This is a revision of a glossary that appeared on 1 January 2011. Striking (to me any way) that most of the original still holds true. Best wishes to Statalist members for the rest of 2019 and for your uses of Stata to do good statistical science. As new people are always joining the list, and most old and new posters appear to be unwilling to read so stiff and structured a document as the FAQ, I thought I would reissue this glossary (with some revisions) as a more informal guide to what we (should (not)) do on Statalist. A is for advice. All advice, here and elsewhere, is based on one over-arching principle: Whatever promotes clear, complete and correct answers delivered quickly is good. (There's a converse....) A is also for amusement. Don't assume from the stern and stiff opening of this glossary that it is entirely composed of straight-faced commentary. A is also for archives, as in "please use the archives". But first please try to read the help, the manual and the FAQs. B is for basics, which means CDE: C is for code or commands used. Show us exact code. Do not merely say that you used some command, or worse, not even specify what command you used. (C also stands for "community-contributed". This is the currently recommended term rather than "user-written".) D is for data and dataex. Show us examples of your problem with datasets everyone can use (see help dta_contents) or with small fake datasets. If you can't do that, give us an example of your data. E is for examples. A concrete example of your problem is worth a thousand words of arm-waving explanation or speculation, and worth much, much more than a report that something "didn't work", which could mean about twenty different things. F is for FAQ. You should read http://www.statalist.org/forums/help before posting. G is for Good morning, afternoon, evening, which usually will be the wrong thing to say, if only if because the person reading it is in a different time zone or reading your post some time after you wrote it. This is a technical forum, so dive in straight in with your question. G is for Gould. See William. H is for help. Did you read the help carefully? IVs is for instrumental variables, or sometimes independent variables. If you didn't know that, this won't help (bad news), or you're not an economist (good news). J is for jokes. There are plenty of in-jokes on Statalist, but you shouldn't expect me to explain them here. If someone's sense of humour appears a bit weird to you, you are almost certainly correct. See also J. K is for Kit Baum, as in "Thanks, as usual, to Kit Baum". He does much of the real work behind the scenes, like maintaining SSC. L is for lousy subjects for your postings, such as "help" or "problem" or something only a little more informative than that. Be specific (please)! L is also for lousy or lazy literature references, as in "I want to use the test of Sue, Grabbit and Runne (1989)". Full details please! M is for Manual, as in Read The Fine. N is for nice, as in "be nice", and as in "even if people appear to be nasty when you are a bit naughty, they are really nice underneath, and are doing it in everyone's best interests". N is also for Nick, which is probably a coincidence. See also J. O is for "official", which means "whatever code is in Stata as purchased from StataCorp". O is also for operating system, which you should make explicit if it's relevant. Don't assume that the whole world uses Windows! P is for pedantry. As Bertrand Russell almost said, a pedant is a person who prefers to be correct. Not a dirty word on this list. (So, you prefer to be incorrect?) Q is for questions. See BCDE again, or for the first time. R is for R. No one's agin it (really!). Its value far exceeds its price. R is also for re-posting your question. Disapproved. R is for rules, except that we don't have any beyond don't spam or be utterly offensive. We do have requests and reckon that there is rhyme and reason behind them all. S is for Stata, silly. By the way, some of us get a bit irritated if you spell it STATA, which is wrong, or at the very least a couple of decades out-of-date. See also P. S also signals Some Alternative Software (originally Some Athenian Software). S is also for SMCL, which means SMCL Makes Cooler Logs. S is also for screenshots, almost always not nearly as helpful as you hope. T is for technicalities. We love them. T is also for thanks, which are welcome. By far the best way to give thanks is if and when your question is solved (therefore not "in advance"). U is for update, which keeps your Stata up-to-date (surprise). By extension, see also adoupdate. U is also for "user-written", as in "do explain where user-written software you refer to comes from". But see C. USA is a reminder for people living there that some details may need explaining to those living in the rest of the world. And vice versa. V is for version. If you are using an out-of-date version, then please say so. Being out-of-date is not a sin; but declaring it increases your chance of being told of a solution you can use. V is for Vice-Presidents. Alan Riley and Vince Wiggins are Vice-Presidents of StataCorp. When they write, pay attention! W is for William Gould, President of StataCorp. When he writes, pay double attention! He probably throws away more good programs in a typical week than anyone else writes in a good year. When he writes, it is likely to be really interesting, perhaps even that the next release is now imminent. W is also for When, as is When is the next release coming out? This question was already answered in the Tao: Those who know do not say. Those who say do not know. x is for predictors or covariates. (Are you still saying independent variables?) y is for response or outcome. (Are you still saying dependent variable?) Z is the end of the English, meaning British, alphabet.