From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep‎. Star Mississippi 16:29, 14 June 2023 (UTC) reply

Cumulative density function

[Hide this box] New to Articles for deletion (AfD)? Read these primers!

Cumulative density function (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – ( View log | edits since nomination)
(Find sources:  Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Is this really a valid dab page as is? Hildeoc ( talk) 14:40, 28 May 2023 (UTC) reply

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. This certainly isn't necessary as a dab page as it's only pointing to two things, that are in any case so closely related that they will be referred to in each other's article. Elemimele ( talk) 14:46, 28 May 2023 (UTC) reply
@ Elemimele: The phrase "almost certainly" is certainly wrong. Perhaps you don't realize how confused students can be sometimes. Furthermore, people have linked to "cumulative density function" in Wikipedia articles, and then, confronted with the contradiction and the facts, have tried to argue about the matter, defending their use of that phrase as correct. Have you looked at those links, specifically at the way the phrase was used? Michael Hardy ( talk) 17:51, 29 May 2023 (UTC) reply
@ XOR&: @ XOR'easter: The result will be that those who make this mistake will continue to make this mistake instead of getting it fixed. Michael Hardy ( talk) 17:53, 29 May 2023 (UTC) reply
If we don't have a reference explicitly calling it a mistake, then we can't call it a mistake, as opposed to the many instances of mathematical terminology that are confusing and illogical but still in common use. If we do have a reference, then all we need to do is include a sentence or two in cumulative distribution function. Having separate pages for mathematical terms about which there is almost nothing to say is more dictionary-like than encyclopedic and scatters the presentation. XOR'easter ( talk) 14:36, 31 May 2023 (UTC) reply
  • Comment There are a few thousand pageviews annually, suggesting that this does indeed serve some sort of navigational purpose. I have no strong feelings about keeping vs. redirecting, but deleting seems misguided with that in mind. TompaDompa ( talk) 14:39, 29 May 2023 (UTC) reply
  • Keep. This is a frequent mistake of confused students. If not corrected, those who make this mistake will continue in error. The page gets a couple of dozen views per day. It is thus serving a useful purpose. And those who say people "almost certainly" mean "cumulative distribution function" should adduce empirical data to show that. Michael Hardy ( talk) 17:56, 29 May 2023 (UTC) reply
  • Comment: if the article is to be kept because the confusion is a common one, then rather than merely telling the reader they're wrong, it might be helpful to tell them why they're wrong. I've therefore added a very short explanation. It's not sourced, because it's still in the spirit of a dab-page, and the explanation is only to help the reader access properly sourced information at the two pages dealing with the real subjects. But in a way, we could even remove the dab-template because this isn't really a dab anymore; it could be viewed as an explanation of a concept that the keep-!voters feel is a notable misunderstanding? Do please have a look, anyone, at the text I've added and improve it, or comment on whether you think it's misguided, it's just an idea.... Elemimele ( talk) 20:44, 29 May 2023 (UTC) reply
@ Elemimele: But the explanation you added is correct only for discrete distributions, not for continuous distributions. Michael Hardy ( talk) 20:29, 5 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Michael Hardy feel free to change the wording to make it more general. My excuse is that this is only a disambiguation to help inexperienced readers find the correct article, which will fill in the full detail. The sort of person who can visualise the difference between continuous and discrete distributions, and grasp the concept of density at an infinitely small point on a continuum, is probably not going to be making the mistake that this page intended to clarify, and in making the article/page more general and accurate, we need to make sure that it doesn't become too complicated for its intended readership. Elemimele ( talk) 05:56, 6 June 2023 (UTC) reply
@ Elemimele: But then there is the problem of explaining how a probability density can be more than 1 at some points. Michael Hardy ( talk) 23:21, 6 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Michael Hardy OK, so maybe we need a three-way disambiguation here, additionally directing to the probability mass function, but describing the probability density function as an integral that's usually taken over a very small range somewhere in the middle, while the cumulative distribution is an integral from minus infinity up to the current point?? I'll try to find some wording. I don't mind the version you've put there at the moment, but I'm not 100% sure it's the clearest way to put it for the sort of reader who's making this mess-up. Elemimele ( talk) 05:43, 7 June 2023 (UTC) reply
@ Elemimele: The density function isn't an integral; rather it's something that you take an integral of. And not generally over a very small range; I don't know why you would say that. Michael Hardy ( talk) 23:12, 7 June 2023 (UTC) reply
Michael Hardy sorry, I was rushed and put that particularly awfully. I meant that it's something you take the integral of, not an integral. I've always thought of it as being something that I've used over a small range because I'm usually interested in probabilities of fairly small ranges of results, but you are quite right, and I shouldn't be biased by myself. My feeling is that for the purposes of this AfD, it's coming out very much as a keep, and the exact wording is probably something best taken to the article's talk-page? Elemimele ( talk) 06:03, 8 June 2023 (UTC) reply

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: For input on the changes made by Elemimele...
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, CycloneYoris talk! 04:47, 5 June 2023 (UTC) reply

  • Keep Per data from David Eppstein and TompaDompa, I think it's a common enough mistake to worth having the disambiguation page. JML1148 ( talk | contribs) 07:14, 5 June 2023 (UTC) reply
  • Keep, the page is plainly helpful in directing readers to the right page, and it has been well improved during this AfD. Chiswick Chap ( talk) 13:09, 5 June 2023 (UTC) reply
  • Comment @ Elemimele: 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) 20:12, 13 June 2023 (UTC) reply
    @ Michael Hardy: thank you for checking it over, and making that improvement. I'm changing my vote to a keep based on all the above discussion. Elemimele ( talk) 21:09, 13 June 2023 (UTC) reply
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Cumulative_density_function&oldid=1160135972"