Talk:Actuary/Archive 3

message: The following was added by 
I've commented it out pending verification and citations. Does anyone have any reliable sources for this? And wikipedia itself cannot be used as a source for wiki (and I don't understand Dutch :( ) -- Avi 19:34, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Johan de Witt 

message: Hi User:Avraham, I note your question about whether the following fictional character is notable (deleted text below):
;Richard Ramsay: Richard is portrayed by Andrew McCarthy and is from the movie Escape Clause. To quote TVguide.com "The makers of this direct-to-video release thought the world was ready for a thriller about an insurance actuary. They thought wrong." 
As someone relatively new to wikipedia, I must admit I am not familar with guidelines on notability - do they apply to fictional characters?  Would you support a link to a new page "Fictional Actuaries"?  There is plenty of material. Actuary Australia has on several occasions discussed this (September 03, April 04, May04 editions) 
http://www.actuaries.asn.au/PublicationAndResearch/Library/AA?docType=Publication_AA&docTypeID=226&year=Select%20Year
Actuarial disco boy 04:13, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  tage added at "Fictional" section. Thanks -- Avi 15:07, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fictional actuaries part 3

message: I removed references not in the text, as well as backdoor linkspam, and re-alphabetized them. -- Avi 15:15, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  References 

message: SWEET! -- Avi 05:14, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mainpage 

message: The narrator of Fight Club played by Edward Norton is an actuary. would that count towards fictional actuaries ?
:If that's true then yes, definatly. Its too specific from the film for me to remeber, and the fight club article says he works for a car company recalling defective products, but we aren't supposed to use internal refences. Could you cite this claim? - Jack (talk) 10:01, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  The narrator in Fight Club is not an actuary. He inspects defective cars and notes how many have gone wrong due to the car company's negligence.  This is not at all actuarial work, especially as he does not do it for insurance purposes but rather to find out the car manufacturer's breakdown rate.  Let me try and clarify what it is about.  An actuary would not typically go out on site and investigate claims.  Other people would do that and then the actuary would then use that claim-frequency information (coupled with the financial impact of the claim) to estimate the insurance company's liablities.  It is a mathematical office job, we do not go and check out car wreckages or attend funerals to ensure life insurance claims are valid.  Typically you're dealing with thousands or even millions of policies and claims as an actuary; any individual one is of little interest to you, rather the overall statistical happenings are what is of importance.--Zoso Jade 11:12, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fictional actuary - Fight Club 

message: Congratulations, one and all, though I daresay a number of vandalisms may be impending.--Zoso Jade 11:01, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Today's featured article...

message: Granted, it's easy work that pays incredibly well, especially once you've passed the 10 actuarial exams and become a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries.  However, many people who are actuaries have incredibly poor social skills.  You wouldn't believe the number of people who are in the field who have the smarts to pass all ten exams, yet are in real life socially-retarded.  In addition, actuaries make mistakes left and right.  They are not perfect - although they promote the illusion that they are.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.36.184.212  (talk • contribs) 08:56, September 10, 2006   (UTC)
:Point being?--Zoso Jade 14:02, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Not to mention that that is a rather poor and outdated stereotype. While I know a number of "nerd"-type actuaries, I know a greater number who are their company representatives at various financial events, and are suave, polished, and have impressive social skills.  -- Avi 16:56, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It is. No one actuary credibly represents the profession as a whole, either way, stereotypes notwithstanding. So, your point is? -- Avi 18:17, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

text: LOL. I am one and work with around another 20-30  -- Avi 21:51, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

text: What on earth is the point of all this?  Avi quite politely said that the above statement was a ridiculous generalisation.  He didn't counter by claiming that all actuaries are warm, fuzzy, good-looking individuals.  How is he excluded from pointing out a pointless stereotype?  Or are you quite seriously going to sit here and claim that all actuaries (i.e. tens of thousands of people the world over) fit the profile?  What is all this doing on Wikipedia anyway?  If above poster hates actuaries, I advise he quit whatever awful job keeps putting him contact with them, but Wikipedia is not a soapbox.--Zoso Jade 13:41, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Real-Life Actuaries

message: Can we switch it to the ref system? - Ta bu shi da yu 22:42, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As the one who wrote most of the article, I specifically did not use cite.php here. According to Wikipedia:Citing sources#How and where to cite sources there should be no change to the style. Thank you -- Avi 03:29, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Referencing system 

message: Having just had the misfortune of watching Along Came Polly, I'm not sure he is an actuary.  Certainly the word is not used in the movie (he is referred to as a 'risk assesment expert').  Does anyone have any evidence that Ben Stiller's character is an actuary? Actuarial disco boy 20:40, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Fictional Actuaries pt5-Along Came Polly

message: Please revert the exam details.  I am responding to the comment that "The exam details are more minutia, and not necessarily global either, and so don't belong in lead, IMO. Please discuss on talk if you disagree)".  IMHO, I disagree.  This is key, as the actuary examination process is the gold standard globally these days, and in fact in most jurisdictions is standard by which one knows that a person qualifies as an actuary -- the subject of the article. --Epeefleche 02:19, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: exam details

message: Hi I have deleted billion dollar bubble as it already appears on the fictional actuaries page and as I'm not sure the movie will be notable among non actuaries Actuarial disco boy 19:25, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's shown at every CAS Course on professionalism  -- Avi 23:58, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Fictional Actuaries Pt 6

message: Let's say an actuary works for a life insurance firm.  Would part of his job entail reviewing potential clients and establishing an estimated life expectancy?  You'll have to excuse my ignorance, I've never spoken to an actuary before, and I didn't seem to find the answer to this exact question in the article.  I'm asking for two reasons: the first is that I'm currently at work on a short story that involves a person performing the task I described above, and I need to know if that's the job of an actuary.  The second is that if an actuary doesn't perform this task, it should probably be noted in the article, as I'm sure I wouldn't be the first person to have made this misguided assumption. Jeff Silvers 01:33, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: And those are life actuaries. There are also pension and casualty actuaries who deal with pensions and various risk events respectively (like car accidents, workers compensation, slip&falls, product liability, etc.) -- Avi 13:29, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clarification on what an actuary actually does 

message: I found a couple of sources for the data and did some minor re-writing to have the section fit the sources. -- Avi 18:30, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Denmark 

message: A little research pulls up the 1905 book. I have updated the templates and references accordingly, and removed the extraneous infor about slide rules. That properly belongs in the Wright article itself. -- Avi 01:29, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Elizur Wright]]