The footer of every message on this list has a link to the Posting Guide, which
discusses several mailing lists. Among the issues mentioned there that seem
particularly relevant to your emails are:
- R-help is for questions about R (which is a very general vehicle for
implementing solution methods for a wide range of domains). "Questions likely
to prompt discussion unintelligible to non-programmers should rather go to
R-devel than R-help."
- R-package-devel is specifically about making packages for R. Clearly, that is
a subset of topics related to the R language, but it is relatively specialized
so it has a dedicated mailing list to avoid cluttering the mailboxes of people
not interested in those details.
- There is a discussion regarding "Questions about statistics", which
frequently triggers the "go elsewhere" response you may have seen.
- There is a warning that not all packages are on-topic in R-help:
"For questions about functions in standard packages distributed with R (see the
FAQ Add-On Packages in R), ask questions on R-help. If the question relates to
a contributed package , e.g., one downloaded from CRAN, try contacting the
package maintainer first. You can also use find("functionname") and
packageDescription("packagename") to find this information. Only send such
questions to R-help or R-devel if you get no reply or need further assistance.
This applies to both requests for help and to bug reports."
- There is a warning that the mailing list is a text-only list. It is difficult
to cover all the "whys and hows" for this issue even in a Posting Guide, but
when you fail to set your originating email program to send using plain text
format then you run a significant risk that the people you want answers from
will see a corrupted version of what you intended for them to see, making it
less likely that they will respond.
Just think "is this about the R programming language and is there no more
specific place to ask it" before you post to avoid most off-topic diversions.
On August 26, 2019 8:09:57 AM PDT, "Helmut Schütz" <helmut.schu...@bebac.at>
wrote:
>Hi Bert,
>
>Bert Gunter wrote on 2019-08-26 16:52:
>> Almost surely better posted on the r-package-devel mailing list.
>
>Do you have a macro for those ‘answers’ of yours? SCNR.
>*Which* kind of questions are -- in your opinion -- suitable to be
>posted *here*?
>
>Cheers,
>Helmut
--
Sent from my phone. Please excuse my brevity.
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