I wonder if it isn't time to change the reply-to-list policy of R-help and adopt the alternative convention of replying to the author and asking him/her to summarize to the list. Recently R-help has been too busy for me to keep up with. There were quite a few identical responses in the "Finding indices with a certain property" thread, rather than an extended discussion. I think this illustrates the need for a reply to author policy. Does anybody else feel the same way? Martyn -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.- r-help mailing list -- Read http://www.ci.tuwien.ac.at/~hornik/R/R-FAQ.html Send "info", "help", or "[un]subscribe" (in the "body", not the subject !) To: r-help-request at stat.math.ethz.ch _._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._
Martyn Plummer <plummer at iarc.fr> writes:> I wonder if it isn't time to change the reply-to-list policy of R-help > and adopt the alternative convention of replying to the author and asking > him/her to summarize to the list. > > Recently R-help has been too busy for me to keep up with. There were > quite a few identical responses in the "Finding indices with a certain > property" thread, rather than an extended discussion. I think this > illustrates the need for a reply to author policy. > > Does anybody else feel the same way?Not me. - people often don't get around to summarizing - you don't see whether anyone else replied, so either people get zero responses or responses from everyone. Todays minor storm was an exception to that effect: people replying before responses of others got in. - it is manageable with filtering and threading. (e.g. procmail or gnus) -- O__ ---- Peter Dalgaard Blegdamsvej 3 c/ /'_ --- Dept. of Biostatistics 2200 Cph. N (*) \(*) -- University of Copenhagen Denmark Ph: (+45) 35327918 ~~~~~~~~~~ - (p.dalgaard at biostat.ku.dk) FAX: (+45) 35327907 -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.- r-help mailing list -- Read http://www.ci.tuwien.ac.at/~hornik/R/R-FAQ.html Send "info", "help", or "[un]subscribe" (in the "body", not the subject !) To: r-help-request at stat.math.ethz.ch _._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._
On Tue, 7 Dec 1999, Martyn Plummer wrote:> Recently R-help has been too busy for me to keep up with. There were > quite a few identical responses in the "Finding indices with a certain > property" thread, rather than an extended discussion. I think this > illustrates the need for a reply to author policy. > > Does anybody else feel the same way?I do, at least a bit. I expect many people operate an informal reply to author policy anyhow. For example, my response to the which() question would normally have gone only to the author, but I find which() to be a very useful function and was myself unaware of it until quite recently. Hence I also mailed back to r-help. I don't think we would need to formalise such an arrangement, but it is important to encourage posting of summaries if r-help does not carry a comprehensive answer. Cheers, Jonathan. Jonathan Rougier Science Laboratories Department of Mathematical Sciences South Road University of Durham Durham DH1 3LE "[B]egin upon the precept ... that the things we see are to be weighed in the scale with what we know" (Meredith, 1879, The Egoist) -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.- r-help mailing list -- Read http://www.ci.tuwien.ac.at/~hornik/R/R-FAQ.html Send "info", "help", or "[un]subscribe" (in the "body", not the subject !) To: r-help-request at stat.math.ethz.ch _._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._