A Wikipedia riddle!

I was distinguished for over three years and now am renowned. For most of the past year and a half, though, I was neither.

Who am I?

First person who guesses the right answer in comments gets a free copy of Jenny Davidson’s book, “Breeding”–as soon as she sends it to me, as she promised a couple years ago!

You’ll get an extra prize if you can express the answer in an indirect way, without using the person’s name or being too obvious about it but making the identification clear enough that I know you know the answer.

P.S. Reading Wikipedia edits . . . that’s a new low in time-wasting!

14 thoughts on “A Wikipedia riddle!

  1. Apologies, yet again, for the delay getting you that book! I might have to take the expensive but lazy way out and send you a copy via Amazon, I seem incapable of getting it to you the old-school way!

  2. I give up. My first guess was somebody with a lot of daughters, but I checked Wikipedia and that didn't pan out.

  3. i hate to BReak up the contest, but i've read a lot of this person's online commentary. it usually helps me stop banging my head against the wall. maybe he and i can grab tea at some point.

  4. We have a winner! Congratulations, Yair. I hope you enjoy Breeding and a statistics book of your choice.

    • Alright! By the way, reading wikipedia edits to replicate your reading of wikipedia edits … I think I just beat your new low in time-wasting.

    • Hmm, in the post Andy asks to put the answer in an indirect way. So I'll wait for someone to actually write the name down before I respond.

      • hey yair, sure, i understand. btw, i don't care who it is. so if you don't want to give the name nor even hint how to figure out the actual person, that's fine.
        i just don't even understand how to approach the problem. i'm looking more for a general approach. so if it cannot be generalized, don't worry about it.

  5. I wonder, is it better to be distinguished or renowned? And is the latter considered "puffery" by the denizens of Wikipedia?

  6. It's Brian Ripley. Yair: tell us your methods! (Easier after Yair's post when I could search site:wikipedia.org for renowned + statistician, look for the person with initials BR, and check to be sure he's British.)

  7. Simple answer: search wikipedia for "renowned statistician" (without quotes) and he's the first result.

    Longer answer: I had some guesses in mind at first — Paul Krugman, Steve Levitt, Larry Summers — then realized I was thinking about economists. So I searched for "renowned economist" and didn't see anything that rang a bell as often cited on the blog. Switched to "renowned statistician" and Ripley is the first result. He's big in the R community so I checked and there it was.

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