In my last post I mentioned the possibility of learning more about the structure(s) and behaviour(s) within the dpreview forums through the process of developing a model to describe it. Well, developing models is hard-going, so I deciding to tackle it from a more interesting angle and spent some time attempting to represent forum activity graphically.

Digging a hole for one's self
How and where to start? Well, there are myriad metaphors for the concept of 'conversations', but I like to frame them as Darwinian competitions between ideas in which the 'fittest' ideas 'breed' more 'successful' responses thus carrying on the line (of conversation ;). Hence, my first attempt to create a graphical representation of forum activity involves representing a single conversation in a quasi-organic sense, to see whether it is reasonable to label such entities as 'growing' or 'evolving' (warning: metaphors may be mixed during the course of this post).

After initially experimenting with the processing visualization environment I abandoned it in favour of 'good old' Flash (lens widget induced trauma now mostly repressed). Next up, choosing the basic metaphor (plane, terrain, tree, radar)? Hmm, let's try a variation on the hyperbolic tree (naturally, you say). What to represent? ... ah, let's go with pedigree, generation and mutation (replies which have different subject line to their precursor). A few hours later and presto! Coloured graphs everywhere.

A thread is born
Let's try out this visualization widget by using it to represent a popular recent thread (To the team of DPreview: Do a more serious test of 50d!!! - Canon EOS 50D - 10D forum) in its early phases (6 hours after OP).

Visualization of the To the team of DPreview: Do a more serious test of 50d!!! thread (6 hours).
Colour represents time. Connections represent lineage. Distance from OP (black dot) represents 'generation'. Dots outlined in black represent changes of subject.

So what are we seeing here? It all begins with the black dot representing the original post (OP). Sprawling out from the OP are several dead-end responses and one dominant response (A) which has sparked some conversation. Interestingly this 'successful' response was the first in the thread to change the subject line (to "DPreview has done retesting 50D... Look").

So, can we predict anything about the ongoing development of the thread by looking at the above image? Well it's a fair bet that conversation is going to follow on from A or one of its descendants, though it's also worth keeping an eye on the more recent responses to the OP too (B & C, also sporting altered titles). Let's take a look at how things have progressed 35 hours on.

 
Visualization of the To the team of DPreview: Do a more serious test of 50d!!! thread (41 hours).
Colour represents time. Connections represent lineage. Distance from OP (black dot) represents 'generation'. Dots outlined in black represent changes of subject.  

Forty-one hours in we can see that the An branch (descending from A) did in fact continue a little while longer but has now run cold, instead branches Bn (descending from B) and Cn (descending from C) dominate the landscape. Note also that several variations to the OP have occurred since B & C, with some small success, suggesting that the OP's potential hasn't been fully exploited. This becomes more apparent as the thread progresses.

Visualization of the To the team of DPreview: Do a more serious test of 50d!!! thread (59 hours).
Colour represents time. Connections represent lineage. Distance from OP (black dot) represents 'generation'. Dots outlined in black represent changes of subject.

Forty-five hours into the thread a response (D) to the OP appeared (with the altered subject line: "Future reviews from dpreview will loose value"). The offshoots of D immediately starving previously dominant branches (Bn, Cn) and remained dominant until the 150 post limit was reached.

Time well spent?
Besides learning more about the flash 9 drawing API (note to self, read up on flash 10 drawing API) this mini-project has given me a better understanding of some of the nuances of how dpreview forum threads typically unfold. Of course these colourful diagrams don't tell the whole story or even a noteworthy fraction of it, but they do depict some latent trends which can be investigated via other means. For example I'm keen to investigate further the idea that responses to 'cold' threads garner more interest if they sport new subject lines versus the standard 'Re: ' prefix (another post perhaps).

More
I've included a few more diagrams of other threads below (click thumbnails for larger versions). I'd be interested to hear your thoughts about any more patterns you think might be worth investigating. Also, if you've got an idea for a visualization approach which may highlight other aspects of the forum (and yield some more eye-candy to boot) let me know.

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