5 ms·

Down the Rabbit Hole of the Ol' Reddit Switcharoo

145 points by curtis 11y ago

jegutman 11y ago
Very cool. I remember back at Caltech when Adam D'Angelo wasn't a Quora founder and was just a hacker dude he made buddy zoo and it had these awesome social graphs. I think this was ported into the early version of facebook and didn't really end up doing that much because the graphs were very simple. Now that social networks have an older audience with a more complex social graph I think this type of stuff could be really useful (especially if you could create FB or other groups from it).
- brandnewlow 11y ago
  That feature was the main selling point for FB for me when I first signed up back in 2004. I have to assume I wasn't the only one!
  - amyjess 11y ago
    Yes, I remember that graph back when I first joined FB in college (2005). I loved seeing how my friend groups cluster. I could see my main two groups of friends, I could see the various clubs I was a member of, etc. I could even see when I started introducing my friends from different groups to each other, and they started to merge at the edges. It was great, and I miss it. Unfortunately, I don't think it'd be very useful anymore since FB is no longer college-centric...
myth_buster 11y ago
Apparently the guy who started it edited his post to point to this analysis. https://np.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/ia0ij/watching_fellowship_of_the_ring_tonight_and_never/c225zkg https://np.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/ia0ij/watching_fellows...
- earless1 11y ago
  That's as meta as it gets I could have sworn that Reddit prevented commenting and editing on post that are this old.
  - jegutman 11y ago
    I think they do. Only explanation: time travel
  - amyjess 11y ago
    You can edit or delete any of your posts at any time. Until recently, you could reply to or vote on any post or comment less than 6 months old, regardless of the age of its parent. A recent change prevented voting or commenting on any thread where the OP is at least 6 months old, even if the comment you want to interact with is newer than that.
    - personjerry 11y ago
      HN, on the other hand, does prevent editing after some time.
      - dredmorbius 11y ago
        About an hour in my experience. Pity as I often find glaring typos later.
earless1 11y ago
I really like the look of these types of graphs. Is the code used to produce them available anywhere?
- epistasis 11y ago
  While the exact output options aren't immediately visible, the Imgur site says that Graphviz was used, in the tree layout, and a force directed layout (probably sfdp).
- neoCrimeLabs 11y ago
  It's produced with a tool called Graphviz: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphviz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphviz The main Graphviz website is down at the time of my posting this comment: http://www.graphviz.org/ http://www.graphviz.org/
- faymontage 11y ago
  (author here) The graphs are stock graphviz output, the linear layout is called "dot" (the default), and the nebulous layout is "sfdp". For your googling pleasure it's a "force directed graph layout", and there are many libraries to assist with it. d3.js has a force layout built in, for instance.
  - tunesmith 11y ago
    As far as I know, d3.js has force-directed but not "directed" force-directed like Sugiyama.
evolve2k 11y ago
There's this cartoon to help explain. https://i.imgur.com/YSPsu.png https://i.imgur.com/YSPsu.png
- tyrust 11y ago
  >criticizes repetitive joke >uses a rage comic to do so Simply terrible. The OPs comment on the reddit thread [0] does a fine job explaining it. [0] - https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/3og4hs/down_the_rabbit_hole_of_the_ol_reddit_switcharoo/cvwv7tn https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/3og4hs/dow...
pyrocat 11y ago
Hold my spreadsheet, I'm going in!
dbbolton 11y ago
It's come a long way in the last three years: https://uberpython.wordpress.com/2012/03/17/ah-the-old-reddit-switch-a-roo-analyzed/ https://uberpython.wordpress.com/2012/03/17/ah-the-old-reddi...
kibwen 11y ago
The visualization reminds me of MUD maps, such as this one for Discworld MUD's Ankh-Morpork: http://daftjunk.com/dw/Ankh-Morpork.png http://daftjunk.com/dw/Ankh-Morpork.png . This type of thing could be an interesting avenue for semi-organic map generation. :P

145 points by curtis 11y ago

Very cool. I remember back at Caltech when Adam D'Angelo wasn't a Quora founder and was just a hacker dude he made buddy zoo and it had these awesome social graphs. I think this was ported into the early version of facebook and didn't really end up doing that much because the graphs were very simple. Now that social networks have an older audience with a more complex social graph I think this type of stuff could be really useful (especially if you could create FB or other groups from it).

brandnewlow 11y ago
That feature was the main selling point for FB for me when I first signed up back in 2004. I have to assume I wasn't the only one!
- amyjess 11y ago
  Yes, I remember that graph back when I first joined FB in college (2005). I loved seeing how my friend groups cluster. I could see my main two groups of friends, I could see the various clubs I was a member of, etc. I could even see when I started introducing my friends from different groups to each other, and they started to merge at the edges. It was great, and I miss it. Unfortunately, I don't think it'd be very useful anymore since FB is no longer college-centric...

myth_buster 11y ago

Apparently the guy who started it edited his post to point to this analysis. https://np.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/ia0ij/watching_fellowship_of_the_ring_tonight_and_never/c225zkg https://np.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/ia0ij/watching_fellows...

earless1 11y ago
That's as meta as it gets I could have sworn that Reddit prevented commenting and editing on post that are this old.
- jegutman 11y ago
  I think they do. Only explanation: time travel
- amyjess 11y ago
  You can edit or delete any of your posts at any time. Until recently, you could reply to or vote on any post or comment less than 6 months old, regardless of the age of its parent. A recent change prevented voting or commenting on any thread where the OP is at least 6 months old, even if the comment you want to interact with is newer than that.
  - personjerry 11y ago
    HN, on the other hand, does prevent editing after some time.
    - dredmorbius 11y ago
      About an hour in my experience. Pity as I often find glaring typos later.

earless1 11y ago

I really like the look of these types of graphs. Is the code used to produce them available anywhere?

epistasis 11y ago
While the exact output options aren't immediately visible, the Imgur site says that Graphviz was used, in the tree layout, and a force directed layout (probably sfdp).
neoCrimeLabs 11y ago
It's produced with a tool called Graphviz: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphviz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphviz The main Graphviz website is down at the time of my posting this comment: http://www.graphviz.org/ http://www.graphviz.org/
faymontage 11y ago
(author here) The graphs are stock graphviz output, the linear layout is called "dot" (the default), and the nebulous layout is "sfdp". For your googling pleasure it's a "force directed graph layout", and there are many libraries to assist with it. d3.js has a force layout built in, for instance.
- tunesmith 11y ago
  As far as I know, d3.js has force-directed but not "directed" force-directed like Sugiyama.

evolve2k 11y ago

There's this cartoon to help explain. https://i.imgur.com/YSPsu.png https://i.imgur.com/YSPsu.png

tyrust 11y ago
>criticizes repetitive joke >uses a rage comic to do so Simply terrible. The OPs comment on the reddit thread [0] does a fine job explaining it. [0] - https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/3og4hs/down_the_rabbit_hole_of_the_ol_reddit_switcharoo/cvwv7tn https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/3og4hs/dow...

pyrocat 11y ago

Hold my spreadsheet, I'm going in!

dbbolton 11y ago

It's come a long way in the last three years: https://uberpython.wordpress.com/2012/03/17/ah-the-old-reddit-switch-a-roo-analyzed/ https://uberpython.wordpress.com/2012/03/17/ah-the-old-reddi...

kibwen 11y ago

The visualization reminds me of MUD maps, such as this one for Discworld MUD's Ankh-Morpork: http://daftjunk.com/dw/Ankh-Morpork.png http://daftjunk.com/dw/Ankh-Morpork.png . This type of thing could be an interesting avenue for semi-organic map generation. :P