Folks: If this has been previously discussed and settled, please say so and refer me to the discussion. If you believe this to be inappropriate or otherwise frivolous, also please say so, as I do not wish to waste your time or this space. I write as a long time reader and sometimes contributor to r-help. Due to R's growth in usage by a broad data analysis community (engineers, scientists, social scientists, finance, "informaticians", as well as more "traditional" statisticians), this list seems to me to becoming deluged by requests for help by "casual" users and students for whom R is not going to be regularly or extensively used. I would characterize this group as having only basic statistical, programming, and data analysis skills. This is not meant as a criticism, and there are certainly many for whom this is inaccurate. But ... By and large, such users have not spend much time with R's docs, including tutorials or FAQ's. Many of their posts reflect this, and can be answered with basic replies or references to docs, to wit: What is the difference between "ifelse" and "if else"? FAQ 7.31. Confusion of data frames, matrices, and spreadsheet tables; etc. Would it be useful, then, to establish an R-beginners list specifically to absorb this traffic and free up R-help from what I would say was its original intent, to provide a forum for serious, more dedicated R users (Again, no criticism is intended here)? I realize that, whether or not this suggestion is worthwhile, there are several ways it could fail. First, too few might be interested in responding to posts on the new list. Second, too few might consider themselves "beginners" who post to it. Etc. So I would certainly say any such effort ought to be a pilot and tentative . I'll stop here. Again, criticize freely and/or send me off somewhere else to prior discussion. Or to where it should be discussed. Or just ignore, of course. Best, Bert -- Bert Gunter Genentech Nonclinical Biostatistics (650) 467-7374
On Sun, 24 Nov 2013, Bert Gunter wrote:> Would it be useful, then, to establish an R-beginners list specifically to > absorb this traffic and free up R-help from what I would say was its > original intent, to provide a forum for serious, more dedicated R users > (Again, no criticism is intended here)?Bert, I support the idea. There are a number of specialized sub-lists (e.g., ecological, mixed effects, spatial) so there's every reason to have a new SIG: new users.> I realize that, whether or not this suggestion is worthwhile, there are > several ways it could fail. First, too few might be interested in > responding to posts on the new list. Second, too few might consider > themselves "beginners" who post to it. Etc. So I would certainly say any > such effort ought to be a pilot and tentative .From what I see on the main mail list (where a lot of beginner questions could be answered by the available docs or the many dead tree books that I've read and use a references) folks will be willing to self-identify as belonging to this category and get the tutoring they need without being put down or feeling uncomfortable. You're correct that not every user spends his or her working life using R; many of us use multiple technical tools as needed by each project. At some point we were all newcomers to R, and each of us has a different ability to self-learn. Rich -- Richard B. Shepard, Ph.D. | Have knowledge, will travel. Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc. | <http://www.appl-ecosys.com> Voice: 503-667-4517 Fax: 503-667-8863
I'm not aware of a discussion on this, but I would say no.
Fragmentation is bad. Further fragmentation is worse.
TL;DR
====
Actually I'd say all mailing lists except r-devel should be moving to
StackOverlow in the future (disclaimer: I'm not affiliated with it).
Mailing lists are good for a smaller group of people, and especially
good when more focused on discussions on development (including bug
reports). The better place for questions is a web forum. Both you and
I have been staying in these R mailing lists for a few years now. You
can recall how many times a user was asked to post to another mailing
list ("this is not an appropriate list to ask your question; please
post to r-such-and-such instead"), how many times you see something
like "Alternative HTML removed", how many times you see a post
"Bla
Bla (was: Foo Bar)", and how many times users were reminded "Please
read the posting guide", "Please do read", and "PLEASE do
read". But
it just does not help much even if you write "PLEASE DO READ".
Why do we have such problems in the mailing lists again and again? Is
that simply because users are not respecting the rules? I do not think
so. I believe that is the flaw of mailing lists. A mailing list is
managed by a small team (hey, Martin, thank you). On StackOverflow,
you simply edit the tags of a post to make it belong to a new "mailing
list" (you can post with tags "r+ubuntu+graphics", or
"r+lattice",
etc). There is no need to request and wait for the system admin to
make a decision. Users can help themselves, and help others as well.
HTML can be good in many cases, actually. Who hates syntax
highlighting and R plots in an R question? You are free to ask a
question that is poorly formatted, and there are good chances that it
will be immediately edited by another experienced user. You are free
to yell in the comments asking for more details before posting a
formal answer. You can express "ah, this is a bad question" by
down-voting so that future readers know that guy screwed up and we
just let the world ignore the noise. It is like peer-review, and the
reviewers can help you improve your post. In a mailing list, when you
are done, you are done. You are forever written in history, right or
wrong, smart or stupid. You want to delete your record in the history?
No, no, gentleman, it was your fault not reading the post guide.
For me, I understand all the rationale behind the mailing list model.
I'm just saying, the primary goal for such a service is to discuss
issues about R, instead of issues induced by the mailing list itself.
We could have made some issues not directly related to R go away by
community efforts instead of giving instructions a million times,
given an appropriate platform.
Five years, 42,000 posts: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/r
I'm not terribly worried about transition from mailing lists to SO.
Sorry about the generalization of the original topic, but I hate using
a new title "Should there be R mailing lists? (was: Should there be an
R-beginners list?)"
Last but not least, I probably need to clarify that I benefited a lot
from the mailing lists in the past, and I truly appreciate it. I wrote
this with the future in mind, not the past. The past was good, and the
future can be better.
Regards,
Yihui
--
Yihui Xie <xieyihui at gmail.com>
Web: http://yihui.name
Department of Statistics, Iowa State University
2215 Snedecor Hall, Ames, IA
On Sun, Nov 24, 2013 at 11:13 AM, Bert Gunter <gunter.berton at gene.com>
wrote:> Folks:
>
> If this has been previously discussed and settled, please say so and
> refer me to the discussion. If you believe this to be inappropriate or
> otherwise frivolous, also please say so, as I do not wish to waste
> your time or this space.
>
> I write as a long time reader and sometimes contributor to r-help. Due
> to R's growth in usage by a broad data analysis community (engineers,
> scientists, social scientists, finance, "informaticians", as well
as
> more "traditional" statisticians), this list seems to me to
becoming
> deluged by requests for help by "casual" users and students for
whom R
> is not going to be regularly or extensively used. I would characterize
> this group as having only basic statistical, programming, and data
> analysis skills. This is not meant as a criticism, and there are
> certainly many for whom this is inaccurate. But ...
>
> By and large, such users have not spend much time with R's docs,
> including tutorials or FAQ's. Many of their posts reflect this, and
> can be answered with basic replies or references to docs, to wit: What
> is the difference between "ifelse" and "if else"? FAQ
7.31. Confusion
> of data frames, matrices, and spreadsheet tables; etc.
>
> Would it be useful, then, to establish an R-beginners list
> specifically to absorb this traffic and free up R-help from what I
> would say was its original intent, to provide a forum for serious,
> more dedicated R users (Again, no criticism is intended here)?
>
> I realize that, whether or not this suggestion is worthwhile, there
> are several ways it could fail. First, too few might be interested in
> responding to posts on the new list. Second, too few might consider
> themselves "beginners" who post to it. Etc. So I would certainly
say
> any such effort ought to be a pilot and tentative .
>
> I'll stop here. Again, criticize freely and/or send me off somewhere
> else to prior discussion. Or to where it should be discussed. Or just
> ignore, of course.
>
> Best,
> Bert
>
>
>
> --
>
> Bert Gunter
> Genentech Nonclinical Biostatistics
>
> (650) 467-7374
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide
http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
If you want a vision of an R-beginners list, it is a boot stamping "ITS IN THE DOCUMENTATION" into a newbies face - forever. http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/g/georgeorwe159438.html slight exaggeration perhaps, but most R-beginners would benefit from reading a bit more documentation and "LURKING MOAR" on the mailing list before asking. Same applies to posting on StackOverflow. Barry On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 12:08 PM, Arman Eshaghi <arman.eshaghi at gmail.com> wrote:> I do not agree with a separate beginner's list. But I do stand with moving > to stackoverflow, mainly because of the easier google search than current > mailing list. It could make it more accessible. > > > On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 4:07 AM, John Sorkin <JSorkin at grecc.umaryland.edu>wrote: > >> Mailing list vs. stack overflow, I have no opinion, but >> beginners list NO! I was a beginner at one time and the >> mailing list worked just fine. I see no reason to divide our >> efforts across two lists (be they mailing lists or stack overflow). >> John >> >> >> John David Sorkin M.D., Ph.D. >> Professor of Medicine >> Chief, Biostatistics and Informatics >> University of Maryland School of Medicine Division of Gerontology and >> Geriatric Medicine >> Baltimore VA Medical Center >> 10 North Greene Street >> GRECC (BT/18/GR) >> Baltimore, MD 21201-1524 >> (Phone) 410-605-7119 >> (Fax) 410-605-7913 (Please call phone number above prior to faxing) >> >>> memilanuk <memilanuk at gmail.com> 11/24/2013 7:30 PM >>> >> On 11/24/2013 12:04 PM, Rich Shepard wrote: >> > On Sun, 24 Nov 2013, Yihui Xie wrote: >> > >> >> Mailing lists are good for a smaller group of people, and especially >> >> good when more focused on discussions on development (including bug >> >> reports). The better place for questions is a web forum. >> > >> > I disagree. Mail lists push messages to subscribers while web fora >> > require >> > one to use a browser, log in, then pull messages. Not nearly as >> convenient. >> > >> > Rich >> > >> >> With the StackOverflow model, you can either view the list of posts >> related to a specific tag via RSS, or subscribe for email notification >> of new updates on that topic. >> >> Add in the added bonus of the ability to moderate and/or cull spam and >> redundant questions, etc. and the targeted focus of a SO-type forum >> increases dramatically IMHO. >> >> ______________________________________________ >> R-help at r-project.org mailing list >> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help >> PLEASE do read the posting guide >> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html >> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. >> >> >> Confidentiality Statement: >> This email message, including any attachments, is for ...{{dropped:18}} > > ______________________________________________ > R-help at r-project.org mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
Joran (on StackOverflow chat, funnily enough) has just pointed us to this: http://www.win.tue.nl/~bvasiles/papers/cscw14.pdf "How Social Q&A Sites are Changing Knowledge Sharing in Open Source Software Communities" which includes a graph of postings to R-help and questions tagged '[r]' on StackOverflow. By the end of 2012 SO was getting about twice as many [r]-tagged questions as R-help was getting new threads. The paper is a very detailed discussion on the use of mailing lists and discussion sites. On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 3:25 PM, Marc Schwartz <marc_schwartz at me.com> wrote:> On Nov 25, 2013, at 7:56 AM, PIKAL Petr <petr.pikal at precheza.cz> wrote: > >> Hi >> >> I doubt if people start to search answers if they often do not search them >> in help pages and documentation provided. >> >> I must agree with Duncan that if Stackoverflow was far more better than >> this help list most people would seek advice there then here. Is there any >> evidence in decreasing traffic here? >> >> Anyway, similar discussion went in 2003 with outcome that was not in >> favour for separate beginner list >> http://tolstoy.newcastle.edu.au/R/help/03b/7944.html >> >> Petr >> >> BTW it is pitty that r help archive does not extend over year 2012. I >> found that *Last message date: Tue 31 Jan 2012 - 12:19:21 GMT > > > Petr, > > I may be confusing your final statement above, but the **main** R-Help > archive is current to today: > > https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-help/ > > That being said, as one who has been interacting on R-Help (and other R-* > lists) for a dozen years or so, I would have to say that one would need to > have their head in the sand to not be cognizant of the dramatic decline in > the traffic on R-Help in recent years. Simply keeping subjective track of > the declining daily traffic ought to be sufficient. > > Due to work related time constraints, my posting here in recent times has > dropped notably. I do still read many of the R-Help posts and along with > Martin, am co-moderator on R-Devel. So am still involved in that capacity. > > I do follow SO and SE via RSS feed, so am aware of the increasing traffic > there, albeit, I have not posted there. > > In addition, there are a multitude of other online locations where R related > posts have begun to accumulate. These include various LinkedIn groups, R > related blogs, ResearchGate and others. I do believe, however, that SO is > the dominant force in the shift of traffic. > > To answer Petr's question above, I updated and re-ran some code that I had > used some years ago to estimate the traffic on various lists/fora: > > https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-help/2009-January/184196.html > > To that end, I am attaching a PDF file that contains a barplot of the annual > R-Help traffic volume since 1997, through this month. The grey bars > represent the actual annual traffic volumes of posts to R-Help. > > For 2013, I added a red segment to the bar, which shows the projected number > of posts for the full year, albeit, it is simply based upon the mean number > of posts per day, averaged over the YTD volume, projected over the remaining > days in the year, without any seasonal adjustments. So it may be optimistic, > as we are coming into the holiday season for many. > > Bottom line, while the trend was dramatically positive through 2010, peaking > at a little over 41,000 total posts, the volume has just as dramatically > declined in 2013 to a projected ~21,400. This means that the volume for 2013 > has dropped back to the approximate volume of 2005. > > Only time will tell if the dramatic decline will continue, or reach some new > reasonable asymptote that is simply reflective of the distribution of > traffic on various other online resources. > > To the original query posted by Bert, I would say no, there is not a need > for a beginner's list. > > Regards, > > Marc Schwartz > > > > > > ______________________________________________ > R-help at r-project.org mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
On 13-11-25 06:00 AM, r-help-request at r-project.org wrote:> Date: Sun, 24 Nov 2013 13:04:43 -0600 > From: Yihui Xie<xie at yihui.name> > To: Bert Gunter<gunter.berton at gene.com> > Cc:"r-help at r-project.org" <r-help at r-project.org> > Subject: Re: [R] Should there be an R-beginners list? > Message-ID: > <CANROs4d=UsU3oFqmTXBugV9v4_T9R+c3M0S15LrDcFPDj1Q_Vw at mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 > > I'm not aware of a discussion on this, but I would say no.Just for the record, there was a discussion of this in a thread called "newbie list" in August 2001 when R-help started getting busy: http://tolstoy.newcastle.edu.au/R/help/01c/0880.html Predates StackOverflow I think, but several of the comments may still be valid. Paul> Fragmentation is bad. Further fragmentation is worse. > > TL;DR > ====> > Actually I'd say all mailing lists except r-devel should be moving to > StackOverlow in the future (disclaimer: I'm not affiliated with it). > Mailing lists are good for a smaller group of people, and especially > good when more focused on discussions on development (including bug > reports). The better place for questions is a web forum. Both you and > I have been staying in these R mailing lists for a few years now. You > can recall how many times a user was asked to post to another mailing > list ("this is not an appropriate list to ask your question; please > post to r-such-and-such instead"), how many times you see something > like "Alternative HTML removed", how many times you see a post "Bla > Bla (was: Foo Bar)", and how many times users were reminded "Please > read the posting guide", "Please do read", and "PLEASE do read". But > it just does not help much even if you write "PLEASE DO READ". > > Why do we have such problems in the mailing lists again and again? Is > that simply because users are not respecting the rules? I do not think > so. I believe that is the flaw of mailing lists. A mailing list is > managed by a small team (hey, Martin, thank you). On StackOverflow, > you simply edit the tags of a post to make it belong to a new "mailing > list" (you can post with tags "r+ubuntu+graphics", or "r+lattice", > etc). There is no need to request and wait for the system admin to > make a decision. Users can help themselves, and help others as well. > HTML can be good in many cases, actually. Who hates syntax > highlighting and R plots in an R question? You are free to ask a > question that is poorly formatted, and there are good chances that it > will be immediately edited by another experienced user. You are free > to yell in the comments asking for more details before posting a > formal answer. You can express "ah, this is a bad question" by > down-voting so that future readers know that guy screwed up and we > just let the world ignore the noise. It is like peer-review, and the > reviewers can help you improve your post. In a mailing list, when you > are done, you are done. You are forever written in history, right or > wrong, smart or stupid. You want to delete your record in the history? > No, no, gentleman, it was your fault not reading the post guide. > > For me, I understand all the rationale behind the mailing list model. > I'm just saying, the primary goal for such a service is to discuss > issues about R, instead of issues induced by the mailing list itself. > We could have made some issues not directly related to R go away by > community efforts instead of giving instructions a million times, > given an appropriate platform. > > Five years, 42,000 posts:http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/r > I'm not terribly worried about transition from mailing lists to SO. > > Sorry about the generalization of the original topic, but I hate using > a new title "Should there be R mailing lists? (was: Should there be an > R-beginners list?)" > > Last but not least, I probably need to clarify that I benefited a lot > from the mailing lists in the past, and I truly appreciate it. I wrote > this with the future in mind, not the past. The past was good, and the > future can be better. > > Regards, > Yihui > -- > Yihui Xie<xieyihui at gmail.com> > Web:http://yihui.name > Department of Statistics, Iowa State University > 2215 Snedecor Hall, Ames, IA > > > On Sun, Nov 24, 2013 at 11:13 AM, Bert Gunter<gunter.berton at gene.com> wrote: >> >Folks: >> > >> >If this has been previously discussed and settled, please say so and >> >refer me to the discussion. If you believe this to be inappropriate or >> >otherwise frivolous, also please say so, as I do not wish to waste >> >your time or this space. >> > >> >I write as a long time reader and sometimes contributor to r-help. Due >> >to R's growth in usage by a broad data analysis community (engineers, >> >scientists, social scientists, finance, "informaticians", as well as >> >more "traditional" statisticians), this list seems to me to becoming >> >deluged by requests for help by "casual" users and students for whom R >> >is not going to be regularly or extensively used. I would characterize >> >this group as having only basic statistical, programming, and data >> >analysis skills. This is not meant as a criticism, and there are >> >certainly many for whom this is inaccurate. But ... >> > >> >By and large, such users have not spend much time with R's docs, >> >including tutorials or FAQ's. Many of their posts reflect this, and >> >can be answered with basic replies or references to docs, to wit: What >> >is the difference between "ifelse" and "if else"? FAQ 7.31. Confusion >> >of data frames, matrices, and spreadsheet tables; etc. >> > >> >Would it be useful, then, to establish an R-beginners list >> >specifically to absorb this traffic and free up R-help from what I >> >would say was its original intent, to provide a forum for serious, >> >more dedicated R users (Again, no criticism is intended here)? >> > >> >I realize that, whether or not this suggestion is worthwhile, there >> >are several ways it could fail. First, too few might be interested in >> >responding to posts on the new list. Second, too few might consider >> >themselves "beginners" who post to it. Etc. So I would certainly say >> >any such effort ought to be a pilot and tentative . >> > >> >I'll stop here. Again, criticize freely and/or send me off somewhere >> >else to prior discussion. Or to where it should be discussed. Or just >> >ignore, of course. >> > >> >Best, >> >Bert >> > >> > >> > >> >-- >> > >> >Bert Gunter >> >Genentech Nonclinical Biostatistics >> > >> >(650) 467-7374
A couple things: First, "Beginners' lists" never work. Beginners invariably can't read (cf. posting guidelines), so they will post to the "main" list anyway. Second, I see some people prefer to receive email-lists of the topics, and others prefer to work via a webbrowser interface. I'd have to say the overwhelming popularity of StackExchange suggests the latter is a much bigger group. AFAIK it's possible to generate an RSS or possibly some sort of pure e-mail feed from SO but I don't know for certain, but in any case, the only question is whether r-help will die of lonliness. Nobody is suggesting it be shut down. I'll also point out that it's much easier to filter SO (by topic and by score) than r-help. Carl, the DataMungerGuru-accolyte -- View this message in context: http://r.789695.n4.nabble.com/Should-there-be-an-R-beginners-list-tp4681068p4681124.html Sent from the R help mailing list archive at Nabble.com.