This article was nominated for deletion on 28 May 2023. The result of the discussion was keep. |
Disambiguation | ||||
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Michael Hardy, I'd be grateful for your input (and anyone else's) on the addition I've made. This followed our discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cumulative density function.
I'm grateful you corrected my inaccurate text. The result is much better. I still feel, however, that the reader who accidentally lands up at this page is going to need more detailed help to understand what they're getting wrong. I know Wikipedia isn't a text-book, so it's high-risk trying to add an explanation, but equally there's no point in having articles that are only meaningful to people who already know the material.
I've added the discrete distribution because a lot of those who use statistics practically, rather than care about the theory of statistics, will have a very un-rigorous approach to the difference between the discrete and continuous cases. When we use the normal distribution to describe a measured variable, we know in our heads that we've measured it with fixed precision, and therefore our values are discrete, even though the distribution is continuous, so we blur the boundary between the mass function and the density function. That's why I've mentioned them as equivalents, even though fundamentally they can also be viewed as very different, because the y-value in a mass function plot is already probability, while the y-value in a density function plot is a probability-per-unit-x, and must be integrated. In effect, the mass-function can be seen as a density function that's been pre-integrated in slices corresponding to the discrete values we care to measure.
The main thing I wanted to do was (1) make sure the reader knows what the words "cumulative" and "density" actually mean, as this is the root of the confusion this disambig is supposed to address, and (2) make sure they find their way to the correct article, which might actually be the probability mass function.
I hope this makes sense? Elemimele ( talk) 17:33, 10 June 2023 (UTC)
I have rephrased the part that referred to "discrete values" because there is no such thing as a discrete value. Any real number at all can be a value of a discrete random variable. A discrete probability distribution assigns probabilities to individual points, and assigns all of the probability to individual points, i.e. the sum of the probabilities assigned to those points is 1. Michael Hardy ( talk) 20:14, 13 June 2023 (UTC)
"Sigmoid curves are also common in statistics as cumulative distribution functions (which go from 0 to 1), such as the integrals of the logistic density, the normal density, and Student's t probability density functions."
I have a couple of concerns regarding the current resolution of this issue after the AfD.
First, disambiguation pages are just navigational tools. Their purpose is to help readers find the article they're looking for, not to correct misconceptions they might have. They usually don't have references, because they don't need them; they have no substantive content to support.
This page has no references, but does make substantive claims, namely that the title phrase is self-contradictory and results from a confusion.
It's possible that that problem could be fixed, if there are references directly on-point, which there might be. But at that point the page is no longer a disambig page, but an article, and in particular the disambig template should be removed. Are we really going to have an article about a single phrase found to be problematic? I would think you would need a very notable controversy about the phrase for that to stand. For comparison, people have written reams about the phrase could care less, but that is still fortunately a redlink.
Finally, in my opinion it's just not generally part of the remit of an encyclopedia to call out things that people might be mistaken about, except possibly as an inline aside during exposition of something else. Search for "misconceptions" in the archives of talk:mathematics to find what I've expressed on this previously. -- Trovatore ( talk) 18:07, 14 June 2023 (UTC)
an article about a single phrase found to be problematic. I might go a little further and say "claimed to be problematic", since without one or more sources actually making the point, this is just a gripe or a pet peeve. Plenty of mathematical terminology and notation is confusing. Heck, I've been complaining about the superscripts in and since high school. And sub- versus supermartingales, anyone? But we don't create articles for every pet peeve of mine or every grievance that gets aired in forum threads about "your least favorite math notation". As I said at the AfD, without sources this is all disallowed synthesis, and even with sources it doesn't stand alone as an encyclopedic topic. If supported by documentation, it could be slotted in to the cumulative distribution function page, maybe at the end of the "Definition" section. For solving an in-wiki problem, the right place would be MOS:MATH. XOR'easter ( talk) 18:45, 14 June 2023 (UTC)
"Yes, I'd suggest converting it to a simple redirect to Cumulative distribution function because that's almost certainly what the reader is looking for, and if it isn't, they'll find enough information there to sort themselves out. "
"@Elemimele: The phrase "almost certainly" is certainly wrong. Perhaps you don't realize how confused students can be sometimes. "
It will take me a while to get up to date with this discussion. Let us note that:
I don't insist that this must be labels a disambiguation page, but it should be here in some form. Michael Hardy ( talk) 21:08, 16 June 2023 (UTC)
Thank you @
Elemimele: for the note on my Talk. Responding here to keep the discussion centralized. As far as The unreferenced content cannot stand; it must be removed
, that's not strictly true as this isn't a BLP. However if you're challenging the material's veracity, @
Trovatore:, you're correct to require sourcing. As far as whether a dab can have explanatory content, that I'm not sure on and I apologize if my close means something that's out of another policy. I'm actually not sure how to proceed on this. With my editor had on, reading
Cumulative density function, I feel the text is needed for a lay reader on why it results from the confusion between the two primary topics, even if it's not an error, strictly speaking. I think given the inability to proceed, DRV for more eyes makes sense. You're reviewing the close not because you disagree-for the reasons you noted here, my Talk and in your discussion above-but because we're stuck. I'd support this, unless you think there's an active project that might have some thoughts on what's next. Thoughts? (Note, I'm intermittently on line this evening so pardon any delay).
Star
Mississippi 21:42, 16 June 2023 (UTC)
@ Trovatore: Two points:
Michael Hardy ( talk) 02:43, 16 July 2023 (UTC) @ Trovatore: In one way this remains akin to a disambiguation page: the authoritative sources for the information in it are in the pages to which it links. That is acceptable for disambiguation pages. A question is: For which sorts of pages is it acceptable, and why? Michael Hardy ( talk) 02:48, 16 July 2023 (UTC)
This article was nominated for deletion on 28 May 2023. The result of the discussion was keep. |
Disambiguation | ||||
|
Michael Hardy, I'd be grateful for your input (and anyone else's) on the addition I've made. This followed our discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cumulative density function.
I'm grateful you corrected my inaccurate text. The result is much better. I still feel, however, that the reader who accidentally lands up at this page is going to need more detailed help to understand what they're getting wrong. I know Wikipedia isn't a text-book, so it's high-risk trying to add an explanation, but equally there's no point in having articles that are only meaningful to people who already know the material.
I've added the discrete distribution because a lot of those who use statistics practically, rather than care about the theory of statistics, will have a very un-rigorous approach to the difference between the discrete and continuous cases. When we use the normal distribution to describe a measured variable, we know in our heads that we've measured it with fixed precision, and therefore our values are discrete, even though the distribution is continuous, so we blur the boundary between the mass function and the density function. That's why I've mentioned them as equivalents, even though fundamentally they can also be viewed as very different, because the y-value in a mass function plot is already probability, while the y-value in a density function plot is a probability-per-unit-x, and must be integrated. In effect, the mass-function can be seen as a density function that's been pre-integrated in slices corresponding to the discrete values we care to measure.
The main thing I wanted to do was (1) make sure the reader knows what the words "cumulative" and "density" actually mean, as this is the root of the confusion this disambig is supposed to address, and (2) make sure they find their way to the correct article, which might actually be the probability mass function.
I hope this makes sense? Elemimele ( talk) 17:33, 10 June 2023 (UTC)
I have rephrased the part that referred to "discrete values" because there is no such thing as a discrete value. Any real number at all can be a value of a discrete random variable. A discrete probability distribution assigns probabilities to individual points, and assigns all of the probability to individual points, i.e. the sum of the probabilities assigned to those points is 1. Michael Hardy ( talk) 20:14, 13 June 2023 (UTC)
"Sigmoid curves are also common in statistics as cumulative distribution functions (which go from 0 to 1), such as the integrals of the logistic density, the normal density, and Student's t probability density functions."
I have a couple of concerns regarding the current resolution of this issue after the AfD.
First, disambiguation pages are just navigational tools. Their purpose is to help readers find the article they're looking for, not to correct misconceptions they might have. They usually don't have references, because they don't need them; they have no substantive content to support.
This page has no references, but does make substantive claims, namely that the title phrase is self-contradictory and results from a confusion.
It's possible that that problem could be fixed, if there are references directly on-point, which there might be. But at that point the page is no longer a disambig page, but an article, and in particular the disambig template should be removed. Are we really going to have an article about a single phrase found to be problematic? I would think you would need a very notable controversy about the phrase for that to stand. For comparison, people have written reams about the phrase could care less, but that is still fortunately a redlink.
Finally, in my opinion it's just not generally part of the remit of an encyclopedia to call out things that people might be mistaken about, except possibly as an inline aside during exposition of something else. Search for "misconceptions" in the archives of talk:mathematics to find what I've expressed on this previously. -- Trovatore ( talk) 18:07, 14 June 2023 (UTC)
an article about a single phrase found to be problematic. I might go a little further and say "claimed to be problematic", since without one or more sources actually making the point, this is just a gripe or a pet peeve. Plenty of mathematical terminology and notation is confusing. Heck, I've been complaining about the superscripts in and since high school. And sub- versus supermartingales, anyone? But we don't create articles for every pet peeve of mine or every grievance that gets aired in forum threads about "your least favorite math notation". As I said at the AfD, without sources this is all disallowed synthesis, and even with sources it doesn't stand alone as an encyclopedic topic. If supported by documentation, it could be slotted in to the cumulative distribution function page, maybe at the end of the "Definition" section. For solving an in-wiki problem, the right place would be MOS:MATH. XOR'easter ( talk) 18:45, 14 June 2023 (UTC)
"Yes, I'd suggest converting it to a simple redirect to Cumulative distribution function because that's almost certainly what the reader is looking for, and if it isn't, they'll find enough information there to sort themselves out. "
"@Elemimele: The phrase "almost certainly" is certainly wrong. Perhaps you don't realize how confused students can be sometimes. "
It will take me a while to get up to date with this discussion. Let us note that:
I don't insist that this must be labels a disambiguation page, but it should be here in some form. Michael Hardy ( talk) 21:08, 16 June 2023 (UTC)
Thank you @
Elemimele: for the note on my Talk. Responding here to keep the discussion centralized. As far as The unreferenced content cannot stand; it must be removed
, that's not strictly true as this isn't a BLP. However if you're challenging the material's veracity, @
Trovatore:, you're correct to require sourcing. As far as whether a dab can have explanatory content, that I'm not sure on and I apologize if my close means something that's out of another policy. I'm actually not sure how to proceed on this. With my editor had on, reading
Cumulative density function, I feel the text is needed for a lay reader on why it results from the confusion between the two primary topics, even if it's not an error, strictly speaking. I think given the inability to proceed, DRV for more eyes makes sense. You're reviewing the close not because you disagree-for the reasons you noted here, my Talk and in your discussion above-but because we're stuck. I'd support this, unless you think there's an active project that might have some thoughts on what's next. Thoughts? (Note, I'm intermittently on line this evening so pardon any delay).
Star
Mississippi 21:42, 16 June 2023 (UTC)
@ Trovatore: Two points:
Michael Hardy ( talk) 02:43, 16 July 2023 (UTC) @ Trovatore: In one way this remains akin to a disambiguation page: the authoritative sources for the information in it are in the pages to which it links. That is acceptable for disambiguation pages. A question is: For which sorts of pages is it acceptable, and why? Michael Hardy ( talk) 02:48, 16 July 2023 (UTC)