Re: stat: standard deviation

[<pl...@pi...>]

On 08/30/14 02:10, Allin Cottrell wrote:
> It woud be sufficient either to state in the documentation that
> gnuplot gives the MLE or to switch to the sample standard deviation.
> I don't see much to be said for more complicated options.
>
> Allin Cottrell


This should be clearly stated up front without the need for digging the doc.

If gnuplot is calculating the "sample standard deviation" ( which would 
seem to be the most appropriate when given a sample of data ) then that 
is what it should label it as when outputting the result, rather than 
just 'std dev'.  The note about degrees of freedom assumption could go 
in the doc.

Uneducated used of these kind of statistics is pretty common, perhaps 
more so in population that are going to depend on a plotting program to 
provide them, rather than having existing knowledge and software to 
provide the stats.  It would be good to be as clear as possible about 
what is being output with an assumption that user probably has little 
knowledge of the subject.

A link to some starting point to further understanding as a note in help 
may be valuable.

Peter.