On 03/07/14 20:58, Fabien COELHO wrote:
Hello Gavin,
decile percents: 69.9% 21.0% 6.3% 1.9% 0.6% 0.2% 0.1% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
probability of fist/last percent of the range: 11.3% 0.0%
I would suggest that probabilities should NEVER be expressed in
percentages! As a percentage probability looks weird, and is never
used for serious statistical work - in my experience at least.
I think probabilities should be expressed in the range 0 ... 1 - i.e.
0.35 rather than 35%.
I could agree about the mathematics, but ISTM that "11.5%" is more
readable and intuitive than "0.115".
I could change "probability" and replace it with "frequency" or maybe
"occurence", what would you think about that?
You may well be hitting a situation, where you meet opposition whatever
you do! :-)
"frequency" implies a positive integer (though "relative frequency"
might be okay) - and if you use "occurrence", someone else is bound to
complain...
Though, I'd opt for "relative frequency", if you can't use values in the
range 0 ... 1 for probabilities, if %'s are used - so long as it does
not generate a flame war.
I suspect it may not be worth the grief to change.
Cheers,
Gavin
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