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Comment by DoreenMichele | Hacker News Reader

The actual question:

Of the stars that can be seen with the naked eye, what are the distributions of each type? For example, how many are main sequence? how many are Super Red giants/white dwarfs/neutron stars...etc. What's the distribution by mass and distance?

Posting it here because that's not what I thought was meant by demographics.

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I've tried but cannot come up with another way to interpret it. Do you actually have one?

-> What are the types (or categories) of stars visible to the naked eye?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35118130

Graphs of (quantitative) Qualities? Relationships? A thesaurus? A metaphor? Your imagination?

The question is not what other terms they could have used but how you could interpret differently the chosen expression (which is perfectly unambiguous to me)

Number and size of alien civilizations around those stars. ;)

Can’t they use ‘characteristics’?

Yeah, as a non-native speaker, I was a bit confused about “demographics” as well. What did I expect? Nothing. It’s only felt “off” with stars and demographics. A “characteristics” or distribution on the other hand would click immediately. (If we have to nitpick about the title ;) )

Demographics means distribution of population characteristics. Made sense to me as a native speaker.

But what did you expect?

Demographics implies a study about people. The word comes from Greek: “demos” meaning “ordinary citizens or common people” and “graphia” meaning “writing, drawing, description.”

None of this relates whatsoever to populations of stars, which would more aptly be described as having a distribution. So a better way to write the title would’ve been:

“What is the distribution of stars visible to the naked eye?”

Don't need to explain me what demographics means, but even after studying your exlanation in detail I think it 100% fits what can be understood as star demographics, transferring your explanation of a "study about stars".. maybe it is because I have read too many things in this area but "What is the distribution of stars visible" feels off, and I also find the nit picking on how to do titles right off.

Anyway, the question was, to understand the other side better: What did you expect? (Not please explain me demographics in its original meaning :( )

Btw, "population of stars" is what it is exactly about and the term since almost a century: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellar_population

Does "population of stars" sound okay to you? Because it also derives from Latin "populus" which means more or less the same as "demos".

Yes, because population has lost the implication of people due to its usage as a technical term in statistics [1]. Demographics does not have a similar usage history. If it had, there would not be any cause for confusion.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_population

There's no "cause for confusion" here either: the meaning is more than clear enough unless you're trying to be willfully confused by technicalities. The only way it might be confusing (or rather amusingly ambiguous) is if there was also uncertainty about the word "star". I don't think Physics StackExchange talks about film celebrities more often than astronomical objects, or that some film stars are invisible to the naked eye.

I thought it might be a question about light pollution. Like "Given the spread of light pollution, how many people can still see the stars and where are they?"

Something like that.

Right, that makes sense - thanks for explaining.

Oh, interesting... thanks!

Not OP, but I was thinking of question I was pondering few days ago: what is the distribution of people vs bortle scale, i.e. what percentage of population live in area where they can see X stars

We talk about “populations” of stars, so “demographics” isn’t entirely inappropriate. I agree the title is still a bit confusing.

Thank you. Perhaps the term "Astrographics" would have been more fitting. This is _exactly_ how words are coined.

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