[R] statistical error in ggerrorplot argument desc_statby

[Ebert,Timothy Aaron]

While I agree that S.E. and S.D. are sometimes confused I disagree that the definition and use must be rehashed in every package that uses either one. The programmer (and documentation writer) makes tools available. If they do a good job with documentation then it is more likely that the tool will be used. However, it is up to the user to determine if the tool is right for their purpose. It seems to me that this issue is more about statistics education rather than an error in a package.
Tim


-----Original Message-----
From: R-help <r-help-bounces using r-project.org> On Behalf Of Jeff Newmiller
Sent: Tuesday, October 18, 2022 2:50 AM
To: r-help using r-project.org; paladini using trustindata.de
Subject: Re: [R] statistical error in ggerrorplot argument desc_statby

[External Email]

I suppose the key concept you seem to be missing is that contributed packages are not part of R, nor are the R developers going to do anything to fix it, even if they might happen to lurk around here occasionally, and many package maintainers do not lurk at all on this list.

If you type ?ggerrorplot at the R prompt you should learn that it is part of the ggpubr package. If you type maintainer("ggpubr") you should learn who _is_ responsible for that package. And if you Google for "cran ggpubr" you should find the canonical web https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcran.r-project.org%2Fpackage%3Dggpubr&data=05%7C01%7Ctebert%40ufl.edu%7C04a350b5a4d8471aa63208dab0d50231%7C0d4da0f84a314d76ace60a62331e1b84%7C0%7C0%7C638016726187416524%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=QIdj47mDOwjrqU3zYdvAlxvPj8NYoAYXR%2FKSiRlDF28%3D&reserved=0 on which there is an entry for Bug Reports leading in this case to a GitHub issues tracker. So, an email directed at the maintainer or a quick Google search would be far more likely to lead to an effective change than posting here will.

Do (re-)read the Posting Guide... there are all sorts of tidbits in there.

On October 17, 2022 1:29:40 AM PDT, paladini using trustindata.de wrote:
>Hello!
>I think there is a major statistical error or at least an inaccuracy in ggerrorplot and I don't know where to report this problem.
>
>When using ggerrorplot, you can choose the argument desc_statby=sd or desc_statby= se. Where sd is described as "standard deviation of the mean".
>and se as "standard error of the mean".
>This makes no sense at all, because the standard error of the mean is exactly the standard deviation of the mean.
>
>Whereas sd is usually used to denote the standard deviation of the sample.
>
>The standard error of the mean or the standard deviation of the mean (sem) equals the standard deviation of the sample divided by the root of the sample size: sem= sd/root(n).
>
>
>In error charts, it is common to represent the mean in combination with the sample standard deviation (sd) or the standard error of the mean (sem).
>
>I think it is important to clarify the difference between sem and sd in relation to desc_statby as they because they are often confused by students and researchers alike.
>
>Kind regards
>
>Claudia
>
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>and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.

--
Sent from my phone. Please excuse my brevity.

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PLEASE do read the posting guide https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.r-project.org%2Fposting-guide.html&data=05%7C01%7Ctebert%40ufl.edu%7C04a350b5a4d8471aa63208dab0d50231%7C0d4da0f84a314d76ace60a62331e1b84%7C0%7C0%7C638016726187416524%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=2aJgIStK6GxmjAv%2BjzaK716ZleKYYREQmyaGMnEd8j4%3D&reserved=0
and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.