StATS: Giving credit where credit is due (April 19, 2006). Category: Website details

A lot of the material that I present on these web pages comes from reading various email discussion groups. I normally try to put in a plug for the groups when I can, but I realized that I should also give credit to the individuals who regularly contribute to these groups. I don't want to publish full names because some of these people may value their privacy (they are willing to share their thoughts on a limited forum, but may not want to have their names bandied about in a different forum). On the other hand, I do want to give credit where credit is due, and some of these people do deserve a pat on the back.

I could ask everyone before I mention their names, but this is impractical. I thought a nice compromise would be to include the initials for these people. If you are a regular participant in IRBForum, for example, you would know who HM is, but it would not be violating his privacy to use his initials on these web pages. So I might write something like "A regular correspondent on the Evidence-Based Health email discussion group (BD) mentioned an interesting study about..."

I hope that is a reasonable compromise.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License. It was written by Steve Simon and was last modified on 04/01/2010.

This page was written by Steve Simon while working at Children's Mercy Hospital. Although I do not hold the copyright for this material, I am reproducing it here as a service, as it is no longer available on the Children's Mercy Hospital website. Need more information? I have a page with general help resources. You can also browse for pages similar to this one at