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stansummary change label "N_Eff" to "ESS" #916

Description

@mitzimorris

Summary:

Change N_Eff to ESS as N is misleading as it in manual refers to to the number iterations in each chain (or is often used for the number of observations). ESS would be more clear as it is acronym for effective sample size. posterior package used .e.g by CmdStanR has at least moved to use ESS.

Description:

From this comment: #907 (comment)

Reproducible Steps:

run current bin/stansummary program

Current Output:

current output

Expected Output:

desired output: column labels "ESS" and "ESS/S"

Additional Information:

Provide any additional information here.

Current Version:

v2.23.0

Activity

  1. mitzimorris commented on Jul 24, 2020

    @mitzimorris
    MemberAuthor

    #907 (comment)

    Bob Carpenter comment:

    +1 to that. The problem with "n_eff" is that it's not the number of effective samples. We consider the set of draws to be a single sample from the posterior. It's the effective sample size.

    I don't like the n_ prefix for "number" elsewhere, either, but that's a different issue.

  2. WardBrian commented on Mar 27, 2025

    @WardBrian
    Member
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