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This message has been cross posted to the following eGroups: ASA General Discussion Community and Statistical Consulting Section .
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I'm looking for ASA members who are involved (at any level) in the statistics Q&A site, http://stats.stackexchange.com/questions . According to the site operators, the ASA members magazine has expressed an interest in interviews with researchers or statisticians who use this site as a resource.

For more information, please see the post at http://meta.stats.stackexchange.com/q/947/919 .  It includes an email address to contact; you can also reply directly to that post if you like.

I have no connection with the site's owners, but got involved as user last year because it struck me as being uniquely useful to stats consultants and teachers (nor was I disappointed), so there must be some overlap with the membership of this list!  If you haven't seen this site, you might want to check it out, because it's a great place to get professional reactions to ideas, to receive help on specific statistical questions, and to test (and improve) your own capabilities by helping others.

--Bill
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William Huber
Quantitative Decisions
Rosemont, PA
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Cross-posted to the Statistical Consulting Section and the ASA General Discussion Community (with apologies to those subscribed to both).

It is worth noting that William Huber is the MVP player on StackExchange. Why do I say so? StackExchange uses a voting model in which each user has a reputation that depends, first and foremost, on quality and relevance of the user's replies to the posted questions (they often look quite a bit like the proverbial "five minute" consulting requests), and, second, on the contributions to this online community at large (tagging questions, maintaining the wiki entries, moderation of the discussions, etc). The user named whuber has by far the highest reputation on the site.

I too believe that StackExchange is a useful resource for consulting statisticians. Of course the primary use is to bring one's unresolved questions there, but it is also interesting to just watch what people ask, so as to keep up to date with what's going on in statistics as other people understand it and use it (not just the way we teach it). One can also gauge one's communication skills in an environment where a bad answer won't cost you a contract. If I were teaching a consulting statistics class, I would make it a requirement for my students to register there, and gather a decent amount of the StackExchange reputation to pass the class.

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Stas Kolenikov
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I did not know anything about stackexchange.  We have been discussing nominees for the Dixon award and now it sounds like we can discover good candidates through stackexchange.

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Michael Chernick
Director of Biostatistical Services
Lankenau Institute for Medical Research
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Original Message:
Sent: 09-29-2011 20:59
From: Stanislav Kolenikov
Subject: Stack Exchange

It is worth noting that William Huber is the MVP player on StackExchange. Why do I say so? StackExchange uses a voting model in which each user has a reputation that depends, first and foremost, on quality and relevance of the user's replies to the posted questions (they often look quite a bit like the proverbial "five minute" consulting requests), and, second, on the contributions to this online community at large (tagging questions, maintaining the wiki entries, moderation of the discussions, etc). The user named whuber has by far the highest reputation on the site.

I too believe that StackExchange is a useful resource for consulting statisticians. Of course the primary use is to bring one's unresolved questions there, but it is also interesting to just watch what people ask, so as to keep up to date with what's going on in statistics as other people understand it and use it (not just the way we teach it). One can also gauge one's communication skills in an environment where a bad answer won't cost you a contract. If I were teaching a consulting statistics class, I would make it a requirement for my students to register there, and gather a decent amount of the StackExchange reputation to pass the class.

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Stas Kolenikov
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