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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How much programming here?
Of course in context of R-versus-Clojure, I felt it needs external discussion.
So, I believe that there are two possible sorts of such questions:
An algorithmic question like, "How to implement X?" ...
18
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10
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What is on topic on Cross Validated?
There have been many threads on CV-meta about whether questions are on-topic, off-topic, are too-localized, etc.
For example:
Are "find the distribution" questions on topic?
Is a ...
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CV and Data Science: semi-identical twins?
I would like to reopen the discussion regarding CV and the Data Science beta. This question is related to this previous one: Data Science SE but now with a better view of where Data Science seems to ...
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Data Science SE
I noticed the ad on the main site today for the data science proposal, which evidently is 77% committed. Some of the people committed to the proposal are users on CV. Most of the questions listed ...
23
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3
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What to do about "wrong" questions?
We sometimes get what I would describe as "wrong" questions.
For instance, a perennial favorite seems to be questions about binning continuous variables, like What is a best way of binning non-finite ...
17
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3
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Should all "book recommendation" questions be classified as community wiki?
Recently I came across with a question that was asking for book recommendation in an expertise area related to statistic. Then, I was checking for duplicates and I realized among all book ...
15
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2
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Are the "Machine Learning" questions on topic?
Please take a look at this proposal: Machine Learning > On Topic
I would like your opinion if these on-topic questions would be welcomed on this site:
I am using a neural network with the ...
15
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2
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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, ...
20
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3
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ML questions: here or at Data Science?
Should questions about machine learning (ML) be asked here or at Data Science.SE? When Data Science was still a proposal, the discussion indicated these questions should be asked here. Later ...
11
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3
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Redirecting "looking for package in R" to SO
I noticed that multiple questions that ask about R packages are voted to migrate to SO (I also do this). This is consistent with the fact that CV is not about programming. On the other hand, "I am ...
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Should we close questions that can be easily answered by Wikipedia or Google?
Suppose, someone asks a question that can be answered very easily by using either a textbook or Wikipedia or Google etc. (See this question for an example). Should we close this type of question?
My ...
21
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1
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After Data Science SE: Artificial Intelligence SE
The Artificial Intelligence SE is now in private beta phase, and it looks like most questions asked there are on-topic here. There is already another SE with a large overlap, namely Data Science SE. ...
21
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3
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What does Cross Validated aim to be, who is it for?
There has been a lot of discussion about software-related questions on CV (see here or here for examples...). And yet there is still no clear idea and guidance on what CV is, what it strives to be and ...
19
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2
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Where to learn about R packages?
Questions about R packages are off-topic on SO, and since programming questions are off-topic on CV, a fortiori packages questions, which are about programming (in R) are off-topic on CV. That's why I ...
14
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2
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Are machine learning questions about an incorrectly working piece of code considered on-topic?
I've seen a few questions like this lately:
Backpropagation in multi-layer perceptron (MLP) doesn't converge
They don't seem programming questions to me: the code is syntactically correct, ...
6
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3
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Are probability questions on-topic?
The FAQ gives:
Statistical Analysis - Stack Exchange is for statistical analysis, data mining, machine learning, data visualization and statistical computing.
So, are questions about probability ...
22
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5
answers
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R-specific StackExchange site or greater integration of R community within CV?
There has been discussion over how more of the R community could be brought into the StackExchange fold. (See also this Question on SO Meta.)
If I were to sum-up feelings expressed thus far, we are ...
22
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0
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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 ...
16
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Can any of the people involved in the migration of this question explain why?
This question was just migrated to stackoverflow (well, an hour ago).
As far as I can see a great deal of it's pretty solidly on topic here.
"What is this function called?" is not a SO question, it'...
16
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2
answers
481
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A difficulty with self-study-like questions of the form "Is this correct?"
I've seen a spate of questions of a form more or less along the lines of "Is this working correct?" just lately.
While this is good from the point of view that the poster is clearly making a proper ...
11
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2
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Policy on questions that read like, "How should I do my job?"
I was wondering what the policy is on questions which look like a commercial organisation is asking how to solve a business problem.
It's totally understandable that everyone needs a hand from time ...
10
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When dealing with old off-topic questions, should we close or lock them, and why?
Some topics that are now considered off-topic used to be tolerated in the early days of this site. Consequently, there exist old threads with lots of votes/views/answers that are off-topic under ...
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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 ...
7
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1
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Questions asking to check answers to end-of-chapter exercises. Appropriate or not?
I like to answer end-of-chapter exercises in various econometrics textbooks. Most of the time, there's no solution manual for me to check my answers. I wonder if it is appropriate for me to post such ...
6
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2
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"Where to publish" questions: on-topic?
Are questions asking about venues for publishing statistical or machine learning-related articles on-topic at CV? Here is an example: Where to publish reasonable article in Deep Reinforcement Learning?...
4
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1
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Create [analysis] tag? + Update 2017: Delete [analysis] tag?
A recurrent issue in our forum is applied analysis questions. Not only are there ample examples in the CV network, but it comes up in Meta repeatedly. I think questions of the nature are appropriate ...
1
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0
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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. ...
0
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6
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493
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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 ...
28
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2
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590
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Are very elementary questions off topic on CrossValidated?
In a thread on the main site someone said very elementary questions are off topic
It looks like someone upvoted his comment so maybe he's right. Around that same time @gung told me to be cautious ...
21
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5
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Where can I ask questions about "operations research"?
Where should questions about operations research be asked? Is cross validated appropriate or are other sites within SE network better suited?
I have had a look at https://www.or-exchange.org/...
19
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0
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249
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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 ...
18
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2
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Shall we add "this is just a software question" to our default close reasons?
Our community-modifiable default off-topic close reasons are
Self-study questions (including textbook exercises, old exam papers, and homework) that seek to understand the concepts are welcome, but ...
15
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1
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Answering off-topic questions. Appropriate?
Sometimes I see off topic questions which have a very simple answer. Here's an example: https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/254623/confidence-interval-for-anova-in-spss. It's clearly off topic, ...
14
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2
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287
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Are puzzles on-topic on CV?
On StackExchange.com we have puzzles-dedicated site https://puzzling.stackexchange.com/ and https://codegolf.stackexchange.com/ for coding puzzles, math puzzles appear on math.stackexchange.com and ...
13
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What to do if a question is both unclear and about software?
Recently, I've seen several questions marked as "unclear what you are asking" when the question is both confusing and about software. If we mark it "unclear what you're asking" then the OP may try to ...
12
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1
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Which site is the best to ask about reinforcement learning?
Reinforcement learning is part of ML and I know ML is a good topic here. However, I know there is a data science and a computer science site (and maths etc). I was wondering, where would a ...
10
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1
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Should we consider grandfathering old R (and other programming-heavy) posts?
I have noticed quite a lot of too-old-to-migrate software-heavy questions (mostly R, but not entirely) coming through the close review queue.
They are often clearly off-topic by current standards ...
10
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2
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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
...
10
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Are questions about solving practical data science problems (memory etc.) on topic?
Are questions like How to resolve Error: cannot allocate vector of size 1.1 GB for glmnet in R on topic? On one hand, it asks about software, on another, this is about solving a practical data science ...
9
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2
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338
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Migrating software syntax to StackOverflow or DataScience?
This is a provocative question: should we send "How do I do this in R/SAS/Python/Stata/SPSS" questions to the DataScience, now that it's open?
Data cleaning is never a programming question, as it ...
8
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1
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Are "find the distribution" questions on topic?
Disclaimer: I am not a regular participant in Cross Validated, but a moderator on Maths.
We received a flag stating that this question should be migrated here. It is of the form: "given a data set, ...
7
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0
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Course or what to study recommendation questions on-topic?
What should we do with "how to learn statistics/machine learning" questions?
For instance:
Mathematician wants the equivalent knowledge to a quality stats degree is pretty highly upvoted, community ...
7
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2
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Should we close old, outdated and off-topic questions?
Please consider the following question:
Good GUI for R suitable for a beginner wanting to learn programming in R?. I just voted to close it as off-topic. Besides being off-topic it is also outdated ...
7
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2
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Are questions about terminology off topic?
I just discovered this site, and I had a question that has been bugging me for a while. My question isn't so much about a concept as it is about terminology, so I thought I'd check whether this kind ...
6
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Question about recommended readings
I am trying to do a community talk about hypothesis testing and want to focus on significance testing and p-values in particular. They have been a bit in the news as well recently (with some journal ...
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Data Sourcing: We need to make up our mind
Referencing this proposal on Area 51: http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/37195
and this post here: https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/20788/what-is-the-income-distribution-in-the-u-s-in-...
5
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1
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Is this question off-topic?
I have asked about the disadvantage of hyperplanes for the linear congruent random number generator, and the post has received 4 votes as off-topic, one away from being closed. So I wonder if the ...
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4
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How much can we ask about Speech Recognition
I am wondering, what can we ask about speech recognition on this site.
This question indicates that machine learning is very much included in the site. So how about the following questions:
How do I ...
2
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1
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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, ...
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New proposal at Area51: R statistical computing
I think we could use a site dedicated to programming in R (similar to the Mathematica SE). I went ahead and made a proposal in Area 51 (link).