st: A wish list for Statalist

[Jens Lauritsen <jl@epidata.dk>]

Some people like forums with login etc. Other users prefer e-mail based
lists. I belong to the "e-mail preference group".  It takes me only "few
seconds" to see whether the topics discussed on the daily
statalist-digest e-mail are of relevance for me.  Trying to settle
whether e-mail based lists or forums are optimal is not possible, and 
the current discussion reflects this.

With Stata we have a lot of documentation and solutions (Stata FAQ,
manuals and online help, support from StataCorp and external sources
such as textbooks with examples, sites such as UCLA, Stata Journal etc.).

The positive thing about a wiki based system is that it allows many
users to add comments to an overall documentation base, but in my
experience it also needs someone actually checking whether the given
information is consistent. Such a review is now working excellently
with the Stata Faq and Stata Journal.

Should users have ideas for general enhancements
or principles I suggest considering using the time for writing either
a FAQ insert and send to StataCorp for possible inclusion in the general 
FAQ system or as an  article to Stata Journal depending on the type of 
added value.(instead of running a new documentation/discussion channel)

The open mindedness of StataCorp has in my mind maintained and  extended
the documentation base well, which in combination with the Statalist and 
Stata Journal works very well.

Jens Lauritsen, MD, PhD
University of Southern Denmark
Odense University Hospital, Denmark

ps. Should anyone wish to experiment with a wiki I suggest to use the
php/mysql based freeware found at www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki
("conflict of interests": Associate editor of Stata Journal)
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