Re: [Gretl-users] New mailing list?
I was part of asking about making new mailing list but after reading
the replies and recalling my experiences running such a list at one
time, it is probably not worthwhile. If it becomes popular because
experienced GRETL users do respond we will surely encourage a lot of:
'do my econometrics homework for me' (as someone else points out) or
worse: 'how do I apply a technique for which I have no idea about how
it works but want to use it for my dissertation'. Many of the
remainder are likely to be naive and show the person asking the
questions did not bother to first look in their econometrics textbook
Most important: Anyone motivated to make it work (inside or outside
of the GRETL community) could easily start such a list independently
of GRETL. A Google
group is easy to set up. And if Allin, Sven, Jack and others involved
in development and enhancements to GRETL were to encourage something
linked to GRETL, the value added is unlikely to exceed the
distraction.
So I change my vote to letting things stand as they are-- everyone
seeing a few econometrics questions related to GREL every once in a
while.
However, I think an item in the GRETL Help menu for 'Check and use
the GRETL developers listserve' would be a worthwhile addition.
Instead of making it a direct 'Send question to listserve' I suggest
encouraging new users to search the listserve first by simply pointing
to http://lists.wfu.edu/mailman/listinfo/gretl-devel and adding the
ground rules to this page.
--my 2 cents