The Experts below are selected from a list of 609 Experts worldwide ranked by ideXlab platform
Marc A Smith - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
-
Paper: Collaborative Filtering Observed Behavior and Perceived Value of Authors in Usenet Newsgroups: Bridging the Gap
2013Co-Authors: Andrew T Fiore, Scott Leetiernan, Marc A SmithAbstract:In this paper we describe an evaluation of behavioral descriptors generated from an analysis of a large collection of Usenet newsgroup messages. The metrics describe aspects of newsgroup authors ’ behavior over time; such information can aid in filtering, sorting, and recommending content from public discussion spaces like Newsgroups. To assess the value of a variety of these behavioral descriptors, we compared 22 participants’ subjective evaluations of authors whose messages they read to behavioral metrics describing the same authors. We found that many metrics, particularly the longevity and frequency of participation, the number of Newsgroups to which authors contribute messages, and the amount they contribute to each thread, correlate highly with readers ’ subjective evaluations of the authors
-
Chapter 9 – Thread Networks: Mapping Message Boards and Email Lists
Analyzing Social Media Networks with NodeXL, 2011Co-Authors: Derek L Hansen, Ben Shneiderman, Marc A SmithAbstract:Publisher Summary Since the inception of the Internet, most virtual communities have relied on asynchronous threaded conversation platforms as a main channel of communication. Usenet Newsgroups, email lists, web boards, and discussion forums all contain collections of messages in reply to one another. Although they make use of a wide range of technologies that differ in their delivery infrastructure, all threaded conversations share similar characteristics: they are composed of single-authored messages organized into threads (i.e., a top-level message, replies to that message, and possibly replies to those replies), threads are often found within topics or groups, messages are often permanent, and users often have a shared view of the conversation. These conversations lend themselves to the creation of several networks, including the directed, weighted Reply network and Top-Level Reply network; the undirected, weighted affiliation network connecting threads (or forums) to the individuals that posted to them; and the undirected, weighted networks derived from the affiliation network including the user-to-user network and thread-to-thread network. This chapter discusses analyses of several threaded networks, including the CSS-D technical support community, ABC-D discussion-based email list, and Ravelry online community.
-
discussion catalysts in online political discussions content importers and conversation starters
Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 2009Co-Authors: Itai Himelboim, Eric Gleave, Marc A SmithAbstract:This study addresses 3 research questions in the context of online political discussions: What is the distribution of successful topic starting practices, what characterizes the content of large thread-starting messages, and what is the source of that content? A 6-month analysis of almost 40,000 authors in 20 political Usenet Newsgroups identified authors who received a disproportionate number of replies. We labeled these authors ‘‘discussion catalysts.’’ Content analysis revealed that 95 percent of discussion catalysts’ messages contained content imported from elsewhere on the web, about 2/3 from traditional news organizations. We conclude that the flow of information from the content creators to the readers and writers continues to be mediated by a few individuals who act as filters and amplifiers.
-
Sharing Social Accounting Metadata- Lessons from Netscan
2008Co-Authors: Marc A Smith, Tammara Turner, Eric GleaveAbstract:Abstract. The creation and distribution of data sets is a core practice of the natural sciences. The combined shift of much of social life into computer-mediated channels of communication along with the growing proliferation of mobile devices capable of generating yet more detailed data about social life and behavior beyond the keyboard and mouse is likely to move the social sciences closer to the data centered practices of the natural sciences. These data collection opportunities promise a sea change in the availability and quality of social science data. In the spirit of this trend, the Netscan system has collected and generated descriptions of the social activity within online discussion environments like Usenet Newsgroups, web boards, and communities. In support of a growing community of scholarship on computer-mediated interaction, this data set was licensed to a growing collection of universities for research purposes. In the following, the nature of the data, issues in its distribution, and patterns in its use are reviewed
-
visualizing the signatures of social roles in online discussion groups
Journal of Social Structure, 2007Co-Authors: Howard T Welser, Danyel Fisher, Eric Gleave, Marc A SmithAbstract:Social roles in online discussion forums can be described by patterned characteristics of communication between network members which we conceive of as 'structural signatures.' This paper uses visualization methods to reveal these structural signatures and regression analysis to confirm the relationship between these signatures and their associated roles in Usenet Newsgroups. Our analysis focuses on distinguishing the signatures of one role from others, the role of "answer people." Answer people are individuals whose dominant behavior is to respond to questions posed by other users. We found that answer people predominantly contribute one or a few messages to discussions initiated by others, are disproportionately tied to relative isolates, have few intense ties and have few triangles in their local networks. OLS regression shows that these signatures are strongly correlated with role behavior and, in combination, provide a strongly predictive model for identifying role behavior (R =.72). To conclude, we consider strategies for further improving the identification of role behavior in online discussion settings and consider how the development of a taxonomy of author types could be extended to a taxonomy of Newsgroups in particular and discussion systems in general. 2
Howard T Welser - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
-
You Are Who You Talk To:
2008Co-Authors: Danyel Fisher, Marc Smith, Howard T WelserAbstract:Understanding the social roles of the members a group can help to understand the social context of the group. We present a method of applying social network analysis to support the task of characterizing authors in Usenet Newsgroups. We compute and visualize networks created by patterns of replies for each author in selected Newsgroups and find that second-degree ego-centric networks give us clear distinctions between different types of authors and Newsgroups
-
visualizing the signatures of social roles in online discussion groups
Journal of Social Structure, 2007Co-Authors: Howard T Welser, Danyel Fisher, Eric Gleave, Marc A SmithAbstract:Social roles in online discussion forums can be described by patterned characteristics of communication between network members which we conceive of as 'structural signatures.' This paper uses visualization methods to reveal these structural signatures and regression analysis to confirm the relationship between these signatures and their associated roles in Usenet Newsgroups. Our analysis focuses on distinguishing the signatures of one role from others, the role of "answer people." Answer people are individuals whose dominant behavior is to respond to questions posed by other users. We found that answer people predominantly contribute one or a few messages to discussions initiated by others, are disproportionately tied to relative isolates, have few intense ties and have few triangles in their local networks. OLS regression shows that these signatures are strongly correlated with role behavior and, in combination, provide a strongly predictive model for identifying role behavior (R =.72). To conclude, we consider strategies for further improving the identification of role behavior in online discussion settings and consider how the development of a taxonomy of author types could be extended to a taxonomy of Newsgroups in particular and discussion systems in general. 2
-
Visualizing the signatures of social roles in online discussion groups, The
2007Co-Authors: Howard T Welser, Danyel Fisher, Eric Gleave, Marc SmithAbstract:Abstract: Social roles in online discussion forums can be described by patterned characteristics of communication between network members which we conceive of as ‘structural signatures. ' This paper uses visualization methods to reveal these structural signatures and regression analysis to confirm the relationship between these signatures and their associated roles in Usenet Newsgroups. Our analysis focuses on distinguishing the signatures of one role from others, the role of “answer people. " Answer people are individuals whose dominant behavior is to respond to questions posed by other users. We found that answer people predominantly contribute one or a few messages to discussions initiated by others, are disproportionately tied to relative isolates, have few intense ties and have few triangles in their local networks. OLS regression shows that these signatures are strongly correlated with role behavior and, in combination, provide a strongly predictive model for identifying role 2 behavior (R =.72). To conclude, we consider strategies for further improving the identification of role behavior in online discussion settings and consider how the development of a taxonomy of author types could be extended to a taxonomy of Newsgroups in particular and discussion systems in general
-
you are who you talk to detecting roles in Usenet Newsgroups
Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 2006Co-Authors: Danyel Fisher, Marc A Smith, Howard T WelserAbstract:Understanding the social roles of the members a group can help to understand the social context of the group. We present a method of applying social network analysis to support the task of characterizing authors in Usenet Newsgroups. We compute and visualize networks created by patterns of replies for each author in selected Newsgroups and find that second-degree ego-centric networks give us clear distinctions between different types of authors and Newsgroups. Results show that Newsgroups vary in terms of the populations of participants and the roles that they play. Newsgroups can be characterized by populations that include question and answer Newsgroups, conversational Newsgroups, social support Newsgroups, and flame Newsgroups. This approach has applications for both researchers seeking to characterize different types of social cyberspaces as well as participants seeking to distinguish interaction partners and content authors.
-
HICSS - You Are Who You Talk To: Detecting Roles in Usenet Newsgroups
Proceedings of the 39th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS'06), 2006Co-Authors: Danyel Fisher, Marc A Smith, Howard T WelserAbstract:Understanding the social roles of the members a group can help to understand the social context of the group. We present a method of applying social network analysis to support the task of characterizing authors in Usenet Newsgroups. We compute and visualize networks created by patterns of replies for each author in selected Newsgroups and find that second-degree ego-centric networks give us clear distinctions between different types of authors and Newsgroups. Results show that Newsgroups vary in terms of the populations of participants and the roles that they play. Newsgroups can be characterized by populations that include question and answer Newsgroups, conversational Newsgroups, social support Newsgroups, and flame Newsgroups. This approach has applications for both researchers seeking to characterize different types of social cyberspaces as well as participants seeking to distinguish interaction partners and content authors.
Danyel Fisher - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
-
You Are Who You Talk To:
2008Co-Authors: Danyel Fisher, Marc Smith, Howard T WelserAbstract:Understanding the social roles of the members a group can help to understand the social context of the group. We present a method of applying social network analysis to support the task of characterizing authors in Usenet Newsgroups. We compute and visualize networks created by patterns of replies for each author in selected Newsgroups and find that second-degree ego-centric networks give us clear distinctions between different types of authors and Newsgroups
-
visualizing the signatures of social roles in online discussion groups
Journal of Social Structure, 2007Co-Authors: Howard T Welser, Danyel Fisher, Eric Gleave, Marc A SmithAbstract:Social roles in online discussion forums can be described by patterned characteristics of communication between network members which we conceive of as 'structural signatures.' This paper uses visualization methods to reveal these structural signatures and regression analysis to confirm the relationship between these signatures and their associated roles in Usenet Newsgroups. Our analysis focuses on distinguishing the signatures of one role from others, the role of "answer people." Answer people are individuals whose dominant behavior is to respond to questions posed by other users. We found that answer people predominantly contribute one or a few messages to discussions initiated by others, are disproportionately tied to relative isolates, have few intense ties and have few triangles in their local networks. OLS regression shows that these signatures are strongly correlated with role behavior and, in combination, provide a strongly predictive model for identifying role behavior (R =.72). To conclude, we consider strategies for further improving the identification of role behavior in online discussion settings and consider how the development of a taxonomy of author types could be extended to a taxonomy of Newsgroups in particular and discussion systems in general. 2
-
Visualizing the signatures of social roles in online discussion groups, The
2007Co-Authors: Howard T Welser, Danyel Fisher, Eric Gleave, Marc SmithAbstract:Abstract: Social roles in online discussion forums can be described by patterned characteristics of communication between network members which we conceive of as ‘structural signatures. ' This paper uses visualization methods to reveal these structural signatures and regression analysis to confirm the relationship between these signatures and their associated roles in Usenet Newsgroups. Our analysis focuses on distinguishing the signatures of one role from others, the role of “answer people. " Answer people are individuals whose dominant behavior is to respond to questions posed by other users. We found that answer people predominantly contribute one or a few messages to discussions initiated by others, are disproportionately tied to relative isolates, have few intense ties and have few triangles in their local networks. OLS regression shows that these signatures are strongly correlated with role behavior and, in combination, provide a strongly predictive model for identifying role 2 behavior (R =.72). To conclude, we consider strategies for further improving the identification of role behavior in online discussion settings and consider how the development of a taxonomy of author types could be extended to a taxonomy of Newsgroups in particular and discussion systems in general
-
you are who you talk to detecting roles in Usenet Newsgroups
Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 2006Co-Authors: Danyel Fisher, Marc A Smith, Howard T WelserAbstract:Understanding the social roles of the members a group can help to understand the social context of the group. We present a method of applying social network analysis to support the task of characterizing authors in Usenet Newsgroups. We compute and visualize networks created by patterns of replies for each author in selected Newsgroups and find that second-degree ego-centric networks give us clear distinctions between different types of authors and Newsgroups. Results show that Newsgroups vary in terms of the populations of participants and the roles that they play. Newsgroups can be characterized by populations that include question and answer Newsgroups, conversational Newsgroups, social support Newsgroups, and flame Newsgroups. This approach has applications for both researchers seeking to characterize different types of social cyberspaces as well as participants seeking to distinguish interaction partners and content authors.
-
HICSS - You Are Who You Talk To: Detecting Roles in Usenet Newsgroups
Proceedings of the 39th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS'06), 2006Co-Authors: Danyel Fisher, Marc A Smith, Howard T WelserAbstract:Understanding the social roles of the members a group can help to understand the social context of the group. We present a method of applying social network analysis to support the task of characterizing authors in Usenet Newsgroups. We compute and visualize networks created by patterns of replies for each author in selected Newsgroups and find that second-degree ego-centric networks give us clear distinctions between different types of authors and Newsgroups. Results show that Newsgroups vary in terms of the populations of participants and the roles that they play. Newsgroups can be characterized by populations that include question and answer Newsgroups, conversational Newsgroups, social support Newsgroups, and flame Newsgroups. This approach has applications for both researchers seeking to characterize different types of social cyberspaces as well as participants seeking to distinguish interaction partners and content authors.
Loren Terveen - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
-
ABSTRACT Using Frequency-of-mention in Public Conversations for Social Filtering
2008Co-Authors: Wil Hill, Loren TerveenAbstract:We report on an investigation of using Usenet Newsgroups for social filtering of Web resources. Our main empirical results are: (1) for the period of May ’96 to Jul ’96, about 23 % of Usenet news messages mention Web resources, (2) 19 % of resource mentions are recommendations (as opposed, e.g., to home pages), (3) we can’automatically recognize recommendations with at least 90 % accuracy, and (4) in some Newsgroups, certain resources are mentioned significantly more frequently than others and thus appear to play a central role for that community. We have created a Web site that summarizes the most frequently and recently mentioned Web resources for 1400 Newsgroups. Keywords: Human-computer interaction, human interface, computer-supported cooperative work, organizational computing, social filtering, collaborative filtering, browsing, resource discovery, World Wide Web, Usenet, netnews
-
CSCW - Using frequency-of-mention in public conversations for social filtering
Proceedings of the 1996 ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work - CSCW '96, 1996Co-Authors: Will Hill, Loren TerveenAbstract:We report on an investigation of using Usenet Newsgroups for social filtering of Web resources. Our main empirical results are: (1) for the period of May ’96 to Jul ’96, about 23% of Usenet news messages mention Web resources, (2) 19% of resource mentions are recommendations (as opposed, e.g., to home pages), (3) we can’automatically recognize recommendations with at least 90% accuracy, and (4) in some Newsgroups, certain resources are mentioned significantly more frequently than others and thus appear to play a central role for that community. We have created a Web site that summarizes the most frequently and recently mentioned Web resources for 1400 Newsgroups.
Larry N. Osborne - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
-
HUMAN COMMUNICATIONS ISSUES Topic Development in Usenet Newsgroups
2014Co-Authors: Larry N. OsborneAbstract:While computer mediated discussions, such as those that take place in Usenet Newsgroups, superficially appear to be analogous to verbal discussions, observation has shown significant differences. Usenet topics are created, and they evolve, mutate, and become extinct in ways fundamentally different from spoken dialogue. These differences can be explained partially by the asynchronous nature of electronic communication, as well as by other factors unique to such wide-scale multi-user media. Computer mediated communications may be divided into three types, based on the direction and exclusivity of the messages: One-to-many, exemplified by the World Wide Web; one-to-one, exemplified by electronic mail; and many-to-many, exemplified by bulletin boards. Thus
-
Topic development in Usenet Newsgroups
Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 1998Co-Authors: Larry N. OsborneAbstract:While computer mediated discussions, such as those that take place in Usenet Newsgroups, superficially appear to be analogous to verbal discussions, observation has shown significant differences. Usenet topics are created, and they evolve, mutate, and become extinct in ways fundamentally different from spoken dialogue. These differences can be explained partially by the asynchronous nature of electronic communication, as well as by other factors unique to such wide-scale multi-user media. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
