Talk:List of important publications in statistics

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Contents 1 tabulation 2 Standards in all the Wikipedia:WikiProject Science pearls articles 3 Related AFD 4 The criteria for entries 5 Categories of important publications 6 Cleanup 7 Suggestions

[edit] tabulation

just idea - maybe tabulated info is better?

Statistics	Publication	Author	Publication data (publisher, year, (ed.), ISSN/ISBN)	Online version	Annotation	Importance Intro / Topic creator / Breakthrough / Influence
Probability	The Doctrine of Chances	:Author: Abraham de Moivre	:Publication data: 1738 (2nd ed.)	:Online version: ?	:Description: The book introduced the concept of normal distributions as approximations to binomial distributions. In effect, de Moivre proved a weak version of the central limit theorem. Sometimes his result is called the theorem of de Moivre-Laplace.	:Importance: Topic creator, Breakthrough, Influence

We can check the use of tables but I’m not sure they are appropriate. I tried using tables in the first version of the List of publications in computer science. Editing the list was a bit problematic, especially to new users. Some of the most important contributions to the list are from anonymous users and I wouldn’t like to make their work harder. In the long term, I hope to have an article in wikipedia for each publication. Maybe then we will be able to use summary tables. APH 07:48, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Standards in all the Wikipedia:WikiProject Science pearls articles

List of publications in biology was put up for deletion at AfD but survived the process as there was no consensus. However, as someone who has been concerned with this Wikipedia:WikiProject Science pearls project for some months now, I am concerned. There is indeed a case that the material here is not free of a POV. How do we determine importance? Earlier this year the participants on List of publications in chemistry debated this and decided on two matters. First, they tightened up the criteria for inclusion, in particular insisted that publications that were important as an introduction had to have had a wider importance such as altering the way all future text books were written or altered the way the subject was taught. Second, they decided that all new entries should be raised for debate over a 10 day period on the talk page to determine whether they should be kept or deleted. Most existing entries were debated and several were deleted. This has worked reasonably well although it would be better if more people had participated. It is clear enough that it is not, for these articles, sufficient to allow anyone to add entries, as only very obvious nonsense is likely to be deleted. Each entry needs the consideration of several editors. I urge all interested in this project to look at what the chemists here have done and consider whether something similar or even better can be used on all pages in the project. I am putting this paragraph on all the other talk pages of this project. --Bduke 08:38, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Related AFD

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of publications in biology (2nd nomination) Kappa 08:20, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The criteria for entries

Please take a look at a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Science pearls#Header template to all project list pages on rewording the template that generates the header to this list of publications to make the criteria for entries to the list rather tighter and better reflecting the notability criteria of WP. The motivation is to better take into account comments that have been made when some of these lists have been proposed for deletion. --Bduke 00:36, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Categories of important publications

Please note Wikipedia:WikiProject Science pearls##Categories of important publications. Thanks, APH 10:27, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup

I added a cleanup tag to the article since the listed items do not appear to have a uniform criteria for inclusion applied. Moreover, what is and is not a good introduction to a topic is inherently pov, so should probably not be included at all (I have already removed one section on introductory probability. The "latest and greatest" criteria should also be removed, I would think, stemming from WP:NOT sense that it is not the place for news. If the publication is important in statistics, it is probably should be timelessly important. In short, some work is probably needed. --TeaDrinker 01:24, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't think textbooks in general should be on here. It would probably be better, anyway, to take this article down and roll it into a "History of Probability Theory" article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Guyminuslife (talk • contribs) 10:02, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree. It is most unsightly, and at odds with WP:MOS (widespread linking of headings).--Adoniscik (talk) 00:22, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Suggestions

One way to define "important" publications is simply by the number of citations for that publication. For example, here are some VERY rough counts of citations as determined by scholar.google.com:

10739 : Dempster, Laird & Rubin. The estimation of missing data via EM.
5000 : Steele & Torrie. Principles & Procedures of Statistics.
3411 : Tukey. Exploratory Data Analysis
2549 : Venables & Ripley. Modern Applied Statistics with S.
2544 : Tufte. Visual Display of Quantitative Information. (Not explicitly statistics)
1800 : Fisher. The Design of Experiments.
843 : Harrell. Regression Modeling Strategies.

I seem to recall reading that the Dempster, Laird & Rubin paper was one of the most widely-cited articles in all science publications, let alone in statistics. I don't have a source for that, however.

Here is a list of Most-cited statistical papers: [1]. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 170.54.58.5 (talk) 19:17, 17 January 2008 (UTC)