[ View menu ]
Main

R Flashmob #2: Tuesday, 8 September 2009

Filed in Gossip ,Ideas ,Tools
Subscribe to Decision Science News by Email (one email per week, easy unsubscribe)

FLASH MOB #2 TO POPULATE STACKOVERFLOW.COM WITH R QUESTIONS
so

Rlo

>From: The R Flashmob Project
>Subject: R Flashmob #2
>
>You are invited to take part in R Flashmob, the project that makes the
>world a better place by posting helpful questions and answers about the
>R statistical language to the programmer’s Q & A site stackoverflow.com
>
>Please forward this to other people you know who might like to join.
>
>FAQ
>
>Q. Why would I want to join an inexplicable R mob?
>
>A. Tons of other people are doing it.
>
>Q. Why else?
>
>A. Stackoverflow was built specifically for handling programming questions.
>It’s a better mousetrap. It offers search (and is well indexed by search engines),
>tagging, voting, the ability to choose the “best” answer to a question, and the ability to
>edit questions and answers as technology progresses. It has a karma system to
>reward people who are happy to help and discourage MLJs (mailing list jerks).
>
>Q. Do the organizers of this MOB have any commercial interest in stackoverflow?
>
A. None at all. We’re just convinced it is the best way to help and promote R. All
>the content submitted to stackoverflow is protected by a Creative Commons
>CC-Wiki License, meaning anyone is free to copy, distribute, transmit, and
>remix the information on stackoverflow. All the content on stackoverflow is
>regularly made available for download by the public.
>
>INSTRUCTIONS – R MOB #2
>Location: stackoverflow.com
>Start Date: Tuesday, September 8th, 2009
>Start Time:
>10:04 AM – US Pacific
>11:04 AM – US Mountain
>12:04 PM – US Central
>1:04 PM – US Eastern
>6:04 PM – UK
>7:04 PM – Continental W. Europe
>5:04 AM (Weds) – New Zealand (birthplace of R)
>Duration: 50 minutes
>
>(1) At some point during the day on September 8th, synchronize your watch to
>http://timeanddate.com/worldclock/personal.html?cities=137,75,64,179,136,37,22
>
>(2) The mob should form at precisely 4 minutes past the hour and not beforehand.
>
>(3) At 4 minutes past the hour, you should arrive at stackoverflow.com, log in,
>and post 3 R questions. Be sure to tag the questions “R”. See the posting
>guidelines at http://stackoverflow.com/faq to understand what makes a good
>question.
>
>(4) Follow R Flashmob updates at http://twitter.com/rstatsmob
>
>(5) Post twitter messages tagged #rstats and #rstatsmob during the mob,
>providing links to your questions.
>
>(6) During the R MOB, you can chat with other participants on the #R channel
>on IRC (freenode). To do this, install the Chatzilla extension on Firefox.
>Click “freenode” on the main screen. Then type /join #R in the field at the
>bottom of the screen. Then chat.
>
>(7) If you finish posting your three questions within the 50 minutes, stick
> around to answer questions and give “up votes” to good questions and answers.
>
>(8) IMPORTANT: After posting, sign the R Flashmob guestbook at
>http://bit.ly/6F8B2
>
>(9) Return to what you would otherwise have been doing. Await
>instructions for R MOB #3.

(Don’t know R yet? Learn by watching: R Video Tutorial 1, R Video Tutorial 2)

6 Comments

  1. Michael E Driscoll says:

    Dan – Glad to see this coming together again — I’m routing for another success! 🙂

    September 3, 2009 @ 4:59 pm

  2. dan says:

    Glad to help carry on what you started, Michael!

    September 3, 2009 @ 5:30 pm

  3. JD Long says:

    I’ll be there with bells on! I’ve been saving a special question or two for this event. And, no, I am NOT going to ask, “can I move the turtle in Logo using R?”

    -JD

    September 3, 2009 @ 9:23 pm

  4. Mailund on the Internet » Blog Archive » R flashmob project says:

    […] The R Flashmob Project: You are invited to take part in R Flashmob, the project that makes the world a better place by posting helpful questions and answers about the R statistical language to the programmer’s Q & A site stackoverflow.com […]

    September 4, 2009 @ 7:47 am

  5. Linux etc. » Blog Archive » R flashmob #2 at stackoverflow.com says:

    […] just in from Dan’s Decision Science News: Tonight at exactly 18:04 UK time, login at stackoverflow.com, post three questions you always […]

    September 8, 2009 @ 9:30 am

  6. Ask and answer R questions on Stackoverflow.com | Life Science Articles says:

    […] R Flashmob #2 was a big success, increasing the number of R questions on stackoverflow.com drastically. […]

    September 9, 2009 @ 3:55 pm

RSS feed Comments

Write Comment

XHTML: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>