Size matters

[Jools]

On the families, family and genus pages, put an average maximum size for the species encompassed to show average size of all catfishes, catfish in the family and then genus.

Jools

[MatsP]

Would that be average, median or mode? Quite often it turns out to be a similar thing, but sometimes it makes a difference.

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Mats

[Jools]

Mean. Median is a pain (unless a native SQL command exists - which it may well do). Mode might not exist in a set. Range might also be useful.

Jools

[MatsP]

It appears that median is indeed a bit more complex to calculate. There's a SQL query on http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/ ... tions.html, see the first comment, that claims to calculate median.

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Mats

[Birger Amundsen]

Way over my head, to much technical English

[MatsP]

Actually, the average should be counted on vales not zero, as for many familes there are several species with no length recorded - that would skew the results.

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Mats

[Jools]

Way over my head, to much technical English

I know, the results might be quite useful though.

Jools

[Birger Amundsen]

Bet it is

[MatsP]

Would it make sense to do a slightly more advanced model:
Split the sizes into groups, and draw a histogram representing their respective sizes. I think this could the same model as the current length measurement - 1..100mm, 101..1000mm, 1001 and above.

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Mats

[Jools]

This has now been added to the family pages. For the Loricariidae for example, we now see: Smallest 27mm, largest 1000mm, average 176mm, most commonly 100mm. All SL.

Jools