Talk:List of fellows of the American Statistical Association

Subdivision by countries

I would like to propose that we start looking for sources for subdividing this list on the basis of birth countries of the Fellows. This is of encyclopedic interest as academic disciplines like statistics is intimately connected to practical national census and demography operations among others. For starters David Eppstein can you complete the list at Indian Statistical Institute#Alumni, redlinks for now would do. If we can find explicit source mentioning the chronological number in which XYZ is the nth ASA Fellow from a random country it would be merrier. For example Mhym is yet to source this claim on Pham Huu Tiep. Solomon7968 22:57, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

I suspect that for many of these people, finding reliable sources for their place of birth will be difficult. (For some of them, finding anything at all is difficult: for instance, who is Holly Matthews?) And country of birth at the time of birth, country of the same place at the present time, ethnicity, country of original citizenship, and country of eventual citizenship can all be different from each other, so why pick out that one? I'm not sure I see the point of your Tiep example — Tiep is not even a statistician let alone an ASA Fellow. And finally, given that this is a US-specific organization (although a few fellows are from other countries), what is the benefit in making a subdivision where one of the parts will be so much bigger than all the others? —David Eppstein (talk) 23:11, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

I have a personal commitment regarding the above post as I am hoping that we have eventually have articles on all ASA fellows with connection to India. ISI is top place to study statistics in India however all ASA fellows related to India may not be ISI's sole monopoly. I mentioned Tiep as I intend to do the same for ICM speakers (Tiep is one). Solomon7968 01:05, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

"Connection to India" is not going to be the same as birth country. See e.g. Snehalata V. Huzurbazar. And does her brother-in-law Brian J. Williams (also a fellow) have a connection to India? —David Eppstein (talk) 02:14, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

I would regard SVH as having connection to India but NOT her brother in law. Her name is easy to recognize as Indian btw. Solomon7968 02:28, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Going by whether we recognize names is original research and must be avoided here. But if you're particularly keen to document birth countries you could try to find out whether there's a reliable source for where her sister Aparna was born. (Not by back-calculating when she would have likely been born and determining where her father was at the time, but by actually documenting the specific birthplace.) —David Eppstein (talk) 02:35, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Eventually we SHOULD have articles on ALL statisticians listed here. But I don't see any harm (and I see benefit) to giving marginalized groups special attention. It is true that what sounds Indian names may not have a India connection but indeed there is a high probability that they have. The birthplace need not be documented but I only want all with "Indian sounding names" have an article ASAP. Solomon7968 02:46, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Not unless you can find published sources recognizing statisticians with Indian-sounding surnames as a specific and recognized subgroup. —David Eppstein (talk) 03:19, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Everyone who is an alumnus of ISI? This was my original post. This seems clear and the source should be the CV for undergrad/Grad and MGP for PhD. Solomon7968 03:27, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

We have that already, at Category:Indian Statistical Institute alumni. —David Eppstein (talk) 03:33, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Yes I am it's author. But the ISI article should also mention redlinks for all the ASA fellows for which we don't have an article yet after which it would be easy to populate the category. Solomon7968 03:36, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Inconsistency with Source

Comparing to the ASA website source, there seem to be some inconsistencies. In particular, I noticed 1953 has way more Fellows listed on this article than appear on the website's search. I came here from the Everett Franklin Lindquist page. I don't find him on the ASA website, search, but he is listed as a Fellow both here and on his own article. Can anybody enlighten me on what might have happened? StriveToKnow (talk) 03:10, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

I have seen this before. I can only assume that the ASA removed some names from their web site between 2016 when I first created this list and now. I don't know why they would do that. In the case of Lindquist, we can find the full list of 1953 fellows including his name at "Election of New Fellows", The American Statistician, 8 (1): 17–18, February 1954, doi:10.1080/00031305.1954.10482018, JSTOR 2681662 (found by searching for a representative combination of some of the other names from the same year). —David Eppstein (talk) 04:59, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

Hmmm very odd. Appreciate the reference. I think I'll be contacting the ASA about this discrepancy to make sure they're aware of what seems to be an error (or learn the reason if it turns out to be on purpose, although that seems unlikely given how many names are left off). StriveToKnow (talk) 05:30, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

There are periodically editathons co-organized by the ASA and the Wikimedia chapter in Washington DC. The next one is likely to be in September 2021. We can work with the ASA staff to figure out what's going on with any differences among lists and make it clear. I will make a note to recheck this issue. If anyone reading this wants to join in, check WP:Meetup/DC for planning details. -- econterms (talk) 13:34, 8 May 2021 (UTC)