RATS forum

We host a discussion forum on our website. Here, registered RATS users can exchange ideas, ask statistical and programming questions, share example code and procedures, and get answers to technical questions from Estima staff. We also frequently post new procedures and examples on the forum—this is typically the first place where these are posted. The link to the forum is

https://estima.com/forum

Forum Registration

A registration is based upon a user ID and an e-mail. Both need to be unique. If your e-mail is already taken, presumably you have an existing user ID and have simply forgotten it. E-mail us and we can look it up.

Anyone can read the posts on the forum, but you need to be a registered user to make new posts (questions/comments). A description of the registration process is provided below.

Passwords

Your account is protected by a password. If you have forgotten your password, you can ask when logging in for a re-set e-mail which will go to the e-mail associated with the registration. (Note: we can't see the user passwords). If your re-set e-mail is out-of-date, we can change that.

Choosing Posts (Across Topics) to View

The choice of posts to view is controlled by the "Quick Links" near the top left. See the picture below:

The drop down will look like this if you are logged in as a user. It will not have "Your posts" and "Unread posts" if you are a guest. The most common choice would be "Active topics" to see relatively recent posts.

The number of days covered for the Active Topics is controlled by a drop down button at the lower left.

Writing a Post

If you are a registered user you can create posts to the forum. These can either be a "reply" to an existing topic or a completely new topic. Note that "reply" does not mean you actually are replying to the last post in a topic—it simply means that you are making a new post on the topic. It helps everyone when a post is put in the correct location—questions about a paper, example or procedure which already have a topic should be added to that thread if possible.

Replying to a Post

There are three locations you can click to reply to a post. There are "Post Reply" buttons on the top and bottom (the bottom one is in case the post is long) and a Quote button at the top right. To use the quote, you should select the part that you intend to quote. It will start your new post with that text listed as a quote from the author.

This will bring up a blank edit window (for "Post Reply") or a window with the quoted text and directives if you do the "Quote". The "Subject" wiill already be filled in based upon what is in the thread, but you can always change that if it doesn't match your post.

Adding a New Topic

First, pick the most appropriate "Forum" (the items inside the large blue boxes on the main forum screen). For a new topic, this should generally one of the forums inside "General RATS Discussions" or "Econometrics Issues". Click on the forum (say "ARCH and

GARCH Models"). You would see a screen something like (note: the "Announcements" always floats on the top of the list). The "New Topic" button is near the top left as shown.

This will bring up a blank window. Put in a description for the subject, and add the message that you want. Make sure that you hit the "Submit" button when you are done. ("Preview" will show you what it will look like, but it does not save it. You need to navigate back with your browser back button to switch back from Preview to the edit mode.) If you need to stop work on it before it's ready, you can use the "Save Draft" and then later the "Load Draft". You can also "Submit" and then go back later and edit.

Formatting Your Post

Many posts are simply text just like you would be writing an e-mail. And there is nothing special you have to do about that. There are a couple of features, however, that can be helpful. (B, I and U are standard bold, italics and underscore).

The Code Block button should be used whenever you have more than a few lines of either program or output. Paste the information into the window, then select it (the whole block) and push the Code Block button.

That produces something like the code block below. This does two things:

•It replaces possible a very long block of text (which makes a post almost unreadable) with a scrolling list.

•It uses a fixed pitch font so the output numbers line up.

The URL button can be used to make a link to a URL that you have pasted into the text. Again, paste the URL, select it, and hit the URL button and it will create a hyperlink for it. It will look like [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_distribution[/url] in the editor, but will show as a standard hyperlink when the topic is viewed.

Adding Attachments

The Attachments tab is at the bottom of the edit window. Attachments are classified based upon the file type (the characters after the final .). The forum accepts any of the RATS file types, any of the accepted data file types, plus some of the standard document types like PDF. (Though if you want to attach a PDF which can be found on a public web site, it would be better to use the URL feature instead). Click on the Attachments tab at the bottom, and then the "Add files" button. You can add a comment to each file (which would be appreciated if their meaning isn't obvious). Note that once these are showing at the tab at the bottom, you can just go back to the edit window.

New Registration

Anyone is allowed to read the posts in the forum, but only registered users can write their own posts. Please note that "forum spam" is a serious problem, and discussion forums have sometimes been rendered unusable by people (or bots) posting nonsense or worse. All registrations are checked before you will be allowed to post, so it may be a day or so before you are accepted.

A registration is based upon a user ID and an e-mail. Both need to be unique. You can decide whether you want a user ID based upon your name or something more anonymous. You will need to give your actual name in the profile, but that is not visible to anyone but the moderators.

The Register link is near the top left, under the heading, as shown below.

This is the registration form which you will see after you click on the "Register" button and then agree to the terms and conditions. Please note that you need to provide a valid e-mail as the registration requires communication between you and the moderators. If you put in junk for the names or the "RATS Software" we will simply reject the registration, so don't bother trying that. Do not put the version number or an activation number for the "RATS Software".

We've blotted out the confirmation question at the bottom. This is an approach to the "I am not a bot" that has been found to work better than the visual CAPTCHA's that (unfortunately) are now easier for computers to read than for people. It asks for information that can be found on the registration page itself.