User:Gladys j cortez/theorem

On "Randy in Boise"
First, my disclaimer: I am not a mathematician, nor am I a statistician, and I made some pretty wide estimations in places as I calculated these numbers. However, though absolute precision would sure make me happier, the point is just to get a general idea of whether it would have been reasonable to worry about “outing”, defined as above, in this case. Further, where imprecision has been unavoidable, I have taken care to skew the data in favor of smaller groups, greater likelihood of information being released, and overall in favor of the possibility of outing, since my intent is to show the opposite.

Sources for the following, unless cited otherwise, are us.census.gov and Namipedia. Analysed years have been chosen to represent the age groups likely to represent the largest pool of Wikipedia editors.

How Many Randys?
According to Namipedia, the popularity of “Randy” as a name has declined since its peak in the 1950’s. In 1960, the first year for which name-popularity data is available by state, it was the 15th most-popular name for Idaho-born boys. Nationally, it was 33rd in popularity at that time. Nationwide, in 1950, 3000 males out of every million children born were given the name “Randy”.

Broken down by decade, the results are thus:

1950: 3000 R/mb (Randys per million births)

1960: 2000 R/mb

1970: 900 R/mb

1980: 700 R/mb

1990: 250 R/mb

We will call this result d, representing the density of Randys.

Let us now consider Boise population during the same time.

According to US Census data, the population of Boise, ID has been as follows:

1950: 34,481

1960: 34,378

1970: 74,990

1980: 102,451

1990: 125,738

This result will be referred to as p, representing the population of Boise, ID.

Therefore, the population of Boise Randys per year, drawn broadly as n=(d * p) would be calculated thus:

1950: ((3,000/1,000,000) * 34,481)) =103.443

1960: ((2,000/1,000,000) * 34,378)) =89.560

1970: ((900/1,000,000) * 74,990)) =67.491

1980: ((700/1,000,000) * 102,451)) =71.716

1990: ((250/1,000,000) * 125,738)) =31.434

To calculate the number of Randys born in Boise during each decade, we need to multiply the numbers above by 10. This is an imprecise measure, as it does not take into account any fluctuations over a decade either in population or naming trends; also, to calculate the name’s true popularity, total births per year should be used rather than population. However, since this data was not available and this is meant to be an exercise to prove a general point, I used population data, which was readily available online.

1950-1959: 103.443 * 10 = 1034.43

1960-1969: 89.560 * 10 = 895.60

1970-1979: 67.491 * 10 = 674.49

1980-1989: 71.716 * 10 = 717.16

1990-1999: 31.434 * 10 = 314.34

Finally, to calculate the total pool of Randys in Boise who were born between 1950 and 1999, we would add these numbers together.

1034.43 + 895.60 + 674.49 + 717.16 + 314.34 - = 3636.44

In other words, this means that out of Boise’s 205,314 residents (2008 census estimate, taken from here) 3636 of them are males named Randy born between 1950 and 1999, for a rate of 1.69%. Phrased differently: if you were to put the names of every resident of Boise into a hat and pick one, the odds would be 1 in 56.47 that the name you would pick would belong to a “Randy” of likely Wikipedia-editing age.

Just to revisit the accusation that was made against Giano:

WP:OUTING: Personal information includes legal name, date of birth, identification numbers, home or workplace address, job title and work organisation, telephone number, email address, or other contact information, whether any such information is accurate or not. And recall that I’ve broadened the definition, for purposes of this defense, to include posting of such information which could allow the editor's personal information to be derived, regardless of the degree of effort it would take to do so.

Conclusions
In the absence of technology which does not currently exist, or of extremely specialized high-level access to, say, the database of the Idaho DMV, I have no way to do any of the following, each of which would be needed in order to derive the editor’s identity:

--I cannot do a search of “people named Randy”. Even were such a search possible, I would need to further configure this search to omit various names for which “Randy” could be a nickname: Randall, Randolph, their various homophones, and doubtless others; then, too, I would need to filter out females named "Randy"--a not-insignificant subgroup!--and also remove those Randys who would be too young to edit Wikipedia.

--I cannot parse a list of Boise residents into “Wiki editor” vs. “Wiki non-editor”. I thus cannot obtain proof of their activity levels, their access levels, or their editing interests, at least some of which, were they known, might be usable to track our "Randy" down.

--Absent their IP address—-again, something which was not posted, nor even alluded to--I cannot derive their ISP information, or anything which would lead me to any source of greater information.

In fact, save a systematic search from door-to-door, or employing a team of private investigators, I can discover no way in which it would be within the realm of human possibility for me to obtain reliable information about which of Boise’s postulated 3,636 Randys would be THE “Randy in Boise”.