[R] draft of posting guide

[Andrew C. Ward]

With respect to 'tone' and 'friendliness', perhaps all that is
meant or needed is that people be polite and respectful. There
is never any need for being rude, either from the asker of
questions or from the answerer. I shake my head as often at
rude answers as I do at ill-considered questions.


Regards,

Andrew C. Ward

CAPE Centre
Department of Chemical Engineering
The University of Queensland
Brisbane Qld 4072 Australia



On Tuesday, December 23, 2003 3:55 AM, Rolf Turner 
[SMTP:rolf at math.unb.ca] wrote:
> This is in response to Gabor Grothendieck's commentary on Tony
> Plate's draft guidelines for question-askers, which was posted
> a
> couple of days ago.
>
> I disagree, from mildly to vehemently with just about 
everything
> in
> Grothendieck's posting.  E.g. the ``tone'' of the draft should
> not
> be ``friendlier''.  The purpose of the guidelines is to
> encourage
> the asking of well-thought out questions and discourage the
> asking
> of stupid ones.  This politically correct ``don't damage their
> self esteem attitude'' has no place in the r-help list.
>
> A propos of bugs, for the uneducated beginner to assert that
> there is
> a ``bug'' in software designed by some of the best and most
> knowledgeable minds in the discipline, when the software works
> as
> documented, is the height of presumptuous arrogance.
>
> The guide is and should be a guide for the question-askers.
>  The
> responders who are voluntarily giving of their time and (often
> deep)
> experise need not be constrained.  The R package and this help
> list
> are free services provided voluntarily by some great people.
>  If
> someone asks a stupid question and dislikes being told so in so
> many
> words, well, that person is free to take his or her business
> elsewhere.
>
> The one point I ***agree*** with is that questions about
> statistical
> methodology should not be discouraged in any way, even if they
> are
> not directly R-related.  There is always some sort of
> relationship,
> such questions are interesting, and there is almost always some
> insight to be gained by thinking about them in an R context.
>
> 				cheers,
>
> 					Rolf Turner
>
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