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The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 19:53, 28 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Interpretations Image

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The assassin version of the image is literally an inferior visualization, and less intuitive. Specifically, it is less visually apparent that a character is “sus” or “an assassin” compared to having a beard, or wearing glasses. Quite frustrating that people are happy to argue for something that harms the transmissible of knowledge because it’s funny. Uwuo (talk) 04:10, 22 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Uwuo: Though mental characteristics are harder to illustrate than physical ones, suspicion/guilt is a far better application of Bayes' theorem than beard/glasses, which has no causal relationship. Cheers, cmɢʟeeτaʟκ 00:15, 2 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Cmglee: Why do we need any visible attributes at all? Can't we just stick to plain numbers? What additional information do six face icons contain that a plain digit 6 doesn't? All the examples in the #Examples section work perfectly with digits, why can't #Interpretations do the same? --CiaPan (talk) 18:40, 2 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I support the use of a visual representation. I support the present visual over the beards and glasses visual because beards and glasses have no connection whereas being suspicious and being an assassin are believably connected. However, I also support improving the current diagram and even replacing it with something else, so long as the two variables have some connection. In the current diagram, being an assassin is indicated by a dagger. That one makes sense. Being suspicious is indicated by what? Is it a bushy eyebrow? Maybe an eyepatch would be better. Constant314 (talk) 18:49, 2 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, @Constant314. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jopy.12396 concludes that "distinctive eyebrows reveal narcissists' personality to others, providing a basic understanding of the mechanism through which people can identify narcissistic personality traits with potential application to daily life."
I've considered changing it to having some bloodstains (also starts with "B") I'll change it if you concur. Cheers, cmɢʟeeτaʟκ 19:15, 2 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I like that. See a man with blood stains on him and it is more likely he is an assassin. Constant314 (talk) 21:30, 2 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
What have i stumbled upon LuckTheWolf (talk) 08:57, 9 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It does seem needlessly distracting (if the reader gets the Among Us reference) or confusing (if they don't) to have the assassins also wearing little visors and backpacks.
Maybe the suspicion marker could be a cloak, to go with the dagger? Belbury (talk) 17:13, 24 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
While it may make no difference to you, some people are more visually minded and find it easier to understand or learn concepts when given concrete representations. Cheers, cmɢʟeeτaʟκ 19:10, 2 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 23 August 2023

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The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. (closed by non-admin page mover)MaterialWorks 20:08, 30 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]


Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Possessives is very clear: For the possessive of singular nouns, including proper names and words ending in s, add 's. The guidance gives examples including Descartes's philosophy and Jesus's teachings, and almost no exceptions. The subject pages should be no exception to this style. It would be difficult to use a WP:COMMONNAME argument to the contrary because any published form would reflect the style guide of its source publication: an argument such as the majority of journals use Bayes' simply reflects that the majority of journals have style guides that differ from Wikipedia's. The Theorem of Bayes in Wikipedia's style is Bayes's theorem, and there are plenty of uses of Bayes's in the encyclopedia. This shouldn't be a discussion about the validity of MOS:'S, and any opposing comments need to say why the current form should be allowed to depart from the generally accepted standard of MOS. Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 16:32, 23 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Object to Stokes' theorem move as stated, because the target redirects to a different article. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 17:09, 23 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It doesn't make sense for the two variations to lead to different articles. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 18:03, 23 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed, but that should be cleaned up first. Disambig, maybe? SarekOfVulcan (talk) 21:52, 23 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This seems tangential to the move discussion. That said, I'll give my opinion: The current target for Stokes's theorem is wrong. I can't think of any reason that search term should point to the "generalized" version. --Trovatore (talk) 21:56, 23 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
MOS:'S is a guideline meant to reflect the current consensus. It appears from this discussion that it no longer accurately reflects consensus for article titles such as this, and so it should be updated to properly reflect this new consensus. And even if you reject that idea, at the very top is says that "it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply." So then this use case would just be an exception to the general guideline. And you are misrepresenting what the guideline says. It doesn't say to use "Jesus's", it says to try to reword to avoid using it: "...(Jesus's teachings), consider rewording (the teachings of Jesus)." And with the Descartes's example, the guideline is clearly contemplating instances where you are creating possessives from scratch, not instances such as this where the possessive form is the common name of a longstanding topic and therefore the article title. Rreagan007 (talk) 17:36, 24 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Distinction between 'Theorem' and 'Rule'

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The article currently starts "In probability theory and statistics, Bayes' theorem (alternatively Bayes' law or Bayes' rule), named after Thomas Bayes, describes the probability of an event," citing [1]. Yet the 'statement of theory' refers to 'events', not 'hypotheses'. Confusing!

To clarify matters I suggest that the 'theorem' is stated in terms of events and the 'rule' in terms of propositions, citing Keynes' A Treatise on Probability and referring to Bayesian inference for details. It might also be worth making some such distinction as ...

"Bayes' rule is logically valid for a Stochastic process with an unknown parameter that the hypotheses propose particular values for. It is also widely regarded as providing useful 'measures' even for subjects of interest (such as economies) that are not necessarily strictly stochastic."

(The History section and the Bayesian inference article may also need clarifying. For example how many readers will appreciate the significance of "Bayes' theorem "is to the theory of probability what the Pythagorean theorem is to geometry", calling to mind that Pythagoras thought the axioms of geometry to be 'self-evident truths'?)

Djmarsay (talk) 15:33, 9 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Spelling of Bayes's Theorem

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While I understand the standard in practice for this (and numerous other mathematical) theorem(s) is to use only the apostrophe after the last 's' of the name (& omit the final possessive 's'), this does not make any grammatical sense.

The final s (after the apostrophe) is omitted in plural possessives, and only when they end in s due to the pluralisation. Bayes fits neither of these rubric, as (for starters), Thomas Bayes was a singular person.

Unless there is a rationale for using this spelling (apart from lazy convention), I would suggest fixing this oversight. Jp.nesseth (talk) 23:42, 30 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This is not an oversight. It's been discussed, if not ad nauseam, at least ad tedium. You can bring it up again if you insist, but please look through the archives first. --Trovatore (talk) 23:49, 30 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]