Hi! Sorry. Please take my last mail to the account that it was monday and I had two "hard" birthday party's during the weekend. Probably all this caused the problem to express that the style of the "mailing list guide" shocked me. I asked this morning such a "stupid"(if you know the answer) question. But to me, it was a very important question and to get the answer was it too. I felt scared. I hope that this are not the intention of that guide. I cooled down now and therefore give me a chance to explain why that user guide scares me. As I said, the guide had given me the feeling that someone wants to censor me. Especially the first section of the Posting Guide: "How to ask good questions that prompt useful answers" does this. The guide starts with talking mainly about what you should not, or what you must not do. Some examples come quite late and after the "you must not cross fences, you must not..." introduction, I simply stopped to read. To much regulation kills spontaneity. Lack of spontaneity kills creativity, It cant be!, is what I thought. Now I had read the reminder of the Posting guide. What I am missing are a short introduction answering such questions: What are the intention of this guide? What are the problems it is going to address? I think that some hints to people that answer would not harm! The cases that someone does not get an answer are seldom. Often there are tens of answers to question. I have the impression that there are a COMPETITION for the best solution. I think that most of the beginners can live with a working solution, even if it is not the best one. If I ask a question than its because I want to get my work done and not to test the mailing list participants.This may make the workload smaller and may encourage less experienced R user to try to give answers. Not to take a questions as an EXAMINATION situation can make it also less aching or painfull if the question are not as precise as "wished". By changing this attitude of examiner,student, many of the points in this guide will be superfluous! Why the guide does NOT mention in one word that posting questions on the mailing list has also some DISADVANTAGES? e.g. Answers written in haste, bad temper (see my answer, sorry again), or answers two days later. (And if you know the right place too look you will get the answer immediately.) I even do not think the mailing list should be the last place where you are allowed to look for help. Simple trying to formulate the question to post it on the list can be helpfull. Why to make it so difficult to someone to try it? I personally find it very good if the same thing is asked ten different times in 3 different ways. This increases the probability that I will find a answer to my problem searching the mailing list. Its also true that many questions can be answered with a short "?command". But this does not make it superfluous. At last I like to mention one important source of help which are missing in the posting guide, and which I forgot these days by myself: R CMD -help and R --help are also very important help sources! If I had remembered it yesterday morning I would not have to ask about. But was it really so bad that I had? I hope that this email will be helpfull. Merry Christmass. Sincerely. Eryk
draft of posting guide. Sorry.
3 messages · Wolski, A.J. Rossini, Patrick Connolly
A few comments... Eryk Wolski <wolski at molgen.mpg.de> writes:
As I said, the guide had given me the feeling that someone wants to censor me. Especially the first section of the Posting Guide: "How to ask good questions that prompt useful answers" does this. The guide starts with talking mainly about what you should not, or what you must not do. Some examples come quite late and after the "you must not cross fences, you must not..." introduction, I simply stopped to read. To much regulation kills spontaneity. Lack of spontaneity kills creativity, It cant be!, is what I thought. Now I had read the reminder of the Posting guide.
There is no real regulation with the guide. It's a guide, and you are free to use it (hopefully to your advantage) or ignore it (hopefully, not to your disadvantage). But you never know. It's sort of like Russian Roulette. I can guide you against it, but you still might play...
What I am missing are a short introduction answering such questions: What are the intention of this guide? What are the problems it is going to address?
Ideally, it provides a way to think through solutions to problems that are "obvious", leaving the mailing list to those which are "interesting". All words in quotes are contextually defined, of course.
I think that some hints to people that answer would not harm! The cases that someone does not get an answer are seldom. Often there are tens of answers to question. I have the impression that there are a COMPETITION for the best solution. I think that most of the beginners can live with a working solution, even if it is not the best one. If I ask a question than its because I want to get my work done and not to test the mailing list participants.This may make the workload smaller and may encourage less experienced R user to try to give answers. Not to take a questions as an EXAMINATION situation can make it also less aching or painfull if the question are not as precise as "wished". By changing this attitude of examiner,student, many of the points in this guide will be superfluous!
Some solutions are good, others are bad. Solutions which exist in the documentation are generally good -- it is rare (in my experience, probably 8 years of using R) that they are wrong.
Why the guide does NOT mention in one word that posting questions on the mailing list has also some DISADVANTAGES? e.g. Answers written in haste, bad temper (see my answer, sorry again), or answers two days later. (And if you know the right place too look you will get the answer immediately.)
Answers might not even be correct. That is the argument against moving from this list to another, unless the people that really know the answer move as well.
I even do not think the mailing list should be the last place where you are allowed to look for help. Simple trying to formulate the question to post it on the list can be helpfull. Why to make it so difficult to someone to try it?
You can. However, spending 5-10 minutes with the documentation sources will sometimes (not always) solve the problem. Sometimes.
I personally find it very good if the same thing is asked ten different times in 3 different ways. This increases the probability that I will find a answer to my problem searching the mailing list. Its also true that many questions can be answered with a short "?command". But this does not make it superfluous.
It does, actually. "help.search()" is your friend. Read Eric's guide to asking questions again. Initial stupid questions make it hard to fix your reputation. People have overcome reputations for initial stupidity, but it is sometimes much easier just to not be stupid in the first place. Most of the people that understand R can be classified as "hackers", using Eric's jargon. Note that I would never claim to be one of them. I realize that figuring out whether the question is stupid can be tough for a beginner. However, the amount (and quality) of (freely-available, at least for the cost of download, which might not be free) documentation for R is simply incredible. The closest that I've seen, for freely available languages, is Python, for actual quality of documentation. And with R, most of the functions have examples; plus, actual source code is usually easier to come by. Sure, not everyone is a code hound. But it's a great skill to pick up, since the answers are all there. best, -tony
rossini at u.washington.edu http://www.analytics.washington.edu/ Biomedical and Health Informatics University of Washington Biostatistics, SCHARP/HVTN Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center UW (Tu/Th/F): 206-616-7630 FAX=206-543-3461 | Voicemail is unreliable FHCRC (M/W): 206-667-7025 FAX=206-667-4812 | use Email CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This e-mail message and any attachme...{{dropped}}
On Tue, 23-Dec-2003 at 05:31AM +0100, Eryk Wolski wrote:
[....] |> I cooled down now and therefore give me a chance to explain why |> that user guide scares me. A few comments: |> As I said, the guide had given me the feeling that someone wants to |> censor me. You mean you reacted in a way that gave you that feeling. Let's get cause and effect straight. |> Especially the first section of the Posting Guide: "How to ask good |> questions that prompt useful answers" does this. The guide starts |> with talking mainly about what you should not, or what you must not |> do. If I want something to work, I take notice of what the suppliers suggest is a good way to get it to work. I never take such suggestions as being prescriptive. Once I know more about it, I feel free to disregard any of them. Posters can ignore anything in the guide if they so wish. Robust debate gets the brain working, but some feathers might get ruffled in the process. |> At last I like to mention one important source of help which are missing |> in the posting guide, and which I forgot these days by myself: R CMD -help |> and R --help are also very important help sources! If I had remembered it A good suggestion.
Patrick Connolly HortResearch Mt Albert Auckland New Zealand Ph: +64-9 815 4200 x 7188 ~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~ I have the world`s largest collection of seashells. I keep it on all the beaches of the world ... Perhaps you`ve seen it. ---Steven Wright ~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~