frustrated by newbs can just ignore them. I think this would drastically improve the experience of first-comers.
