The suggestions of Tom (posting guide) and Andy (Eric Raymond's "How To Ask 
Questions The Smart Way") are both good.  Perhaps a good place to put an 
actual posting guide and a link to Raymond's page would be at the page 
pointed to by the link at the bottom of every posting to R-help (ie 
https://www.stat.math.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help).  I'm pretty sure 
that most people who are discouraged from posting for fear of being scolded 
would be willing to read at least that page.  And currently there are not 
many guidelines for posting on either that page or on the "General 
Instructions" page it has a link to.

Since these things happen only if some starts them, I'll post the raw 
beginnings of a posting guide by the end of the week (that is if there are 
no objections and no-one else beats me to it).

On a related note, one of the few guidelines that is under the "General 
Instructions" seems to be potentially misleading to those who fail to 
understand the distinction between "R developers" and "package maintainers" 
(which is probably most beginners):

>It is recommended that you send mail to r-help (or r-devel if appropriate) 
>rather than only to the R developers (who are also subscribed to the list, 
>of course). This may save them precious time they can use for constantly 
>improving R, and will typically also result in much quicker feedback for 
>yourself.

(I say this seems misleading because I've seen quite a few times, in 
response to a post about a problem with a package, people told that they 
should have contacted the package maintainer first.)

-- Tony Plate

At Wednesday 07:26 PM 12/17/2003 -0500, Liaw, Andy wrote:
> > From: 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
>
>Please see Eric Raymond's "How To Ask Questions The Smart Way"
>(http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html).
>
>(One of these days I shall take up Martin's suggestion and write an entry
>for R-FAQ pointing to it.  The problem is getting people to actually read
>the FAQ, let alone links in the FAQ...)
>
>Best,
>Andy
>
>
>
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Tony Plate   tplate@acm.org

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