community.maddatascientist.io is a new Discourse site aimed at new users, primarily those who do not intend to move far into intermediate stage and do not plan on using Julia’s advanced mathematical capacities. It aims to complement this site by appealing to a less technical audience.
To help the site gain traction, for February I am offering a free* subscription for the life of the new board to anyone on this board who wishes to contribute to expanding the Julia base.
To the extent that most people have heard of the Julia language at all, it can have a somewhat daunting visage—“it’s for MIT rocket scientists.” That perception overlooks the ergonomics of the language. I switched from R a year ago and I continue to wince whenever I have to go back for something (call it a lack of comprehension). Basic data science tasks seem much more fluid, especially compared to the syntax-heavy tidyverse flavor.
If you are interested, please DM me.
*At some point I’m going to have to charge for posting privileges to defray hosting.
It’s not that I don’t think this site isn’t welcoming to new users, it’s just that I don’t see many, and I think the reason is intimidation for those who don’t have the math-heavy interest that I’ve seen here. My hope is that a training wheels site would allow new users to “graduate” to the official site. I really don’t think that I will be drawing much traffic away.
If this is the case (and I am not convinced it is), shouldn’t we focus on improving the existing forum instead of creating a new one?
Of course, anyone is free to start a new forum. I’m just wondering whether it benefits the Julia community.
New users get the best advice from experienced users, and this forum already hosts many experienced users who are kind enough to provide high-quality answers to all questions, including those from newcomers. Why divide the community knowledge and attention between two places?
While I do agree there is still a self-selection bias in the Julia community - and it’s a pity because you don’t need to work on problems on diff equations systems or moment based optimization models to find Julia useful - I disagree on creating another separate forum as the best way to reduce this bias.
@barucden : the dimension of the issue I see (and for which creating a new forum is not the solution) is not much on newcomers vs experienced Julia users but rather on the over-rappresenation of high math sophistication of Julia usages
I’m all for improving the site here. I’ve just set up and I haven’t yet gotten signups. What do you think of this: It will be free to view but paywalled to post, and there will be a prominent banner encouraging and directing users to the deeper resources and community resources here with a recommendation to tag with “new to Julia.” Is it possible to create that as a user category to flag status pending traction? That way, I will be able to provide newborn handholding without detracting from the long-term health of the official board.
You can’t be serious. You can’t talk about improving about accessibility and then paywall your forum. If the hosting cost is really that high, get an old laptop or a mini pc and self host it.
To be clear, it would be free to read for everyone. It would be paywalled for people who expect to get help that they aren’t [yet] getting here. (And can I interest you in a pair of used moccasins for your next walk? I’ve done self-hosting since 1996 and it’s a time sink, although today’s broadband is much more affordable than the fractional T1 then.)
Well, yeah, but that would be counter to the idea that the principal support should be from the community here. As some say, I’m not trying to poop in the punchbowl. (Not to mention setting up the infrastructure to do this, not the least of which is 1099s for US taxpayers and I have no idea what obligations might arise under EU law. Shoot me, I’m a lawyer.)
[laughing] 30 years ago I tried to invent Slack when people who understood the technology thought it should be free and people who have since been happy to pay for it didn’t understand the technology. My baby dotcom crashed and burned before it was fashionable. After looking over the past several months of “New to Julia” tags, I feel rather more than less convinced that this forum is well above the level of sophistication that the people I have in mind can cope with. I spent 5 years on the posit discourse for R and that is more what I have in mind. As far as AI goes, it’s a matter of knowing which buttons to push.
And for the people that aim to help there – they also have to pay to post? So to do something with the community (like I at least try when answering here) – one has to pay as well?
I think I am too much used to free forums (I think I never used one that costs money since my school time several several years back), that I seem to not get how that should work as a payment model.
But sure, if you find your audience and paying users – good luck!
No, I’m making myself misunderstood. Badly, it appears. julialang has organizational resources that I don’t. Paywalling for posting has the additional advantage of encouraging people who come across the new site to come here and if they find the help they need I’m all for it. I’m more than happy to have all the regulars here who want to help very tender newbies who might be more willing to engage if it’s not all eigenvectors to have posting privileges. I came to Julia a year ago from R which, frankly, is a crappy procedural language saved only by the richness of its statistical packages. I was pleasantly surprised not by Julia’s power (it’s reputation preceded it) but by its ergonomics. There’s a whole “tidyverse” of R packages with the aim of making R more user friendly. I grew very, very weary of the syntax proliferation. I had a cheatsheet to find my cheatsheets. I don’t need those with Julia. I’m just a boy looking at a girl (I know, I know) …
