ASA Group Code of Conduct

By Michael Chernick posted 03-16-2010 14:53

  
I must apologize for not reading the code of conduct for ASA groups carefully.  It clearly states not to post commercial messages and I just posted one today about my bootstrap course.  I have seen other use the site in a similar way.  But I wouldn't mind starting a discussion about why we have this rule in the first place.  What exactly is the purpose of the community and the ASAgroups or egroups.  I joined up thinking that it was a great way to connect with friends and colleagues that I hadn't seen in a long time and to make new connections with people I only know by reputation or I find have very similar interests.  I think it is a way to discuss research and enhance collaboration.  But I also thought it was a new vehicle for cinveying information about statistical activities.  Online courses and webinars have been around for a few years now but many members are not aware of all the opportunities out there be they ASA sponsored or not.  What is the harm of conveying information about classes that could be of general interest to statisticians?  I recently advertised some activities of my chapter.  Should these have only been announced on the chapter website?  Some of these meetings involve fees.  What about conferences Deming or BASS?  Can't members tell other members about those meetings here?  Is it okay for ASA sponsored activities but not for others.  Where do we draw the line?  Can we talk about them as long as we do not promote them or talk about registration fees?

I think these things are useful information for members.  I would welcome others telling me about their consulting services, short course and anything else related to statistics.  To me improving communication is always a good thing.  I wopuld like to see these networks take off to the benefit of all members and I think thatthere may be aspects of the code of conduct that inhibits the type of exchange that these blogs and messages offer.
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Isabella Ghement
03-17-2010 23:04

Hi Michael,
I fully agree with your comments - there should be a venue for statisticians who have consulting businesses or offer training courses to put the word out about their offerings. Personally, I feel like organizations such as ASA or SSC are geared mostly towards academic statisticians, who tend to frown whenever they hear the word "commercial". I would imagine that the rules of conduct are set up mostly by academic statisticians. There isn't very much support within these organizations for people such as myself, who elected to start out their own consulting and training business and provide a different type of service to the community of statistical users and consumers. Marketing is very challenging when you have to support yourself - this is why any opportunity to advertise for free would be a tremendous opportunity. What I tend to do is to spread the word about my R training workshops by e-mailing former participants and asking them to forward my R workshop announcements. Because they know what kind of value they received by attending these workshops, they are willing to spread the word on my behalf.
I would suggest that ASA would consider creating a webpage where consultants and trainers can advertise their courses (perhaps without mentioning pricing, just giving web links) to the other ASA members. This way, only those members who are interested in checking out that information could verify it. There could be a disclaimer added that ASA does not endorse the content of this information, but merely facilitates its posting. This would provide members who work for themselves great value for paying their yearly ASA fee. Perhaps the webpage could be titled "What ASA Members Are Up To" or something to that effect, which would take away some of the "commercial" sting.
Bottom line is - I would like to see ASA move towards helping the younger statisticians succeed and show a greater understanding for the fact that there is a lot of variability in this profession - even though some of us may be "outliers", we are contributing in unique ways to the well being of the entire profession and perhaps even adding exciting dimensions to it.
Isabella R. Ghement, Ph.D.
Ghement Statistical Consulting Company
301-7031 Blundell Road, Richmond, B.C., Canada, V6Y 1J5
Tel: 604-767-1250
Fax: 604-270-3922
E-mail: isabella@ghement.ca
Web: www.ghement.ca

Michael Chernick
03-17-2010 10:25

I need to make some points based on amessage I got from the Executive Director. Inspite of the fact that advertising courses can be beneficial to a portion of the ASA membership it is prohibited in the code of conduct for the community for very good reasons.
1. By mentioning the company and giving my endorsement I am helping statistics.com. Corporations usually have to pay for advertising so it is very unfair to give free advertisement to any commericial enterprise. That would include software vendors, book publishers as well as training center.
2. To be fair the ASA would have to allow all companies with products of interest to statisticians freely advertise. This would create traffic here that I think most members would not like.
3. The AMSTAT News is the appropriate forum for such advertising. Revenue from job advertisement, software vendors and book publisher help sustain the ASA and our news magazine. If free advertisement were allowed it would be exploited over paid advertising and we as an organization would lose revenue.
I made two mistakes yesterday. The first was to turn a announcement of my course into an advertisement for statistics.com in violation of the code of conduct (which I should have read more carefully). The second was to continue the debate before I had let Dr. Wasserstein time to respond to my question.
This feature of the ASA website was created by the governing body of the ASA. They decided on the groundrules and if we are to take advatage of this wonderful medium we must abide by them. The rules appear to be well thoughtout and very reasonable. We can always ask questions and debate the rules but chnages would need to be mad by the ASA governing board using the appropriate channels. In this case I think the rule is proper.
I do however hope that there can be some way to communicate about courses, software, job opportunities and books without advertising for the corporations involved. One use that I have noticed particularly on the EDUC egroup is that a lot of people ask about book recommendations fro courses. I have participated in a few of these discussions and I think they help all of us become aware of more books and interesting ones that we might not find any other way. I do book reviews on amazon.com that several people wanted the link for. Is this okay or am I inadvertently plugging amazon? When book recommendations are made are we advertising for the publisher of the book? No one has complained about these other interchanges and I think most of us would agree that they do not violate the code. But where do we draw the line. I think we need to know because a good part of the benefit of this site is free consulting and dissemination of useful information that we might not gain otherwise. What about private consultants? Many of us have consulting businesses which could be our main source of income or a side business. This feature offers a temptation to advertise our personal services. But is that not also a violation of the code. On the otherhand does this opportunity for free consultation damage members businesses? I think there may be a lot of things to work out here. But the proper forum is through the ASA committees and the Governing Board.