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

[Martin Wegmann]

Hello, 
On Wednesday 17 December 2003 05:43, Gabor Grothendieck wrote:
> My personal view on this is that there is need for a friendly
>
> list with a more "customer service" attitude than r-help.

well that sounds for me like a shop - "customer service"- ;-) and that's what 
R should not become, in my point of view - the R core team members are 
volunteers and spend their spare time to help strangers and develop great 
software.

I agree with Roger Bivand that answers are from time to time rough due to 
language problems or because it would take more time to add some "nice" 
lines, not because they are rude. 

But perhaps medium-experienced user who are not very active on this list, 
might become more active on the beginner list and perhaps spend more time to 
write nice replies. perhaps ,-)

regards Martin


>
>
> r-help is really very useful but its also intimidating
>
> and I bet lots of people have questions that they never ask
>
> for fear of the response.   Maybe some of them even decide
>
> not to learn R.
>
>
>
> ---
>
> Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2003 00:49:15 +0100
>
> From: Martin Wegmann <wegmann_mailinglist at gmx.net>
>
> To: Spencer Graves <spencer.graves at pdf.com>, <rossini at u.washington.edu>
>
> Cc: <r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch>
>
> Subject: Re: [R] mailing list for basic questions - preliminary sum up
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> 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
>
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