[R-pkg-devel] package CatDataAnalysis

CRAN did not just ask for an expanded Description field.  They
instructed
"Tell the users what the datasets are about and what they contain so
they
can use them even when they haven't read your book".  AFAIK no CRAN
package
that goes with a book satisfies that.

On Sun, Jun 28, 2020 at 12:52 PM Max Turgeon <Max.Turgeon at umanitoba.ca>
wrote:

Fair enough. But CRAN is clearly asking for a more detailed

Description

field. I simply offered one suggestion for expanding it. Keep in mind
that users will typically see the DESCRIPTION file first, and not the

help

pages.


Max Turgeon
Assistant Professor
Department of Statistics
Department of Computer Science
University of Manitoba
maxturgeon.ca


------------------------------
*From:* Charles Geyer <charlie at stat.umn.edu>
*Sent:* June 28, 2020 12:48:06 PM
*To:* Max Turgeon
*Cc:* R Package Development
*Subject:* Re: [R-pkg-devel] package CatDataAnalysis

*Caution:* This message was sent from outside the University of

Manitoba.

The link to Alan's web site is on every help page (in the source
section).  That's where the source is supposed to be.

I have no problem with adding the source to the DESCRIPTION file, but

that

is not what CRAN asked me to do.

On Sun, Jun 28, 2020 at 12:16 PM Max Turgeon

<Max.Turgeon at umanitoba.ca>

wrote:

For what it's worth, I'd be inclined to interpreting CRAN's response
*very* literally, i.e. your Description field is not descriptive

enough.

According to what I can see in the Github repo, you only have


"Datasets used in the book Categorical Data Analysis by Agresti but

not

printed in the book."


Which is not much more than what the Title field says. One glaring
omission (IMO) from the Description field is any mention of

Agresti's

website, where the data comes from.


In contrast, looking at the "woolridge" package, I can see from the
Description field that it contains 111 datasets (well, that's in the

Title

field), it's about econometrics, and the purpose of the package is

to make

it easier for students to work with these datasets.


Max Turgeon
Assistant Professor
Department of Statistics
Department of Computer Science
University of Manitoba
maxturgeon.ca




------------------------------
*From:* R-package-devel <r-package-devel-bounces at r-project.org> on
behalf of Charles Geyer <charlie at stat.umn.edu>
*Sent:* June 28, 2020 11:38 AM
*To:* Neal Fultz
*Cc:* R Package Development
*Subject:* Re: [R-pkg-devel] package CatDataAnalysis

********************************************************
Caution: This message was sent from outside the University of

Manitoba.

********************************************************

Actually the wooldridge package does not seem to satisfy any of the
specific requests CRAN asked me for.  I have checked several other

CRAN

packages for textbooks and they don't seem to satisfy those

requirements

either.  So this seems to be a new idea from CRAN.

On Sun, Jun 28, 2020 at 11:32 AM Neal Fultz <nfultz at gmail.com>

wrote:

I'm not sure exactly what cran is asking for, but the wooldridge
package is a good example of a text book data set package, so

maybe

you can use the same format they did.

https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/wooldridge/index.html

Best,

Neal

On Sun, Jun 28, 2020 at 9:08 AM Charles Geyer

<charlie at stat.umn.edu>

wrote:

I have a package that has the datasets for Categorical Data

Analysis

by

Agresti that do not appear in the book.  The whole package is a

github

repo

https://github.com/cjgeyer/CatDataAnalysis.  All of the data

were

translated mechanically using the R script foo.R included in the

repo

(but

not in the package) from Agresti's web site
http://www.stat.ufl.edu/~aa/cda/data.html.

This package seems to be a useful service to students and

teachers.

The

data
are much simpler to use with this package than trying to get the

data

from

Agresti's web page (foo.R has 277 lines of code).

When I submitted the package to CRAN, I got the following

response.

The Description field of the DESCRIPTION file is intended to

be a

(one

paragraph) description of what the package does and why it may

be

useful. Please elaborate. Tell the users what the datasets are

about

and

what they contain so they can use them even when they haven't

read

your

book.

Please fix and resubmit, and document what was changed in the

submission

comments.

In an alternate universe without copyright law this seems a

reasonable

request.  In this universe it seems to be asking for trouble.  I

know

about

fair use, but I am not a lawyer and do not want to walk the

borderline

between fair use and copyright violation.

The package as it is seems OK because it comes from the author's

public

web

site and these data were never in the book.

Please note that I made Alan Agresti (with his acquiescence) the

author

of

the package because it is his book and his data, but I (or

rather

foo.R)

did all the work.

I replied to cran.r-project.org, but that was apparently sent to

/dev/null.

This book is IMHO the authoritative textbook on the subject. 

Amazon

sales

rank agrees.  The book is used for many courses.  So this

package

would

be

very helpful as is to many students and teachers.

So what to do?  Is there any way to get this package on CRAN?

--
Charles Geyer
Professor, School of Statistics
Resident Fellow, Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science
University of Minnesota
charlie at stat.umn.edu

        [[alternative HTML version deleted]]

--
Charles Geyer
Professor, School of Statistics
Resident Fellow, Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science
University of Minnesota
charlie at stat.umn.edu

        [[alternative HTML version deleted]]

--
Charles Geyer
Professor, School of Statistics
Resident Fellow, Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science
University of Minnesota
charlie at stat.umn.edu