On Thu, 5 Jan 2006 11:23:04 -0200 "Fernando Henrique Ferraz P. da Rosa" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Martin Maechler writes: > > If you go to the bottom of that wikipedia page, > > you see that there is an "R Wiki" -- and has been for several > > years now (!) at a Hamburg (De) university. > > http://fawn.unibw-hamburg.de/cgi-bin/Rwiki.pl?RwikiHome > > > > (...) > > So, are you sure that another R Wiki is desirable, rather than > > have people who "believe in Wiki's for R" use the existing > > one(s)? I believe the main challenge will (similar as for > > an "R-beginners" mailing list) to have well-qualified "editors" > > to be willing to review and amend what others have written. > > I´ve tried to colaborate on the R Wiki hosted by the Hamburg > university but the Wiki would get regularlly vandalized by some spam > bot, and then I'd have to manually keep reverting it several times. Also > the wiki engine used by this wiki is very rudimentary. I think the > DokuWiki engine, which is used by Philippe Grosjean is more promising as > a workhorse for an 'official' R-wiki. What Fernando says is mostly true. I installed the UseMod Wiki after talking to some of "us" as a test balloon. The engine was chosen according to simplistic installation and a "just-enough" feature set. Perhaps that was a wrong decision. I`m one of the believers in wikis, but mine over here did not fly. Probably this and any wiki needs a critical mass for visitors beginning to return and collaborate and therein the Hamburg wiki failed. (One day I wanted to take down the wiki for apparently having no users, but just then someone gave some feedback) As Frank Harrel pointed out, this may be because R-help is just too helpful. In contrast to Frank I don`t think we should abandon e-mail because of its success. The mailing list is, in my opinion, the single biggest plus R has above all competition. The wiki should provide something complementary to r-help. Btw. those who do not search for information in the mailing list archives or on CRAN before asking simple questions won't do so in a wiki or in a bulletin board system. (I find those simply unusable. Am I getting old? I want to edit using my favourite editor, not in some browser window.) A central place for example code was my intention, when opening the wiki back then. Back to operating wikis: The wiki spamming is a serious problem, especially because I HATE to login to read or edit anything. So the choice is: take the wiki as seriously as work and have a look every other day to remove the spam (or better: form a group of volunteers). That hurts or at least is no fun. Or put restrictions on it. That hurts even more. Perhaps I do not understand Philippe`s "loggable". What does a logfile with IPs help? The spammers are strangers selling viagra; I don`t want to find them :-) To sum it up: There is a very simple way to proceed: Philippe uses his Docuwiki install as official, _general_ Rwiki and I close down mine. The beginners will find their niche in there, if there is a real demand. I wouldn´t mind to give up "my" wiki, because I have to admit it failed to achieve what I would have liked. So, Philippe, if you like, you can take over. I would replace my wiki with a notice where to find yours and the community gets a second chance :-) Detlef > > I think that the title could be perhaps changed to Rwiki > and the contents currently hosted on the Hamburg wiki 'transfered' to > the new location, if the current mantainers of the Hamburg Wiki and > Philippe Grosjean agree (I´m cc-ing this msg to them). > > This could emerge then as official or semi-oficial R-wiki, to be > linked to from the R-project home. > > > -- > "Though this be randomness, yet there is structure in't." > Rosa, F.H.F.P > > Instituto de Matemática e Estatística > Universidade de São Paulo > Fernando Henrique Ferraz P. da Rosa > http://www.feferraz.net > ______________________________________________ R-help@stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide! http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
