CIBAR and weights

[Sarah Cowan]

I am using cibar and it's excellent. The help files indicate that fweights are not allowed which I presume means that other weights are. Yet, I cannot get the program to use any weights. Any suggestions?

I am going to also write the creator and will reply with the response if I get one.

Thanks kindly in advance.

Sarah

[Nick Cox]

cibar (SSC) doesn't allow any kind of weights. ciplot (SSC) allows weights.

[Sarah Cowan]

Thank you! Is there a way to update the help files?

[Nick Cox]

I am not quite sure what you mean, but a help file is a text file, so you can edit it if you like. In this instance I suggest it's better to suggest or imply tactfully that the help file is not very clear on this point and trust that the author will update it in response, so that you can download a revised copy in due course. The problem with unilateral edits is that any revised version will just ignore any changes you made.

[Sarah Cowan]

Thanks Nick. I meant just that, if there was a way the author could edit it. If there was not then I would not tactfully suggest it, as you say.

[Nick Cox]

The sequence is

0. Suggest a correction or clarification to the author.

1. Ideally the author makes a changes and submits it to SSC.

2. In due course the revised files can be downloaded.

Authors typically are very grateful for small improvements. As a moderate outlier exemplifying the point, these are the Ack'ts to one of my own programs:


Acknowledgments

Philip Ender helpfully identified a bug. William Dupont offered encouragement. Kit Baum nudged me into implementing separate().
Maarten Buis made a useful suggestion about this help. Ronán Conroy suggested adding whiskers. He also found two bugs. Marc Kaulisch
asked a question which led to more emphasis on the use of by() and the blood pressure example. David Airey found another bug. Oliver
Jones asked a question which led to an example of the use of twoway rbar to mimic pipe or barcode symbols. Fredrik Norström found yet
another bug. Marcello Pagano verified the 1966 Draper and Smith reference. Dionyssios Mintzopoulos and Judith Abrams underlined the
value of reference lines like those in dotplot, but drawn as such. Vince Wiggins and David Airey gave helpful and encouraging
suggestions on a related program. Frank Harrell also made encouraging remarks. Alona Armstrong provided the 2015 Weissgerber et al.
reference.

[Sarah Cowan]

Alexander Staudt, the creator of cibar, notified me he has updated it for use with weights. This will be available in the next few days, say by September 18th or so. Another improvement to Stata for use by the whole community!