<p>I came across this thread today. </p>

<p><a href="https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/320082/why-not-use-the-third-derivative/320138#320138">Why not use the third derivative?</a></p>

<p>It has a very good discussion both in the comments and in the answers, yet it was closed as off-topic because it is about numerical optimization. This is very puzzling to me. We have quite a number of threads about optimization, and a whole <a href="https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/optimization" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged &#39;optimization&#39;" rel="tag">optimization</a> tag dedicated to it.</p>

<p>Optimization clearly plays a large part in classical statistics (e.g. logistic regression) and modern statistics (e.g. neural networks).</p>

<p>Would anyone involved with closing this question care to comment on why it was closed?</p>
