

Visualizing discussions on Reddit with a D3 network and Embedly - brennannovak
http://blog.embed.ly/post/57097477000/visualizing-discussions-on-reddit-with-a-d3-network-and

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kwntm
Author here, all the code is available on Github if you want to play around
with the visualization or have ideas to improve it:
[https://github.com/whichlight/reddit-network-
vis](https://github.com/whichlight/reddit-network-vis).

Also, you can see a sort of meta discussion here on the /r/dataisbeautiful
subreddit:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/1jqz3f/redd...](http://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/1jqz3f/reddit_conversations_visualized/)
It's kind of hilarious because people leave threads of comments to create new
branches.

What I find most interesting is that you can quickly get an idea of how much
conversation is in one of these discussions by the number of nodes that are
colored (signifying users who have posted more than once).

~~~
cscheid
This is very cool!

A very nice feature to have would be to run topic modeling (say, your run-of-
the-mill LDA) on the comments, and then colormap the nodes as to preserve the
distances in the comment topic vector. This way you'd be able to see
threadjacking, etc.

~~~
kwntm
Wow, that's a great idea for next steps. This is the direction I'd love to
take this work- getting into the comments and running an analysis. The
comments range in size and some can have subtle humor- I wonder how that would
affect the LDA.

~~~
tripplethrendo
Please let us know if there is a new version. This is very interesting to me.

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incision
The Reddit visualization I'd most like to see is one of votes/comments over
time on highly partisan (not necessarily political) topics. When I was using
Reddit I perceived distinct "tides" in those cases.

Comments would swing up and down by double and triple digits as early
burying/back-patting is overcome by more moderate opinions as the post rises
in exposure. Likewise, having a post linked on other large forums would result
in new waves of like-minded moderation.

~~~
kwntm
Are there any posts in particular you're thinking of? This would be a very
compelling visualization. Haven't seen posts like this myself, but I imagine
if I hang around /r/politics I'll see one.

~~~
incision
_> "Are there any posts in particular you're thinking of?"_

No, I haven't frequented Reddit for a few years now. I expect /r/politics
would have been a goldmine for this last fall. I felt it was most apparent on
topics that can be construed to involve race.

~~~
supergauntlet
I would love to see a before/after of /r/politics during the NSA scandal.
Within a span of a day they went from unconditional love of Obama to hate.

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jemhoff
Good stuff! I wonder if you could somehow classify the conversation trees
using depth or branching factor or whatever to predict and/or discover hot
topics. Like you said, AMAs tend to have a pretty obvious structure but maybe
that could be extended to discover "controversial" threads -- or even people!

~~~
kwntm
That's an awesome idea. A buddy was telling me to create a bot for it too,
like if a conversation derails enough and focuses on one of the comments, it
would post an image of the network having been derailed. On discovering hot
topics- that makes sense- I bet there is a characteristic "engaging" type of
network, regardless what exactly the content is.

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doki_pen
It would be pretty interesting to see this applied to HN. I realize it would
be more difficult because there isn't an API and pg is pretty harsh with the
rate limiting.

~~~
brennannovak
Yes! I second this motion!

~~~
kwntm
Haha, ok, I guess it's gotta happen then!

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jmccaf
<a href="window.location.href = \"[http://whichlight.github.io/reddit-network-
vis/?discussion=\\...](http://whichlight.github.io/reddit-network-
vis/?discussion=\\") \+ window.location.href">bookmarklet for comments
pages<\a>

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Goosey
I found it extremely beautiful, especially with the context you provided. Some
large framed prints with the text in little gallery placards would make an
interesting exhibit.

