st: list etiquette

[Kit Baum <baum@bc.edu>]

Although I have nothing to add to the various good suggestions on how  
to better deal with the interpersonal aspects of Statalist  
communication, I would make the following points:

1) new and inexperienced users who do not know about 'update' are de  
facto ignoring the results of thousands of person-hours of  
development work at StataCorp, squashing bugs, adding enhancements,  
etc.  They are unknowingly resurrecting bugs that should be dead by  
now. Comments by posters exhorting them to get their act together are  
well-meaning, whether or not well put from the standpoint of courtesy.

2) N&IU who do not know how to use 'findit' and 'help' are dooming  
themselves to beg for assistance -- from Statalist, from their  
institution's services, etc. -- when those services are available.  
The "RTFM" and "RTFOLH" questions are not necessarily evidence of  
laziness on their part, but gross inefficiency. If I can answer a  
question in 30 sec. myself, why would I want to wait for someone else  
to respond (or for 9 AM Monday morning when I can ask for  
institutional or official support?) My own PhD students do this all  
of the time, knowing that I am often on line, and I provide them with  
an answer and remind them that they could have found this out  
themselves, whether or not they could have found me. Most of them get  
that point, even without increasing curtness on my part.

3) N&IU whom for whatever reason are not aware of, or who are afraid  
of, user-written capabilities and the net install/ssc/adoupdate  
facilities are missing out on a great deal of what Stata has to  
offer. They often must reinvent the wheel (or ask how it can be done)  
if they ignore the advice to 'just install this command, and it  
provides a solution to exactly that'.

For these and other reasons, the Statalist FAQ clearly suggests some  
aspects of behavior that are in my mind not so much geared to  
increasing the signal-to-noise ratio of Statalist but towards helping  
all users -- including N&IU -- get their money's worth out of their  
copy of Stata and the Stata user community. Sadly, many N&IU do not  
heed (or even read) this document. That is a pity, for it indicates  
that some people are making their lives much more difficult than they  
need be.

Kit Baum, Boston College Economics
http://ideas.repec.org/e/pba1.html


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