R help - Dec 2003 - mailing list for basic questions - preliminary sum up

Dear R-user,  
 
I already received quite a lot of replies to this mail and like to do a
preliminary sum up. 
 
A few were sceptical about the use of such a beginner mailing list.  
The arguments were that people starting with R will only stay subscribed for
a short time 
until they reached the R-help "level" and therefore only beginner will
teach
beginner how to 
use R.  
 
But as far as I can judge, the majority of people who replied to this mail
are medium to 
experienced user who like to help beginner but does not call themselves
highly 
experienced user as the main "answerers" on the R-help mailing list.  
 
Therefore I assume that, even though some answers might be wrong, the threat
 of 
possibly wrong answers might be minimal, due to various experienced users
who like to 
subsribe to this list. 
 
The majority of replies were positive about such a list and welcomed the
idea to 
encourage new user by providing a basic R mailing list, like the already
existent 
corresponding manuals in the contributed documentation at r-project.org. 
 
And again, this list shall only provide a basic and smooth introduction into
R and its 
capabilities.  
Questions like; "How do I make my labels in a graphic bigger? - How do I
change the 
colour? - etc." are welcome and surely would annoy the majority of R-help
user because it 
is mentioned somewhere on the first 10 pages of every manual, but people who
are used 
to click on a graphic and change it in a second would not be convinced that
R can do 
great graphics. 
 
well, I would welcome if there would be more discussion about it or to give
it a try 
(perhaps mention it on the r-project web-site) and look how productive this
mailing list 
proves to be.  
The address of the R-beginner mailing list is: 
 
https://lists.uni-wuerzburg.de/mailman/listinfo/r-beginner 
 
best regards, Martin 
 

-- 

Neu: Preissenkung f?r MMS und FreeMMS! http://www.gmx.net

I think a separate list is redundant. 
Many basic questions do get answered.

My impression is that *who* is asking, determines the response.  
A poli-sci student asking the  same question as a more (presumably) 
technically resourceful, say CS person, is more likely to get a 
helpful response, vs a flame.

The simple questions doesn't bother me, I just ignore them.  
But, it's not my list and I can see how they may bother the 
list maintainers and 'regular' experts.  But I think it's futile 
(and not worth the raised blood pressure) to get too hot and
bothered about those postings. 

Just my opinion.

- Iyue
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Martin Wegmann [mailto:wegmann_mailinglist at gmx.net]
> Sent: Tuesday, December 16, 2003 8:18 AM
> To: R-list
> Subject: Re: [R] mailing list for basic questions - preliminary sum up
> 
> 
> Dear R-user,  
>  
> I already received quite a lot of replies to this mail and 
> like to do a
> preliminary sum up. 
>  
> A few were sceptical about the use of such a beginner mailing list.  
> The arguments were that people starting with R will only stay 
> subscribed for
> a short time 
> until they reached the R-help "level" and therefore only 
> beginner will teach
> beginner how to 
> use R.  
>  
> But as far as I can judge, the majority of people who replied 
> to this mail
> are medium to 
> experienced user who like to help beginner but does not call 
> themselves
> highly 
> experienced user as the main "answerers" on the R-help mailing
list.
>  
> Therefore I assume that, even though some answers might be 
> wrong, the threat
>  of 
> possibly wrong answers might be minimal, due to various 
> experienced users
> who like to 
> subsribe to this list. 
>  
> The majority of replies were positive about such a list and 
> welcomed the
> idea to 
> encourage new user by providing a basic R mailing list, like 
> the already
> existent 
> corresponding manuals in the contributed documentation at 
> r-project.org. 
>  
> And again, this list shall only provide a basic and smooth 
> introduction into
> R and its 
> capabilities.  
> Questions like; "How do I make my labels in a graphic bigger? 
> - How do I
> change the 
> colour? - etc." are welcome and surely would annoy the 
> majority of R-help
> user because it 
> is mentioned somewhere on the first 10 pages of every manual, 
> but people who
> are used 
> to click on a graphic and change it in a second would not be 
> convinced that
> R can do 
> great graphics. 
>  
> well, I would welcome if there would be more discussion about 
> it or to give
> it a try 
> (perhaps mention it on the r-project web-site) and look how 
> productive this
> mailing list 
> proves to be.  
> The address of the R-beginner mailing list is: 
>  
> https://lists.uni-wuerzburg.de/mailman/listinfo/r-beginner 
>  
> best regards, Martin 
>  
> 
> -- 
> 
> Neu: Preissenkung f?r MMS und FreeMMS! http://www.gmx.net
> 
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list
> https://www.stat.math.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> 
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Martin Wegmann wrote:
>Dear R-user,  
> 
>I already received quite a lot of replies to this mail and like to do a
>preliminary sum up. 
> 
>A few were sceptical about the use of such a beginner mailing list.  
>The arguments were that people starting with R will only stay subscribed for
>a short time 
>until they reached the R-help "level" and therefore only beginner
will teach
>beginner how to 
>use R.  
> 
>But as far as I can judge, the majority of people who replied to this mail
>are medium to 
>experienced user who like to help beginner but does not call themselves
>highly 
>experienced user as the main "answerers" on the R-help mailing
list.
> 
>Therefore I assume that, even though some answers might be wrong, the threat
> of 
>possibly wrong answers might be minimal, due to various experienced users
>who like to 
>subsribe to this list. 
> 
>The majority of replies were positive about such a list and welcomed the
>idea to 
>encourage new user by providing a basic R mailing list, like the already
>existent 
>corresponding manuals in the contributed documentation at r-project.org. 
> 
>And again, this list shall only provide a basic and smooth introduction into
>R and its 
>capabilities.  
>Questions like; "How do I make my labels in a graphic bigger? - How do
I
>change the 
>colour? - etc." are welcome and surely would annoy the majority of
R-help
>user because it 
>is mentioned somewhere on the first 10 pages of every manual, but people who
>are used 
>to click on a graphic and change it in a second would not be convinced that
>R can do 
>great graphics. 
> 
>well, I would welcome if there would be more discussion about it or to give
>it a try 
>(perhaps mention it on the r-project web-site) and look how productive this
>mailing list 
>proves to be.  
>The address of the R-beginner mailing list is: 
> 
>https://lists.uni-wuerzburg.de/mailman/listinfo/r-beginner 
> 
>best regards, Martin 
>
Myself being relatively new to R, I'd like to comment on the idea of a 
new list:

- In my experience even *very* basic questions *relating to the R 
language* do get answered on r-help. I'm impressed by how much time some 
members of the R core team spend answering relatively basic questions, 
and by how elaborate their answers generally are. So I cannot see much 
need for a new R mailing list. There are these excellent mailing list 
archives, so why "fragment" this list?

- The kind of questions that generally do not get answered are the ones 
which involve statistical issues ("What is the appropriate model for my 
data?", "what is the difference between lm and aov?", "Is
that model
correct?" etc...). Since many beginners to R are probably also beginners 
in statistics, I could see some need for a list dedicated to statistical 
topics somehow related to R. For example, many people new to R seem to 
have problems adapting some basic mixed-effects models and repeated 
measures analyses they ran in SAS od SPSS. These kind of questions 
generally do not get answered, and some hints on how to adapt some of 
the examples in Pinheiro & Bates could be helpful. But this is unlikely 
to happen on a separate r-beginner list too.

Pascal

If the archives were placed on www.r-project.org then googling for

   whatever site:r-project.org

would find anything in them along with anything already on the
site.


---
Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2003 10:31:32 -0500 
From: Jonathan Baron <baron at psych.upenn.edu>
To: Pascal A. Niklaus <Pascal.Niklaus at unibas.ch> 
Cc: <r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch> 
Subject: Re: [R] mailing list for basic questions - preliminary sum up 

 
 
On 12/16/03 16:09, Pascal A. Niklaus wrote:
>- In my experience even *very* basic questions *relating to the R
>language* do get answered on r-help. I'm impressed by how much time some
>members of the R core team spend answering relatively basic questions,
>and by how elaborate their answers generally are. So I cannot see much
>need for a new R mailing list. There are these excellent mailing list
>archives, so why "fragment" this list?
Yikes! I now realize that my initial support of the idea for the
list must be qualified considerably. If this list is started,
its archives become quite important. Who will do that? And will
I have the time/energy/inclination to incorporate it into my own
search database? I'd rather not have one more thing to do. But
if the list gets off the ground - and it seems already at least
close to the end of the runway - I'll have to do it eventually in
order to have a complete archive.

Jon
-- 
Jonathan Baron, Professor of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania
Home page: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~baron
R page: http://finzi.psych.upenn.edu/

______________________________________________
R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list
https://www.stat.math.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help




 --- On Tue 12/16, Jonathan Baron < baron at psych.upenn.edu > wrote:
From: Jonathan Baron [mailto: baron at psych.upenn.edu]
To: Pascal.Niklaus at unibas.ch
     Cc: r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch
Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2003 10:31:32 -0500
Subject: Re: [R] mailing list for basic questions - preliminary sum up

On 12/16/03 16:09, Pascal A. Niklaus wrote:<br>>- In my experience even
*very* basic questions *relating to the R<br>>language* do get answered
on r-help. I'm impressed by how much time some<br>>members of the R
core team spend answering relatively basic questions,<br>>and by how
elaborate their answers generally are. So I cannot see much<br>>need
for a new R mailing list. There are these excellent mailing
list<br>>archives, so why "fragment" this
list?<br><br>Yikes!  I now realize that my initial support of the
idea for the<br>list must be qualified considerably.  If this list is
started,<br>its archives become quite important.  Who will do that?  And
will<br>I have the time/energy/inclination to incorporate it into my
own<br>search database?  I'd rather not have one more thing to do. 
But<br>if the list gets off the ground - and it seems already at
least<br>close to the end of the runway - I'll have to do it
eventually in<br>order to have a complete
archive.<br><br>Jon<br>-- <br>Jonathan Baron, Professor
of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania<br>Home page:           
http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~baron<br>R page:              
http://finzi.psych.upenn.edu/<br><br>______________________________________________<br>R-help
at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing
list<br>https://www.stat.math.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help<br>

My experience in several mailing lists and newsgroups has been that
"help" from other beginners very often deserves the scare quotes.
The advice is often extremely bad.

The situation for R is quite different:  R has the best documentation I've
ever seen for any open-source package, and it's better than most commercial
software I've had to deal with.  The R web site has pointers to some really
excellent stuff.  For example, while "S Poetry" is about S rather than
R,
a lot of "programming" questions about R have clear explanations in
that
book.  There are several tutorials, and the ones I looked at were good.

There are a few things about using R with a particular operating system
or window manager that are best shown in person.  But apart from that,
I'm wondering what kind of beginner questions there might be that beginners
would be able to help with that aren't already in the tutorials &c.

A beginner who can say "I have read <this>, <that>, and <the
other> and
tried the on-line help, and I didn't recognise the answer to <my
problem>"
is likely to get prompt and accurate help in this mailing list.

The books I've relied on for actually doing statistics have mainly been
"Statistical Models in S" and "Modern Applied Statistics with
S", and again,
they really do answer a lot of questions.

Hmm.  I seem to have argued myself into the position that
IF the rule in the beginner list were that anyone purporting to
   answer a question should justify the answer by citing the relevant
   R documentation or one of the commonly mentioned books about S and R,
THEN it could be as educational for the answerer as for the questioner
   and quite helpful after all.

My personal view on this is that there is need for a friendly
list with a more "customer service" attitude than r-help.

r-help is really very useful but its also intimidating
and I bet lots of people have questions that they never ask
for fear of the response.   Maybe some of them even decide
not to learn R.

---
Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2003 00:49:15 +0100 
From: Martin Wegmann <wegmann_mailinglist at gmx.net>
To: Spencer Graves <spencer.graves at pdf.com>, <rossini at
u.washington.edu>
Cc: <r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch> 
Subject: Re: [R] mailing list for basic questions - preliminary sum up 

 
 
Hello, 

I agree completely that well thought out questions are important to receive 
good and quick replies and I agree as well that the replies on the R-help 
list are very good and helpful.
But I had to learn and I am still learing how to write good questions and 
appreciate Spencer's explanantion how a good question should look like in
his
opinion. 

I am not sure how this new mailing list might evolve. 
It might be that the R-beginner list takes some load of the R-help list by 
reducing the amount of "basic" questions which won't be questioned
anymore
here (what aren't many) and that new user might be taught to post
"good"
question before they start posting to R-help.
If it proves to be ineffective or might affect R-help in some unwanted manner 
it would be an easy one to shut it down. 

I doubt that it will split the R-help list - in my opinion it is unlikely that 
medium/experienced R user who will subscribe to R-beginner will unsubscribe 
from the R-help list. 
Moreover people starting with R are less likely to send any mails to this 
list, some do and are refered in most cases to the manuals. 
When I started R I looked through the archive and because I did not understand 
even one question, I was intimidated by this list and did not send any mail 
until a few weeks later (that was not because of the statistics but the 
commands)
For this kind of people the R-beginner list is thought - to encourage them to 
send "stupid" questions during their first steps in R. 

They shall recognize questions they would have asked themselves.
Therefore I think that the quality of the question is in this case less 
important than it's level.

I hope I did not misunderstood some points ,-)

best regards Martin



On Tuesday 16 December 2003 17:20, Spencer Graves wrote:
> I agree with Tony's observation that well thought out questions
> are more likely to receive an answer than something that is long,
> rambling, and poorly focused. Many questions take more time to read
> than I have available, so I don't bother. I like questions that include
> toy examples in a few lines of code that I can copy from an email into R
> and test ideas. Careful formatting that looks pretty in an email is an
> obstacle for me, because it increases the work required to get it into
> R. Many questioners could answer their own problems in the process of
> generating such a toy example. When they can't, that exercise helps
> them focus the question, which makes it easier for potential respondents
> to understand the problem and reply. Without that, I must either
> generate a toy example myself (which I've done many times) or respond
> with untested code and risk looking stupid when my untested suggestion
> doesn't work.
>
> hope this helps.
> spencer graves
>
> A.J. Rossini wrote:
> >"Pascal A. Niklaus" <Pascal.Niklaus at unibas.ch>
writes:
> >>- In my experience even *very* basic questions *relating to the R
> >>language* do get answered on r-help. I'm impressed by how much
time
> >>some members of the R core team spend answering relatively basic
> >>questions, and by how elaborate their answers generally are. So I
> >>cannot see much need for a new R mailing list. There are these
> >>excellent mailing list archives, so why "fragment" this
list?
> >
> >To follow up, well-thought through basic questions do get answered; in
> >particular, they can be useful for those of us writing packages,
> >documentation, etc.
> >
> >I have a sense that it is the quality of the question (details of what
> >is intended to do, or not known, signs of using other sources of
> >materials which folks have spent years on, no signs that this is a
"do
> >my work for me" question) rather than the level of the question,
that
> >is an issue.
> >
> >best,
> >-tony
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list
> https://www.stat.math.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help

After thinking this over, I think it's a good idea to have the beginner
list (and I have subscribed).  

While I greatly appreciate this list, and the tremendous amount of help
I've gotten from it, the style of this list is, usually, to give fairly
short replies (e.g. "try ?function")  This is fine.  Different lists
have different styles, and people here are, after all, donating their
time and expertise.

But I think that, on the beginner list, there should be a different
style.  I think answers should be lengthier, and more discursive.  A
beginner who gets a reply like "try searching help" is likely to be
put
off.  As a relative newbie myself (and one who has to work in SAS as
well as R) I still find myself having 'translation diffiuculties'.

What do others think?  Has anyone else subscribed to the beginner list
yet?

Peter

Peter L. Flom, PhD
Assistant Director, Statistics and Data Analysis Core
Center for Drug Use and HIV Research
National Development and Research Institutes
71 W. 23rd St
www.peterflom.com
New York, NY 10010
(212) 845-4485 (voice)
(917) 438-0894 (fax)


>>> Martin Wegmann <wegmann_mailinglist at gmx.net> 12/16/2003
6:49:15 PM
>>>
Hello, 

I agree completely that well thought out questions are important to
receive 
good and quick replies and I agree as well that the replies on the
R-help 
list are very good and helpful.
But I had to learn and I am still learing how to write good questions
and 
appreciate Spencer's explanantion how a good question should look like
in his 
opinion. 

I am not sure how this new mailing list might evolve. 
It might be that the R-beginner list takes some load of the R-help list
by 
reducing the amount of "basic" questions which won't be questioned
anymore 
here (what aren't many) and that new user might be taught to post
"good" 
question before they start posting to R-help.
If it proves to be ineffective or might affect R-help in some unwanted
manner 
it would be an easy one to shut it down. 

I doubt that it will split the R-help list - in my opinion it is
unlikely that 
medium/experienced R user who will subscribe to R-beginner will
unsubscribe 
from the R-help list. 
Moreover people starting with R are less likely to send any mails to
this 
list, some do and are refered in most cases to the manuals. 
When I started R I looked through the archive and because I did not
understand 
even one question, I was intimidated by this list and did not send any
mail 
until a few weeks later (that was not because of the statistics but the

commands)
For this kind of people the R-beginner list is thought - to encourage
them to 
send "stupid" questions during their first steps in R. 

They shall recognize questions they would have asked themselves.
Therefore I think that the quality of the question is in this case less

important than it's level.

I hope I did not misunderstood some points ,-)

best regards Martin



On Tuesday 16 December 2003 17:20, Spencer Graves wrote:
>       I agree with Tony's observation that well thought out
questions
> are more likely to receive an answer than something that is long,
> rambling, and poorly focused.  Many questions take more time to read
> than I have available, so I don't bother.  I like questions that
include
> toy examples in a few lines of code that I can copy from an email
into R
> and test ideas.  Careful formatting that looks pretty in an email is
an
> obstacle for me, because it increases the work required to get it
into
> R.  Many questioners could answer their own problems in the process
of
> generating such a toy example.  When they can't, that exercise helps
> them focus the question, which makes it easier for potential
respondents
> to understand the problem and reply.  Without that, I must either
> generate a toy example myself (which I've done many times) or
respond
> with untested code and risk looking stupid when my untested
suggestion
> doesn't work.
>
>       hope this helps.
>       spencer graves
>
> A.J. Rossini wrote:
> >"Pascal A. Niklaus" <Pascal.Niklaus at unibas.ch>
writes:
> >>- In my experience even *very* basic questions *relating to the R
> >>language* do get answered on r-help. I'm impressed by how much
time
> >>some members of the R core team spend answering relatively basic
> >>questions, and by how elaborate their answers generally are. So I
> >>cannot see much need for a new R mailing list. There are these
> >>excellent mailing list archives, so why "fragment" this
list?
> >
> >To follow up, well-thought through basic questions do get answered;
in
> >particular, they can be useful for those of us writing packages,
> >documentation, etc.
> >
> >I have a sense that it is the quality of the question (details of
what
> >is intended to do, or not known, signs of using other sources of
> >materials which folks have spent years on, no signs that this is a
"do
> >my work for me" question) rather than the level of the question,
that
> >is an issue.
> >
> >best,
> >-tony
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list
> https://www.stat.math.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help 
______________________________________________
R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list
https://www.stat.math.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help

Gabor Grothendieck wrote:
> My personal view on this is that there is need for a friendly
> list with a more "customer service" attitude than r-help.
God save us from a ``"customer service" attitude'' --- bland,
fatuous, feel-good useless twaddle!  If you want a ``custome
service'' attitude go and use Microsoft's crap!  The subscribers to
this list are not customers, they are participants in a collective
endeavour.  Those who come in with an ``I'm a customer; service me''
(;-)) attitude should look elsewhere.  If they are such wimps that
they collapse from being told a few brusque home truths, they
shouldn't be doing statistical computing in the first place.  When a
Certain Guru rips strips off people (God knows he's done it to me
often enough) on this list, there's a damned good reason for it.


					cheers,

						Rolf Turner
						rolf at math.unb.ca

"Peter Flom" <flom at ndri.org> writes:
> What do others think?  Has anyone else subscribed to the beginner list
> yet?
I won't.  There is not enough time in the day.

best,
-tony

-- 
rossini at u.washington.edu            http://www.analytics.washington.edu/ 
Biomedical and Health Informatics   University of Washington
Biostatistics, SCHARP/HVTN          Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
UW (Tu/Th/F): 206-616-7630 FAX=206-543-3461 | Voicemail is unreliable
FHCRC  (M/W): 206-667-7025 FAX=206-667-4812 | use Email

CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This e-mail message and any attachme...{{dropped}}

I agree that

- wikis (see the successful one for the lua programming
  language at: http://lua-users.org/wiki/ )
- forums

are nice.  Actually someone did set up an R wiki some time 
ago at:

   http://fawn.unibw-hamburg.de/cgi-bin/Rwiki.pl?RwikiHome

yet no one really used it.  Some critical mass of use is needed
to get such a project off the ground.

Other ways of communicating include:

- a moderated list

- a blog/summary such as this one for the Python language:
    http://www.pythonware.com/daily/index.htm
  or this one for the Ruby language:
    http://www.rubygarden.org/rurl/html/index.html

Unfortunately these last two require a sustained effort on 
someone's part and I suspect no one would be willing to 
commit to this.

--- 
Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2003 11:29:11 -0500 
From: Frank E Harrell Jr <feh3k at spamcop.net>
[ Add to Address Book | Block Address | Report as Spam ] 
To: rhelp <r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch> 
Subject: Re: [R] mailing list for basic questions - preliminary sum up 

 
 
My opinion is that separate lists are not needed (and I'm not clear on how
the person with the original idea summarized opinions in a way that
led to the conclusion that a new list is needed), but that a different
medium may be needed. The problem with e-mail is that to many users,
especially those who don't search the archives, e-mail is
"memoryless",
and that individual e-mail messages become cumulative rather than being
corrected or updated. How many times have we seen almost identical
questions posed only days apart? A well-organized discussion board (e.g.
http://www.knoppix.net/forum) or wiki (e.g. using methods provided by
twiki.org - see http://web.brandeis.edu/pages/view/ITS for a nice example;
other users will know of better examples)
is worth considering. It would be especially nice if before pressing the
"Submit New Message" button a user had to check a few boxes
acknowledging
that she had consulted various sources of information, and besides the
checkboxes would be links to those sources. Topics and subtopics would
have to be created by an administrator but users could add sub sub topics
and, optimally, edit other users' responses. This approach would IMHO get
better participation by both novices and experts than would having two
lists.

---
Frank E Harrell Jr Professor and Chair School of Medicine
Department of Biostatistics Vanderbilt University

______________________________________________
R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list
https://www.stat.math.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help

In rereading this one idea occurred to me.  What if the entire R help
system were turned into a wiki?   That is,

?whatever

would take you to the help page, but not on your computer --
rather to the same page on the wiki.  You would then find the
docs as they exist now plus the experiences of other people
with that command all at the same place.   You could similarly
add your own experience to the page.

--- 
Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2003 11:53:59 -0500 (EST) 
From: Gabor Grothendieck <ggrothendieck at myway.com>
To: <feh3k at spamcop.net>, <r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch> 
Subject: Re: [R] mailing list for basic questions - preliminary sum up 

 
 


I agree that

- wikis (see the successful one for the lua programming
language at: http://lua-users.org/wiki/ )
- forums

are nice. Actually someone did set up an R wiki some time 
ago at:

http://fawn.unibw-hamburg.de/cgi-bin/Rwiki.pl?RwikiHome

yet no one really used it. Some critical mass of use is needed
to get such a project off the ground.

Other ways of communicating include:

- a moderated list

- a blog/summary such as this one for the Python language:
http://www.pythonware.com/daily/index.htm
or this one for the Ruby language:
http://www.rubygarden.org/rurl/html/index.html

Unfortunately these last two require a sustained effort on 
someone's part and I suspect no one would be willing to 
commit to this.

--- 
Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2003 11:29:11 -0500 
From: Frank E Harrell Jr <feh3k at spamcop.net>
[ Add to Address Book | Block Address | Report as Spam ] 
To: rhelp <r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch> 
Subject: Re: [R] mailing list for basic questions - preliminary sum up 



My opinion is that separate lists are not needed (and I'm not clear on how
the person with the original idea summarized opinions in a way that
led to the conclusion that a new list is needed), but that a different
medium may be needed. The problem with e-mail is that to many users,
especially those who don't search the archives, e-mail is
"memoryless",
and that individual e-mail messages become cumulative rather than being
corrected or updated. How many times have we seen almost identical
questions posed only days apart? A well-organized discussion board (e.g.
http://www.knoppix.net/forum) or wiki (e.g. using methods provided by
twiki.org - see http://web.brandeis.edu/pages/view/ITS for a nice example;
other users will know of better examples)
is worth considering. It would be especially nice if before pressing the
"Submit New Message" button a user had to check a few boxes
acknowledging
that she had consulted various sources of information, and besides the
checkboxes would be links to those sources. Topics and subtopics would
have to be created by an administrator but users could add sub sub topics
and, optimally, edit other users' responses. This approach would IMHO get
better participation by both novices and experts than would having two
lists.

---
Frank E Harrell Jr Professor and Chair School of Medicine
Department of Biostatistics Vanderbilt University

Dear R-user, 

there have been already a lot of discussion with some good points against such 
a list and the opposite opinions as well. 

Well, I would like to propose that we start a testing phase either with

- only "internal" membership, that means only people from this dept. +
perhaps
some other german universities can subscribe to list list and in 3 month 
time, there will an evaluation and summary how this list behaved.

- or an open "international" membership, where the language is english
and
everybody can subsribe and no approval is required.

In both cases the R-beginner mailing list can be shut down after this period 
of time if it proves to be inefficient, too much work or leads to a wrong 
understanding of R lists as a "customer service". 

I would reckon that for this testing phase it is not important to setup a 
searchable archive or put lots of work into it but to monitor which kind of 
questions are asked, into which direction it leads, if it encouraged people 
to ask "do it for me" questions and so on. 

I would do it and would appreciate if some native-english speaker could join. 

I hope that this proposal is acceptable for everybody.

thanks a lot for the discussion, it changed my view of a beginner mailing list 
considerably, now I see the problems behind it. 

best regards, Martin


On Tuesday 16 December 2003 14:17, Martin Wegmann wrote:
> Dear R-user,
>
> I already received quite a lot of replies to this mail and like to do a
> preliminary sum up.
>
> A few were sceptical about the use of such a beginner mailing list.
> The arguments were that people starting with R will only stay subscribed
> for a short time
> until they reached the R-help "level" and therefore only beginner
will
> teach beginner how to
> use R.
>
> But as far as I can judge, the majority of people who replied to this mail
> are medium to
> experienced user who like to help beginner but does not call themselves
> highly
> experienced user as the main "answerers" on the R-help mailing
list.
>
> Therefore I assume that, even though some answers might be wrong, the
> threat of
> possibly wrong answers might be minimal, due to various experienced users
> who like to
> subsribe to this list.
>
> The majority of replies were positive about such a list and welcomed the
> idea to
> encourage new user by providing a basic R mailing list, like the already
> existent
> corresponding manuals in the contributed documentation at r-project.org.
>
> And again, this list shall only provide a basic and smooth introduction
> into R and its
> capabilities.
> Questions like; "How do I make my labels in a graphic bigger? - How do
I
> change the
> colour? - etc." are welcome and surely would annoy the majority of
R-help
> user because it
> is mentioned somewhere on the first 10 pages of every manual, but people
> who are used
> to click on a graphic and change it in a second would not be convinced that
> R can do
> great graphics.
>
> well, I would welcome if there would be more discussion about it or to give
> it a try
> (perhaps mention it on the r-project web-site) and look how productive this
> mailing list
> proves to be.
> The address of the R-beginner mailing list is:
>
> https://lists.uni-wuerzburg.de/mailman/listinfo/r-beginner
>
> best regards, Martin

A two level solution might be possible as part of this too.
If you got ?whatever off your disk then it could contain a
link to the corresponding wiki page.  If you didn't have
a connection you would still get what you get now but just
couldn't follow the link.  Whenever a new version of R came
out the wiki would be replicated back to the help screens
so that those with no internet still get some wiki info
albeit as a snapshot as of the last release.

Your idea of an option setting could work along with the above
so that it could be set to go directly to the wiki if you 
had a connection and preferred that.

---
Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2003 18:20:26 -0400 
From: <kjetil at entelnet.bo>
To: Gabor Grothendieck <ggrothendieck at myway.com>,Jonathan Baron
<baron at psych.upenn.edu>
Cc: <r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch>, <feh3k at spamcop.net> 
Subject: Re: [R] mailing list for basic questions - preliminary sum up 

 
 
On 17 Dec 2003 at 12:51, Jonathan Baron wrote:
> On 12/17/03 12:19, Gabor Grothendieck wrote:
> >
> >
> >In rereading this one idea occurred to me. What if the entire R help
> >system were turned into a wiki? That is,
> >
> >?whatever
> >
> >would take you to the help page, but not on your computer --
> >rather to the same page on the wiki. You would then find the
> >docs as they exist now plus the experiences of other people
Yes, this might be nice, but pls remember that many people in many 
countries still use machines without web connection, or worse, pay 
modem time by minute. Or use laptops on planes.

But it could be nice to be able to write
wiki("lm")
as an alternative to 
help("lm")
and maybe the possibility to use options("help") to associate ?lm
with whichever one likes.

Kjetil Halvorsen
> >with that command all at the same place. You could similarly
> >add your own experience to the page.
> 
> Perhaps a good example is
> http://www.php.net/manual/en/
> 
> But this is a lot of work to set up. I'd rather take small
> steps. I do plan to look into phpbb as an alternative to
> bazookaboard*, but not today, and probably not tomorrow. So if
> things proceed without me, so be it.
> 
> Jon
> 
> *I remember rejecting phpbb once, but I sort of gave myself 30
> minutes to install something, not wanting to spend more time than
> that. Bazookaboard met that test, and nothing else did. But I could
> raise the cutoff.
> 
> -- 
> Jonathan Baron, Professor of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania
> Home page: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~baron R page: 
> http://finzi.psych.upenn.edu/
> 
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list
> https://www.stat.math.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help

> From: Tom Mulholland
> 
> I have empathy for lots of the points already made, more 
> often on the life
> is not always easy and you have to work at it flavour because 
> that's where
> you make the real gains.
> 
> One particular message early in the piece cited an example of 
> what a good
> request might look like. Other lists sometime send out 
> regular messages
> (although they tend to be about the rules of the list) that 
> are intended to
> make sure that important pieces of information are regularly repeated.
> 
> I know that there is more than enough talent on this list to 
> put together
> suggestions for getting quick responses that could be sent 
> out regularly.
> The sorts of things that might be in it would be when you 
> should attach
> details of operating system, version etc. (or if they should always be
> there) as well as comments like those by Spencer Graves and 
> it could include
> the checklist that someone mentioned (I think that was Frank 
> Harrell). It
> would almost be a pro-forma for messages and while people 
> don't have to use
> it, it may help those who do think before they post (we'll 
> never stop some
> people, because that's just the way they are)
> 
> Tom Mulholland
> Tom Mulholland Associates
Please see Eric Raymond's "How To Ask Questions The Smart Way"
(http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html).

(One of these days I shall take up Martin's suggestion and write an entry
for R-FAQ pointing to it.  The problem is getting people to actually read
the FAQ, let alone links in the FAQ...)

Best,
Andy



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The fact that I've been using R for quite a while now and did not know
about this document is supporting evidence of the need to get this sort
of information out there. 

However that big list is going to daunt some people, it would have
daunted me at the beginning. At a time when you are digesting a whole
new universe (wonderful though it is) some short and pithy help is
welcome. I expect that there would be a consensus on which topics are
essential to improve the quality of questions. It is this select group
of comments that could be put in a standard email sent out once a month.
I would assume that the link to Eric Raymond's "How To Ask Questions
The
Smart Way"1 would be part of the advice. That is if you're going to
spoon feed, then spoon feed the advice that helps the list most and
encourage new list members to take the time to read the longer document.


I think this special treatment is warranted because the issue is not
about R per-se, it is about this list, so it makes more sense to have it
coming out of this list rather than an entry in the R-FAQ. Although I
can't see a reason for not doing both.

Hmmm. Before I post this I had better go and see what Eric has to say
about this sort of message. 

Ciao, Tom

1 An assumption on my part is that there is fundamental agreement that
the document is the best source for advice on how to ask questions of
this list
_________________________________________________
 
Tom Mulholland
Senior Policy Officer
WA Country Health Service
Tel: (08) 9222 4062
 
The contents of this e-mail transmission are confidential and may be
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-----Original Message-----
From: Liaw, Andy [mailto:andy_liaw at merck.com] 
Sent: Thursday, 18 December 2003 8:26 AM
To: 'Tom Mulholland'
Cc: r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch
Subject: RE: [R] mailing list for basic questions - preliminary sum up

> From: Tom Mulholland
> 
> I have empathy for lots of the points already made, more
> often on the life
> is not always easy and you have to work at it flavour because 
> that's where
> you make the real gains.
> 
> One particular message early in the piece cited an example of
> what a good
> request might look like. Other lists sometime send out 
> regular messages
> (although they tend to be about the rules of the list) that 
> are intended to
> make sure that important pieces of information are regularly repeated.
> 
> I know that there is more than enough talent on this list to
> put together
> suggestions for getting quick responses that could be sent 
> out regularly.
> The sorts of things that might be in it would be when you 
> should attach
> details of operating system, version etc. (or if they should always be
> there) as well as comments like those by Spencer Graves and 
> it could include
> the checklist that someone mentioned (I think that was Frank 
> Harrell). It
> would almost be a pro-forma for messages and while people 
> don't have to use
> it, it may help those who do think before they post (we'll 
> never stop some
> people, because that's just the way they are)
> 
> Tom Mulholland
> Tom Mulholland Associates
Please see Eric Raymond's "How To Ask Questions The Smart Way"
(http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html).

(One of these days I shall take up Martin's suggestion and write an
entry for R-FAQ pointing to it.  The problem is getting people to
actually read the FAQ, let alone links in the FAQ...)

Best,
Andy



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______________________________________________
R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list
https://www.stat.math.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help

On Wed, 17 Dec 2003, Gabor Grothendieck wrote:
>
>
> In rereading this one idea occurred to me.  What if the entire R help
> system were turned into a wiki?   That is,
>
> ?whatever
>
> would take you to the help page, but not on your computer --
> rather to the same page on the wiki.
This seems to assume that you are attached to the internet (or at least
that R can reliably tell if you are).

	-thomas

I had made a second subsequent suggestion to address this.  See:

https://www.stat.math.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-help/2003-December/042234.html



--- 
Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 07:48:26 -0800 (PST) 
From: Thomas Lumley <tlumley at u.washington.edu>
To: Gabor Grothendieck <ggrothendieck at myway.com> 
Cc: <feh3k at spamcop.net>, <r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch> 
Subject: Re: [R] mailing list for basic questions - preliminary sum up 

 
 
On Wed, 17 Dec 2003, Gabor Grothendieck wrote:
>
>
> In rereading this one idea occurred to me. What if the entire R help
> system were turned into a wiki? That is,
>
> ?whatever
>
> would take you to the help page, but not on your computer --
> rather to the same page on the wiki.
This seems to assume that you are attached to the internet (or at least
that R can reliably tell if you are).

     -thomas