...
I have to agree with Nick. Computers and software are tools of the trade and it is each individuals responsibility to develop some level of mastery of these tools. Most people never do this; they use software as it comes, straight out of the box.
Perhaps for new users what might be helpful is an standard "New Users" email that appears at regular intervals on the Statalist that simply tells them to post in plain text and points them, yet again, to the relevant FAQ. If Martin is getting 1 to 5 private emails a week concerning access to the list, then perhaps such an email could be posted every week.
______________________________________________
Kieran McCaul MPH PhD
WA Centre for Health & Ageing (M573)
University of Western Australia
Level 6, Ainslie House
48 Murray St
Perth 6000
Phone: (08) 9224-2701
Fax: (08) 9224 8009
email: [email protected]
http://myprofile.cos.com/mccaul
http://www.researcherid.com/rid/B-8751-2008
______________________________________________
If you live to be one hundred, you've got it made.
Very few people die past that age – George Burns
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Marcello Pagano
Sent: Wednesday, 26 August 2009 5:03 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: st: AW: egen cut(runiform()) inconsistent across versions 10 and 11?
Let me add one more to Nick's list since the responsibility is usually
mine to help people get posted; please read the FAQ and save my time.
m.p.
Nick Cox wrote:
> As FAQ maintainer I don't really want to forestall discussion of possible improvements to that document.
>
> But I do want to make it completely clear however that adding details to the FAQ on how to use major email providers to send postings to Statalist is completely out of the question as far as I am concerned:
>
> 0. Volunteering someone else to do more work is age-old, but no thanks. Even if someone else says, "I'll do it", other problems apply. See below.
>
> 1. I don't use any of them, so even in principle this would involve trying to arrange lots of volunteers to write documentation, even once we've decided who is/is not a major provider.
>
> 2. Even once written, it would be a pain to maintain, as providers appear, disappear, change their habits, whatever.
>
> 3. For every person like Martin who wants yet more to read about Statalist insatiably there are a hundred silent others who find the FAQ too long and too complicated, or so it is to be presumed from the fact that they don't read it, or don't read it carefully.
>
> 4. It would bloat the FAQ, perhaps double it. See also 3.
>
> 5. You sign up to a provider means that you have the responsibility to find out how to use it, for goodness' sake.
>
> 6. Probably more reasons, but that's enough.
>
> Nick
> [email protected]
>
> Martin Weiss
>
> I have argued in favor of more prominence of the issue in the FAQ section before, without success. Still, if you made this one more prominent, something else would slide down in importance, and problems would crop up there more frequently...
>
> What could be done, though, is adding advice for the most frequently used mail providers and programs on how to make sure the post is text-only. It took me quite some time back in the day to figure it out in Outlook...
>
> László Sándor
>
> You can send out plain text emails simply by one click, the rightmost
> element on the formatting bar in GMail. However, it wasn't clear to me
> after signing up or reading the FAQ that Statalist accepts only plain
> text emails, and doesn't even send out error messages if you (or
> GMail) tried to send it an HTML email.
>
> On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 12:52 PM, Martin Weiss<[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> " I just realized emails set up as the default in GMail don't make it to the Statalist. Lesson learnt. (If this is a duplicate, I am very
>> sorry.)"
>>
>>
>> This is an important piece of information about gmail accounts, as I get anywhere from 1 to 5 private emails per week complaining about lack of access to Statalist. I have read all kinds of "conspiracy theories" over the last couple of months as to why posts do not make it to the list. But the default setting in the most popular email provider on the list makes for a compelling answer...
>>
>
> *
> * For searches and help try:
> * http://www.stata.com/help.cgi?search
> * http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
> * http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/
>
*
* For searches and help try:
* http://www.stata.com/help.cgi?search
* http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
* http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/
*
* For searches and help try:
* http://www.stata.com/help.cgi?search
* http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
* http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/
