<p>I find the Wiki <strong>and</strong> its excerpt of the <a href="https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/prediction" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged &#39;prediction&#39;" rel="tag">prediction</a> tag in need of improvement. I could have tried to edit it myself, but I thought I better share it here and perhaps attract contributions from some more knowledgeable user(s) .</p>

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<p>The excerpt reads:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Prediction is concerned with assessing the probability of unknown values from known values and inferred relationships. </p>
</blockquote>

<p>In my opinion, this is too narrow (probabilities are not always used) and too vague (distinction from <strong>estimation</strong> not clear enough; relation to <strong>forecasting</strong> not mentioned). See more in the comments in <a href="https://stats.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/3077/">this thread</a>.</p>

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<p>The rest of the Wiki text extensively uses examples of <strong>forecasting</strong> without noting that there is a separate <a href="https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/forecasting" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged &#39;forecasting&#39;" rel="tag">forecasting</a> tag that is actually more popular than the prediction tag. E.g.</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Prediction involving statistical models is used in many real-world situations as for instance in <strong>forecasting electricity demand stock prices, election or sports outcomes</strong>, clinical trials, computer science, meteorology and more. Prediction isn't only about the future. Predictions can be made for unknown concurrent or past values on the basis of relevant information that is known.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Examples of prediction models are again forecasting models:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Examples of well known prediction models are <strong>vector autoregressive models or autoregressive moving averages</strong>, but many statistical models (such as simple linear regression) can be used for predictions as well. </p>
</blockquote>

<p>If forecasting is a subset of prediction, then the examples are fine, but they should be introduced appropriately (i.e. first tell that a prominent subset of prediction is forecasting, and only then list the examples).</p>

<p>Further we have some formatting issues and a citation that focuses mostly on estimation (rather than prediction) where we estimate <strong>known</strong> (???) parameters:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Uncertainty in data, processes or parameters means that there will be uncertainty in conclusions. Statisticians call this drawing of conclusions in the presence of uncertainty, statistical inference (or just inference); in this book, inferences will be either estimation of fixed but <strong>known</strong> parameters, or prediction of unknown random quantities. (Notice that "forecasting," namely concluding something about the future, is a special case of "prediction.")</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Instead of the latter paragraph I think we should make a clearer distinction between prediction, forecasting (and potentially estimation).</p>

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<p>By the way, the same problematic citation appears in the Wiki of the <a href="https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/forecasting" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged &#39;forecasting&#39;" rel="tag">forecasting</a>. That one should also be fixed...</p>
