I actually did not suggest different forums to split up Statalist into
several topic areas and I don't agree with that idea. If there were a
Statalist forum for working with MS Office (for example), then there would
be about 2 threads per month and no one would ever look there, forcing
people to post their queries into other topic areas...
Although Statalist traffic is fairly high I don't think it has reached the
point of needing separate topic areas and believe that would make it less
appealing. Informative subject lines are the best approach but we also know
that there will always be a small but noticeable fraction of posts with
poorly worded subject lines and off-topic or too basic questions. If only
we could set up a special forum for queries that don't belong on Statalist
and then all of those questions would be routed there along with the
out-of-office automated replies, that would be worthwhile ;}
Michael Blasnik
[email protected]
----- Original Message -----
From: "Farmer, Robert M" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, July 02, 2004 10:05 AM
Subject: RE: st: What's off-topic for Statalist? Remembrances of things past
...
> I've been following the discussion about the useage of non-stata packages
for stata output. I am reminded of the hoo-hah that accompanied the use of
Bringin.ado in version 3.1 ... you got the distinct impression from certain
parts (hardcore statisticians for the most part) that the the devil was
subverting Stata. (For those of you who haven't been using stata that long,
the USE command was severly limited in earlier versions. On large datasets,
you had to re-configure the memory yourself by using F5 and F4. Bringin
simply automated that task so that it could be done under program control.)
>
> As far as the clogging up of the statalist goes, I think Mr. Blasnick is
probably correct. The solution would be to have a Stata forum where the
various types of questions could be directed. One example of such a forum
is http://www.vbforums.com/ such a breakdown would be the answer to people
not falling all over themselves when picking thru the questions. I know
that myself, I have no business answering any of the statistical questions,
but I can sometimes help with the management and programming.
>
> If someone (with more time than I) is interested in setting up such an
animal, I'd be willing to put in some $$$ for the upfront costs.
>
>
> [email protected]
*
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