collinear
collinear has broken its API twice to stop making the user pick thresholds.
Comparison · Analytics
rmediation vs soilDBdata
A side-by-side editorial comparison of rmediation and soilDBdata — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Shared themes:r package
rmediation vs soilDBdata: at a glance
What is rmediation?
RMediation shipped a three-normal CDF, then found it was silently wrong.
RMediation is a long-standing CRAN package for confidence intervals on mediated effects, now built on an S7 class hierarchy. Over eight weeks it added ProductNormal3 for serial indirect effects of the form a1*a2*b, folded the engine into the existing pprodnormal naming family, and then replaced that engine outright after finding it returned wrong probabilities without warning. The dev branch is at 1.7.0; CRAN still serves 1.6.1.
What is soilDBdata?
soilDBdata exists so soilDB's tests can run without a NASIS connection.
soilDBdata is a data-only package supplying NASIS and gSSURGO sample datasets as .sqlite assets, installed separately by soilDB's GitHub Actions so unit tests that would otherwise need database access can run. It began as a proof of concept carrying MT663 pedon and component tables used in soil survey coursework, and its most recent release adds a Marshall Islands FY26 gSSURGO dataset. Releases are infrequent and driven by what the parent package needs to test.
rmediation vs soilDBdata: editorial side-by-side
rmediation
3.8ANALYTICS
RMediation shipped a three-normal CDF, then found it was silently wrong.
◆ Current state
RMediation is a long-standing CRAN package for confidence intervals on mediated effects, now built on an S7 class hierarchy. Over eight weeks it added ProductNormal3 for serial indirect effects of the form a1*a2*b, folded the engine into the existing pprodnormal naming family, and then replaced that engine outright after finding it returned wrong probabilities without warning. The dev branch is at 1.7.0; CRAN still serves 1.6.1.
◆ Where it's heading
The package is moving from a hand-rolled numerical layer to one that checks itself: the new default integrator escalates its node count until successive rules agree, warns when it hits the cap instead of returning a number, and exposes a diagnostics argument for the convergence estimate. The correctness fix went to dev ahead of the CRAN window rather than being held for it, which suggests wrong-answer bugs are treated as release-blocking regardless of cadence. Serial mediation is where the new surface area is concentrated.
◆ Prediction
1.7.0 exists specifically to land before CRAN's 2026-08-21 update window, so the next move is a CRAN submission promoting it to main; whether hcubature survives past that as a cross-check option is the open question.
soilDBdata
0.0ANALYTICS
soilDBdata exists so soilDB's tests can run without a NASIS connection.
◆ Current state
soilDBdata is a data-only package supplying NASIS and gSSURGO sample datasets as .sqlite assets, installed separately by soilDB's GitHub Actions so unit tests that would otherwise need database access can run. It began as a proof of concept carrying MT663 pedon and component tables used in soil survey coursework, and its most recent release adds a Marshall Islands FY26 gSSURGO dataset. Releases are infrequent and driven by what the parent package needs to test.
◆ Where it's heading
Development follows soilDB rather than leading it: assets get bumped when a soilDB version changes, and purpose lists are updated when soilDB adds a table. The one release that changed what testing is possible was v0.1.1, which added selected-set _View_1 tables alongside whole tables so both SS=TRUE and SS=FALSE code paths could be exercised. Four-year gaps between releases are normal here and do not indicate abandonment — a fixture package only needs to move when the fixtures go stale.
◆ Prediction
The recent addition is a new geography rather than a new table structure, so further releases most likely continue broadening dataset coverage as soilDB gains regions to test against.
Alternatives to rmediation and soilDBdata
Other Analytics products tracked by Sparkpulse, ranked by recent ship velocity. Each card links to a full editorial trajectory and lets you pivot into a head-to-head comparison with either rmediation or soilDBdata.
nert
nert put fourteen TERN datasets behind one dispatcher and called it stable.
scTypeEval
scTypeEval judges single-cell annotations without needing a ground truth to judge them against.
medrobust
medrobust made its partial-identification bounds usable by giving them confidence intervals.
probmed
probmed went from one probabilistic effect size to a family of them in sixteen days.
fluxnet-package
fluxnet keeps swapping its own plumbing — first a Python downloader, now a DuckDB backend.
See all rmediation alternatives → · See all soilDBdata alternatives →
Recent activity from rmediation and soilDBdata
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 8h agormediationv1.7.0 — pprodnormal3() correctness fix ⚡
- 1mo agormediationp_prod3() renamed into the pprodnormal family
- 1mo agormediationProductNormal3: exact CDF for a product of three normals ⚡
- 1mo agormediationmedfit reaches CRAN; Remotes pointer dropped
- 3mo agosoilDBdataMarshall Islands FY26 gSSURGO dataset added
- 1y agosoilDBdataMT663 fixtures refreshed for soilDB 2.8.3
- 1y agosoilDBdataNASIS purpose lists updated for siteothvegclass
- 4y agosoilDBdataSelected-set _View_1 tables enable SS=TRUE/FALSE testing
- 4y agosoilDBdataProof of concept: MT663 pedon and component .sqlite fixtures
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between rmediation and soilDBdata?
Both compete on the same themes — r package — within Analytics. rmediation is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 3.8 vs 0.0), with 1 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Is rmediation better than soilDBdata?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. rmediation is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 3.8 vs 0.0), with 1 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other Analytics products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to rmediation?
Top rmediation alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "rmediation alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/rmediation for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to soilDBdata?
Top soilDBdata alternatives in Analytics are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "soilDBdata alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/soildbdata for the full list with editorial commentary on each.