This website is a discussion forum for Mark McClure’s Stat 185 class. It’s a great site for you to ask questions about statistics. You can get answers from your classmates, as well as from me (the instructor).
Questions about the homework are absolutely fair game. Generally, though, you should try to make a complete statement of your question, rather than just posting a problem number. Questions about the class and course policy are generally better in an email to me.
We’ll play with the site in class some and see some good example questions there. Also, there is another Meta Question that describes how to enter code, images, and groovy typeset mathematics.
Note that participation in this site is both invite only and mandatory - you earn actual points for your grade!
So, how do you get those points?
First, Discourse has a built in trust level system. You start at trust level zero and can increase up to trust level three by participation. You’ll earn 10 points per trust level. (More details on the trust levels are below.)
Second, there will be a number required problems throughout the semester. When you answer the question and receive a “like” from me, you’ll earn some points - probably 5 or 10 of them. We might think of these problems as micro labs.
Trust level thresholds
- To make it to trust level 1 you must
- Spend at least 10 minutes
- Reading 6 posts
- Spread out over 3 topics
- To make it to trust level 2 you must
- Spend an hour
- Over 10 days
- Reading 20 posts
- Spread over 10 topics
- Reply to at least 3 topics
- Receiving 2 likes and
- Dishing out at least 4 likes of your own
- To make it to trust level 3 you must
- Spend 25 days
- Viewing at least 20 topics
- with 50 posts
- and replied to at least 10 topics
- Receiving at least 6 likes
- And dishing out at least 12 likes of your own
Making it to trust level 2 is not particularly onerous, though trust level 3 is a bit harder.