The Bayesian imposter + a game of Guess Who? (with prizes!)
The TLC Connector | Teach. Learn. Converse.
Hello TLC members and friends! Welcome to the TLC Connector! I’m so excited to finally have a way to connect and share what goes on in the TLC Slack Community with everyone outside of the community. For more than 10 years now, we have had such a great time teaching, learning, and sharing with one another. And now we have a way to bring that to all of you! So join us - and join the conversation!
Make sure you check out the thought leadership shared by our sponsor, Eppo, in this month’s newsletter where they dive deep into the ever-present debate between Bayesian and frequentist approaches and talk about the “Bayesian imposters” lurking everywhere.
You also will want to scroll all the way to the bottom to read about the upcoming events - from TLC talks to conferences to Ronny Kohavi’s upcoming courses (with the Essentials Course starting in only 10 days on November 6th and how you can save $100-500 just for being a TLC member!)
And remember - it’s always free to join the TLC!
TLC Chatter
On this month’s episode of TLC Chatter, I thought it would be fun to play a little game to see how well our TLC Connector members know our TLC Slack members. We’re going to play a matching game - match the quote with the TLC member! Your options are:
and yours truly (Kelly Wortham)
Who Said It?
If you’d like to play the game for a chance to win a TLC Artic Zone cup pictured below, simply leave a comment below. We will take submissions until 15 Nov. Open to everyone* and the winner will be announced in the November newsletter. (Accuracy is not required to win - but creativity and humor in your comments will absolutely be considered! How well do you know your industry peers? So join the conversation and comment below for a chance to win!)
A. “Side note: Lego has the most annoying age gate. You wouldn't even know it was an age gate unless you looked in their code (which I did, trying to figure out why the blasted thing comes back every single session)”
B. “I mean, it’s a question we all learned in first grade that we forget as adult practitioners to ask what are the benefits AND costs of this increase in Kolomogrov complexity?”
C. “I checked all top retailers on my side for all adult things (well not all as this is a God-fearing laptop lmao) but yeah.”
D. “Nonsense! Adding thousands of lines of code is sure to make the website faster. The vendor told me so!”
E. “If you happen to have good evidence that pink elephants are in fact very common, I’d love to see it.”
F. “pink elephants have been added for your emoji pleasure.”
G. “[name redacted], that looks like a linear relationship to me, nowhere near exponential. (and don't tell me the y-axis is on log scale because that doesn't work on t-shirts.)”
H. “to the empirically more robust Matt’s… point, the KISS principle (keep it simple, stupid) is alive and well for interpretability and robustness”
I. “[name redacted], since you've already outed yourself as a regression enthusiast, I'm hoping for some good input here.”
J. “I think that's a loaded phrasing. A more neutral phrasing would be that I have seen the light and you heathens are still in the dark.”
The Bayesian Imposter: brought to you by
In the context of experimentation, a commonly cited benefit of the Bayesian approach is that it doesn't suffer from the peeking problem, but Frequentists promise more clearly defined statistical guarantees. The debate endures because there is no definite superior approach, and choosing between the merits of each is often a matter of taste.
However, a third faction exists: those who identify as Bayesian but unintentionally employ a frequentist approach through the use of uninformative priors—essentially collapsing the two regimes, and resulting in the "Bayesian imposter". So how can you be sure you're not just a frequentist in disguise? Read on to learn more. Read on to learn more.
Coming Soon: TLC Conversations & Industry Events
Nov 6-16: Innovation & AB Testing - the Essentials Course w/ Ronny Kohavi (NEW - now save $100 for TLC members!)
Nov 17-19: The Conference formerly known as Conversion Hotel
Dec 1: TLC Conversations w/ Dale Bertrand
Dec 4-14: Accelerating Innovation with AB Testing Course w/ Ronny Kohavi (Save $500 for TLC members!)
Dec 15: TLC Conversations w/ Jonny Longden
Jan 12: TLC Conversations w/ Craig Sullivan & Oliver Paton
Jan 26: TLC Conversations w/ Erin Weigel
Jan 29-Feb 2: Superweek
A - Lukas
B - Ronny
C - Cory
D - Matt
E - Kelly
F - Juliana
G - Florent
H - Merritt
I - Matt
J - Jenn
B - Ronny Kohavi
C - Juliana Jackson ("Lmao" seems like something she would use.)
E - Lukas Vermeer (because Kevin seems to know Lukas well and he said so)
G - Matt Policastro
I - Kelly (Because this person was facilitating for input)