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I've stopped using box plots (2021)
31–40 of 258 posts
Re: I've stopped using box plots (2021)
#32>box plots always make distributions look bell shaped I feel like this is where the confusion stems from for the author and everyone else here. Box plots don't make anything bell shaped (they don't change the distribution), they assume that your data follows a bell/gaussian shape. This is correct in cases where the central limit theorem can be applied (which is almost everywhere) - but when that is not the case, the…
> Box plots [...] assume that your data follows a bell/gaussian shape. Not sure how to square that with this statement on Wikipedia's page on box plots: Box plots are non-parametric: they display variation in samples of a statistical population without making any assumptions of the underlying statistical distribution[3]
If you want to see why that is not fully correct you should read the article. For a box plot you need to calculate mean, variance and certain percentiles. These values don't make sense if your distribution does not follow a certain shape (because these values unambiguously define such a shape). See the examples in the article for what happens if you still try to use them in those cases. You can still extract the values of course (hence probably why wiki says they don't assume anything), but you lose significant information about the distribution. So you can no longer reverse the process.
Re: I've stopped using box plots (2021)
#33The only advantage box plots had is that they can be drawn by hand. Now that computers are ubiquitous this is no longer valuable. Violin plots and bee swarm plots are better. Jittered strip plots can be okay if you're careful to avoid saturation (or more points added in the saturated region will disappear as they can't make it any darker).
I'll take a plain histogram/kde plot every day of the week over those damn violin plots. I think box plots are quite usefull as they are easy to read but only if you trust the author has actually looked at the histogram. And you can typically not trust the author to have done that.
Re: I've stopped using box plots (2021)
#34>box plots always make distributions look bell shaped I feel like this is where the confusion stems from for the author and everyone else here. Box plots don't make anything bell shaped (they don't change the distribution), they assume that your data follows a bell/gaussian shape. This is correct in cases where the central limit theorem can be applied (which is almost everywhere) - but when that is not the case, the…
I agree. The author simply used the wrong chart.
The author's example has a bimodal distribution (TWO peaks) and chooses a type of chart that has ONE peak (a box plot).
A little baffling tbh.
Re: I've stopped using box plots (2021)
#35So the diagram should not be used because of an education problem with some audiences? Isn't that a bit like banning cars because some people can't drive? Some diagrams are simply not for mass consumption and this is one, particularly because it is designed to illustrate an interpretation of ranges instead of the direct/linear representation of the raw data. Of course I'd illustrate this fact as a Venn diagram compar…
When there are alternatives that are clearer and also don't have this education problem, why use box plots? You seem quite keen on them, but why?
There are a few advantages (see visualization section here pls http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Box_plot ) but my main concern is that the problem is not with the diagram, it's with idea that it's somehow faulty.
Sometimes you may want to highlight some core representation of data without the distraction of outliers (yes that does mean some people will use it for deliberate misrepresentation). But in this regard it's useful, as is on bar graphs not starting the vertical at 0 (because you want to illustrate relate difference not absolute amounts).
Re: I've stopped using box plots (2021)
#36>box plots always make distributions look bell shaped I feel like this is where the confusion stems from for the author and everyone else here. Box plots don't make anything bell shaped (they don't change the distribution), they assume that your data follows a bell/gaussian shape. This is correct in cases where the central limit theorem can be applied (which is almost everywhere) - but when that is not the case, the…
> There are very real use cases for box plots,
The author argues otherwise, can you give an example of a use case where box plots would be preferable to the alternatives the author suggests?
Re: I've stopped using box plots (2021)
#37Re: I've stopped using box plots (2021)
#38Re: I've stopped using box plots (2021)
#39What about violin plots. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violin_plot
I use violin plots but a complication is that the shape depends upon the bandwidth hyperparameter of the kernel density estimator that is used inside. The plot can differ a lot for different bandwidth values. Selection of the 'proper' bandwidth is a classic bias-variance tradeoff problem.
While true, that's not an additional problem compared to box plots which effectively just set the bandwidth to maximum. So IMO they are strictly better.
Re: I've stopped using box plots (2021)
#40>box plots always make distributions look bell shaped I feel like this is where the confusion stems from for the author and everyone else here. Box plots don't make anything bell shaped (they don't change the distribution), they assume that your data follows a bell/gaussian shape. This is correct in cases where the central limit theorem can be applied (which is almost everywhere) - but when that is not the case, the…
Nah, there's nothing in a box plot which assumes a bell-shape. It does, however just visualise the parameters which reasonably well characterize a smooth single-mode distribution regardless of the underlying distribution. So it's a valid criticism of using box plots, especially when the alternatives can just as well visualise a bell-shaped distribution, as well as showing when it is not.