Re: st: Neumark decomposition

[Nick Cox <njcoxstata@gmail.com>]

Yingge Lin:

Rest assured that Maarten has a long track record of helping many,
many people on this list and also that he and Ben Jann are on entirely
good terms. Maarten did not explain his comment fully, but it is not
necessary to add to his remarks on the episode he mentioned. He was
merely trying to explain that Ben is no longer a member of this list,
so that it follows that you should ask Ben directly about his
programs. Even if users of these programs comment directly, that
remains good advice.

The Statalist FAQ explains that you should assume goodwill even when
it is not evident. I would summarize Maarten's main advice as that it
is difficult to help you if you do not help yourself by asking precise
questions.
The purpose of such advice is not to shoot you down but to encourage
you to ask precise questions. Despite all that, it remains difficult
to comment on your experiences, including whether you have made
mistakes, as you give no details on exactly what command syntax you
used nor exactly what results you got.

 I am commenting on your general aspersions; I don't use either of the
commands you mention.

Nick

On Mon, Jul 16, 2012 at 7:47 PM, Yingge Lin <yingge.lin@gmail.com> wrote:
> Maarten
>
> Sorry if my question made you uncomfortable, but I think you should
> know that your answer has certainly made me very uncomfortable. I
> thought statalist is a place where people discuss the questions about
> STATA and learn from each other. All I wanted was some feedback from
> those who also have used -oaxaca- and -decompose-, and see whether I
> made mistake or one of the commands have some error. The -oaxaca- and
> -decompose- can be installed by ssc install.
>
> I do not know whether there is anything going on between Ben Jann and
> you, but it was never my intention to waste anybody’s time. But I do
> not appreciate that you tried to accuse me of looking for a shortcut
> only and wasting someone else time. It is untrue, and certainly if you
> felt so strongly that answering my questions was a waste of your time
> or were having a bad day, you really could have just chosen to ignore
> my questions.
>
> Yingge
>
> On Mon, Jul 16, 2012 at 12:13 PM, Maarten Buis <maartenlbuis@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Mon, Jul 16, 2012 at 5:48 PM, Yingge Lin wrote:
>>> I am using STATA10. Ben Jann also have -oaxaca- for earlier version of
>>> stata (8 and 9). Hope these clarify a little bit of my questions.
>>
>> That was not what I was asking. I asked where you got the user written
>> software from (-oaxaca- and -decompose-), not which version of Stata
>> you were using. However, you should also have told use which version
>> of Stata you were using. Since you did not say so in your original
>> question I assumed, per the Statalist FAQ, you used the most recent
>> (12).
>>
>> I realize that often we want answers quickly, and thus take
>> short-cuts, like not reading the FAQ. But this illustrates that short
>> cuts often lead to more work. If this only meant that you wasted your
>> own time, than that is not so bad: hopefully you have learned
>> something in the process. However, you are also wasting our time.
>> Since you rely on our good will to get answers, wasting our time is
>> not a good idea. So I strongly suggest that you take your time to read
>> the FAQ carefully before posting anything on the list.
>>
>> Anyhow, my answer remains the same: Ben Jann is no longer active on
>> the list (a sad story, involving one of the most dysfunctional periods
>> on statalist), so you need to contact him directly.
>>

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