R help - Aug 2007 - FAQ 7.x when 7 does not exist. Useability question

The FAQ Section 7 is a very useful place for new users
to find out any number of R idiosycracies.  However
there is no numbering on the FAQ Table of Content or
on the Sections Tables of Contents. 

An R-help list reply of "Read FAQ 7.10" in response to
a question about converting a factor to numeric is  a
bit cryptic. The only time 7.10 appears is after the
searcher has found the entry. 

Would it be a good idea to actually number the entries
for the FAQ Table of Contents and the Table of
Contents for the Sections?

Note that googling

R FAQ 7.10

will get it on the first hit.

On 8/23/07, John Kane <jrkrideau at yahoo.ca>
wrote:
> The FAQ Section 7 is a very useful place for new users
> to find out any number of R idiosycracies.  However
> there is no numbering on the FAQ Table of Content or
> on the Sections Tables of Contents.
>
> An R-help list reply of "Read FAQ 7.10" in response to
> a question about converting a factor to numeric is  a
> bit cryptic. The only time 7.10 appears is after the
> searcher has found the entry.
>
> Would it be a good idea to actually number the entries
> for the FAQ Table of Contents and the Table of
> Contents for the Sections?
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch 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.
>

--- Gabor Grothendieck <ggrothendieck at gmail.com>
wrote:
> Note that googling
> 
> R FAQ 7.10
> 
> will get it on the first hit.
True, however this is not exactly a self-contained
solution if one is actually trying to use the FAQ. I
may be old fashioned but when directed to the FAQ I
tend to go to the FAQ rather than Google.  
> 
> On 8/23/07, John Kane <jrkrideau at yahoo.ca> wrote:
> > The FAQ Section 7 is a very useful place for new
> users
> > to find out any number of R idiosycracies. 
> However
> > there is no numbering on the FAQ Table of Content
> or
> > on the Sections Tables of Contents.
> >
> > An R-help list reply of "Read FAQ 7.10" in
> response to
> > a question about converting a factor to numeric is
>  a
> > bit cryptic. The only time 7.10 appears is after
> the
> > searcher has found the entry.
> >
> > Would it be a good idea to actually number the
> entries
> > for the FAQ Table of Contents and the Table of
> > Contents for the Sections?
> >
> > ______________________________________________
> > R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch 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 Thu, 23 Aug 2007, John Kane wrote:
> The FAQ Section 7 is a very useful place for new users
> to find out any number of R idiosycracies.  However
> there is no numbering on the FAQ Table of Content or
> on the Sections Tables of Contents.
Hmm, doc/FAQ does have a numbered table of contents and numbered sections 
and doc/manual/R-FAQ.html does have numbered sections and my browser's 
search finds 7.10 straight away.

> An R-help list reply of "Read FAQ 7.10" in response to
> a question about converting a factor to numeric is  a
> bit cryptic. The only time 7.10 appears is after the
> searcher has found the entry.
It would help if you told us what you are searching that did not contain 
'7.10'.
> Would it be a good idea to actually number the entries
> for the FAQ Table of Contents and the Table of
> Contents for the Sections?
I think we do.

-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595

Yes that is it. Thanks
--- "Michael A. Miller" <mmiller3 at iupui.edu> wrote:
> >>>>> "John" == John Kane <jrkrideau at
yahoo.ca>
> writes:
> 
>     > Apologies for the poor quality of the screen
> capture.
> 
> I think the first one is a screen cap of
> http://cran.r-project.org/doc/FAQ/R-FAQ.html.  Is
> that correct?
> 
> The faq that is part of the r-doc-html package from
> Debian also
> has the same "bulleted" table of contents.
> 
> Mike