On Nov 10, 2012, at 6:58 PM, Jim Lemon wrote: > On 11/11/2012 07:09 AM, Greg Snow wrote: >> This is to all R-helpers (Sarah is just the one that I am replying to), >> >> Have we become a little too draconian on the "not a homework help list" >> issue? >> ... > > As usual, a thoughtful comment on a problem that does not have a > straightforward solution. The actual responses to obvious homework questions > range from curt refusals to worked examples. I don't know the official status > of the "no homework" policy if there is one.
The fourth entry (very close to the top) in the Posting Guide says: "<b>Basic statistics and classroom homework:</b> R-help is not intended for these." > My responses are guided by their expected utility. If the question appears to > be asked by someone who has just gotten stuck on an esoteric quirk of R (and > the extraction operators are a good example), I'll try to get them over the > hump. That's been my approach as well. I may simply offer: ?<func-name> ... but if they merely post an obvious homework problem with no effort visible I will either ignore it or point to the Posting Guide. Sometimes a preamble along the lines of "I tried to do this and cannot get academic support because the teacher is using SAS" will be sufficiently convincing. > In this particular case, parvez_200207 seems to have answered the question > and not realized it. I wondered whether parvez_200207 wanted to do the same procedure 1000 times and record the summary statistics each time. > Maybe this was due to something that parvez_200207 didn't even know was going > on (e.g. a sink() was operating) or maybe it was just complete cluelessness. > If I strongly suspected the former, I probably would have answered. > -- David Winsemius, MD Alameda, CA, USA ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
