I don't want to repeat points made under other headings,
but I have comments of various kinds, in addition to
Michael Blasnik's reply.
I have not heard about a listserv for Stata beginners.
I am sure that many people would be very interested
in such a listserv. Suppose that it laid out its
ground rules as allowing, indeed encouraging,
elementary questions -- and, I guess, as ruling out
of order any objection to other people's questions
as too elementary. Such lists apparently exist: they are discussed
by Eric Raymond on the page quoted earlier today.
Such lists might work very well if there were enough
people like Suzy who were willing to answer
questions. And that is always the crunch: not
whether there would be enough questions, but whether
there would be enough answers. To be blunt, it
is easy to guess that very many of the more advanced
users would not move from Statalist. That might
be a good thing for the others; it might not be. One fear
is that some people might still end up bombarding
both lists with the same question, and (you
fill in the rest).
Suzy made a good point in emphasising that
everything is relative. So if you consider
that your question is simple -- you know that
the answer is probably not complicated, you just
didn't know what it is -- there is someone
else's question which is much more elementary,
and which you yourself may find out of order.
Statalist does occasionally get questions
on the level of how do I carry out a regression
in Stata? As everyone has noticed, such
questions get ignored or flamed, except that
Statalist flames are _mostly_ phrased
as a request not to ask such questions coupled
with reminders of other resources. It is
for the people who set up any other list to
decide what its ground rules would be, but
I guess that a beginners' list could be
vastly spoiled by a fraction of people
who just sent all their queries to it
without making any effort to help themselves.
One person polluting the well pollutes it
for everybody else. That's, historically,
why Statalist has evolved its rather mixed
policy of indulging a few elementary questions
but then discouraging anyone who seems to be
exploting the list's generosity. It is sad
but true that we've found some ground rules
necessary to maintain the tone of the list.
But most illuminating here, however, have been testimonies from people who had
their knuckles rapped in early days and
then quickly came to see why the advice
did make sense.
The only alternative -- and I guess it
is quite unthinkable -- is that some one
moderates the list, i.e. filters submitted
questions. Clearly, that would be an
enormous labour for someone; I can think of
no one who would be remotely interested
in doing that; and the time delays would
be longer than anyone would want. (One thing
that Statalist does well on that when there
are answers they are often very quick, as
several people have commented.)
Suzy also said
"I think maybe there should be more explicit
information on the target audience this listserv
supports."
This is sensible, except that I don't know
what it implies in practice. The FAQ is packed
with lots of nuanced advice and detailed
information on how you are asked to interact
with it, but I really blanch at the prospect
of trying to specify who will find Statalist
interesting or useful. Particularly, I guess
that almost all of the membership (several
hundred) would regard themselves as emphatically
_not_ Stata experts (perhaps in several cases
they regard themselves as competent in some
particular parts of Stata). Nevertheless there
is, presumably, enough in Statalist to interest
this rather large group. After all, subscribing
to Statalist is like laying in an order
for a newspaper. You don't regard yourself
as obliged to write for it, you don't even
regard yourself as obliged to read any more
than you, yet you stay a reader because there
is enough content to interest you. FWIW,
I too am a non-statistician and I don't
understand a large fraction of the questions
on Statalist, so I suspect the division between
beginners and experts is a lot less clear-cut
than might be guessed.
More concretely, I always welcome _any specific
suggestions_ about
* anything that is misleading or incorrect
in the FAQ
* anything that is omitted from the FAQ
which should be mentioned.
Nick
[email protected]
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email protected]
> [mailto:[email protected]]On Behalf Of Suzy
> Sent: 29 July 2004 16:00
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: st: does anyone have info on a Statalistserv for beginners?
>
>
> I am a recent Stata listserv user, a beginner (self-trained
> convert from
> SPSS) Stata user, and a nonstatistician. I do think that this
> listserv
> is a bit more "friendly" for more advanced Stata users who also have
> expertise in statistics and programming. I have asked a few
> questions -
> of which one has received a reply. I've asked these questions after
> using the help and search commands, and looking on-line -
> Stata faq, and
> other websites. I guess what I'd like to say is that everything is
> relative. My questions - compared to the majority of
> questions would be
> considered basic and probably inappropriate for this forum. On the
> other hand, I have enough knowledge of Stata to help those just
> starting out. I think maybe there should be more explicit
> information
> on the target audience this listserv supports.
>
> I have recently heard of a European Stata listserv for beginner Stata
> users. I'm wondering if anyone has information that they can
> pass along
> to those of us who do consider ourselves beginners and would like a
> place that the 'basic' Stata question can be asked and answered
> without too much angst.
>
> I'm happy to use Stata - a true convert, I'm happy to receive e-mail
> from this Statalist, and I immensely respect those of you who take so
> much of your time and effort to help with the majority of questions
> that are asked.
>
> If someone does know of the beginner Stata listserv, please
> pass it along.
> Respectfully,
> Suzy
>
>
> *
> * For searches and help try:
> * http://www.stata.com/support/faqs/res/findit.html
> * http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
> * http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/
>
*
* For searches and help try:
* http://www.stata.com/support/faqs/res/findit.html
* http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
* http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/
