On 26/01/2016 6:30 AM, S Ellison wrote:
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:
Slightly surprised that in a debate postulated on increasing 'meanness', no-one
has yet pointed to Trey Causey's analysis of R-help's alleged meanness at
http://badhessian.org/2013/04/has-r-help-gotten-meaner-over-time-and-what-does-mancur-olson-have-to-say-about-it/
Up to 2013, it was apparently getting _less_ 'mean', not more.
I don't remember reading that article when it first appeared. It's
interesting, and mostly well done. I'd only argue about one conclusion:
He attributes the increase of his category 2 (not a response) to
dominance near the end of the period as due to a lot of questions going
unanswered, but gives no apparent evidence for that. I think anyone who
has participated in this group for a long time would recognize that very
few questions go unanswered; only the ones that are so badly posed that
nobody can figure out what to say.
What is far more common is that discussion on threads goes off on a
tangent that has nothing to do with questions or answers. There are
also threads like this one that contain no questions or answers, and are
just full of hot air.
Thanks for posting the link.
Duncan Murdoch
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