# Tag Info

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Python Although this is not a statistical package per se, it has extensive statistical capabilities. The Python Wiki is a gateway to Python. Python Forum is a Python-oriented Q&A site. From Python 3.4, the "statistics" module will be added to the standard library. StatPy ("special emphasis on astrostatistics"). Links to numerical and scientific ...

29

I would lean towards allowing such questions. For example, I answered such a question here: Difference in output between SAS's proc genmod and R's glm. My general position is that whether a question should be viewed as off topic should be determined by what the OP needs explained: if the required explanation is statistical, it's best here, but if the ...

22

MATLAB MATLAB (MATrix LABoratory) is a multi-paradigm numerical computing environment and fourth-generation programming language. It is developed by MathWorks. MATLAB has a free, open-source counterpart named Octave that is distributed on GNU-GPL license and offers access to a subset of MATLAB's original functionality. MATLAB questions get routinely ...

22

The answer is, of course, "it depends", but I think you're asking about something different from what you think you're asking about. I believe we can all agree that a question like Is there an R package for fitting Random Forests? not only is off-topic but also shows a lack of research effort. And likewise we can all agree that randomForest::...

21

Julia Julia is a new language with MATLAB-like syntax but Lisp-like semantics and a Lisp-style macro language. Julia has growing capabilities for statistics, and, its main advantage, is blazing fast! To learn about Julia start with http://julialang.org/ and, especially, http://julialang.org/community/. Julia has several online discussion groups ...

19

I view data cleaning as on-topic here: it is a fundamental, if somewhat unglamorous (and underappreciated) aspect of data analysis. But, in keeping with this site's approach and philosophy, we would want to welcome answers that focus on principles and generalities which would apply regardless of one's computing platform, and migrate any threads that ...

16

Stan Stan is an open-source, probabilistic programming language implementing full Bayesian statistical inference and penalized maximum likelihood estimation. Stan has very good documentation (including detailed Language Manual), github Wiki page and active Stan users mailing list.

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I like the idea, and I like the current phrasing. I think we'll end up with a system that operates more smoothly with this as a default option. I think having to type a custom comment is sometimes discouraging for people, and so they either go with migration (when it will just have to be closed on SO), or the "not about statistics..." option (which often ...

15

If code is the full answer to a question, then the question is off-topic. When the code illustrates or implements a statistical answer, such as a procedure or algorithm offered in response to a question about statistics or machine learning, then it is almost always warmly welcomed.

14

I don't see any real disagreements here. The key is in the last line: if your interest in any question were to change radically upon replacing R by BMDP or Systat or whatever, then that is likely because the question is not asking anything about data analysis or statistics: it is asking about how to say the magic words to make the software behave. That's ...

14

I'd say that if it is about understanding the output, as in the quoted example, it would be on-topic. On another hand, if the question asked where can be the $p$-value of some test be found on multi-page SPSS report, or, how to extract the statistic value from R object returned by some method, etc. then this would be about the software and reading the ...

12

JAGS JAGS is Just Another Gibbs Sampler. It is a program for analysis of Bayesian hierarchical models using Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) simulation not wholly unlike BUGS. JAGS was written with three aims in mind: To have a cross-platform engine for the BUGS language To be extensible, allowing users to write their own functions, ...

12

This is my first post on CrossValidated or Meta-CrossValidated, so I don't feel I'm a stakeholder here. FWIW, I'm trying to learn R and statistics - but I come from an implementer's perspective. The situation right now is that R questions are split across StackOverflow and CrossValidated, with the unfortunate result that good questions go unanswered and ...

12

I don't know of any official CV policy. My policy, however, is to leave a comment for the OP stating that the question is unclear, typically with some description of the points that need clarifying, and also mention that questions about software are generally off topic here. I then vote to close as unclear. If the OP edits the question and clarifies it, ...

12

A question asking for software referral is not on-topic, unless it needs some kind of statistical expertise. The same applies to questions about code. So, for example, a question asking about R packages for reading Excel files, plotting social network data, or asking how to implement linear regression in Python, etc. would be off-topic. On the other hand, ...

11

It seems to me that the line between on-topic and off-topic has drifted a little bit lately, and it'd be nice if we could (collectively) re-establish it. I wanted to second @whuber's point that most software questions that might be off-topic have underlying data analysis questions with two examples: I once asked about why the distance values differed ...

11

I don't really know where to post this but there is an additional point that I feel should be made. When looking at questions like https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/70310/how-to-fix-mean-and-variance-of-latent-variables-with-the-mirt-package How to perform Chi square test for trend in SPSS v 19? https://stackoverflow.com/questions/18788051/3-level-...

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Minitab Tutorials for Minitab 17 and Minitab Express with examples and illustrated instructions. Free assistance/support directly from developers (e-mail and phone call). Knowledgebase/FAQ. Learn more about Minitab on Wikipedia

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I see your valuable contributions quite regularly here; thanks for those. Thanks for asking first, as well. The SE network has a fairly clear policy on self-promotion, which you should look at. https://stats.stackexchange.com/help/behavior Limits for self-promotion in answers What signifies "Good" self promotion? (or: Self Promotion Part ...

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I agree with many of the points gung makes (and several of his answers to subquestions) but I disagree with the conclusion in relation to the post in question. I also agree that it has been litigated many times, and the help/on-topic hasn't changed across many iterations of this sort of question... indicating that its contents are as intended (or presumably ...

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JMP JMP is a desktop statistical exploration tool from SAS. The primary source of online support for JMP is the JMP User Community site which hosts discussion forums and a file exchange for add-ins and data sets. Other online resources include JMP documentation, a semi-technical JMP blog and weekly live webcasts.

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Fortran Fortran is one of the main languages in which statistical algorithms have been coded. Comp.lang.fortran is an active Usenet group. Stack Overflow often has Fortran questions. The Open Directory has links to many Fortran codes in statistics and econometrics.

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Wizard Wizard is desktop statistics and data visualization package for Mac OS X. The primary support channel is the Wizard User Group hosted on Google Groups. Disclosure: I am the developer of the software.

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As I understand your description, this would be a pure software / how-to question. As such, it would be off-topic. There is, however, a glmnet tag. You could leave comments (where it seems appropriate) on tagged questions. You could also edit the tag wiki. Moreover, in answering questions with the tag, it might be fine to mention the package along ...

9

Contrary to your comment, questions that are only about how to use R (e.g., ggplot2) are off topic here, whether for visualization or analysis or other purposes, and are regularly closed as such. The same is true for questions that are only about how to use Python (e.g., seaborn, matplotlib, etc.), Stata, Minitab, SAS, etc. A question such as, 'should I ...

8

Weka Weka is a collection of machine learning algorithms for data mining tasks. The algorithms can either be applied directly to a dataset or called from your own Java code. Weka contains tools for data pre-processing, classification, regression, clustering, association rules, and visualization. It is also well-suited for developing new machine learning ...

8

I think this is a good question. Sometimes such questions and their answers can be illuminating, as when someone asked What is the difference between various Kruskal-Wallis post-hoc tests?, and, since I am the author of one of the four packages mentioned, I was able to provide some insight as to the statistical differences underlying the different results ...

8

+1 to all the answers provided. I think that all of them make good points and follow a general consensus that such questions appear "generally" on-topic. I would like to add that from personal experience, I think that such questions are very educational. It is "trivial" for a learner to say for an LME model: "Yeah, obviously: \$y \sim N(X\beta +Z\gamma, \...

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Definitely yes. If results can be reproduced across multiple platforms, we have a methodology. If all platforms give different answers, we at best have implementations... and we don't know which one is the right one, if any. @gung suggested that the expertise required to answer questions like that needs to be statistical. Well... this is where statistics ...

8

I think that interpreting the results of statistical analyses is unambiguously a statistical question. It's true that such results are basically always the output of some function from some statistical package, but that doesn't really change anything except the superficial aspects of the results. That is, the meaning of regression results in Stata output ...

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