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Omer F. Yalcin

@omerfyalcin.com

Computational social scientist, Lecturer at UMasss Amherst's DACSS (Data Analytics and Computational Social Science) program

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Latest posts by Omer F. Yalcin @omerfyalcin.com

Happy New Year all! A 🧡 on papers I've had the privilege working on with folks in 2025.

01.01.2026 11:13 πŸ‘ 5 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 3 πŸ“Œ 0
John Fox: Books and Software

#rstats
It is with profound sadness I heard that my long-time friend and colleague, John Fox passed away this week.
He was the author of {car}, {effects}, {Rcmdr}, ... and numerous influential books. I will miss him greatly.
www.john-fox.ca

28.11.2025 15:26 πŸ‘ 202 πŸ” 66 πŸ’¬ 12 πŸ“Œ 10
BDA3 for free | Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science

BDA3 for free
statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2025/09/13/b...

13.09.2025 23:45 πŸ‘ 20 πŸ” 8 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
Chatbot still can’t handle tic-tac-toe | Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science

Chatbot still can’t handle tic-tac-toe
statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2025/08/24/c...

24.08.2025 23:30 πŸ‘ 4 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 1
A shitty map created by ChatGPT5.  it purports to be US States with an R in their name, but it's wrong and dumb and worthless just like LLMs.

A shitty map created by ChatGPT5. it purports to be US States with an R in their name, but it's wrong and dumb and worthless just like LLMs.

My goto is to ask LLMs how many states have R in their name. They always fail. GPT 5 included Indiana, Illinois, and Texas in its list. It then asked me if I wanted an alphabetical highlighted map. Sure, why not.

08.08.2025 00:40 πŸ‘ 5023 πŸ” 1261 πŸ’¬ 372 πŸ“Œ 609

What I hate about this is that, for GPT-6, they're going to do

if "blueberry" in prompt:
print("there are two Bs in blueberry")

and claim it is now more intelligent than GPT-5.

08.08.2025 02:01 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

The fact that ChatGPT can produce an essay about the history of blueberries but can't count the letters is a great example of how it is a text producing machine not a reasoning machine.

08.08.2025 00:09 πŸ‘ 18 πŸ” 5 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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(real, one-shot :p )

07.08.2025 20:33 πŸ‘ 846 πŸ” 111 πŸ’¬ 71 πŸ“Œ 107
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I’m thrilled to share new work out in Social Networks!

In this project, randomly allocating students to teams permitted identifying causal effects of co-membership.

Thanks to Sarah Gordon, Wayne Baker, Jose Uribe, and Cassandra Chambers for bringing me on!

Ful article: πŸ“„ lnkd.in/e9TyvnRX

24.07.2025 13:59 πŸ‘ 12 πŸ” 3 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Do women politicians address violence against women more effectively?

It would be a big deal if they do!

It would provide (perhaps more) reason(s) to elect more women!

But I'm skeptical that this study actually shows that women politicians reduce violence against women.

Here's one reason why:

18.07.2025 19:01 πŸ‘ 7 πŸ” 3 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

Great! I'll send you an email. Thank you, Kevin!

07.06.2025 22:22 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Got it. Thank you. I'll take Kevin up on it then!

07.06.2025 22:00 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

Thank you, Kevin! I appreciate it. I'll let you know :)

07.06.2025 21:41 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

Thank you very much for the kind offer! I'd be grateful if you read mine (I'm looking for a range of positions including R2 and teaching). Please let me know if and how I should proceed. Thank you!

07.06.2025 21:31 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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A cartoon by Tom Toro. #NewYorkerCartoons

See more cartoons and other funny stuff from New Yorker Humor: nyer.cm/9mf6isU

26.05.2025 16:07 πŸ‘ 1472 πŸ” 206 πŸ’¬ 18 πŸ“Œ 13
Preview
Golden Gate Claude When we turn up the strength of the β€œGolden Gate Bridge” feature, Claude’s responses begin to focus on the Golden Gate Bridge. For a short time, we’re making this model available for everyone to inter...

I understand why people are theorizing that the Grok/South Africa thing was caused by a system prompt, but what it really reminds me of is Golden Gate Claude, which involved artificially amplifying some model features. I am so curious about how this happened. www.anthropic.com/news/golden-...

15.05.2025 15:45 πŸ‘ 23 πŸ” 6 πŸ’¬ 3 πŸ“Œ 0

Regression and other stories, chapter 16, has a discussion in the same vein that I really like (and some criticism of traditional power analysis): users.aalto.fi/~ave/ROS.pdf

29.04.2025 21:39 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

The R package naming convention, especially when R is the only capital letter and you have to press shift only for that letter.

24.04.2025 20:15 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Gave a talk to our PhD students today, and feeling appreciative of all the recent methods work on improving common practices. Thanks to all the authors who work to make their work accessible, especially on social media.

A few articles we discussed:

07.04.2025 18:12 πŸ‘ 97 πŸ” 24 πŸ’¬ 9 πŸ“Œ 5
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Talk to me the way Claude talks to me :)

04.04.2025 01:05 πŸ‘ 3 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
A group of men and women pose for a photo in a classroom or conference room. The men, dressed in a mix of formal and casual attire, stand on the left, while the women, mostly wearing black abayas and niqabs, stand on the right. A banner with Arabic text and a logo is visible on the wall behind them. The room is furnished with tables, chairs, and various personal belongings, such as bags and water bottles. The setting suggests a professional or educational gathering.

A group of men and women pose for a photo in a classroom or conference room. The men, dressed in a mix of formal and casual attire, stand on the left, while the women, mostly wearing black abayas and niqabs, stand on the right. A banner with Arabic text and a logo is visible on the wall behind them. The room is furnished with tables, chairs, and various personal belongings, such as bags and water bottles. The setting suggests a professional or educational gathering.

Materials such as keychains and pins with the Wikipedia puzzle globe logo.

Materials such as keychains and pins with the Wikipedia puzzle globe logo.

A certificate award ceremony captures a moment of achievement as a woman in a niqab receives recognition. Organizers stand by a table filled with awards and gifts, celebrating the successful completion of the program.

A certificate award ceremony captures a moment of achievement as a woman in a niqab receives recognition. Organizers stand by a table filled with awards and gifts, celebrating the successful completion of the program.

Participants sitting at a round table, with notepads and pens.

Participants sitting at a round table, with notepads and pens.

Yemen sparked a digital education revolution with the second phase of β€œReading Wikipedia in the Classroom”, which empowered 22 teachers and trainees to boost digital literacy. Led by the Wikimedians of Yemen User Group, volunteers made 1,600+ edits on Arabic Wikipedia.

Read more ➑️ w.wiki/_paW2

28.03.2025 13:59 πŸ‘ 15 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

Thrilled to have this published.

Everything you've wanted to know about political Youtube -- from Kevin Munger, Jim Bisbee (@jamesbisbee.bsky.social), Omer Yalcin (@ofyalcin.bsky.social), Joe Phillips (@polpsychjoe.bsky.social), and myself.

Out now in the Journal of Quantitative Description.

05.03.2025 17:24 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

New publication! Please check out our open access work on a quantitative description of political YouTubeβ€”by Kevin Munger, @jamesbisbee.bsky.social, myself, @polpsychjoe.bsky.social, and @matthindman.bsky.social.

Thread🧡 by @polpsychjoe.bsky.social below πŸ‘‡

05.03.2025 21:52 πŸ‘ 3 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
Slashed zero (0ΜΈ), a representation of the number 0 (zero) to distinguish it from the letter O
Slashed letter 'O' (OΜΈ), a representation of the letter O to distinguish it from the number 0 (zero)

Slashed zero (0ΜΈ), a representation of the number 0 (zero) to distinguish it from the letter O Slashed letter 'O' (OΜΈ), a representation of the letter O to distinguish it from the number 0 (zero)

19.02.2025 06:57 πŸ‘ 14187 πŸ” 2709 πŸ’¬ 193 πŸ“Œ 236
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Our top 10 downloads of 2024. Number 3...

How do populist voters differ from other voters and among themselves?

Caner Simsek @uni-muenster.de

Read more here in 'Voices unheard: How feelings of inefficacy fuel populism'

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

#Populism #Populistvoting

13.01.2025 13:39 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
Preview
Offline connections, online votes: The role of offline ties in an online public election - Nicole Schwitter, 2024 Building democratic communities and fostering inclusive participation is challenging, especially in participatory organisations where governance and sustained c...

πŸŽ‰ My favorite PhD chapter found its home in New Media & Society! I explore whether offline ties matter in online elections, focusing on @wikipedia.bsky.social. In short: They do! Personal connections to voters & candidates affect a user's adminship votes. πŸ”— doi.org/10.1177/1461... #PoliSky #SocSky

03.09.2024 11:17 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Hello! It's me.

29.09.2023 12:30 πŸ‘ 7 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0