Wikipedia:WikiProject Probability

The goal of WikiProject Probability is to help in the improvement of articles related to probability theory and to probability more generally. There is a related project, WikiProject Statistics that deals with statistics. While many will feel there is considerable overlap between these two fields of study, it is also clear that many potential participant will have no strong interest in the non-mathematical aspects of statistics, while many others will have no interest in the more technical parts of probability theory that are unnecessary for statistical data analysis.

This project's talk page should be a good place for non project members to discuss Wikipedia's general content about probability, and probability theory in particular. Comments on particular articles should ideally go on those articles' talk pages, by the project's talk page might be used to call attention to such discussion.

Articles now already exist for a wide range of probability topics, as evidenced by the list of probability topics (which is incomplete). Attention is needed to bring these in line with Manual of Style (mathematics), with concerns ranging from the formatting of mathematics to the need to provide some initial content for articles that will be understandable by a general readership: see WP:LEAD.

Scope
This WikiProject aims primarily to organize articles in probability theory (mathematical probability), but it is also concerned with more general articles on probability, applications and related fields.

When contributing new articles which are related to probability please add a probability category: see subcategories ofCategory:Probability and Category:Probability theory. This enables us to identify, and hence review and add to each other's contributions. Articles which are biographies of mathematicians involved with probability are generally not included in "topic categories", but may be found at Category:Probability theorists and list of probabilists.

The main issues for the project are the following ones:


 * Bringing stubs up to a reasonable standard. There are always plenty of pages that are definition-only or that only indicate that a topic exists with no other information. Motivation, examples and particularly references and citations are often needed: see Category:Probability stubs for those that are marked as requiring expansion.


 * Bringing other articles up to a reasonable standard. Articles can be marked as requiring expert attention, and probability articles marked as such can be found at Category:Probability articles needing expert attention.


 * Developing important articles into good expositions. As anyone who teaches the subject knows, the gap between stating some true facts, and really putting over a topic, is quite large. Here we can consider also the need to add history and proper attributions.


 * Expanding coverage to bring the subject up-to-date. This is a huge task, so the main requirements are patience and determination. In particular a lot of work is still needed to bring the more advanced material up-to-date, so expert contributions are to be encouraged.


 * Keeping track of relevant articles, by listing, categorising and assessing them.


 * Identifying hoaxes and other incorrect or unattributable material.

Standards
The mathematical content of articles should follow the recommendations stated by the Manual of Style (mathematics). The project is concerned with a large number of articles relating to probability distributions and it is sensible to adopt a common structure for the content of these, so far as is reasonable: an outline of the suggested structure is presently available via this link to a project subpage.

Review and assessment
WikiProject Mathematics has a well-established sub-project for assessing articles at WikiProject Mathematics/Wikipedia 1.0 that tabulates articles tagged with. Full details are at WikiProject Mathematics/Wikipedia 1.0/Probability and statistics.

The above summarises both mathematical probability and mathematical statistics articles. Other potentially useful fields instead of "probability and statistics" are: "mathematical physics" for topics in statistical mechanics; "mathematicians" for biographies.

Editing resources
See also WikiProject Mathematics/Editor resources
 * Recent changes related to list of probability topics is useful if you wish to keep an eye on recent changes.

The following are particularly helpful regarding mathematics, but note that valuable articles need not be dominated by mathematics.
 * Manual of Style for mathematical content
 * Mathematical conventions
 * Notation in probability and statistics

Sites from which material may be copied freely

 * See also Public domain resources

It is believed that articles from the following sites may be copied in whole or in part with or without modification provided a citation of the source is included:
 * PlanetMath: See the PlanetMath Exchange subgroup, in particular 60-XX Probability theory and stochastic processes. Cite page and add a PlanetMath attribution template.

Reference resources
See also WikiProject Mathematics/Reference resources

The following sites are copyrighted but may be useful as references:

Open access

 * A Dictionary of Statistics. Oxford University Press, 2008. Open access via Answers.com.
 * Encyclopaedia of Mathematics (see Springer)

Restricted access

 * Encyclopedia of Statistical Sciences (Wiley Interscience)

Related projects

 * WikiProject Mathematics
 * WikiProject Statistics
 * WP:WikiProject Science
 * WP:WikiProject Philosophy