Hello David,

 

                I am terribly sorry.  I could never imagine that my naive
questions could offend an experienced  R-user such as you so much that he
would publicly declare that he is no longer going to help me in the future!
Wow; I did not know that using R-Help like this is a cult like activity. 

 

You helped me a lot so far. Thank you. I am really grateful to you and
people like you who use their time to answers our questions.  All I was
hoping with my questions was to check if there are alternative ways to
utilize R-Help. I never intended to criticize this text based R-Help system
or promote instead something else.   

 

                I do not know how long you have, but I have been using text
based email/lists etc. since the VAX days of 70s and 80s. From mainframe to
personal OSs, in those times,  the text based correspondence was the only
media to use.  Even in late 90s we wrote our scientific papers using text
formatting languages such as Latex. But a lot changed since then. I am not a
computer scientist, just an educated user. From a user perspective, the
current windows based technologies provide a lot for more effective
communication tools than existed in those good old days. I see many posts in
R-Help every day in which people struggle to explain plots, math symbols, or
posts with data tables with messed up columns, important points lost in text
describing something that could have been described with one picture or with
a formula instead  etc. etc.. So  why do we limit ourselves to just plain
text as a very limited information medium? Why can't we use a richer format
in which some people can still use bare text but others who would enjoy the
capabilities offered by such systems. Such an environment could provide
means to format questions and answers more effectively.   So the issue is
not "if I do not like this format I can post my questions/answers somewhere
else" ( which is not a solution to problems I mentioned), but rather, "can
we be more effective in helping each other?".  I, as a newbie, and many
others like me, are grateful that you and many like you as the experienced
R-Users are helping us to learn the complexities of R. This is wonderful.
But it is a totally voluntary act. I post a question, you answer it, I am
grateful. I prefer using formatted text to post my questions for
effectiveness, you like the simplicity of text in your answers. That's also
fine. Nobody is forcing anybody to choose this or that method. So asking for
an alternative is not asking a privileged position as you have remarked. It
is just asking "can we use a format that satisfies most of us not just
some".  The "we" in here could be "text only lovers" or "users  who might
like to use some other media that gives more but allows the use of little
for others as well".  

 

                I read almost all the posts daily to educate myself contrary
to your statement. And actually I learned more by reading other's posts than
the ones I posted. Because I am a beginner, a novice, I need your and many
others' help to learn R more efficiently and quickly. And as you might have
noticed, I start my posts, always with a salutation, then use formatted
paragraphs to convey my questions while paying attention to tabs, numbered
indents, commas, dots  etc. etc. I possibly spend more time to ask a
question than you do for answering. On top of all this, English is not my
mother's language so I have to read each word I use twice with the hope that
my sentences will be understood. But none of this extra work bothers me.
What bothers me are the assumptions in the statements like  "we do not agree
with HTML",  that you are the "we", and in  that  "you are welcome to take
your questions elsewhere", again, you are the "host" showing me the way.


 

                On the issue of receiving many emails and on how to deal
with them. I believe (i.e. may or may not be the opinion of others, so I use
this term deliberately) a website base R-help will avoid hundreds of users
receiving the same hundreds of emails every day clogging the internet. So,
rather than tens of thousands of emails circulating every day, only hundreds
will and occupy only in one place and in a smaller capacity rather than
hundreds of computers wasting many MBs of storage space.  A site like this
also can offer searching capabilities, posts that can be grouped under
special topics such as Statistics in R, Plotting, Formatting, Programming, R
Installation etc. etc.an make our life a lot easier. Yes, you can use a
special website to do R only searches.  It exists. But isn't it simpler to
do this also on R-Help.org?  Furthermore, every day I have to check my spam
folder for R-Help posts since my email program (Outlook 2010) puts some of
the posts in the junk folder. Somebody suggested "Stackoverflow" problems as
well. These could all be avoided. How about hypertext links in text based
posts? I could just click on them to achieve the intent rather than copying
the link which in general is broken on the second line to a browser.  And if
the site offers a posting medium ( I do not care what it is) in which I can
format my posts for better impact such that the answerers can understand
easily, and be able to attach pictures so that the numbers of words I use
would be reduced 1000 times, and where my typos would be corrected, etc.
etc. And such a site will not limit anybody just to stick to plain text. 

 

                Many R-Help users  answered the questions I posted on this
topic with calm. I hope that I did not insult the feelings of some of you on
this very "sensitive" issue.  I will continue to use this site to get help
and eventually to give help.  I am very grateful to all  who answered many
of my questions how stupid or sensitive they were.

 

               Humbly yours.

 

-----Original Message-----

From: David Winsemius [mailto:dwinsemius@comcast.net] 

Sent: Wednesday, November 09, 2011 6:22 PM

To: Cem Girit

Cc: r-help@r-project.org

Subject: Re: [R] Web based R-help not a list

 

 

On Nov 9, 2011, at 5:38 PM, Cem Girit wrote:

 

> Hello,

> 

>                Is there a web version of this R-Help user group (such 

> as the ones under Google Groups) such tha

 

There is Nabble. It's not going to make you any friends unless you learn to
post in plain text AND to include context  ... too often not done by Nabble
users. Gmane is also a possible website that can mirror rhelp.

> 

> 1.       I can do a search on any topic over thousands of posts on R  

> easily

> and effectively

 

Yes, several. Have you read the information page and the posting guide yet?

 

> 

> 2.       My mailbox do not overflow with emails so that I do not  

> need to

> edit it every day

 

Yes. You were offered an option to get a digest when you signed up.

 

> 

> 3.       I can arrange to receive only the responses to my posts

> automatically

 

Most people reply to both the poster and the the list, but there is no  

enforcement mechanism. Your unwillingness to do any extra work to  

educate yourself is duly noted. Speaking only for myself, I will NOT  

respond to any of your further posts because of your demonstrated  

privileged attitude. It would not bother me if other regular readers  

followed my example.

> 

> 4.       The content of the post might be better formatted for more

> information other than just the text (we now have HTML!)

 

We do not agree that HTML is a better format. You are welcome to take  

your questions elsewhere if plain text is not acceptable.

> 

> 5.       I can attach pictures to my posts for questions related to  

> plots,

> results etc. be quick and effective rather than just links to other  

> sites

 

.pdf and .txt files are acceptable attachments.

 

> 

> 

>             [[alternative HTML version deleted]]

 

I say again:  You are welcome to take your questions elsewhere if  

plain text is not acceptable.

 

 

-- 

David Winsemius, MD

West Hartford, CT


	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]

