[R] R-help mailing list activity / R-not-help?

Mon Jan 25 20:45:15 CET 2016

I disagree, and would argue that fails to take a systemic view of this
kind of behaviour.

If individual commentators are acerbic and are only privately
reprimanded, from the perspective of everyone else it looks like the
acerbic reply was A-OK. Someone said something unnecessarily hostile
and the response was...nada. That creates an environment where there
are no clear examples of what crosses a line and no clear expectation
that moderation is even a thing that happens. Indeed, I was shocked to
discover this list _was_ moderated precisely because all I see is
people being mean and nothing much else happening.

I would much rather a system where there is some sort of public
notice. It doesn't have to be identifying. Just "after a couple of
replies that did not follow our guidelines I have put some members of
this list on moderation, meaning that they must have their posts
cleared before being sent out. A reminder that we have certain
standards here and etc etc etc"

On 25 January 2016 at 12:50, Duncan Murdoch <murdoch.duncan at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 25/01/2016 12:35 PM, John Sorkin wrote:
>>
>> When we read acerbic replies we should remind the poster to reply in a
>> more moderate tone.
>
> As long as you do this in private, not on the list, I wouldn't object.  (I'd
> hope I wouldn't even know about it.)  Doing it on the list is more likely to
> lead to flame wars than to improved behaviour.
>
> As others have suggested, if you think someone has been mistreated, then the
> public remedy should be to treat them well by giving a better answer
> yourself.
>
> Duncan Murdoch
>
>>   On the other hand  noting that the list is not intended to be a source
>> of answers to home work questions is 100% appropriate. This philosophy is
>> intended both to keep the list from being flooded with questions and to make
>> sure that no student has an unfair advantage.
>> John
>>
>> > John David Sorkin M.D., Ph.D.
>> > Professor of Medicine
>> > Chief, Biostatistics and Informatics
>> > University of Maryland School of Medicine Division of Gerontology and
>> > Geriatric Medicine
>> > Baltimore VA Medical Center
>> > 10 North Greene Street
>> > GRECC (BT/18/GR)
>> > Baltimore, MD 21201-1524
>> > (Phone) 410-605-7119
>> > (Fax) 410-605-7913 (Please call phone number above prior to faxing)
>>
>>
>> > On Jan 25, 2016, at 12:17 PM, Ted Harding <Ted.Harding at wlandres.net>
>> > wrote:
>> >
>> > My feelings exactly! (And since quite some time ago).
>> > Ted.
>> >
>> >> On 25-Jan-2016 12:23:16 Fowler, Mark wrote:
>> >> I'm glad to see the issue of negative feedback addressed. I can
>> >> especially
>> >> relate to the 'cringe' feeling when reading some authoritarian backhand
>> >> to a
>> >> new user. We do see a number of obviously inappropriate or overly lazy
>> >> postings, but I encounter far more postings where I don't feel
>> >> competent to
>> >> judge their merit. It might be better to simply disregard a posting one
>> >> does
>> >> not like for some reason. It might also be worthwhile to actively
>> >> counter
>> >> negative feedback when we experience that 'cringing' moment. I'm not
>> >> thinking
>> >> to foster contention, but simply to provide some tangible reassurance
>> >> to new
>> >> users, and not just the ones invoking the negative feedback, that a
>> >> particular respondent may not represent the perspective of the list.
>> >>
>> >> -----Original Message-----
>> >> From: R-help [mailto:r-help-bounces at r-project.org] On Behalf Of Michael
>> >> Friendly
>> >> Sent: January 24, 2016 5:43 PM
>> >> To: Jean-Luc Dupouey; r-help at r-project.org
>> >> Subject: Re: [R] R-help mailing list activity / R-not-help?
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>> On 1/23/2016 7:28 AM, Jean-Luc Dupouey wrote:
>> >>> Dear members,
>> >>>
>> >>> Not a technical question:
>> >> But one worth raising...
>> >>>
>> >>> The number of threads in this mailing list, following a long period of
>> >>> increase, has been regularly and strongly decreasing since 2010,
>> >>> passing from more than 40K threads to less than 11K threads last year.
>> >>> The trend is similar for most of the "ancient" mailing lists of the
>> >>> R-project.
>> >> [snip ...]
>> >>>
>> >>> I hope it is the wright place to ask this question. Thanks in advance,
>> >>
>> >> In addition to the other replies, there is another trend I've seen that
>> >> has
>> >> actively worked to suppress discussion on R-help and move it elsewhere.
>> >> The
>> >> general things:
>> >> - R-help was too unwieldy and so it was a good idea to hive-off
>> >> specialized
>> >> topics to various sub lists, R-SIG-Mac, R-SIG-Geo, etc.
>> >> - Many people posted badly-formed questions to R-help, and so it was a
>> >> good
>> >> idea to develop and refer to the posting guide to mitigate the number
>> >> of
>> >> purely junk postings.
>> >>
>> >> <rant>
>> >> Yet, the trend I've seen is one of increasing **R-not-help**, in that
>> >> there
>> >> are many posts, often by new R users who get replies that not
>> >> infrequently
>> >> range from just mildly off-putting to actively hostile:
>> >>
>> >> - Is this homework? We don't do homework (sometimes false alarms, where
>> >> the
>> >> OP has to reply to say it is not)
>> >> - Didn't you bother to do your homework, RTFM, or Google?
>> >> - This is off-topic because XXX (e.g., it is not strictly an R
>> >> programming
>> >> question).
>> >> - You asked about doing XXX, but this is a stupid thing to want to do.
>> >> - Don't ask here; you need to talk to a statistical consultant.
>> >>
>> >> I find this sad in a public mailing list sent to all R-help subscribers
>> >> and I
>> >> sometimes cringe when I read replies to people who were actually trying
>> >> to
>> >> get help with some R-related problem, but expressed it badly, didn't
>> >> know
>> >> exactly what to ask for, or how to format it, or somehow motivated a
>> >> frequent-replier to publicly dis the OP.
>> >>
>> >> On the other hand, I still see a spirit of great generosity among some
>> >> people
>> >> who frequently reply to R-help, taking a possibly badly posed or
>> >> ill-formatted question, and going to some lengths to provide a a
>> >> helpful
>> >> answer of some sort.  I applaud those who take the time and effort to
>> >> do
>> >> this.
>> >>
>> >> I use R in a number of my courses, and used to advise students to post
>> >> to
>> >> R-help for general programming questions (not just homework) they
>> >> couldn't
>> >> solve. I don't do this any more, because several of them reported a
>> >> negative
>> >> experience.
>> >>
>> >> In contrast, in the Stackexchange model, there are numerous sublists
>> >> cross-classified by their tags.  If I have a specific knitr, ggplot2,
>> >> LaTeX,
>> >> or statistical modeling question, I'm now more likely to post it there,
>> >> and
>> >> the worst that can happen is that no one "upvotes" it or someone
>> >> (helpfully)
>> >> marks it as a duplicate of a similar question.
>> >> But comments there are not propagated to all subscribers, and those who
>> >> reply
>> >> helpfully, can see their solutions accepted or not, or commented on in
>> >> that
>> >> specific topic.
>> >>
>> >> Perhaps one solution would be to create a new "R-not-help" list where,
>> >> as in
>> >> a Monty Python skit, people could be directed there to be insulted and
>> >> all
>> >> these unhelpful replies could be sent.
>> >>
>> >> A milder alternative is to encourage some R-help subscribers to click
>> >> the
>> >> "Don't send" or "Save" button and think better of their replies.
>> >> </rant>
>> >>
>> >> --
>> >> Michael Friendly     Email: friendly AT yorku DOT ca
>> >> Professor, Psychology Dept. & Chair, Quantitative Methods
>> >> York University      Voice: 416 736-2100 x66249 Fax: 416 736-5814
>> >> 4700 Keele Street    Web:   http://www.datavis.ca
>> >> Toronto, ONT  M3J 1P3 CANADA
>> >
>> > -------------------------------------------------
>> > E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding at wlandres.net>
>> > Date: 25-Jan-2016  Time: 17:14:06
>> > This message was sent by XFMail
>> >
>> > ______________________________________________
>> > R-help at r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see
>> > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
>> > PLEASE do read the posting guide
>> > http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
>> > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>>
>> Confidentiality Statement:
>> This email message, including any attachments, is for ...{{dropped:7}}
>
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.

-- 
Oliver Keyes
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