On 9/20/2006 11:54 AM, Charles C. Berry wrote: > On Tue, 19 Sep 2006, Johannes H�sing wrote: > >> Peter Dalgaard: >>> Ben Bolker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >>>> 1. compose your response >>> I've always wondered why step 1. - often the time-consuming bit - is not >>> listed last. >> >> The advice applies to the situation when answering immediately would be >> your knee-jerk reaction. It is assumed that actually composing and sending >> the mail would take very little time and thought, whereas coming around to >> answering it after runif(1)*4 hours would take considerably more time, even >> when mulitiplied with the probability that you are still the first one. >> >> Looking at the submission times of questions and answers in this >> particular case, though, I would be upset if the helpful guys actually >> used this algorithm. Most of the answers were submitted after 3.5 to 4 h >> time, thus revealing a possible flaw of the random number generator >> underlying runif(). > > Johannes, > > Turn on 'full-headers' in your email reader. > > Most of the replies were submitted within 20 minutes of the posting of the > original query by the list-serv (to me and I assume to others) and several > that said essentially the same thing were posted within the first 10 > minutes, I recall. > > The list-serv held the initial email for a couple of hours before passing > it on. The replies are processed more rapidly, being held at most a few > minutes each. > > Given the initial hold placed on that email, runif(1)*4 hours would have > increased the overall response time (from time of initial posting to time > of first response) by less than 25% (with high probability). And would > have saved several respondents from having to type up their replies. > > In this case even runif(1)*20 minutes would likely have cut the response > traffic to one or two and would have increased the overall response time > by less than 10 minutes. >
Perhaps the list server should have a configurable user-specific random delay time before posting a new thread. Users who don't want to risk wasting time on duplicate postings could ask not to see new threads until a random delay has passed. Followups to the threads that arrived during this waiting period would all be sent at once, so if you see a message doesn't have responses, you know it's safe to write one. Duncan Murdoch ______________________________________________ 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 and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
