YY9: When a short FAQ seems to disagree with the full rule

YY9 rule reading: resolve apparent FAQ conflicts by checking shorthand, exceptions and version scope through three concrete comparison cases.

A FAQ says “yes”, while a detailed rule seems to say “only in one case”. Before deciding that one text is wrong, find out what question the FAQ was answering. YY9 readers can often resolve an apparent disagreement by recovering scope: a short answer may omit a condition already present in its question, a special case may differ from the ordinary rule, or the two passages may belong to different versions of the instructions.

## Case one: the question carries a condition

Take a fictional FAQ: “Can listed participants ask for a guide correction?” The answer is “Yes.” The full rule says, “Guide corrections are accepted from participants listed in A4.” These statements agree. The FAQ's audience sits in the question, so the answer does not need to repeat it to make sense there. Copying only “Yes, guide corrections are accepted” into another conversation would remove the audience and make the answer appear broader than its source.

Resolve this first case by reading the FAQ as a question-and-answer pair. The applicable audience is still the listed participants. There is no evidence of a new rule opening correction requests to everyone. A short answer is not necessarily an incomplete explanation in its original location; it becomes incomplete when detached from the question that supplies its limits. The comparison must restore that question before judging the answer against the detailed rule.

## Case two: an explicit exception

Now consider a guide saying, “Submit questions by Friday.” Its FAQ asks, “What happens for the replacement session on Sunday?” and answers, “Questions for that replacement session close on Saturday.” The apparent mismatch between Friday and Saturday concerns two scopes. The ordinary schedule uses Friday; the named replacement uses Saturday. The exception should not be spread to all future sessions, and the ordinary rule should not erase the specific replacement notice.

We resolve the second case by naming the task before naming the deadline. A question for the replacement session uses Saturday in the invented instructions. A question for an ordinary session uses Friday, unless another stated change applies. Neither answer can be chosen simply because its weekday comes later and feels more convenient. The source must connect the deadline to the session the reader actually means. That connection is the fact that turns a date into an applicable rule.

For YY9 reading, exceptions can also have a purpose limit. A late correction window might concern correcting an existing guide topic, not sending a new topic. If a reader sees “late questions accepted” in an extracted answer, the full FAQ question may reveal that narrower purpose. Read what kind of action the answer covers. Two deadlines can coexist for two tasks without granting permission to move every task into whichever window is still open.

## Case three: different instruction versions

In the final fictional case, an older FAQ dated 1 September says a guide request may cover two topics. A revised full rule dated 1 October says one topic and explicitly replaces the September limit. These are different versions, with a stated replacement relationship. The discrepancy is not resolved by averaging the limits or treating the more generous one as a permanent exception. For the period covered by the replacement, the new one-topic limit is the relevant instruction in our example.

If the update relationship is not stated, the problem remains unresolved rather than magically settled by the newest visible date. A recently edited FAQ might have changed its spelling while preserving an older scope, or the passages might concern separate programmes. The exact missing fact is whether the new instruction governs this task and supersedes the earlier limit. A narrow clarification can identify both passages and the conflicting clause, giving the source a concrete discrepancy to address.

Return to the three comparisons. The first agrees once the audience in the question is restored. The second agrees once the replacement-session exception is separated from the ordinary schedule. The third contains a real change in the defined limit, resolved by its explicit replacement notice. The methods differ because the causes differ. Repeating “read the latest rules” without examining shorthand or exceptions would miss why the first two examples were not version conflicts at all.

The YY9 exercise ends with three different resolutions, rather than one automatic hierarchy between FAQ and full rules. Read the question with its answer, apply an exception only within its named scope, and connect versions through their stated update relationship. If two passages still govern the same task, period and audience while saying incompatible things, preserve that conflict as a question. Careful reading can resolve many discrepancies; it should also make a genuinely unresolved one easier to describe accurately.