[R-wiki] Beginner - Intermediate - Advanced... new attempt

Sun Jan 29 19:47:34 CET 2006

One other point.  In the case that sections are largely converted
portions of someone else's work their name should somehow appear
more prominently in order to give them full credit.  Perhaps in the
link name itself.

On 1/29/06, Gabor Grothendieck <ggrothendieck at gmail.com> wrote:
> Overall these are my impressions:
>
> - the technical aspects of the wiki are impressive
>
> - I don't agree that a wiki is necessarily disorganized as the examples below
> which I previously posted and repeat at the end show.  The current
> confusing organization needs to be redone and using one of them as a model
> would be one way since they are seem reasonably well done.
>
> - the beginner/intermediate/expert are not only not useful, but actually
> detract by providing clutter.  I don't think its adequate just to say not to
> use them if you don't like them.  I don't think they should be an
> organizing principile of the wiki.
>
>  Tcl - http://mini.net/tcl/
>       - this one has over 1000 pages
>
>  Common Lisp - http://www.cliki.net/index
>
>  PHP - http://www.php.net/manual/en/
>        - not sure what to call this but users can add comments to end
> of each page.
>
>  Lua - http://lua-users.org/wiki/
>
> On 1/29/06, Philippe Grosjean <phgrosjean at sciviews.org> wrote:
> > Please, please, consider this:
> >
> > **Stop thinking you could ever control the structure of a Wiki!**
> >
> > By the way it is working (everybody can add pages everywhere), it is
> > going to be unstructured, by nature!
> >
> > Also, stop thinking that the Wiki can be restricted to a given use:
> > again, you don't control what people add to it. So, it is not reasonable
> > to think that only material useful for beginners will be added, for
> > instance.
> >
> > So, without a new idea about how to tag material regarding the skill of
> > the user, the Wiki is going to suffer the same problem as does the
> > current R online help: beginners have problems to find essential stuff,
> > because it is not clearly separated from the rest.
> >
> > Currently, there are two mechanism I think about to help make a distinction:
> >
> > 1) the novice/user/expert tag. I think that, now, it is easy enough:
> > everything is at user level, except:
> >
> >   - trivial things for someone that can install, start and run at least
> > basic analyses in R. This material is clearly meant to help novices to
> > start using R... and it should be tagged as such, so that other users
> > can rapidly skip these pages (when they see the icon, thus, before
> > reading anything).
> >
> >   - tricky stuff that a "normal" user does not really need to work with
> > R, but that can be interesting for experts, or people willing to become
> > experts (and thus, try to know a little bit more about the internals, or
> > details about R). This material should be tagged as "expert", so that
> > the other readers can skip these pages/sections and would not feel
> > stupid just because they don't understand what is there.
> >
> > A final word: it is the author that is responsible for the tag on his
> > page, and the tag is an optional feature (Gabor: if you don't like it,
> > or still do not know how to rate material,... just don't use it, right?)
> >
> > 2) The second mechanism is the possibility to write custom,
> > well-organized, table-of-content that sort material in the wiki. Someone
> > could, for instance, decide to write a TOC for a biologist beginning
> > using R from a Systat background (something really specific thus), and
> > he could collect together the material he thinks is useful for such a
> > reader (and the skill tag on the pages would help also to spot where
> > material for beginners is located). Such TOCs are, indeed, similar to
> > 'Task Views' on CRAN, in a way.
> >
> > Of course, I am open to any other *positive* and *realistic* proposition
> > to help organize material in the Wiki, but I suggest you look at other
> > Wikis, and perhaps also, you start making you own personal Wiki before
> > commenting, because I feel that a couple of negative comments originate
> > from people that do not fully understand what a Wiki really is.
> > Best,
> >
> > Philippe Grosjean
> >
> > Damian Betebenner wrote:
> > > I agree that the categorization into distinct categories is futile. I think that there are much
> > > more meaningful characterizations of the content that can be made that will help the user
> > > navigate its contents.
> > >
> > > The goal in designing the Wiki, I think, is to allow the user to zero in on what they're
> > > interested in as quickly as possible. Someone mentioned recently on the list-serv
> > > that the list-serv archives are not ideally structured for someone wishing to get
> > > a question answered. Thus, the same questions are asked over and over.
> > >
> > > The R language already comes with a "dictonary" like structure for its commands. However,
> > > when you aren't exactly sure what command you need, its tough to know what command
> > > to look at.
> > >
> > > As a coder, often the most useful thing to me is a well done example. Some of the examples
> > > in the R command help are wonderful, but I often discover them inadvertantly. What
> > > I will use the Wiki primarily for it to examine really nice examples that people add. That
> > > will lead me to examine the syntax more carefully which will likely in turn lead me to other
> > > examples. It's this back and forth that is the power of hypertext. A Wiki strength is its
> > > ability to present code alongside graphics and text annotation.
> > >
> > > Thus, my recommendation is that a navigation layout be thought up that (in addition to
> > > other functionality) allows the user to quickly procced to examine certain types of
> > > examples (e.g., string manipulation, categorical data analysis, etc.). I don't know if this could
> > > be faciliated using some  sort of metadata, but being able to go back and forth between
> > > examples and the commands that make up the examples seems most useful.
> > >
> > > Damian
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >  |  On Sat, 28 Jan 2006 10:12:39 -0500
> > >  |  Gabor Grothendieck <ggrothendieck at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > >>>>I must say I find this entire beginner/intermediate/expert baffling.
> > >>>>I have no idea what goes where and to me its an categorization
> > >>>>that is difficult to get right and probably not a good idea.  I would
> > >>>>just omit the whole thing.  If someone can point to another
> > >>>>language that has used such a categorization successfully
> > >>>>I would be willing to modify this viewpoint but I know of none.
> > >>>>I think more useful categorizations have already
> > >>>>been discussed.
> > >>>>
> > >>>>On 1/28/06, Philippe Grosjean <phgrosjean at sciviews.org> wrote:
> > >>>>
> > >>>>>Hello,
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>>Following the previous discussion about the icons with three users (some
> > >>>>>people did not like them and found them not very clear nor informative
> > >>>>>enough), I make a second trial.
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>>This time, there are still three skill levels ("novice", "user" and
> > >>>>>"expert"), but no possible mixture (like "novice" + "user", excluding
> > >>>>>"expert", for instance).
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>>I also considered Tont Plate's suggestion of an explicit text, but I
> > >>>>>integrate this text in the icon (I also took Ben Bolker's suggestion to
> > >>>>>use road signs ;-).
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>>I designed three series of icons:
> > >>>>>1) With text for top of page,
> > >>>>>2) Big icon without text, for sections on the page and
> > >>>>>3) small icons without text, to rate with discrete icons lists or table
> > >>>>>of content entries.
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>>The Wiki site is modified to use these icons, so, you can make your own
> > >>>>>idea more easily. Look for instance at:
> > >>>>>- http://www.sciviews.org/_rgui/wiki/doku.php?id=start for the explanation,
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>>- http://www.sciviews.org/_rgui/wiki/doku.php?id=rtips:data:import for
> > >>>>>the use in a page and,
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>>- http://www.sciviews.org/_rgui/wiki/doku.php?id=beginners:introduction
> > >>>>>for usage in a table of content.
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>>Once again, I am waiting for your valuable comments!
> > >>>>>Best,
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>>Philippe Grosjean
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>>_______________________________________________
> > >>>>>R-sig-wiki mailing list
> > >>>>>R-sig-wiki at r-project.org
> > >>>>>https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-wiki
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>
> > >>>>_______________________________________________
> > >>>>R-sig-wiki mailing list
> > >>>>R-sig-wiki at r-project.org
> > >>>>https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-wiki
> > >
> > >
> > > Damian Betebenner
> > > Educational Research, Measurement & Evaluation
> > > Lynch School of Education
> > > Boston College
> > > Chestnut Hill, MA 02467
> > >
> > > (617) 552 4491
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > R-sig-wiki mailing list
> > > R-sig-wiki at r-project.org
> > > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-wiki
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
>