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

[Frank E Harrell Jr]

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.

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