paganinio Posted November 7, 2004 Posted November 7, 2004 on the homepage of SFN, I clearly see that we have 3121 members, but only 1 member's birthday is today. of course there are many users that didn't enter their birthdays to their profiles, but this number is still very impossible. could anyone give a mathemetical explanation?
Ophiolite Posted November 7, 2004 Posted November 7, 2004 Two points: Clearly it is not impossible as it has happened. Please do not qualify an absolute. A thing is either impossible or it is possible. It is not very impossible, slightly impossible, etc. Now I am going to count how many people have registered their birthdays.
5614 Posted November 7, 2004 Posted November 7, 2004 yeah, i agree with ophiolite... why is it impossible? esp. as it has happened!? also, those who havent entered their birthday obviously will not appear on that list as no one will know their birthday! now that was rocket science!
Gilded Posted November 7, 2004 Posted November 7, 2004 It's possible that on a forum where there are about 3000 members, all have birthdays in, let's say, February. As stated, it's just very unlikely, but possible.
RICHARDBATTY Posted November 7, 2004 Posted November 7, 2004 In the interests of SFN and the greater good I will have an extra birthday today.
5614 Posted November 7, 2004 Posted November 7, 2004 http://www.scienceforums.net/forums/calendar.php?s=&c=1&week=&month=11&year=2004 shows that there are normally at least some birthdays on most days. use the jump to (at the bottom right of the page) to select different months and/or years.
Rasori Posted November 7, 2004 Posted November 7, 2004 ...No one complains when there are just two birthdays, so why bring it up when there's only one? It's statistically odd, yes, and it'd be even more odd if we didn't have any birthdays at all, but easily possible.
Sayonara Posted November 7, 2004 Posted November 7, 2004 This thread is fairly pointless. Hardly anyone puts their birthday information in to their profiles - that's the explanation. It's by no means a freaky phenomenon, or unique to SFN.
Gilded Posted November 8, 2004 Posted November 8, 2004 "Hardly anyone puts their birthday information in to their profiles" Yeah, that's just voluntarily making the FBI's work easier.
Spaceman Posted November 9, 2004 Posted November 9, 2004 I never put my birthday in my profile simply because it isnt relevent but if anyone wants to use paypal to send me some money,let me know and i will give you the details my birthday is Dec19.
5614 Posted November 9, 2004 Posted November 9, 2004 "Hardly anyone puts their birthday information in to their profiles - that's the explanation." actually if you chose any random month (i chose may 05 because its my birthday!) http://www.scienceforums.net/forums/calendar.php?s=&c=1&week=&month=5&year=2005 then you will find quite a few birthdays per month. whilst relative to the member count there arent that many - if you take into account what sayo said (quoted above) there are still a lot of members who entered there birthdates. also if you look at the member list there are many who havent even ever posted! subtract the once or twice time posters there no where near 3000 members. this will also contribute to the factor we're talking about!
Ophiolite Posted November 9, 2004 Posted November 9, 2004 I gave up counting when I got to 25 members without declared birthdays 18 with. I think I did it for two starting letters. So, a significant proportion of members may have declared their birthdays. Methinks, Sayonara was favouring Rene over Isaac!
5614 Posted November 9, 2004 Posted November 9, 2004 if you go to the member list and arrange everyone in least posts first on page 78 out of 90 there are still people who have only posted 10 times: http://www.scienceforums.net/forums/memberlist.php?&order=asc&sort=posts&pp=30&page=78 these people who posts 10 times in their life are either brand new members or probably came for a few threads and then left. when you consider that 78/90 thats over 80% of that 3000 members have only posted 10 times then you realise why not everyone of those 3000+ members have their birthday. (because a few time posters dont normally fill out profiles). infact if you take that into account quite a lot of members have filled out their profile (incl. birthday)
Ophiolite Posted November 9, 2004 Posted November 9, 2004 Excellent point. Once again proves that if you work the data hard enough it can confirm your prejudices. In this case, since they are also my prejudices, they must be correct.
5614 Posted November 9, 2004 Posted November 9, 2004 In this case' date=' since they are also my prejudices, they must be correct.[/quote'] ROFLOL but on a serious note it is true! just look at the proof Once again proves that if you work the data hard enough it can confirm your prejudices
gene Posted November 10, 2004 Posted November 10, 2004 I don't really get you. sorry. what's your point? Asking about probabilitieS?
Sayonara Posted November 10, 2004 Posted November 10, 2004 If anyone is really interested we can get the total number of birthdays from the DB with a simple SQL query.
5614 Posted November 10, 2004 Posted November 10, 2004 fire away with the query, they dont take very long and it would put an end to the debate! remember to take into account that over 80% of the members have posted less than 11 times, calssifying them as non-regular posters. these people are a lot less likely to fill in their DOB or even anything in their profile at all.... however the query will show all!
Sayonara Posted November 10, 2004 Posted November 10, 2004 I don't think the calendar picks and chooses.
5614 Posted November 10, 2004 Posted November 10, 2004 yeah obviously but Im saying that the majority of the members are non-regular posters who are unlikely to have properly filled in (including personal data such as DOB) as they are non-regular posters. This may make the result biased. All the same.... run the query... it'd be interesting (as far as this thread is concerned with anyway!)
Sayonara Posted November 10, 2004 Posted November 10, 2004 yeah obviously but Im saying that the majority of the members are non-regular posters who are unlikely to have properly filled in (including personal data such as DOB) as they are non-regular posters. Irrelevant. This may make the result biased. No it won't. It affects the explanation, not the results.
5614 Posted November 10, 2004 Posted November 10, 2004 No it won't. It affects the explanation, not the results. it effects the explanation or analysis of the result. in that if the result goes against what i have previously predicted the pattern to be... that will be the explanation from this alteration from my prediction. basically i think that over 50% of the people would have inserted a DOB, if the query returns a result differing from that it is because over 80% of SFN members are non-regular posters...... etc etc now can you please do the $#~*ing query because i really wanna know now!!!!!
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