Talk:Point estimation

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Note that we already have Estimator. - Patrick 00:17 Dec 22, 2002 (UTC)

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Yes, and it discusses theoretical aspects such as bias and mean square error. I intended Point estimation to be more about approaches to estimation, such as Maximum likelihood and Method of moments. Statistical estimation was to be a more general overview, pulling in different types of estimation, methods, and philosophies. Of course, it would mainly be a pointer to pages that would discuss each in depth (eventually).

Your edit:

point estimation is the application of a point estimator to sample data...

seems a bit obscure to me.

My previous version was supposed to say:

In statistics, point estimation involves the use of sample data...

It was supposed to be understandable to someone who didn't already know what an estimator was. Yes, it's very general, but that's why I included the final line, indicating more work was needed:

approaches, methods...

dcljr 16:00 Dec 23, 2002 (UTC)

P.S. - Please remember to indicate your changes in the summary line. I know I sometimes forget, too... :-)

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I missed the link to Estimator and the explanation of the relationship between the two articles. - Patrick 16:23 Dec 23, 2002 (UTC)

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The 'formal' definition here "... the application of a point estimator to the data to obtain a point estimate" seems to be entirely circular and content-free: if the reader knows what a 'point estimate' and 'point estimator' are (NB these terms redirect back to the same page!), to then give it the name 'point estimation' adds nothing. If the reader doesn't know this leaves them as much in the dark as before. --Tdent (talk) 16:55, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

I completely agree. I therefore removed this sentence from the lead section. Simon Bienewald (talk) 08:37, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 27 August 2021 and 19 December 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Ruby00269. Peer reviewers: Ziyanggod, BasilNotCilantro, Editor794.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 06:48, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

best estimate examples

I was looking this up re project management and EIA. As this stands I can understand it, but for many readers this lacks worked examples or how this could be applied to qualitative rather than quantitative data. Can this be added in? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.244.74.165 (talk) 10:38, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

Merging with parametric statistics?

This article is rated Stub-Class and low-importance in statistics. Moreover, point estimation is a sub-field of parametric statistics, which has its own article as well (Start-Class, mid-importance). Would it make sense to merge this article into parametric statistics then? Simon Bienewald (talk) 18:40, 6 June 2026 (UTC)

Sufficiency

I wonder if sufficiency actually fits into the list of properties of point estimators. Of course, estimators can be sufficient sometimes (for example the sample mean in a Poisson model), but it is usually not discussed in this context (in books it always reads "sufficient statistic" rather than "sufficient estimator").

Also, sufficiency is not a particularly useful property in itself. It is rather used to build estimators on top of it, which then have optimal properties, see Lehmann–Scheffé theorem for instance.

Given the above, I suggest to remove sufficiency from the list of properties of point estimators. Simonbiene (talk) 06:27, 1 July 2026 (UTC)