IF we are not sure about the nature of categorical features like whether they are nominal or ordinal, which encoding should we use? Ordinal-Encoding or One-Hot-Encoding? Is there a clearly defined rule on this topic?
I see a lot of people using Ordinal-Encoding on Categorical Data that doesn't have a Direction. Suppose a frequency table:
some_data[some_col].value_counts()
[OUTPUT]
color_white 11413
color_green 4544
color_black 1419
color_orang 3
Name: shirt_colors, dtype: int64
There are a lots of guys who are preferring to do Ordinal-Encoding on this column. And I am hell-bent to go with One-Hot-Encoding. My view on this is that doing Ordinal Encoding will allot these colors' some ordered numbers which I'd imply a ranking. And there is no ranking in the first place. In other words, my model should not be thinking of color_white to be 4 and color_orang to be 0 or 1 or 2. Keep in mind that there is no hint of any ranking or order in the Data Description as well.
I have the following understanding of this topic:
Numbers that neither have a direction nor magnitude are Nominal Variables. For example, fruit_list =['apple', 'orange', banana']. Unless there is a specific context, this set would be called to be a nominal one. And for such variables, we should perform either get_dummies or one-hot-encoding
Whereas the Ordinal Variables have a direction. For example, shirt_sizes_list = [large, medium, small]. These variables are called Ordinal Variables. If the same fruit list has a context behind it, like price or nutritional value i-e, that could give the fruits in the fruit_list some ranking or order, we'd call it an Ordinal Variable. And for Ordinal Variables, we perform Ordinal-Encoding
Is my understanding correct? Kindly provide your feedback This topic has turned into a nightmare Thank you!
