Refereed Papers

Track: Social Networks: Analysis of Social Networks & Online Interactive Spaces

Paper Title:
Statistical Analysis of the Social Network and Discussion Threads in Slashdot

Authors:

• Vicenç Gómez(Barcelona Media Centre d'Innovació)
• Andreas Kaltenbrunner(Universitat Pompeu Fabra)
• Vicente López(Barcelona Media Centre d'Innovació)

Abstract:
We analyze the social network emerging from the user com- ment activity on the website Slashdot. The network presents common features of traditional social networks such as a gi- ant component, small average path length and high cluster- ing, but differs from them showing moderate reciprocity and neutral assortativity by degree. Using Kolmogorov-Smirnov statistical tests, we show that the degree distributions are better explained by log-normal instead of power-law distri- butions. We also study the structure of discussion threads using an intuitive radial tree representation. Threads show strong heterogeneity and self-similarity throughout the dif- ferent nesting levels of a conversation. We use these results to propose a simple measure to evaluate the degree of con- troversy provoked by a post.

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