Questions tagged [discussion]

The question you're asking is designed to solicit opinions or best-practices on a particular topic, with the goal of reaching community consensus.

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Unanswered questions

I know this has been discussed here on CV meta before, but the most recent discussion I can find is quite old, so I thought it might be worth a new question. We have a lot of unanswered questions. ...
Peter Flom's user avatar
  • 109k
7 votes
2 answers
151 views

Is it on topic to ask about derivation of mathematical statistical formulae?

I am studying multilevel/hierarchical models and I have trouble deriving the mathematical formulae for certain models. Is it on topic to ask about this ? I mean, I fit a model with software, and I ...
user1029384756's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
111 views

How to request reason for closing

My question was closed for lack of enough detail and no private feedback was provided as to what detail is exactly missing, which is not how I read it is supposed to be. Even though I cannot think of ...
Feri's user avatar
  • 253
9 votes
3 answers
141 views

How to vote on partial answers?

At times I see that someone will provide an answer that, while not directly addressing all of the points in a question, will nonetheless give a good insight on something that is either partially ...
Shawn Hemelstrand's user avatar
9 votes
1 answer
128 views

Distribution of question and answer votes on CV

My question is simple theoretically, but probably not so simple practically... Is there a way to check the distribution of question votes vs answer votes on CV? My assumption is that people are more ...
Shawn Hemelstrand's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
179 views

Why were my "no longer needed" comment flags declined?

Today, I needed to search about fitting discrete distributions on my mobile device; I ended up in the thread How to fit a discrete distribution to count data?, which was indeed quite relevant. Under ...
desertnaut's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
110 views

Feedback on question: E-commerce - Does higher delivery time lead to lower sales?

I've recently asked a question E-commerce - Does higher delivery time lead to lower sales?. In this question I ask for help on finding appropriate statistical methods on a problem that I am facing. My ...
Draex_'s user avatar
  • 121
9 votes
4 answers
190 views

What is the proper way to delete your own answer?

There are times when I answer here -- but, upon further reflection, it is clear that I'm not the best person to answer the question (because of lack of expertise or just confusion about the question). ...
Shawn Hemelstrand's user avatar
-12 votes
4 answers
450 views

Do we want to volunteer for the alpha test on lowering rep requirements for voting?

SO is looking for some sites where they would experimentally lower the rep requirement for voting to 1. Do we want to volunteer? I would suggest up- and downvotes on this question to stand for "...
Stephan Kolassa's user avatar
7 votes
4 answers
152 views

What's the difference between "needs more details or clarity" vs. "needs more focus"?

I often get locked into comment stalemates trying to get specific conditions on open-ended questions so that there is a clear answer or two to address the question. The problem arises when posters ...
AdamO's user avatar
  • 60.5k
11 votes
0 answers
140 views

Do we have a canonical Q&A for deriving KL divergence for two Gaussians?

The question of deriving the KL divergence of two Gaussians appears frequently. It arises especially often in the context of variational auto-encoders, because the essential paper on the topic by ...
Sycorax's user avatar
  • 89.1k
6 votes
1 answer
128 views

Confusion about reopen vote with no actual edits shown

I sometimes see a reopen vote in the queue that looks something like this: Here I see that the question has been edited, which is why I assume it is now in the reopen queue. But I don't see anything ...
Shawn Hemelstrand's user avatar
2 votes
2 answers
175 views

Suspension and length of suspension of irrespective of user merits?

I stumbled upon a user with a record of popular and interesting questions to have been suspended because of low-quality posts for a year. I find this drastic, in particular in view of the user's ...
Ute's user avatar
  • 2,350
-7 votes
4 answers
272 views

Moderator using *nuclear* option

My question Clustering vectors of unequal size was unilaterally closed by a moderator less than an hour after it was published. While the question might require some improvement or might be even too ...
Roger V.'s user avatar
  • 3,590
4 votes
2 answers
251 views

Is it OK to share codes in the answers

A short while ago my first question was closed because it was about programming (well, it wasn't my intent but I understand why, so I deleted the question). Now, I wonder if it is OK sharing codes in ...
Erdem Şen's user avatar
5 votes
2 answers
209 views

What to do with the [sequence-analysis] tag?

I find this tag is often being misused, at least according to it's excerpt, the original Meta thread and also the tag wiki. Currently, sequence-analysis reads: [Excerpt] Analysis of a DNA, RNA, or ...
Firebug's user avatar
  • 18.3k
4 votes
1 answer
70 views

Bounty community wiki?

I want to get an answer to our new quantile regression community wiki that addresses a particular aspect of quantile regression that is not being addressed in the current answers, so I thought I’d ...
Dave's user avatar
  • 58.3k
13 votes
2 answers
326 views

How much has the traffic of CV fallen over the past one and half years?

Over the past one and a half years, Stack Overflow has lost around 50% 35% of its traffic (Update: Around 15% of the observed loss seems to be related to the recategorization of the Google Analytics ...
Mike Hunter's user avatar
  • 10.2k
11 votes
5 answers
255 views

How can we encourage new users to edit their closed posts?

New or inexperienced users are sometimes faced with their question (or answer) being closed without any detailed feedback, or even without any comments on their post. While this is definitely the way ...
Ute's user avatar
  • 2,350
4 votes
1 answer
179 views

Should this question about the Monty Hall problem and odds ratios be closed as off-topic?

Recently I asked the question: How to reason about the Monty Hall problem with odds ratios? It was closed due to being deemed off-topic. I'd like to challenge that decision. The two reasons that were ...
Adam Zerner's user avatar
6 votes
1 answer
123 views

Is it on topic to ask about how implementations of a certain algorithm deal with certain problems?

For instance, would the following question be on-topic? In the context of training a decision tree, let $Y$ be the dependent variable and $X_1, \dots X_d$ the independent variables. In a typical ...
Mehdi Charife's user avatar
-1 votes
1 answer
99 views

Non-English recommendations of books on mathematical and theoretical statistics or probability? [closed]

There is a large number of questions asking for recommendations of textbooks and material on these fields. Unsurprisingly, given the language of this site and most of its audience, resources are ...
Kuku's user avatar
  • 1,375
8 votes
4 answers
283 views

Really confused about this constant edit suggestion

I keep seeing a user in the Suggested Edits queue doing the exact same edit to several questions, such as this one here. It always has the same typo "Thanks in Adavanced" and the deleted ...
Shawn Hemelstrand's user avatar
5 votes
2 answers
159 views

Should quote only answers be treated like link only answers?

As the question suggests, I'm unsure of what to do with flagged answers that only have a quotation and no other commentary. For context, I came across a review today with this answer, which fits this ...
Shawn Hemelstrand's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
77 views

How can I improve my off-topic question?

I recently posted this question and it was quickly closed as off-topic. Could anyone offer any advice as to how this question may be improved, if it is at all salvageable? This will help me with ...
flow2k's user avatar
  • 121
25 votes
3 answers
585 views

June 5 General Moderation Strike: Recap, Possible roles, consequences and other relevant info

I won't beat the bush here: for cognizance of the community, I would briefly state all the recent events that unfolded over the past week or so. And then (my personal opinion) there would be a message ...
User1865345's user avatar
  • 6,897
11 votes
1 answer
217 views

Spam-poster on the loose: Flag, VTC, Both?

We have someone on the loose right now who is making post after post that is grossly off-topic. What is the most helpful action for users to take when we see this? Should we vote to close to hit the ...
Dave's user avatar
  • 58.3k
6 votes
2 answers
186 views

how to make this a better focused question

I have a question about my Cross Validated post: How to set up my workflow and data for my first network model Hello, I would appreciate help. I am trying to ask a question, but I don't understand ...
pandora's user avatar
2 votes
0 answers
47 views

Delete [analysis] tag?

I recently encountered analysis and found it to be a bit confusing and unnecessary, despite the detailed tag info. I then discovered this meta thread about it from 2015 that proposed creating the tag: ...
mkt's user avatar
  • 17.6k
13 votes
2 answers
454 views

Possible loss of some images from posts owing to Imgur's plan to remove old, unowned content with low views

Imgur TOS change on May 15th 2023 could cause the loss of thousands of Stack Exchange images! Note first that images with https://i.stack.imgur.com or ...
Scortchi - Reinstate Monica's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
105 views

Editing an old answer or adding a new answer: which is more appropriate in this case?

I came across an old question Computing p-value using bootstrap with R and I thought that the answers might benefit from a graphical presentation. I liked the answer by Jan S. which shares my idea ...
Sextus Empiricus's user avatar
1 vote
3 answers
570 views

Are we free labor for OpenAI?

Recently, I’ve seen a number of CV users plugging questions into ChatGPT to help generate answers/content. Some of these users self-report to be educators. So, here’s the question: When we turn ...
Thomas Bilach's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
63 views

How to identify "sleepy" questions?

Is there any value of ensuring the site retains only answerable questions, and if a question is in fact answerable, is it the responsibility of the community or the moderators to find these questions ...
AdamO's user avatar
  • 60.5k
-7 votes
2 answers
109 views

Adding a tag for general (non-specific) questions

I think this site could be improved by the addition of a tag for a "general" question, or a "non-specific" question. This tag could be used when the person asking the question is ...
Connor's user avatar
  • 451
9 votes
0 answers
214 views

Programming or data request confusion

I haven't been reviewing long, but it seems like almost daily I see questions closed due to programming or data requests. But to me the majority of these are more often statistical questions rather ...
Shawn Hemelstrand's user avatar
13 votes
1 answer
279 views

Can anyone explain the reasoning for this migration away from Cross Validated?

This question: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/75944119/variance-of-truncated-normal-distribution asks how to read a formula in order to perform a particular calculation. As I read it, it's not a ...
Glen_b's user avatar
  • 278k
1 vote
2 answers
112 views

Can there be a "new in stats" thread or wiki added somewhere here?

I'm not entirely sure how good this idea is, but basically there have been a few times here where, as a by-product of answering/asking a question, I learn about something fairly new in statistics that ...
Shawn Hemelstrand's user avatar
7 votes
2 answers
94 views

Do we need the Drug tag, or can it be discarded?

Do we need the drug tag? It has no wiki, and only 6 questions. "Drugs" are not a statistical topic. While it's true that there are statistical components to medical research about the ...
Sycorax's user avatar
  • 89.1k
8 votes
2 answers
239 views

Tags for questions involving ChatGPT

We will see more and more questions that involve ChatGPT, in two ways: Questions about the inner workings of ChatGPT and similar Large Language Models (LLMs) Questions about "advice" ...
Stephan Kolassa's user avatar
8 votes
2 answers
333 views

Downvoting a new member

I just downvoted a post (now deleted) by a new member who has a reputation of one. Downvoting cost me some reputation, but it also cost that user some reputation, or at least it would have if that ...
Dave's user avatar
  • 58.3k
8 votes
0 answers
136 views

If and how to ask about soliciting domain knowledge relevant to priors

One of the less precisely-defined (mathematically or otherwise) aspects of performing Bayesian inference is assignment of priors based on domain knowledge, and there are plenty of questions on ...
Galen's user avatar
  • 7,118
5 votes
0 answers
77 views

To what extent are questions about survey methodology and design appropriate?

I was thinking about asking for academic references relative to conducting a survey on the human population that frequents a transit neighborhood (transit neighborhood may be particularly challenging ...
J-J-J's user avatar
  • 3,123
10 votes
0 answers
80 views

2022: a year in moderation

As we say goodbye to the old year and welcome the new one, we have a tradition of sharing moderation stats for the preceding calendar year. As most of you here are aware, sites on the Stack Exchange ...
JNat's user avatar
  • 101
12 votes
5 answers
206 views

Are questions about ethical use of statistics on-topic?

A strong majority of the questions I have seen on this site relate to technical aspects of statistics such as mathematics, algorithms, and sample design. I am curious if questions about ethics are on-...
Galen's user avatar
  • 7,118
4 votes
3 answers
222 views

What's the policy on Human/AI collaboration for answering questions?

On Kaggle, recently there is a person who's been answering questions with what is likely customized AI. It's not Chat GPT, but probably something more boutique / hand rolled, and possibly a result of ...
Blaze's user avatar
  • 73
10 votes
1 answer
180 views

How to improve attention to interesting/advanced, but complex/difficult, questions?

TL;DR The system promotes popular questions, but popular might not need to align with characteristics that are desirable. Especially complex and difficult questions might be very desirable, but ...
Sextus Empiricus's user avatar
7 votes
1 answer
152 views

A broad question has many near duplicates — How to decide whether to suggest it for closing?

This weekend a question got asked about exploratory analysis and p-hacking: Is "Exploratory Data Analysis" Fundamentally At Odds With "P-Hacking"? This is a broad topic to begin ...
dipetkov's user avatar
  • 8,760
10 votes
1 answer
195 views

What Questions are acceptable in the Machine Learning section of Cross Validated?

I posted a question on here recently that was closed: I was unsure if it fit into this site anyway, so I'm fine with it being closed. But it left me wondering, what is an acceptable Machine Learning ...
Connor's user avatar
  • 451
5 votes
2 answers
82 views

Where can we see and learn about the Winter Bash 2022 hats?

I earned hats on CV! I earned secret hats on CV! Where are these secrets divulged? This is very important stuff, people!
Alexis's user avatar
  • 29.2k
4 votes
0 answers
114 views

Multiple answers to same question (follow-up)

As a follow-up to this post and its related comments & answers, I wonder what's the correct action to take when we encounter the issue. For instance, I came across a post that contains two answers ...
utobi's user avatar
  • 11.2k

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