StatWiki

A Wikipedia-style study wiki for data analysis, probability, stochastic processes, statistical learning, and statistical inference, built with Quarto.

How it is built

build_wiki.py turns the files in sources/ into the wiki's pages. quarto render then turns those pages into the website in _site/.

On every push to main, the publish workflow runs both steps and publishes the result. It takes about 4 minutes. The generated pages are not stored in the repository.

What to edit

To change	Edit
Chapters, questions and answers	the files in sources/
Article properties, examples and pictures	article_extras.py
Topic pages, their titles, other names, and term links	topics.py. A chapter heading gets a page of its own when something names it: a link phrase, a topic, an other name, or the PAGES list. Other headings stay in their chapter, and any page one used to have redirects there. This file also titles headings whose own words need their chapter to make sense, adds pages for ideas named inside a paragraph, and lists the phrases that link to them.
Page layout, links and infoboxes	build_wiki.py
Colours, fonts and dark mode	styles.css. _theme-head.html and _theme-body.html apply a reader's saved dark mode before each page is drawn.
The browser-tab icon	favicon.ico (16 to 128 px)
The picture shown when a page is shared	share-icon.png, the browser-tab icon at 1200 by 630. make_share_image.py draws it.
The site's name, the home page's title in search results, and the description under each page in search results	search_meta.py. It runs after quarto render: each page gets a description from its opening sentences (or from its title when it opens with a formula), and the home page gets a longer title and WebSite structured data naming the site for Google.
The Ask StatWiki chat	ask/widget for the chat on the pages, ask/worker for the server at ask.statwiki.io. See ask/README.md.
R in the browser	webr/. Which pages get Run buttons is RUNNABLE_PARTS in build_wiki.py. See webr/README.md.
Laboratories	labs/. Kernel density, Beta–Binomial updating, a Markov chain, and confidence-interval coverage. The navigation is written in build_wiki.py.
Figures for the probability, inference and data analysis chapters	make_figures.py in sources/stat2003/figures, sources/stat2004/figures or sources/stat1301/figures, then commit the PDFs it writes. A .tex file beside a PDF is its TikZ source.
Data behind the data analysis figures	sources/stat1301/data (heart-failure records and birthwt)

The build reads only the copies in sources/:

• sources/book comes from the lecture book (the Alan Book folder).
• sources/prep comes from the final-exam booklet (FINAL PREP).
• sources/practice comes from the practice set (Codex Notes).
• sources/stat2003 holds the probability notes. The chapters are sources/stat2003/chapters, and the PDF copy is sources/stat2003/notes.pdf.
• sources/stat2004 holds the inference notes. Only the inference part is turned into chapters; the probability part links to sources/stat2003. The PDF copy is sources/stat2004/notes.pdf.
• sources/stat1301 holds the data-analysis notes. Studies and description become chapters. The language chapter sources/stat1301/chapters/da-03-using-r.qmd is filed under Using R. Repeated inference chapters keep their examples and exercises and link to sources/stat2004. The PDF copy is sources/stat1301/notes.pdf.
• sources/using-r holds the rest of the Using R section: exploration, simulation, resampling, mixtures, Bayesian computation, and the model fits.
• sources/stat3004 holds the stochastic-process notes. The chapters are sources/stat3004/chapters, and the PDF copy is sources/stat3004/notes.pdf. Where a chapter continues a probability page, it links to that page and develops the further argument.
• sources/stat3006 holds the statistical-learning notes, including the R calculations. The chapters are sources/stat3006/chapters, and the PDF copy is sources/stat3006/notes.pdf. Where a chapter continues a regression, GLM, ANOVA, or smoothing page, it links to that page and develops the further argument.

Edits to the original folders do not reach the wiki until they are copied into sources/.

Publishing a change

Edit a file in the repository and commit it. The site updates by itself.

To publish edits made in the local folder instead, run:

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File publish.ps1 "What changed"

It commits everything, brings in any remote changes, and pushes.

Checking pages locally

You need Python 3.12, Quarto 1.6 and poppler (pdfinfo, pdftocairo). Then run:

python build_wiki.py
quarto preview

Desktop app

_app/launch_wiki.pyw opens the local _site folder in its own window, and works offline. After changes made elsewhere, refresh it with:

git pull
python build_wiki.py
quarto render