Humanities desk
< February 4	<< Jan \| February \| Mar >>	February 6 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Humanities Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

February 5

Wikipedia on trial?

Moved to Wikipedia:Reference desk/Mathematics § Wikipedia on trial?

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

An article for 4 February in The Guardian [1] links to a recent paper User-Generated Content Shapes Judicial Reasoning: Evidence From a Randomized Control Trial on Wikipedia. This is a final version of the paper reported in The Irish Times last year.[2] The authors, with help from their law students, generated 77 (out of around 80) articles linked at List of Irish Supreme Court cases, to see if actual text from WP (rather than just following the links) materially influenced Irish High Court decisions. Apart from the (perhaps deliberate) abysmal reffing standards of the articles, is anyone here competent to analyse their statistical methods? The 6-month period after the release of the articles on WP seems quite short compared to the 28 months previous. I have no expertise in this area. The histories of the articles are quite revealing. MinorProphet (talk) 00:53, 5 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The Supreme Court of Ireland decisions are freely available here. MinorProphet (talk) 01:05, 5 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This could be suitable for Wikipedia:Village pump rather than the reference desk as no question is asked? Apokrif (talk) 09:45, 5 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

There is a literal question: "is anyone here competent to analyse their statistical methods?" There is an obviously implied pragmatic question: "If so, are their methods appropriate?". (I think, though, that WP:RDMA (mathematics, geometry, probability, and statistics) is a better forum for this topic than WP:RDH (history, politics, literature, religion, philosophy, law, finance, economics, art, and society).) --Lambiam 10:09, 5 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I tried to read the article but got stuck on their linear regression model introduced in Section 4.1. Quoting from the article:

To estimate the magnitude of this effect, we employ the following linear regression model:

{\textit {casecites}}_{ijt}=\beta _{0}+\beta _{1}{\textit {Wiki}}_{\,ij}\times {\textit {After}}_{\,t}+\beta _{2}{\textit {Wiki}}_{\,ij}+\beta _{3}{\textit {After}}_{\,t}+\pi _{j}+\varepsilon _{ijt}~~~~~~(1)

where

i

indexes cases,

j

stratification blocks, and t months.

So

{\textit {Wiki}}_{\,ij}

and

{\textit {After}}_{\,t}

are, apparently, real-valued variables, but how are their values defined? Or are these the parameters to be estimated? Then the model is not linear.

The relatively short duration of six months (or seven? I did not immediately spot the upload date(s) but various figures with a time scale, such as Figure 2, have seven ticks for the "post-treatment" period) should not be an issue, as long as the number of data points collected is high enough. More than 7,200 observed citations, as they state, should be ample for the purpose of hypothesis testing. It is somewhat ironic that our article Statistics is among their cited references. --Lambiam 14:51, 5 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you as usual for your thoughtful replies. The suggested RefDesk is probably a better place for this question, and I will copy it over there: I am no angel, and as a mathematical/statistical fool I fear to rush in and tread the hallowed halls of WP:RDMA. The possibilities for deliberately introducing weasel words into apparently innocent articles to influence legal decisions seem manifold. MinorProphet (talk) 16:00, 5 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

USA: is there someone that keeps track of where people are moving their bank money to?

So recently, there are studies where people in the U.S. are relocating to. The #1 state people be moving out of, are California, then New York, then Illinois. The top states where people are relocating to, are Florida, then Texas. And the Carolinas. This data is made possible by the U.S. post office. When people change their permanent mailing address, the U.S. post office are updated, so they use this analytical/marketing data, for 2022.

I'd like to know if anyone does this for banks? Starting last March, Fed. Reserve raises interest rates 8 times a year, and a lot of smaller banks are offering amazing interest rates in savings and CDs, whereas big banks aren't. Then I wonder if anyone keeps track of bank migrations? Is this data even recorded? Cuz I suspect bigger banks are having their money transferred to smaller banks. Not often we are in this economic environment and opportunity. When I transfer money from bank A to bank B, and bank B knew it came from bank A, is that recorded somewhere so people have this marketing data? Some banks are also privately own, so I guess, those don't make that info public. Thanks. 67.165.185.178 (talk) 20:00, 5 February 2023 (UTC).[reply]

People basically rarely switch banks; and do so far less today than they did in the past, largely owing to the prevalence of online banking. Many people bank with companies that don't have any local branches anyways, and many people never go into a brick-and-mortar building for banking. This 2022 Forbes article and This 2021 article from the American Bankers Association and This 2019 blog post from LendingTree.com all bear this out; people tend to be very sticky and loyal to their current banks; most don't shop around features, and are usually satisfied leaving their money in whatever bank it currently is in. Those references do have some data for why people switch banks when they do, however. --Jayron 32 18:25, 6 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Somewhat contradicting to your argument of on-line banking is, people aren't gonna switch banks to on-line banking, but your logic does go through if it is their 1st bank. So that would mean older people don't switch to on-line banking. And, I dunno how relevant this is, but my point would not be people completely closing their bank, but still transferring money over, and leaving a minimum in their old bank to avoid fees. It's also a pain to talk in person on closing your account which is why you transfer out 95% of the money instead. As for people that do switch or transfer banks, is there a strong correlation, usually lower to higher interest rates? 67.165.185.178 (talk) 00:44, 7 February 2023 (UTC).[reply]

Yes, the sources do bear that out; indeed one states that something like 96 million Americans (between 1/4 and 1/3 of the country) has never switched banks. --Jayron 32 14:26, 7 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Also I would say the articles from 2019-2021 may not be what I'm lookin at since this was before interest rates have risen. I found an article that people are more likely to move to a bank that holds their 401(k). Or at least, specifically with Fidelity. https://www.wsj.com/articles/more-people-bank-with-companies-that-hold-their-401-k-s-11675171229 "The typical checking account pays so little interest that more people are moving their day-to-day banking into their brokerage accounts to get a better return on their cash. At Fidelity, the nation’s largest 401(k) plan provider, there has been a double-digit percentage increase in the number of people using cash-management accounts over the last three years, according to a spokeswoman. These money-market accounts let customers earn competitive interest on their cash without sacrificing many of the key features of traditional banking." 67.165.185.178 (talk) 22:19, 7 February 2023 (UTC).[reply]

I know that a "sample of one" is of little value but sometimes anecdotes shed some light on motivations. I am now 70 years old and first started banking at the long defunct Hibernia Bank in San Francisco about 50 years ago. They gave me pretty decent service until I got married in 1981, and I then switched to Bank of America, which was then a historic bank founded in San Francisco in 1902 and doing business only in California at that time, and which my San Franciso born wife was already doing business with. She wanted to consolidate bank accounts and we are still married. BofA subsequently got bought out, moved their headquarters to North Carolina, and became a nationwide bank with negligible connection to its San Francisco roots. When the terrible recession of 2007 to 2009 hit, we were really irritated with big banks and considered switching but didn't. To be frank, I do not care at all about minor differences in interest rates. My bank accounts are not for making money. They are for managing my liquid funds with an institution that provides me and my business convenience, reliability, excellent security and friendly appreciation for decades of doing business with them. If they see something wrong, which is rare, they call me immediately and ask intelligent questions indicating that they trust me not to be a scammer, and then promptly solve the problem, thanking me for 50 years of doing business with them. I do not correct them that it is actually my wife who has been doing business with them for 50 years, and it has only been 42 years for me. Our long term investments are with other institutions for entirely different reasons. I have used PayPal for processing credit card payments to my small business for over 15 years, again because of reliabilty, trust, low fees and prompt transfer of funds. To them, I am a very old and reliable client after 15 plus years, which is a long time in the digital world. Cullen328 (talk) 09:41, 9 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]