Speaking as someone, also from the US East Coast, who has participated in a
few discussions involving MS Word recently, but also as one of those "people
who provide that help" (a frequent contributor to Statalist on many Stata
topics and writer of several ado files on SSC), I don't think the evidence
will back up your somewhat dramatic assertions/predictions
> Anyway, I assume the MSWord clutter will continue. And, eventually, all
> the really helpful advice on stats will stop. Because the people who
> provide that help--not me--will become so tired of getting e-mails about
> what to click on in MSWord to make something happen, they will
> de-subscribe.
>
> And, once again, the commons will be destroyed because people could not
> regulate themselves. I hope I am wrong, but nothing in the trend over the
> archives suggests I am. (Of course, one could analyze that by modelling
> the (suspected) increase in MSWord-related questions over time; my guess
> is it is following a classic diffusion curve, the incidence is still low,
> there is still a chance to nip this tendency in the bud, but it is
> increasing exponentially and thus time is running out.)
>
> Respectfully,
>
> Sam
I don't believe there is any exponential increase in MS Word postings any
more than there is an increase in people posting queries that can be readily
answered by using -help- (I find the latter even more annoying). Some level
of off-topic and/or RTFM messages is inevitable and the delete key makes it
relatively easy to deal with them as long as the majority of posts are
worthwhile.
I too was thinking of responding to the recent MS Word query as "why don't
you check an MS Word listserver?", but I decided to instead suggest that
they check MS Word help. I think that Statalist has a remarkably low
percentage of off-topic messages and some messages straddle the border. I
recently posted about how I used Stata code to automate the process of
creating a report with many graphics (in MS Word). I considered it on-topic
since it had to do with Stata and how I used it productively with another
application -- one that many people use (and I had quite a few off-list
queries and thank yous about it). For the convenience of those who despise
everything MS, I also included "MS Word" in the subject to allow for quick
deletion.
If you choose to stop subscribing to every listserve that has any messages
that you consider off-topic, you wouldn't subscribe to many, if any. If you
have any questions about using Stata or writing Stata code or care to
contribute messages on things other than how you don't like messages about
MS Word, I'd be more than happy to participate or help. But if you
unsubscribed, that would be fine as well.
Michael Blasnik
[email protected]
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