Computing questions: ggplot2

Question

Pursuant to the recent apparent consensus (How much programming here?) that this site should accept some questions on programming statistical computations, I would like to inquire whether the site would be willing to take over the Q&A role currently served by the ggplot2 mailing list.

That is, ggplot2 is the latest (and greatest, in my opinion) 2D visualization package for R, and the mailing list has almost 1000 subscribers, leaving the original ggplot2 maintainer unable to give his full attention to all posts (though there are others that have acquired expertise in ggplot2 that help out regularly). It has been suggested (link to ggplot2 mailing list) that a new forum for obtaining help with ggplot2 might be reasonable, and that either stackoverflow or a proposal for ggplot2's own stackexchange might be a useful solution.

However, seeing that stats.stackexchange.com appears to be open to programatic questions, and anticipating that this might harken a move of most R-related questions from stackoverflow to stats.stackexchange.com, I wonder if a third option for providing help with ggplot2 might be to let ggplot2 questions be posted here.

Note that I'm not the head of the ggplot2 list; I simply thought I'd explore the acceptability of this option with you folks before reporting back to the ggplot2 list.

Note also that this may also relate to the questions (What to do with pure visualization questions?,Is it appropriate to ask for suggestions/solicit ideas on data visualizations?) on whether queries for advice on data visualization approaches are appropriate.

Answer 1

I have no problem with ggplot2 questions. I take Srikant point about being overwhelmed by R or ggplot2 questions, but let's not forgot that all the people doing R and ggplot2 programming are doing statistics/data analyses and so could add to the this site.

At present if someone asked a tricky ggplot2 question I would probably direct them to SO or the mailing list - but only because they would get a better answer.

Answer 2

This is a tricky question.

While I have not through the issues involved I am not sure if we should become a support site for statistical software. I am not sure I like to see all types of SAS, SPSS, Matlab, R .... support questions coming to this site wholesale. For example, if posts on the R mailing list were to be posted here they are likely to drown all other questions. I could use tags to filter out the support questions but still...

But, at the same time our current policy allows for computing questions. So, the above feeling of mine (not being a support site) is inconsistent with our current policy.

I am not sure how or where we should draw the line. Do we allow support questions for open source support software but not allow questions related to commercial software? I am not sure.

Answer 3

One of the nice things about this site as opposed to a mailing list is the natural language search that happens automatically as a your formulate a title for your question. So long as we enforce appropriate tagging, so people can filter out questions they aren't interested in, and punish duplicates so we aren't overwhelmed, I see no problem taking ggplot2 questions here. The key issue to keep in mind is that we are not an appropriate place for bug reports, feature requests, or discussions there of. Questions about ggplot2 (or other visualization software) asked here should stick to a simple: my data is this, I want it to look like this, how do I do that type of question. Quickly the basics will be covered and the flow of ggplot2 questions will become manageable.