CrossValidated is for statisticians, data miners, and anyone else doing data analysis or interested in it as a discipline. If you have a question about
- statistical analysis, applied or theoretical
- designing experiments
- collecting data
- data mining
- machine learning
- visualizing data
- probability theory
- mathematical statistics
- statistical and data-driven computing
then you're in the right place. Anybody can ask a question, regardless of skills and experience, but some questions are still better than others. If you came here with a question to ask and are new to the site, please consult our thread on how to ask a good question.
Our community aims to create a lasting record of great solutions to questions. For more about this and guidance about how to provide your own great answers, please read How should questions be answered on Cross Validated?. Providing references to peer-reviewed literature or links to on-line resources is warmly welcomed. You can also incorporate the work of others under fair use doctrine, which particularly means that you must attribute any text, images, or other material that is not originally yours.
Homework questions are welcome. Please mark them with the self-study tag. They get somewhat special treatment, because ultimately you benefit most by finding the solution yourself. The community will try to provide guidance, hints, and useful links.
For more help, see "What types of questions should I avoid asking?"
There are certain subjects that will probably get better responses on our sister sites. If your question is about
- Programming, ask on Stack Overflow. If the language is statistically oriented (such as R, SAS, Stata, SPSS, etc.), then decide based on the nature of your question: if it needs statistical expertise to understand or answer, ask it here; if it's about the implementation of an algorithm, routine data processing, or details of the language, then please refer to the collection of links to resources we maintain.
- Mathematics, ask on math.stackexchange.com.
- Bugs in software, ask the people who produced the software.
Questions about obtaining particular datasets are off-topic (they are too specialized). The GIS site welcomes inquiries about obtaining geographically related datasets.
Please note, however, that cross-posting is not encouraged on SE sites. Choose one best location to post your question. Later, if it proves better suited on another site, it can be migrated.
Please look around to see if your question has been asked before. It’s also OK to ask and answer your own question.
If your question is not specifically on-topic for CrossValidated, it may be on topic for another Stack Exchange site. If no site currently exists that will accept your question, you may commit to or propose a new site at Area 51, the place where new Stack Exchange communities are democratically created.