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

[Tom Mulholland]

I have empathy for lots of the points already made, more often on the life
is not always easy and you have to work at it flavour because that's where
you make the real gains.

One particular message early in the piece cited an example of what a good
request might look like. Other lists sometime send out regular messages
(although they tend to be about the rules of the list) that are intended to
make sure that important pieces of information are regularly repeated.

I know that there is more than enough talent on this list to put together
suggestions for getting quick responses that could be sent out regularly.
The sorts of things that might be in it would be when you should attach
details of operating system, version etc. (or if they should always be
there) as well as comments like those by Spencer Graves and it could include
the checklist that someone mentioned (I think that was Frank Harrell). It
would almost be a pro-forma for messages and while people don't have to use
it, it may help those who do think before they post (we'll never stop some
people, because that's just the way they are)

Tom Mulholland
Tom Mulholland Associates

-----Original Message-----
From: r-help-bounces at stat.math.ethz.ch
[mailto:r-help-bounces at stat.math.ethz.ch]On Behalf Of Gabor Grothendieck
Sent: Thursday, December 18, 2003 7:09 AM
To: kjetil at entelnet.bo; ggrothendieck at myway.com; baron at psych.upenn.edu
Cc: r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch; feh3k at spamcop.net
Subject: Re: [R] mailing list for basic questions - preliminary sum up




A two level solution might be possible as part of this too.
If you got ?whatever off your disk then it could contain a
link to the corresponding wiki page.  If you didn't have
a connection you would still get what you get now but just
couldn't follow the link.  Whenever a new version of R came
out the wiki would be replicated back to the help screens
so that those with no internet still get some wiki info
albeit as a snapshot as of the last release.

Your idea of an option setting could work along with the above
so that it could be set to go directly to the wiki if you
had a connection and preferred that.

---
Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2003 18:20:26 -0400
From: <kjetil at entelnet.bo>
To: Gabor Grothendieck <ggrothendieck at myway.com>,Jonathan Baron
<baron at psych.upenn.edu>
Cc: <r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch>, <feh3k at spamcop.net>
Subject: Re: [R] mailing list for basic questions - preliminary sum up



On 17 Dec 2003 at 12:51, Jonathan Baron wrote:

> On 12/17/03 12:19, Gabor Grothendieck wrote:
> >
> >
> >In rereading this one idea occurred to me. What if the entire R help
> >system were turned into a wiki? That is,
> >
> >?whatever
> >
> >would take you to the help page, but not on your computer --
> >rather to the same page on the wiki. You would then find the
> >docs as they exist now plus the experiences of other people

Yes, this might be nice, but pls remember that many people in many
countries still use machines without web connection, or worse, pay
modem time by minute. Or use laptops on planes.

But it could be nice to be able to write
wiki("lm")
as an alternative to
help("lm")
and maybe the possibility to use options("help") to associate ?lm
with whichever one likes.

Kjetil Halvorsen

> >with that command all at the same place. You could similarly
> >add your own experience to the page.
>
> Perhaps a good example is
> http://www.php.net/manual/en/
>
> But this is a lot of work to set up. I'd rather take small
> steps. I do plan to look into phpbb as an alternative to
> bazookaboard*, but not today, and probably not tomorrow. So if
> things proceed without me, so be it.
>
> Jon
>
> *I remember rejecting phpbb once, but I sort of gave myself 30
> minutes to install something, not wanting to spend more time than
> that. Bazookaboard met that test, and nothing else did. But I could
> raise the cutoff.
>
> --
> Jonathan Baron, Professor of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania
> Home page: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~baron R page:
> http://finzi.psych.upenn.edu/
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list
> https://www.stat.math.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help

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