[Rd] Jazzing up the Task Views index page

[Ben Bolker]

Barry Rowlingson <b.rowlingson <at> lancaster.ac.uk> writes:

> Anyway, I did say that Task Views were rather brilliant, but were let
> down by their hidden position on the R web sites (tucked away as the
> third element of a sub-menu of a CRAN mirror site linked to by the
> CRAN link from the Download menu on the main R home page). The index
> page is rather plain, so I designed a more engaging one. The result of
> my effort is now here:
> 
> http://www.maths.lancs.ac.uk/~rowlings/R/TaskViews/
> 
> Having done that, I even considered that something like that could
> replace the R Homepage. Giving new visitors an idea of the vast range
> of techniques and application areas available in R would seem to be
> better than the current graphic which has been there since perhaps
> 2004.

  I love it.  The only problem I have with it is that it's a little
harder to grasp the whole list since the titles of the individual task
views are now so spread out.

  What is it about Bayesian statistics and elephants? (Clark's book
on Bayesian models for ecology also has an elephant.) Is it the
elephant in the room no-one will talk about?  Or is it the "give
me four parameters and I'll draw you an elephant" thing?