[R] mailing list for basic questions - preliminary sum up

[Peter Flom]

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