Math Tip for Coders:

Remember when averaging percentages, unlike plain values,no matter if its a simple mean, a moving average, or a exponential moving average, you always want to use the repeated operator on percentages compared to the one you would use on plain values. I know thats confusing and really only makes sense with an example.

So each of the following operators is the repeated form of the prior: +, *,^ (exponent)

Similarly the following: -, / , roots (like square root)

So for a simple mean with plain values you would average three values by doing:

(a + b + c)/3

However if your doing that for percentages that formula doesnt work instead you do:

(a * b * c) ^ (1/3)

Remember taking something to the power of 1/3 is the same as taking the third root.

Also keep in mind the variables here must be percentages such that they are anywhere from 0 to infinity. If you invested in something and you made no money and lost no money it would be 1, for 100%, if you lost all your money its 0, if you lost half its 0.5 (50%), if you doubled your money its 2.0 (200%) and so on

So if you inveted in three different things, and each time you doubled your money, and you wanted to know what your average percentage of return on investment was you would do: (2 * 2 * 2) ^ (1/3) and that would give you your mean, 2.. If you treated it like normal values and added then divided while it would work in this case it would give you significantly incorrect values in other cases.

As I stated this holds true for more complex types of averages too, take exponential moving average as an example. For plain values with EMA you apply each new value to just the previous EMA (and dont need to worry about combining all the values at once).. So if you flipped a coin 100 times and and took the EMA of the first 99 and now want to know know the EMA after the 100th flip (1 being heads and 0 being tails) you do:

(last_value * (1 - alpha) + current_value * alpha)

that gives you your current EMA where alpha is any number from 0 to 1… now to apply that to percentages again you take each operator and make it the next one up so for percentages it is actually:

(last_percentage^(1-alpha) * current_percentage^alpha)

#math #programming #mathematics #coding #code

I have recently uncovered a user who seems to be opening temporary accounts at QOTO, blocking all the moderators so we dont see their posts and then posting high offensive material (nazi imagery, transphobic and hateful derogatory content, etc) and then proceeding to announce to block list moderators and possibly on the #Fediblock list in general in an attempt to get us banned.

The issue of users being able to block moderators and do **exactly** this is something I have brought up to @Gargron before probably over a year ago but he has never acted on fixing this issue and does not see it as needing fixing from what I could gather (he can interject here if he would like).

It is something we as moderators are powerless to detect or act against unless someone actually reports the content first, that is the only way we will even see it. Thankfully none of the block lists have actually acted on this and no damage to QOTO has been done. But seeing as this may continue I want to make others aware of the problem, press gargron to fix the issue once more, and also encourage **anyone** who sees such content on QOTO to please report it so we can act on it.

I can not personally confirm this but according to the block-list operator they seem to have reason to think it is @snow behind the attacks. This would be in line with the behaviors from snow I have witnessed in the past.

For the attempt by snow to spam and falsely accuse instances see here:

https://likeable.space/notice/A21ux0IbhoDJIkNxzc

For more information see these attempted block requests on QOTO that were made in this fashion:

https://schlomp.space/FediBlock/data/pulls/255/files

https://schlomp.space/FediBlock/data/pulls/248

@arteteco @Sphinx @khird