Dear Clint,
On Tue, Feb 4, 2014 at 1:27 AM, Clint Bowman <cl...@ecy.wa.gov> wrote: > Liviu, > > Thanks for the excellent description of the advantages of SE. However, > there is a significant fraction of the population that prefers that > information be pushed out to them rather than having to pull it to them. The > best system is one that accommodates both equally well. > It's not exactly the same as in a mail client, but you also have a push-like interface on SE, sort of: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/r - The 'Newest' tab displays all recent questions, sorted in chronological order with latest on top; it gets refreshed automatically, as in a mail client (hence, "push-like") - The 'Active' tab displays all questions with recent activity (question asked, answered or commented upon) - You also have the very useful 'Unanswered' tab, which allows to identify questions that haven't yet received useful advice Another push-like element in SE is that once you ask a question or answer, any subsequent comments on your post will be notified to you either in the web interface or by email. This helps keep discussions alive. Regards, Liviu > > Clint > > Clint Bowman INTERNET: cl...@ecy.wa.gov > Air Quality Modeler INTERNET: cl...@math.utah.edu > Department of Ecology VOICE: (360) 407-6815 > PO Box 47600 FAX: (360) 407-7534 > Olympia, WA 98504-7600 > > USPS: PO Box 47600, Olympia, WA 98504-7600 > Parcels: 300 Desmond Drive, Lacey, WA 98503-1274 > > On Tue, 4 Feb 2014, Liviu Andronic wrote: > >> Dear Don and Bert, >> Allow me to address some of your concerns below. >> >> >> On Mon, Feb 3, 2014 at 9:56 PM, Bert Gunter <gunter.ber...@gene.com> >> wrote: >>> >>> I find SO's voting for posting business especially irritating. I wish >>> merely to post or to read the posts of others without being subjected >>> to some kind of online pseudo game and ratings competition. That alone >>> keeps me away. But Don said it better. >>> >> On SO voting is irrelevant for either posting a question or an answer. >> *Anyone* (with an account) can ask a question, and *anyone* can answer >> a question. Their system of privileges is explained here: >> http://askubuntu.com/help/privileges . But to summarize: >> - if you're interested only in giving help, then the only really >> relevant threshold is 10 and 50 votes (removing some new user >> restrictions and allowing you to comment on posts, respectively) >> - if you're interested only in seeking help, then all thresholds are >> irrelevant really >> >> All other thresholds are relevant only if you're interested in >> contributing to the organization of information, or in moderating this >> whole forum-slash-wiki thingy. And as a note, given the quality of >> your answers on r-help, Bert, I have no doubt that you will clock >> upwards 50 upvotes in a couple of hours or so. >> >> >>> I realize that I may be out of step with the masses here, and the >>> masses should certainly decide. Hopefully I won't be around if/when >>> they decide that R-help should go. >>> >> The proposal is not necessarily to close down r-help. From the myriad >> lists it currently has, R Core could keep only r-help and r-devel, and >> encourage new users to seek help on r.stackexchange.com. The scope of >> r-help could be redefined. >> >> >>> On Mon, Feb 3, 2014 at 12:42 PM, MacQueen, Don <macque...@llnl.gov> >>> wrote: >>>> >>>> - They waste copious amounts of screen space on irrelevant things such >>>> as >>>> "votes", the number of views, the elapsed time since something or other >>>> happened, fancy web-page headers, and so on. Oh, and advertisements. The >>>> Mathematica stackexchange example given in a link in one of the emails >>>> below (http://mathematica.stackexchange.com/) illustrates these >>>> shortcomings -- and it's not the worst such example. >>> >>> >> Well, I've seen my fair share of advertisements on Gmail, Yahoo Mail >> or what have you. I know some use dedicated clients, but not all do. >> (And sofar I haven't noticed one single intrusive or distracting ad on >> SE.) >> >> As for the number of votes, this is actually the most useful bit of >> this Q&A interface: it allows for the best questions (or most often >> asked) to stand out from all the noise. And it allows for the best >> answers (or those most authoritative) to stand out, too. Accepted >> answers immediately indicate to others seeking similar help what has >> worked for the OP. Very useful stuff. >> >> Voting also naturally allows to differentiate between neophytes >> (<100), and professional helpers (>1k; think of Brian, David or, as it >> happens, Bert). If you remember long ago someone proposed on r-help a >> reputation system for our professional helpers, only to be rebuffed >> essentially because it is unfeasible in a ML interface. The SE Q&A web >> interface---or similar---naturally handles this. >> >> >> >>>> - In most if not all cases, one has to login before posting. I have too >>>> many usernames and passwords as it is. >>> >>> >> Fair point. However SE found a neat way around this: it keeps cookies >> around and whenever you close the browser and reopen SE, it identifies >> the cookie and auto-logs you in. >> >> >>>> Right now, at this very moment, in my email client's window I can see >>>> and >>>> browse the subject lines of 20 threads in r-help. And that's using only >>>> about half of my screens vertical space. In contrast, in the Mathematica >>>> stackexchange example, I can see at most 10, and that only by using the >>>> entire vertical space of my screen. The "From" column in my email client >>>> shows the names of several of the people contributing to the thread, >>>> which >>>> the browser interface does not. In the email client, I can move through >>>> messages, and between messages in a thread using my keyboard. In a >>>> browser, I have to do lots of mousing and clicking, which is much less >>>> efficient. >>>> >> Again, fair point, but with SE you quickly realize that this is >> irrelevant. On ML, even more so on r-help, the only sane way to sort >> and filter the messages is using time. If a question wasn't answered >> in 24h (or, to be generous, a week), chances tend to zero that this >> question will ever be addressed. On SE it is absolutely normal for a >> question to be answered, with a high-quality input, 3 months or 2 >> years later. >> >> It is also much easier to filter questions by topics: if you're >> interested in GUI or plyr related questions, just display those tags, >> and then answer relevant questions. On r-help you may only guess from >> the subject line what the question could possibly be about. >> >> The Q&A interface also allows easily to redirect users to similar >> questions that were already answered (goodbye "PLEASE do read the >> posting guide"), thus identifying duplicate questions. It also makes >> it much easier to search for topics of interest that were already >> addressed in the past; much easier than scouring the mountains of >> untriaged r-help content. >> >> And do not underestimate the soft incentives induced by the voting >> system. Users seek upvotes (you can set bounties, get moderator >> privileges and so on), thus making them interested in giving >> high-quality answers and asking high-quality questions. Very well >> thought-out stuff. >> >> >>>> As it is now, r-help messages come to me. I don't have to start up a >>>> browser. So it's much easier to go take a quick look at what's new at >>>> any >>>> time. >>>> >> Agreed. I understand the frustration from using a different medium. >> >> >>>> True, I had to subscribe to the mailing list, which involves a username >>>> and password. But once it's done, it's done. I don't have to login >>>> before >>>> posting, which means I don't have to remember yet another username and >>>> password. >>>> >> Mostly same happens with SE, the way they set it up. >> >> >>>> What "...duplicated efforts of monitoring multiple mailing lists)"? I >>>> have >>>> no duplicated effort...in fact, I have almost no effort at all, since >>>> the >>>> messages come to me. There was some initial setup, i.e., to filter >>>> different r-* messages to different mailboxes in my email client, but >>>> now >>>> that that's done, it's as simple as clicking on the correct mailbox. >>>> >> Do you follow r-sig-gui or r-sig-teaching or r-sig-finance or >> r-sig-robust? Does Brian follow them all? Probably not. People who are >> seeking specialized help have a hugely reduced chance of getting >> useful help. >> >> On SE however, the efforts are not fragmented; all questions are asked >> and answered in the same place. If a question pertains to 'plyr' and >> 'finance', either a finance type or a plyr enthusiast are as likely to >> answer. For the r-sig-* MLs, one would need to subscribe to all MLs >> and monitor them all; few do so. >> >> >>>> In other words, in every way that's important to me, the mailing list >>>> approach is superior. I do not support abandoning the mailing list >>>> system >>>> for any alternative. >>> >>> >> I'm not an SE evangelist, and only truly discovered it about a month >> ago or so (even though it seems that I had registered more than a year >> ago), and initially I was quite very skeptical of this "fancy forum". >> But when I actually realized how _efficient_ this Q&A interface is, I >> quickly decided that r-help and associated r-sig-* were good to go the >> way of the usenet. Long story short, the Q&A interface is impressive >> in terms of economic efficiency, i.e. matching up supply and demand; >> the ML is quite inefficient in comparison. >> >> Kind regards, >> Liviu >> >> >>> >>>> -Don >>>> >>>> -- >>>> Don MacQueen >>>> >>>> Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory >>>> 7000 East Ave., L-627 >>>> Livermore, CA 94550 >>>> 925-423-1062 >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> On 2/2/14 1:49 PM, "Liviu Andronic" <landronim...@gmail.com> wrote: >>>> >>>>> Dear Duncan, >>>>> I discovered something interesting wrt to the licensing and mirroring >>>>> of user-contributed material on StackExchange. Please read below. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> On Sun, Nov 24, 2013 at 9:00 PM, Duncan Murdoch >>>>> <murdoch.dun...@gmail.com> wrote: >>>>>>> >>>>>>> I'm not aware of a discussion on this, but I would say no. >>>>>>> Fragmentation is bad. Further fragmentation is worse. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> TL;DR >>>>>>> ===== >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Actually I'd say all mailing lists except r-devel should be moving to >>>>>>> StackOverlow in the future (disclaimer: I'm not affiliated with it). >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> I would generally agree with you, except for a few points. >>>>>> >>>>>> 1. I avoid StackOverflow, because they claim copyright on the >>>>>> compilation. >>>>>> As I read their terms of service, it would be illegal for anyone to >>>>>> download >>>>>> and duplicate all postings about R. So a posting there is only >>>>>> available as >>>>>> long as they choose to make it available. Postings to the mailing list >>>>>> are >>>>>> archived in several places. >>>>>> >>>>> It seems that StackOverflow is officially proposing user-generated >>>>> content for download/mirroring: >>>>> >>>>> http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2014/01/stack-exchange-cc-data-now-hosted-by >>>>> -the-internet-archive/?cb=1 >>>>> >>>>> "All community-contributed content on Stack Exchange is licensed under >>>>> the Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0 license. " And it is currently being >>>>> mirrored at least at the Internet Archive: >>>>> https://archive.org/details/stackexchange >>>>> >>>>> So, in principle, it would be possible/desirable to: >>>>> - spin the 'r' tag from StackOverflow and propose an >>>>> r.stackexchange.com >>>>> at >>>>> http://area51.stackexchange.com/categories/8/technology . Such a SE >>>>> site would be similar to http://mathematica.stackexchange.com/ >>>>> - involve R Core to give blessing for using the R logo, if necessary. >>>>> This would be similar to what Ubuntu does with AskUbuntu: >>>>> http://meta.askubuntu.com/questions/5444/is-ask-ubuntu-official-ubuntu >>>>> - set a mirror on r-project.org for all the user content that is >>>>> produced by r.stackexchange.com , and thus allow R Core to keep the >>>>> info publicly available at all times. The mirroring on Internet >>>>> Archive would still hold. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>> 2. I think an interface like StackOverflow is better than the mailing >>>>>> list >>>>>> interface, and will eventually win out. R-help needs to do nothing, >>>>>> once >>>>>> someone puts together something like StackOverflow that attracts most >>>>>> of the >>>>>> people who give good answers, R-help will just fade away. >>>>>> >>>>> The advantages for such a move are countless (especially wrt to >>>>> efficiently organizing R-related knowledge and directing users to >>>>> appropriate sources of info), so I won't go into that. I would only >>>>> note that most 'r-sig-*' MLs would become obsolete in such a setup, >>>>> and would be replaced by the much more efficient tagging system of the >>>>> SE Q&A web interface (for example, all posts appropriate for r-sig-gui >>>>> would simply be tagged with 'gui'; no need for duplicated efforts of >>>>> monitoring multiple mailing lists). >>>>> >>>>> Opinions? >>>>> >>>>> Liviu >>>>> >>>>> ______________________________________________ >>>>> R-help@r-project.org mailing list >>>>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help >>>>> PLEASE do read the posting guide >>>>> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html >>>>> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. >>>> >>>> >>>> ______________________________________________ >>>> R-help@r-project.org mailing list >>>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help >>>> PLEASE do read the posting guide >>>> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html >>>> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. >>> >>> >>> ______________________________________________ >>> R-help@r-project.org mailing list >>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help >>> PLEASE do read the posting guide >>> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html >>> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. >> >> >> >> >> -- >> Do you know how to read? >> http://www.alienetworks.com/srtest.cfm >> http://goodies.xfce.org/projects/applications/xfce4-dict#speed-reader >> Do you know how to write? >> http://garbl.home.comcast.net/~garbl/stylemanual/e.htm#e-mail >> >> ______________________________________________ >> R-help@r-project.org mailing list >> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help >> PLEASE do read the posting guide >> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html >> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. >> > -- Do you know how to read? http://www.alienetworks.com/srtest.cfm http://goodies.xfce.org/projects/applications/xfce4-dict#speed-reader Do you know how to write? http://garbl.home.comcast.net/~garbl/stylemanual/e.htm#e-mail ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
