+1. And frankly I would like to suggest that there is another obvious solution here; pairing a set of guidelines around expected user behaviour with removing people from the mailing list, or moderating them, if they do not think that creating a non-toxic environment is good.
On 25 January 2016 at 07:23, Fowler, Mark <mark.fow...@dfo-mpo.gc.ca> wrote: > I'm glad to see the issue of negative feedback addressed. I can especially > relate to the 'cringe' feeling when reading some authoritarian backhand to a > new user. We do see a number of obviously inappropriate or overly lazy > postings, but I encounter far more postings where I don't feel competent to > judge their merit. It might be better to simply disregard a posting one does > not like for some reason. It might also be worthwhile to actively counter > negative feedback when we experience that 'cringing' moment. I'm not thinking > to foster contention, but simply to provide some tangible reassurance to new > users, and not just the ones invoking the negative feedback, that a > particular respondent may not represent the perspective of the list. > > -----Original Message----- > From: R-help [mailto:r-help-boun...@r-project.org] On Behalf Of Michael > Friendly > Sent: January 24, 2016 5:43 PM > To: Jean-Luc Dupouey; r-help@r-project.org > Subject: Re: [R] R-help mailing list activity / R-not-help? > > > On 1/23/2016 7:28 AM, Jean-Luc Dupouey wrote: >> Dear members, >> >> Not a technical question: > But one worth raising... >> >> The number of threads in this mailing list, following a long period of >> increase, has been regularly and strongly decreasing since 2010, >> passing from more than 40K threads to less than 11K threads last year. >> The trend is similar for most of the "ancient" mailing lists of the >> R-project. > [snip ...] >> >> I hope it is the wright place to ask this question. Thanks in advance, >> > > In addition to the other replies, there is another trend I've seen that has > actively worked to suppress discussion on R-help and move it elsewhere. The > general things: > - R-help was too unwieldy and so it was a good idea to hive-off specialized > topics to various sub lists, R-SIG-Mac, R-SIG-Geo, etc. > - Many people posted badly-formed questions to R-help, and so it was a good > idea to develop and refer to the posting guide to mitigate the number of > purely junk postings. > > <rant> > Yet, the trend I've seen is one of increasing **R-not-help**, in that there > are many posts, often by new R users who get replies that not infrequently > range from just mildly off-putting to actively hostile: > > - Is this homework? We don't do homework (sometimes false alarms, where the > OP has to reply to say it is not) > - Didn't you bother to do your homework, RTFM, or Google? > - This is off-topic because XXX (e.g., it is not strictly an R programming > question). > - You asked about doing XXX, but this is a stupid thing to want to do. > - Don't ask here; you need to talk to a statistical consultant. > > I find this sad in a public mailing list sent to all R-help subscribers and I > sometimes cringe when I read replies to people who were actually trying to > get help with some R-related problem, but expressed it badly, didn't know > exactly what to ask for, or how to format it, or somehow motivated a > frequent-replier to publicly dis the OP. > > On the other hand, I still see a spirit of great generosity among some people > who frequently reply to R-help, taking a possibly badly posed or > ill-formatted question, and going to some lengths to provide a a helpful > answer of some sort. I applaud those who take the time and effort to do this. > > I use R in a number of my courses, and used to advise students to post to > R-help for general programming questions (not just homework) they couldn't > solve. I don't do this any more, because several of them reported a negative > experience. > > In contrast, in the Stackexchange model, there are numerous sublists > cross-classified by their tags. If I have a specific knitr, ggplot2, LaTeX, > or statistical modeling question, I'm now more likely to post it there, and > the worst that can happen is that no one "upvotes" it or someone (helpfully) > marks it as a duplicate of a similar question. > But comments there are not propagated to all subscribers, and those who reply > helpfully, can see their solutions accepted or not, or commented on in that > specific topic. > > Perhaps one solution would be to create a new "R-not-help" list where, as in > a Monty Python skit, people could be directed there to be insulted and all > these unhelpful replies could be sent. > > A milder alternative is to encourage some R-help subscribers to click the > "Don't send" or "Save" button and think better of their replies. > </rant> > > -- > Michael Friendly Email: friendly AT yorku DOT ca > Professor, Psychology Dept. & Chair, Quantitative Methods > York University Voice: 416 736-2100 x66249 Fax: 416 736-5814 > 4700 Keele Street Web: http://www.datavis.ca > Toronto, ONT M3J 1P3 CANADA > > ______________________________________________ > R-help@r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see > 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 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see > 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. -- Oliver Keyes Count Logula Wikimedia Foundation ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see 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.
