• zeca@lemmy.eco.br
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        10 hours ago

        neither vague nor a definition

        average is the sum of a list of values divided by the size of the list.

        • thisfro@slrpnk.net
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          4 hours ago

          I was under the impression mean and average were used interchangeably, but I’m not a native speaker.

          What I meant was mean salary indeed. But median would probably be more adequate.

        • masterspace@lemmy.ca
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          7 hours ago

          No. If you’re going to be pedantic, at least be right.

          Average

          noun

          1. a number expressing the central or typical value in a set of data, in particular the mode, median, or (most commonly) the mean, which is calculated by dividing the sum of the values in the set by their number.

          The term average, inherently refers to at least three different ways to calculate the central value in a data set. What you’re talking about is mean, but it can also mean mode, or median, and there are other, even, more complicated calculations than those depending on your context.

          So yes, average, is an inherently vague and hard to define term.

          https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Average

          • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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            5 hours ago

            Idk, generally people mean the mean by average and the median by median, but I get your point. (But I think the term average salary can be ambiguous for other reasons, not disagreeing there.)

            • rockerface 🇺🇦@lemm.ee
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              4 hours ago

              Average salary (that is, the mean) isn’t that good of a metric even if you account for region, industry and so on, because just one outlier can easily skew your entire statistics. Median is much more useful in that regard.

              Source: me, someone who writes tools for processing and gathering large amounts of confidential employee data, including salaries of wide range of companies across multiple countries.

        • rockerface 🇺🇦@lemm.ee
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          9 hours ago

          Well, if you look at the average salary across the whole world, an overwhelming majority of people doesn’t make enough money to survive, so there’s that

      • thisfro@slrpnk.net
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        4 hours ago

        For what of the list?

        It also depends on the definition of each, but I mean in a basic sense.