Questions tagged [on-topic]

Use this tag when examining what is on-topic or off-topic, and why, and how to deal with off-topic questions.

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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
2 votes
1 answer
66 views

Machine Learning Question Off Topic?

I'm struggling to model a machine learning problem and created a stylized version of the problem as a question: Predicting Future Zombies It was closed as off-topic. Any suggestions on how to improve ...
cwarden's user avatar
  • 768
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
  • 7,158
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
  • 3,178
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
  • 7,158
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
3 votes
3 answers
163 views

Why are these blog recommendations questions considered off-topic?

There are a few Mathematical Statistics/Statistical Learning Theory blogs I enjoy reading, and wanted to ask on the main site for recommendations of similar theory-focused Statistics/ML blogs, as I ...
Stratos supports the strike's user avatar
10 votes
1 answer
159 views

How to adapt this Philosophy.SE question to fit CV on-topic standards?

I asked this question on Philosophy Stack Exchange: Epistemic value of multiple eyewitness accounts: single event vs. multiple events given a fixed number of eyewitnesses? Intuitively speaking, ...
user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
74 views

Showing a function source code and asking what it does

I am a statistics newbie and I have recently ported a function or subroutine in fortran into python. But I have no idea what it does. Is it on topic to ask such questions here ? I am looking to find ...
user avatar
7 votes
1 answer
111 views

Is this question appropriate - Is it necessary to report on the step-by-step results from a model-building process?

I would like to ask a question on CrossValidated about statistics reporting, rather than statistical analysis itself. The question is: Is it necessary to report on the step-by-step results from a ...
L.S.'s user avatar
  • 81
4 votes
0 answers
78 views

Why are questions about "portfolio optimization" considered offtopic?

I noticed a trend where questions about portfolio weight estimation and optimization tend to either be suggested for transferring over to quant SE, or even closed as off-topic. Here are a few examples:...
Karolis Koncevičius's user avatar
8 votes
1 answer
85 views

Is it appropriate to ask about plotting/graphing/visualizing data here?

I would like to ask for advice about plotting a growth curve model, preferably using SAS, SPSS or Excel. Is that an appropriate question for CrossValidated?
L.S.'s user avatar
  • 81
7 votes
0 answers
152 views

Should questions about the statistics profession be added to the scope of CV?

I noticed that a recent question about the statistics profession was closed as off-topic. It clearly does not fall within the listed topics on our help pages so I have no objection to the moderating ...
Ben's user avatar
  • 118k
3 votes
1 answer
101 views

Does this question belong here or ELL?

I have the question below. I think it is more about statistics than English. Thus, it would belong here. However, one might argue that it has too little statistical substance to merit posting here, ...
Ooker's user avatar
  • 277
8 votes
2 answers
111 views

Help me frame a question on the relevance of the frequentist model to real world applications in a way that it's on topic on CV

It's been a long time since I've been active on CV and I don't want to botch it by asking an off-topic, opinion-based, or duplicate question. Here is my attempt: How to answer to critiques about the ...
DeltaIV's user avatar
  • 17.4k
25 votes
2 answers
491 views

Would Cross Validated want Machine Learning Theory questions that are no longer on-topic for Stack Overflow?

Over time, a large number of machine learning questions have been asked and answered on Stack Overflow, amassing a significant amount of useful information. However, these questions are unfortunately ...
Daniel F's user avatar
  • 267
10 votes
2 answers
167 views

Is asking for help finding relevant research off topic?

I have trouble finding relevant research in a specific sub-field. Is it off topic for Cross Validated to either ask for such research or ask for help in finding it? How could I make it a better fit ...
Felix's user avatar
  • 527
22 votes
0 answers
288 views

Closing "software questions"

TL;DR: Recently, it seems to me like we have been a little trigger-happy about closing questions as "only about software/programming". I ask that we please ease off a bit. Our help page on ...
Stephan Kolassa's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
110 views

Can we ask questions related to R Programming?

Questions related to programming/coding is mostly related to Stackoverflow. R is a programming language for statistical computing. Can we ask questions related to R-programming??
Thalassophile's user avatar
5 votes
1 answer
117 views

Is Cross Validated an appropriate place to ask for examples of meta-analysis done well?

I'm teaching myself how to do meta-analysis, and as a beginner to the subject I would like to read journal article examples of meta-analysis done well. It's easy enough to find examples of meta-...
Angela's user avatar
  • 530
8 votes
0 answers
104 views

Is it on topic for a question to ask for a canonical example?

I want to ask a question with the title Is there a canonical example demonstrating the difference between predictive and explanatory models? I have ideas about the body of this question, with some ...
Alexis's user avatar
  • 29.2k
6 votes
1 answer
134 views

Is this question about categorical features on-topic?

The question Suggestions on using model in production 1 test at a time was closed as off-topic. To my mind, the question content is squarely about the generalizability of a specific kind of feature (...
Sycorax's user avatar
  • 89.2k
1 vote
1 answer
92 views

Is there a machine learning StackExchange?

Is there a research-level machine learning site in the StackExchange universe? I don't like Reddit's formatting system.
JP Zhang's user avatar
  • 231
11 votes
2 answers
360 views

Why is my question about replicating a figure from Hastie et al. not appropriate?

I asked this question earlier today but was quickly put on hold with a generic comment. I can only assume the question is on hold as it has been interpreted as being a coding question. It is clear ...
Seraf Fej's user avatar
  • 546
9 votes
2 answers
295 views

Would this dice question be on topic if it were posted or migrated here?

RPG.SE is currently having a bit of a vigorous discussion about this question about dice rolling (meta thereupon), in which this stack was brought up as a potential migrate target. There is a dice ...
Stackstuck's user avatar
14 votes
1 answer
183 views

Question about math notation closed as off-topic

The question "What is sigma function in the YOLO object detector?" has been closed as off-topic with the usual explanation: This question appears to be off-topic because EITHER it is not about ...
Jan Kukacka's user avatar
  • 11.2k
5 votes
0 answers
137 views

Are questions concerning deployment best practices on-topic?

I have a model built with time series data that I want to deploy. Sadly, I haven't found a lot of resources for this and I wanted to ask how to best approach this. The answer I am hoping for contains ...
oerpli's user avatar
  • 103
13 votes
3 answers
364 views

Shouldn't CV be a valid resource on how to implement non-trivial statistical models in different software?

Currently the Help Center > Asking states that questions are on-topic if they're about "statistical analysis, applied or theoretical", and whenever it's about programming "if it needs statistical ...
jay.sf's user avatar
  • 705
15 votes
3 answers
344 views

This opinion-based question must be closed

The question What must someone know in statistics and machine learning? is not suitable for the stats.SE format because it is primarily opinion-based. I believe that much is obvious on its face. OP's ...
Sycorax's user avatar
  • 89.2k
16 votes
0 answers
179 views

Are "stats-review" questions on-topic?

I'm dealing with a question on Stack Overflow that's really a "stats review" -- not technically a code review ("is this code OK?"), but "is this statistical approach OK?" This strikes me as ...
Ben Bolker's user avatar
  • 41.6k
10 votes
2 answers
235 views

Should we remove the "datasets" close reason from the list?

Our recent proposal for adding one more close reason was declined. The reason was that we could re-use the "datasets" reason Questions about obtaining specific datasets are off-topic on Cross ...
Tim's user avatar
  • 136k
9 votes
1 answer
206 views

Are "What is State of the Art for Machine Learning in X" on topic?

I often need to discern what the State of the Art (SOTA) is for certain Machine Learning Applications, which I currently ask on the Fast.ai forums. For example: How does Deep Learning deal with ...
Seanny123's user avatar
  • 647
11 votes
3 answers
239 views

If OP asks for a software referral, and a referral *doesn't* exist, may we answer with the code they asked for?

If an OP asks for a R library recommendation (policy under debate in another meta thread, I realize), and no acceptable recommendation exists, what is the policy regarding writing and posting code ...
Peter Leopold's user avatar
6 votes
1 answer
151 views

Is this question mentioning Keras off-topic?

Image classification with large images in R keras OP mentions keras a couple time, but to their credit, they don't include code. I'd like to answer the question, but I wonder if I should comment ...
DeltaIV's user avatar
  • 17.4k
19 votes
0 answers
248 views

Questions asking for statistical package recommendations: how do we differentiate in vs out of bounds for CV?

Recently, I asked for a recommendation for R packages that were capable of doing latent class analysis with mixed indicator types and were capable of doing latent class regression (i.e. treat the ...
Weiwen Ng's user avatar
  • 1,398
8 votes
2 answers
189 views

Do we need a canonical thread about stock trading? What would it address?

I've noticed that stock trading is a prominent theme among reinforcement-learning and neural-networks and deep-learning questions. I think this is because (1) stock trading is an easy problem to ...
Sycorax's user avatar
  • 89.2k
15 votes
2 answers
441 views

Overlap with ai.stackexchange and datascience.stackexchange

I found that quite a few tags are present at each of these sites in the SE universe: Artificial Intelligence (AI) Data Science (DS) Cross Validated (CV) For example: reinforcement-learning (AI, DS, ...
a_guest's user avatar
  • 161
5 votes
1 answer
74 views

What is our stance on website recommendation questions?

What is our stance on website recommendation questions? Are they on-topic or off-topic? Assume that the website recommendation pertains to statistics / machine learning. Example: Is there any web-...
Franck Dernoncourt's user avatar
12 votes
0 answers
57 views

Improve closure-to-migrate voting

We often get questions that focus on how to do something using R (or Python, rarely SAS, MS Excel or others), with little to no statistical content. Such questions are off-topic and should be closed. ...
Stephan Kolassa's user avatar
8 votes
1 answer
115 views

(How) can I make an on-topic question from this?

I posted this question on Software Recommendations. As it is getting no response, I think that I might try to make a meaningful chart for my friend, in Excel . Actually, I would prefer someone else ...
Mawg says reinstate Monica's user avatar
6 votes
1 answer
140 views

Should I ask this mathematical statistics question here or on math.se?

I would like to ask the following question: if $M$ is a $m\times n$ constant matrix and $\eta\sim\mathcal{N}(0,I)$, then does $$\mathbf{E}_{\eta\sim\mathcal{N}}\left[\frac{\lVert M\eta\rVert}{\...
DeltaIV's user avatar
  • 17.4k
5 votes
1 answer
106 views

What to do with a question which asks about R packages and how to fit RBF networks

This question How to fit a RBF network in R? asks an off-topic question (which R package to use to fit RBF networks) and a question which, while on-topic, is very likely a duplicate. Should I close ...
DeltaIV's user avatar
  • 17.4k
14 votes
1 answer
211 views

Is optimization off-topic?

I came across this thread today. Why not use the third derivative? It has a very good discussion both in the comments and in the answers, yet it was closed as off-topic because it is about ...
Sycorax's user avatar
  • 89.2k
26 votes
3 answers
570 views

"Help I have some data and need to analyse it what do I dooo?"

I have been on this stackexchange long enough now to see there is quite a lot of questions along the lines of: Help, I'm a data science intern/amateur statistician and I've been given a load of ...
Ingolifs's user avatar
  • 1,712
0 votes
6 answers
493 views

Favorite "data analysis" cartoon question should be closed

This question What is your favorite "data analysis" cartoon? Should really be closed, as it's sending a negative signal about what is allowed on the site, per the comment: According to ...
Jeff Atwood's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
66 views

Should I ask questions about interpreting printouts from a statistical package here or on SO?

There's a function from a statistical package whose printout I'm slightly confused about. Should I ask about it on SO or here? On the one hand, it doesn't have anything to do with coding/programming, ...
WavesWashSands's user avatar
13 votes
8 answers
635 views

Dealing with "do my professional work for me" questions?

There has been some discussion on CV Meta of how to deal with homework questions and also job-related questions. Either can be unreasonable in certain cases, but the latter really annoy me, since they ...
Ben's user avatar
  • 118k
9 votes
1 answer
289 views

Is CV the right site for this question?

I just asked the following question: What are attention mechanism exactly? It seems that attention-related questions haven't received answers on this site. Is this the right site for these questions?...
DeltaIV's user avatar
  • 17.4k
1 vote
0 answers
81 views

How to improve the following question

A new user asked this question: Neural Network for Foreign Exchange Prediction In my opinion it's quite good as a first question, but it's hard to answer. I'd like the help the OP improve it. ...
DeltaIV's user avatar
  • 17.4k
7 votes
3 answers
1k views

Should the mailing list on structural equation modeling (SEMNET) consider moving to CV?

I am subscribed to SEMNET, a list on structural equation and latent variable modeling, and it is undergoing some sort of an existential crisis. The talk there is about moving to a forum/website -- it ...
StasK's user avatar
  • 30.8k