Recently I was visiting with people about why commercial support is needed for some people using R. One person observed:
With commercial support, you have a person that you can call with questions and yell at. With R mailing lists, you can ask questions and have people yell at YOU. The atmosphere of the R-help and R-devel mailing lists is infamous. Is this a good reputation to have? I'm doubtful that it is. So, I support Spencer's suggestion for more civility. Kevin Wright On Thu, Aug 19, 2010 at 7:08 PM, Spencer Graves < spencer.gra...@structuremonitoring.com> wrote: > What do you think about adding a "No RTFM" policy to the R mailing lists? > Per, "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RTFM": > > > The Ubuntu Forums and LinuxQuestions.org, for instance, have instituted "no > RTFM" policies to promote a welcoming atmosphere.[8][9]. > > RTFM [and] "Go look on google" are two inappropriate responses to a > question. If you don't know the answer or don't wish to help, please say > nothing instead of brushing off someone's question. Politely showing someone > how you searched or obtained the answer to a question is acceptable, even > encouraged. > ... > > If you wish to remind a user to use search tools or other resources when > they have asked a question you feel is basic or common, please be very > polite. Any replies for help that contain language disrespectful towards the > user asking the question, i.e. "STFU" or "RTFM" are unacceptable and will > not be tolerated. —Ubuntu Forums > > > Gavin Simpson and I recently provided examples answering a question from > "r.ookie" that had previously elicited responses, ""You want us to read the > help page to you?" and "It yet again appears that you are asking us to read > the help pages for you." > > > I can appreciate the sentiment in fortunes('rtfm'). In this case, however, > "r.ookie" had RTFM (and said so), but evidently the manual was not > sufficiently clear. > > > Best Wishes, > Spencer Graves > > ______________________________________________ > R-devel@r-project.org mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel > -- Kevin Wright [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
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