Frank uses the term "hierarchical keyword organization" which I agree is a good way to organize a system designed to help users. In fact, this is one reason why I like the R graphics gallery which allows one to quickly find a particular type of plot based on keyword, examine the plot to see if it's close to what's desired, and then get the detailed code to examine or modify for one's own specific purpose. It's an example of going from general concept to specific details.
R's HTML help pages already have a keyword system but it takes you to the specifics too quickly. I'd recommend revising the current keyword system in the help pages (or adding to it) to create what Frank calls "data manipulation examples gallery." In other words a code gallery that users could browse quickly and simply copy and paste code from it to their application. Think of the keywords as different "How to" topics (e.g. how to create a data frame, how to reshape data, etc.). ** I think this sort of thing would save time for users of all levels.** New users could find code quickly WITHOUT submitting a request to R-HELP email list. Advanced, experts, and gurus would no longer have to respond to such requests for the umpteenth time. Think of this as the examples that did not make it to the help files. Because it's a wiki folks could add to it the examples that are truly helpful. Creating such a system requires 3 steps (at a very high level): 1) ** Develop a hierarchical keyword system ** Combine the current keyword system (http://finzi.psych.upenn.edu/R/doc/html/search/SearchEngine.html) with something more like the left-hand frame of the function finder (http://biostat.mc.vanderbilt.edu/s/finder/finder.html). Essentially a list of keywords organized by "how to do X in R". Users could browse this list and click on a "how to" topic to get to more specific keyworks or see the code gallery for that particular keyword. Once this list of keywords gets generated then it would would remain mostly static over time. If changes are required then have the site maintainer add the word, but the keyword list is not open to public revision. 2) ** Add code as content for each keyword. ** Without quality and quantity of content, this proposed system is not worth much. No one will use it without content -- I don't care what fancy tool we use to create or manage such a thing. I suspect that much of the code to start this gallery could come from R tips (http://www.ku.edu/~pauljohn/R/Rtips.html). After amassing a good size collection of code, allow the public to start adding to the code (but not the keywords identified in #1 above.) 3) ** Link 1 and 2 above, which are on the wiki, with the existing help files that get installed with R **. So when a user chooses "HTML Help" from the Help menu (in the windows version of R, for example) he/she would see an additional clickable link that says something like "How To". Clicking on this would take the user to the list of keywords for the code gallery on the online wiki. This is their starting point. From here the user would click on appropriate keywords to browse the code gallery. The code itself could be clickable to bring up the very detailed help pages much like the R Graphics Gallery does (for example clicking on the green color "rnorm" in the first graph in the Graphics Gallery takes me to the following hyperlinked help page: http://addictedtor.free.fr/graphiques/help/index.html?pack=stats&alias=rnorm&fun=Normal.html). I'm wondering how much of the above could be done without requiring much work from the R CORE team? I'd recommend a small group of individuals (10 - 20 or so) to start getting the content together since that may be the most time intensive part. (You can't expect 1 person to do it all, and 1000's of people won't make much progress.) I can lend a few hours per month if there was a cadre of dedicated individuals who are passionate about making this happen. However, I have very few programming skills, almost none outside of R, of which I'm a relative beginner. This is the vision I have for the wiki. What do others think? ~Nick -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Frank E Harrell Jr Sent: Saturday, January 07, 2006 6:05 AM To: Detlef Steuer Cc: [email protected]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [R] Wikis for R Detlef Steuer wrote: > On Thu, 5 Jan 2006 11:23:04 -0200 > "Fernando Henrique Ferraz P. da Rosa" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > >>Martin Maechler writes: >> >>> If you go to the bottom of that wikipedia page, >>> you see that there is an "R Wiki" -- and has been for several >>> years now (!) at a Hamburg (De) university. >>> http://fawn.unibw-hamburg.de/cgi-bin/Rwiki.pl?RwikiHome >>> >>>(...) >>>So, are you sure that another R Wiki is desirable, rather than >>>have people who "believe in Wiki's for R" use the existing >>>one(s)? I believe the main challenge will (similar as for >>>an "R-beginners" mailing list) to have well-qualified "editors" >>>to be willing to review and amend what others have written. >> >> I´ve tried to colaborate on the R Wiki hosted by the Hamburg >>university but the Wiki would get regularlly vandalized by some spam >>bot, and then I'd have to manually keep reverting it several times. Also >>the wiki engine used by this wiki is very rudimentary. I think the >>DokuWiki engine, which is used by Philippe Grosjean is more promising as >>a workhorse for an 'official' R-wiki. > > > What Fernando says is mostly true. I installed the UseMod Wiki after talking to some of "us" as a test balloon. The engine was chosen according to simplistic installation and a "just-enough" feature set. Perhaps that was a wrong decision. I`m one of the believers in wikis, but mine over here did not fly. > > Probably this and any wiki needs a critical mass for visitors beginning to return and collaborate and therein the Hamburg wiki failed. (One day I wanted to take down the wiki for apparently having no users, but just then someone gave some feedback) > > As Frank Harrel pointed out, this may be because R-help is just too helpful. > In contrast to Frank I don`t think we should abandon e-mail because of its success. The mailing list is, in my opinion, the single biggest plus R has above all competition. > The wiki should provide something complementary to r-help. Btw. those who do not search for information in the mailing list archives or on CRAN before asking simple questions won't do so in a wiki or in a bulletin board system. (I find those simply unusable. Am I getting old? I want to edit using my favourite editor, not in some browser window.) > > A central place for example code was my intention, when opening the wiki back then. > > Back to operating wikis: > The wiki spamming is a serious problem, especially because I HATE to login to read or edit anything. So the choice is: take the wiki as seriously as work and have a look every other day to remove the spam (or better: form a group of volunteers). That hurts or at least is no fun. Or put restrictions on it. That hurts even more. Perhaps I do not understand Philippe`s "loggable". What does a logfile with IPs help? The spammers are strangers selling viagra; I don`t want to find them :-) > > To sum it up: > There is a very simple way to proceed: > Philippe uses his Docuwiki install as official, _general_ Rwiki and I close down mine. The beginners will find their niche in there, if there is a real demand. > I wouldn´t mind to give up "my" wiki, because I have to admit it failed to achieve what I would have liked. > > So, Philippe, if you like, you can take over. I would replace my wiki with a notice where to find yours and the community gets a second chance :-) > > Detlef The current e-mail system places a low burden on users if they follow basic posting rules. The burden is too low and users still do not search for past answers and we also get dozens of separate messages on a single topic (e.g., ylim on barplots). As long as everyone allows this, a wiki or discussion board will not work. We need to rethink the e-mail system in my view to create motivations for approaches with true memories and hierarchical keyword organization instead of using the apparent memory-less system. This should be thought through to include the new graphics gallery and a data manipulation examples gallery, and other things, and needs to be launched from www.r-project.org IMHO. Frank > > > > >> I think that the title could be perhaps changed to Rwiki >>and the contents currently hosted on the Hamburg wiki 'transfered' to >>the new location, if the current mantainers of the Hamburg Wiki and >>Philippe Grosjean agree (I´m cc-ing this msg to them). >> >> This could emerge then as official or semi-oficial R-wiki, to be >>linked to from the R-project home. >> >> >>-- >>"Though this be randomness, yet there is structure in't." >> Rosa, F.H.F.P >> >>Instituto de Matemática e EstatÃstica >>Universidade de São Paulo >>Fernando Henrique Ferraz P. da Rosa >>http://www.feferraz.net >> > > > ______________________________________________ > [email protected] mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > PLEASE do read the posting guide! http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html -- Frank E Harrell Jr Professor and Chair School of Medicine Department of Biostatistics Vanderbilt University ______________________________________________ [email protected] mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide! http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html ______________________________________________ [email protected] mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide! http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
