[R-wiki] Beginner - Intermediate - Advanced indicator

Fri Jan 27 16:04:10 CET 2006

Gabor Grothendieck wrote:
> Who puts these on the page?  I would be concerned that pages
> are mislabelled and also there is some question about whether
> this is a valid categorization in the first place.

In my mind, author(s) label their pages themselve. This is just a visual 
mark to help spot what is interesting for you (for instance, if you're a 
beginner, just skip pages or sections labelled as "advanced")! It is 
also optional, and there is no way to filter pages according to this 
criterion (in the search page). I don't want to move this towards a 
complex mechanism (vote - page ranking - access statistics, etc...).
Best,

Philippe Grosjean

> Amazon allows one to comment on reviewers indicating whether the
> review was useful to them or not but if most pages wind up being useful
> then a categorization such as this may be irrelevant or not useful.
> 
> One alternative, if its technically feasible, would be to mark how
> many times each page has been viewed and allow people to find
> out which have viewed the most.  The nice thing about that is that
> it is completely automated.   Or perhas such searching with
> google does roughly this automatically anyways.

It seems possible to derive such a feature from the 'stats' plugin. 
Also, note that in the search, pages are sorted in decreasing hit order, 
so this is partially fullfilled there.

However, I am against that kind of page ranking. Everybody knows that 
page ranking is biased as soon as you display statistics to the users 
(because they tend to visit most visited pages... and thus increase page 
ranking... of most visited pages)!!!

Best,

Philippe Grosjean

> On 1/27/06, Philippe Grosjean <phgrosjean at sciviews.org> wrote:
> 
>>Yes, I think also that the stars is too much related with the rating of
>>the page in term of quality (because it is widely used that way in many
>>web sites).
>>
>>Regarding the bar, that was my first trial: a bar with a third being
>>green, another third being orange and the last third being red for the
>>three levels. To switch off a part of it, I draw it in gray. However,
>>the result was graphically very poor, and it was even less explicit than
>>the little user icons currently proposed.
>>
>>Otherwise, it is certain that putting "Difficulty:" in front of the
>>icons would be more explicit, as well as a key in the start page. I try
>>this... There is now an explanation in the start page + a "Difficulty:"
>>added to
>>http://www.sciviews.org/_rgui/wiki/doku.php?id=beginners:surprises:emptysetfuncs.
>>I find the later one rather ennoying (the purpose of the icons is to
>>spot the skill level visually very rapidly,.. so users *have* to
>>understand their meaning anyway, and then, it is clear for them that it
>>relates to the "difficulty" of the page...).
>>
>>For the three levels, I don't think it is too detailled if you define
>>them like that:
>>
>>- beginner is really, really basic stuff (something that looks like
>>trivial and uninteresting for people that use R for a little time...
>>except if "intermediate" is also "ON").
>>
>>- intermediate is dedicated to most R users.
>>
>>- advanced is reserved for expert tricks, that is something 95% of R
>>users don't need at all for doing they job.
>>
>>With this definition of "beginner" - "intermediate" - "advanced", I
>>think it is more evident why this level of details is useful.
>>
>>Perhaps the terms are not adequate.
>>- I like "beginner" because it clearly state that the stuff there is not
>>of much interest for someone who already played a little bit with R.
>>
>>- "intermediate" is definitely not a good term for "usual users" [Erk!
>>Do usual users use to use R usually? ;-)] ... but I don't find a better one.
>>
>>- "advanced" could perhaps be replaced by "expert" to insist that it
>>really relate to something very, very difficult ?
>>
>>Best,
>>
>>Philippe Grosjean
>>
>>
>>Gavin Simpson wrote:
>>
>>>On Fri, 2006-01-27 at 21:47 +1100, paul sorenson wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>What about a star rating 1-5?
>>>
>>>
>>>I was thinking the same thing, but then I thought that stars convey some
>>>measure of quality, which is not what is intended.
>>>
>>>My main concern with the current icon is that there is no context, it is
>>>not immediately apparent what it refers to without resorting to the
>>>syntax page.
>>>
>>>This definitely needs a title or prefix text, something like
>>>"Difficulty".
>>>
>>>How about a simple bar with three or more levels of difficulty indicated
>>>by the length of the bar?
>>>
>>>Do we also need the fine-grained options of marking a page as
>>>intermediate/advanced but not for beginners? Should such pages be marked
>>>advanced (or intermediate) difficulty and not worry about trying to
>>>exclude (wrong word) beginners?
>>>
>>>G
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>Philippe Grosjean wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>Hello,
>>>>>
>>>>>Although the R Wiki site would primarily be dedicated to beginners,
>>>>>there is already, and there will be in the future several pages dealing
>>>>>with more advanced topics.
>>>>>
>>>>>In order to spot this, I propose little icons easy to integrate in the
>>>>>pages (for instance :--+: means something dedicated exclusively to
>>>>>experts, see: "Smileys & other icons in
>>>>>http://www.sciviews.org/_rgui/wiki/doku.php?id=wiki:syntax).
>>>>>
>>>>>You can see examples of using these indicators at:
>>>>>http://www.sciviews.org/_rgui/wiki/doku.php?id=rtips:data:import
>>>>>and
>>>>>http://www.sciviews.org/_rgui/wiki/doku.php?id=beginners:surprises:emptysetfuncs
>>>>>for instance.
>>>>>
>>>>>What do you think about it? Personnally, I found them nice when I did
>>>>>draw the icons, but they look a little "toyish" once integrated in the
>>>>>Wiki pages. Does someone have a better idea to help spotting items
>>>>>related to each user's skill?
>>>>>
>>>>>Best,
>>>>>
>>>>>Philippe Grosjean
>>>>>--
>>>>>..............................................<°}))><........
>>>>> ) ) ) ) )
>>>>>( ( ( ( (    Prof. Philippe Grosjean
>>>>> ) ) ) ) )
>>>>>( ( ( ( (    Numerical Ecology of Aquatic Systems
>>>>> ) ) ) ) )   Mons-Hainaut University, Pentagone (3D08)
>>>>>( ( ( ( (    Academie Universitaire Wallonie-Bruxelles
>>>>> ) ) ) ) )   8, av du Champ de Mars, 7000 Mons, Belgium
>>>>>( ( ( ( (
>>>>> ) ) ) ) )   phone: + 32.65.37.34.97, fax: + 32.65.37.30.54
>>>>>( ( ( ( (    email: Philippe.Grosjean at umh.ac.be
>>>>> ) ) ) ) )
>>>>>( ( ( ( (    web:   http://www.umh.ac.be/~econum
>>>>> ) ) ) ) )          http://www.sciviews.org
>>>>>( ( ( ( (
>>>>>..............................................................
>>>>>
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