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Re: st: RE: New member orientation
I take issue with the premise that there is a Big Problem needing to be
solved.
The way I see it is that on a list with hundreds of weekly emails, there
is an occasional post, from someone who seems new to the list, that
seems misguided in some way. List members--usually Nick Cox--gently
point out the issue, remind the poster of the FAQ, and life goes on.
Now maybe this is a big burden for Nick, and maybe things would get much
worse without his work reminding people.
In some ideal world everyone would read and understand every FAQ
completely before posting. In that ideal world I wouldn't have a
cabinet full of unused dental floss, one from each visit to the dentist
over the last decade . . .
--Nick Winter
Nick Cox wrote:
I am no expert but from first principles it would seem
that the information that somebody has visited the FAQ is
(1) stored in the user's own machine, at least temporarily,
and
(2) (possibly) stored somehow on the StataCorp website
as that is where the FAQ is hosted.
Setting aside all questions of feasibility, those who
run Statalist have _absolutely_ no right (or desire) to hack into
any user's machine, so that rules out (1) in a flash.
(2) is not quite so easy but I incline to the view that
it is wrong as a matter of principle to use this information.
The whole thing is too Orwellian. In any case I seriously doubt
that StataCorp would want to make it available to outsiders even
if that were possible, whether directly or indirectly.
More simply, just visiting the FAQ is no guarantee of close
attention, so while this solution might reduce some problems, the
problem is not one of website accesses, but of what is read, learnt
and inwardly digested.
Nick
[email protected]
SamL
Would it be prohibitively difficult technologically to prevent someone
from posting until they had actually visited the FAQ page? I
know that
sounds draconian, but it is for their own good. (WOW, this just keeps
sounding worser and worser). Bad though it may sound, is it
possible? If
so, then is it desirable?
Sam
On Wed, 13 Jun 2007, Nick Cox wrote:
I have changed the title of this thread partly because
I am focusing on one specific point.
Sebastian Kruk suggested
Maybe a new subscriber should receive the FAQ as first message.
In any case Sebastian's original title
RE: Re: statalist-digest V4 #2725
is meaningless to those who do not receive the digest
and hopelessly vague to those who do. If you are
replying to a digest, please use the heading of
the specific posting you are replying to as the
basis for your subject.
Sebastian's suggestion is not one that I propose
to instigate.
New members already receive this admonition like
this:
-------------------------------------------------------
Welcome to the statalist-digest mailing list!
Please save this message for future reference. Thank you.
If you ever want to remove yourself from this mailing list,
you can send mail to <[email protected]> with
the following
command in the body of your email message:
unsubscribe statalist-digest [email protected]
If you ever need to get in contact with the owner of the list,
(if you have trouble unsubscribing, or have questions about the
list itself) send email to
<[email protected]> .
This is the general rule for most mailing lists when you need
to contact a human.
Here's the general information for the list you've subscribed to,
in case you don't already have it:
Welcome to Statalist. We hope that you will find Statalist postings
interesting and useful, and that you may feel able to contribute.
Statalist has been going since 1994, and over that time we have
developed an FAQ which is at
http://www.stata.com/support/faqs/res/statalist.html
It is packed with information and, indeed, the distilled wisdom of
Statalist veterans.
Please read that FAQ at your convenience, but certainly
before you post
anything to the list. We hope you will find that acting on
the advice
given in the FAQ will increase the chance of someone answering your
questions fruitfully and keep the list pleasant for all.
---------------------------------------------------
Over the years, we have experimented with various alternatives
to this message. One was sending a shortened version of the FAQ
with key points, but it is impossible to tell what are the key
points for any new member, as points obvious or relevant to some
are evidently not obvious or relevant to others.
Sending the full FAQ would not be a good idea, however,
for several reasons:
1. The FAQ is revised from time to time. Thus, we would need
to revise the material in the welcome message everytime
we tweaked the FAQ. The burden here would fall not so much
on Marcello Pagano or myself but on Harvard School of Public
Health personnel who do the nitty-gritty entirely as a matter
of good will.
2. The FAQ is manifestly an HTML document with various links
and other clickable detail. It is, we suspect, much more
natural and convenient for members to look at it in their
favourite browser.
3. Sending members HTML documents by email would run contrary
to the Statalist philosophy, itself explained at length
in the FAQ, that only plain text messages are guaranteed to be
intelligible and acceptable to all members of the list.
4. Sending members an ASCII version would raise issues
already explained under #1 and #2.
5. The alternative of asking new members to click on an URL or
to copy and paste that into a browser is, we feel, a minimal and
reasonable request.
*
* 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/
--
--------------------------------------------------------------
Nicholas Winter 434.924.6994 t
Assistant Professor 434.924.3359 f
Department of Politics [email protected] e
University of Virginia faculty.virginia.edu/nwinter w
PO Box 400787, 100 Cabell Hall
Charlottesville, VA 22904
*
* 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/
