[R] Course and book announcements on r-help

[Spencer Graves]

       While answering a question, I believe it's acceptable (even 
encouraged) to cite a relevant book, even if it's yours ;-)


       Spencer


On 3/14/2015 9:53 AM, Martin Maechler wrote:
>>>>>> John Kane <jrkrideau at inbox.com>
>>>>>>      on Fri, 13 Mar 2015 06:16:19 -0800 writes:
>      > I have the feeling that this was discussed 3-4 years ago
>      > and the overall opinion seems to be that if the course or
>      > book was relevant then it was acceptable on an occasional
>      > basis. No spamming-type or mass selling posts were.
>      > John Kane Kingston ON Canada
>
> Your feeling is pretty good.
> At the time -- and still today -- we did not want to impose
> rigid rules about this.
> As host and principal maintainer of the R-*@r-project.org
> mailing list, my current view is as follows:
>
> * Books:
>
>    Should typically *not* be announced on R-help for the
>    following reasons.
>
>    a) The R web page lists books which deal with R as a major theme.
>      (http://www.r-project.org/ sidebar 'Documentation' -> 'Books'
>         ==> http://www.r-project.org/doc/bib/R-books.html). All R
>      Core and some other R Foundation members can edit the
>      underlying *.bib source file in R-docs; historically 95% of
>      that work has been done by Kurt Hornik and Fritz Leisch.
>    b) Books just using R to solve a certain problem abound nowadays
>      and should defintely *not* be announced as globally as by
>      using R-help.
>
> * Course announcements:
>
>    You may announce a course "series" once if it's new *and*
>    globally accessible online.  All other courses should be
>    announced in local R user groups, or similar forums.
>
> -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
>
> And because it's the weekend:
>
> Motto:
>
>    We humans live much better with guidelines by responsibly applying good judgement.
>    It's only the (digital) machines that need strict unambigous rules.
>    Let the AI programmers deal with them and remain human ourselves!
>
>     (inspired by Haim Harari's thoughts in http://edge.org/response-detail/26056)
>
>
> Best regards,
> Martin Maechler, ETH Zurich and R Core
>
>
>      >> -----Original Message----- From:
>      >> wolfgang.viechtbauer at maastrichtuniversity.nl Sent: Fri,
>      >> 13 Mar 2015 10:26:04 +0100 To: r-help at r-project.org
>      >> Subject: [R] Course and book announcements on r-help
>      >>
>      >> Dear All,
>      >>
>      >> Just wondering: Is there any official policy on
>      >> announcing R-related courses and books on r-help?
>      >>
>      >> I didn't find anything on this in the posting guide, but
>      >> http://www.r-project.org/mail.html#instructions says that
>      >> r-help is, among other things, for "announcements (not
>      >> covered by 'R-announce' or 'R-packages', see
>      >> above)". That sounds a bit like this would cover courses
>      >> and books, but I am not sure. Obviously, R-announce is
>      >> not meant for that, as it is "for major announcements
>      >> about the development of R and the availability of new
>      >> code" and is to be used "for announcements mainly by the
>      >> R Core Development Team".
>      >>
>      >> I see the occasional course/book announcement, but it
>      >> seems to me that there are a lot more courses and books
>      >> out there compared to how many announcements there are
>      >> related to them on this mailing list. So, I am wondering
>      >> if such announcements are somewhat implicitly
>      >> discouraged.
>      >>
>      >> Best, Wolfgang
>      >>
>      >> --
>      >> Wolfgang Viechtbauer, Ph.D., Statistician Department of
>      >> Psychiatry and Psychology School for Mental Health and
>      >> Neuroscience Faculty of Health, Medicine, and Life
>      >> Sciences Maastricht University, P.O. Box 616 (VIJV1) 6200
>      >> MD Maastricht, The Netherlands +31 (43) 388-4170 |
>      >> http://www.wvbauer.com
>
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