For those defending mailing lists over StackOverflow, can you merge these threads so later readers do not have to move between multiple conversations?
1. Re: Should there be an R-beginners list? 2. Re: [R] creating an equivalent of r-help on r.stackexchange.com ? (was: Re: Should there be an R-beginners list?) 3. Re: creating an equivalent of r-help on r.stackexchange.com ? On Fri, Feb 7, 2014 at 9:41 PM, Patrick Connolly <p_conno...@slingshot.co.nz> wrote: > On Tue, 04-Feb-2014 at 01:11AM +0100, Liviu Andronic wrote: > > |> Dear Don and Bert, > |> Allow me to address some of your concerns below. > |> > > Which you do very clearly by positioning your responses underneath > what you're commenting on. That doesn't seem to be possible on SE. Sometimes "hijacking" in the middle of a thread like this is bad, because the discussion quickly diverges and we do not remember what previous hijackers said after a few rounds of replies (you just see [...], <snip>, > >>, >|, ||, > >|>, ...). For example, what did Liviu say? > > > [...] > > |> > On Mon, Feb 3, 2014 at 12:42 PM, MacQueen, Don > |> > <macque...@llnl.gov> wrote: > |> >> - They waste copious amounts of screen space on irrelevant > |> >> things such as "votes", the number of views, the elapsed time > |> >> since something or other happened, fancy web-page headers, and > |> >> so on. Oh, and advertisements. The Mathematica stackexchange > |> >> example given in a link in one of the emails below > |> >> (http://mathematica.stackexchange.com/) illustrates these > |> >> shortcomings -- and it's not the worst such example. > > > |> > > |> Well, I've seen my fair share of advertisements on Gmail, Yahoo Mail > |> or what have you. I know some use dedicated clients, but not all do. > > Thunderbird with an IMAP setup avoids advertisements entirely even on > Gmail and Yahoo Mail (and is quicker). Seriously, do you have an ad "Windows 7 inside" or "Intel inside" or an Apple icon on your laptop?... Personally I rarely notice the ads on StackOverflow. You are free to hate ads as I do, but you are also free to ignore them. Someone picked up Mathematica SE as an example, but has anyone really gone to http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/r and checked if there are ads? > > > |> (And sofar I haven't noticed one single intrusive or distracting ad on > |> SE.) > > They do take up screen space where something more usable could use it. > > [...] > > > |> >> Right now, at this very moment, in my email client's window I > |> >> can see and browse the subject lines of 20 threads in > |> >> r-help. And that's using only about half of my screens vertical > |> >> space. In contrast, in the Mathematica stackexchange example, I > |> >> can see at most 10, and that only by using the entire vertical > |> >> space of my screen. The "From" column in my email client shows > |> >> the names of several of the people contributing to the thread, > |> >> which the browser interface does not. In the email client, I can > |> >> move through messages, and between messages in a thread using my > |> >> keyboard. In a browser, I have to do lots of mousing and > |> >> clicking, which is much less efficient. > |> >> > > |> Again, fair point, but with SE you quickly realize that this is > |> irrelevant. On ML, even more so on r-help, the only sane way to > |> sort and filter the messages is using time. ... > > Call me insane but I find sorting by thread within subject far more > useful. Seeing who else has already commented on the subject helps to > give me a good idea whether it's a subject I'm interested in. If not > I delete the whole thread and leave space on my screen where I can see > 75 subject lines without scrolling. If it's an interesting thread, I > save it to an appropriate folder on my disk. A browser interface > can't come close to that usability. Many people have never seen mail > displayed in threads and so have little idea what I'm referring to. > > [...] > > |> It is also much easier to filter questions by topics: if you're > |> interested in GUI or plyr related questions, just display those > |> tags, and then answer relevant questions. On r-help you may only > |> guess from the subject line what the question could possibly be > |> about. > > My mail client allows me to filter by any string in the body of the > message. It's rather useful. I'm hijacking here not to say anything but just to prove my first point. > > > <rant> I'm evidently in a decreasing minority group who learnt to use > computers with punch cards (and patch panels for differential > equations) which probably colours my view. The fact that simpler > effective means of communications are being taken over by whizz-bang and here. Can you see me? > complicated inefficient ones is a cause for concern. I belong to a > group (as distinct from the aforementioned minority group) which has > never known the delights of an efficient mailing list and flounders > around trying to communicate via Facebook. The level of communication > is appalling: nobody ever knows what's going on. We might as well be > using punch cards.</rant> > > > best > > -- > ~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~. > ___ Patrick Connolly > {~._.~} Great minds discuss ideas > _( Y )_ Average minds discuss events > (:_~*~_:) Small minds discuss people > (_)-(_) ..... Eleanor Roosevelt > > ~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~. > > ______________________________________________ > R-help@r-project.org mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > PLEASE do not read the posting guide > http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html > or provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. Sorry, I do not mean to offend anyone (if you notice anything odd). I just want to support Barry's opinion: mailing lists are good for discussions, and SO/SE is good for Q&A's. Nothing is good for everything. Regards, Yihui -- Yihui Xie <xieyi...@gmail.com> Web: http://yihui.name ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.