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Show HN: PotterVerse – Visualizing the Harry Potter character network

17 points by malahay 13y ago

A visualization of the Harry Potter character network. Exploring whether it exhibits the same properties as a real social network.

laohu 13y ago
What is the compared-to "real social network". Facebook or other online networks? Or derived from studying meatspace communities? I imagine the numbers are very different between the two.
- malahay 13y ago
  Good question :) I was referring mainly to the small world phenomenon [1], there are also some online networks that have ~6 avg path length like Microsoft Messenger [2]. We were just curious how a fictional network would look like. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small-world_experiment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small-world_experiment [2] http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/horvitz/leskovec_horvitz_www2008.pdf http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/horvitz/leskov...
glesica 13y ago
I'm not sure comparing this to a "real" social network is meaningful. More appropriate might be to compare the Potterverse to another relatively small, socially isolated, insular community like a group of Amish. I wonder how the numbers would compare in that case.
- malahay 13y ago
  That's a great question! I kinda wanted to see if a fictional network would look somewhat similar to a real social network such as Facebook. But exploring other networks that are more secluded would be so interesting! Gathering the data would be a challenge :)
  - glesica 13y ago
    I don't have my copy with me right now, but Barabasi has some examples of interesting social network data that were collected by sociologists in his book "Linked" [1]. You might be able to get hold of some of those. IIRC there is a prison network that might be a fair comparison. [1] http://www.amazon.com/Linked-The-New-Science-Networks/dp/0738206679 http://www.amazon.com/Linked-The-New-Science-Networks/dp/073...
- dasickis 13y ago
  Or even a college which the average distance between any two people is 2 - 3 degrees. Additionally, this story is written from the perspective of Harry Potter so weaker ties won't be included as it doesn't advance the story. Source: https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-data-team/anatomy-of-facebook/10150388519243859 https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-data-team/anatomy-of... -- "When we limit our analysis to a single country, be it the US, Sweden, Italy, or any other, we find that the world gets even smaller, and most pairs of people are only separated by 3 degrees"
languagehacker 13y ago
Interesting visualization. I'm wondering where this data is coming from. You could probably construct a similar network out of all of the character pages on http://harrypotter.wikia.com http://harrypotter.wikia.com.
- malahay 13y ago
  That's where we got our data from! This project was done with a team of 4, and everyone entered data while trying to check facts from the Wikia. I realize that there are some edges that are missing and some other characters, but we hoped that this subset of characters and relations would be a good approximate of the real harry potter universe. If you want to take a look at the data: https://github.com/efekarakus/potter-network/tree/master/data https://github.com/efekarakus/potter-network/tree/master/dat...
Mtinie 13y ago
Can you tell us a bit about the tools that were used to create this?
- jpan135 13y ago
  The visuals are generated primarily using D3.js (great data visualization tool). Source: I'm on the team that worked on this. Edit: This project is open-sourced - Check it out at https://github.com/efekarakus/potter-network https://github.com/efekarakus/potter-network :)
joshvm 13y ago
Worth pointing out if you haven't read the entire series and plan on doing so, you should keep well away - character markers are all (needlessly?) spoilerific.
- malahay 13y ago
  Ah good point, I am sorry about that.
onuryavuz 13y ago
What is your reference for the average path length within a real social network? Six degrees of seperation?
- malahay 13y ago
  Yup that's right!
  - onuryavuz 13y ago
    Cool. I have a question in my mind that you might answer or comment on. As the social networks and internet usage grow steadily, should we expect a decrease in average path length of a social network? Will "six degrees of seperation" be updated to "X degrees of seperation" in the future where X<6?
    - tokenuser 13y ago
      G'day, I am one of the others who worked on this. Study back in 2011 showed that in Facebook at least, the average degrees of separation was 3.74 (and closer to 2 or 3 for regional connections) ... so as we enter a more digitally connected world, Stanley Milgram's "Smallworld" study (that gave us the original 6 DoS metric) is contracting.
m00dy 13y ago
eline sağlık kanka :)
- malahay 13y ago
  Cok tesekkurler :)
jcutrell 13y ago
It'd be really particularly interesting to understand the connections themselves with some kind of context. I'd also really like to see things like a subcollection of the network, and how they would interact if they were put into a discrete network. Cool stuff!
- tokenuser 13y ago
  If you are referring to ego networks (the connections between your immediate connections), the visualization gets part way there. If you hover over a node, it pops up a character bio. If you click a node, it shows the immediate peer connections, but it does not go to the next step and show the connections between the people you are connected to. Analytically, that is a great social network analysis concept, since you can determine the balanced triads and determine what needs to happen to either unbalance a network (and cause the relationships to unravel) or balance a network and make it stable.
- malahay 13y ago
  Hey thanks a lot for the feedback! The yellow edges represents allies (for example: Hermione-Harry). The green edges are enemies. That's an interesting idea. As a subnetwork, we allow the viewers to click on one of the four triads and it will only display those edges. However, for T3 and T1 there are so many edges that it's still not that easy to follow :)

17 points by malahay 13y ago

A visualization of the Harry Potter character network. Exploring whether it exhibits the same properties as a real social network.

laohu 13y ago

What is the compared-to "real social network". Facebook or other online networks? Or derived from studying meatspace communities? I imagine the numbers are very different between the two.

malahay 13y ago
Good question :) I was referring mainly to the small world phenomenon [1], there are also some online networks that have ~6 avg path length like Microsoft Messenger [2]. We were just curious how a fictional network would look like. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small-world_experiment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small-world_experiment [2] http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/horvitz/leskovec_horvitz_www2008.pdf http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/horvitz/leskov...

glesica 13y ago

I'm not sure comparing this to a "real" social network is meaningful. More appropriate might be to compare the Potterverse to another relatively small, socially isolated, insular community like a group of Amish. I wonder how the numbers would compare in that case.

malahay 13y ago
That's a great question! I kinda wanted to see if a fictional network would look somewhat similar to a real social network such as Facebook. But exploring other networks that are more secluded would be so interesting! Gathering the data would be a challenge :)
- glesica 13y ago
  I don't have my copy with me right now, but Barabasi has some examples of interesting social network data that were collected by sociologists in his book "Linked" [1]. You might be able to get hold of some of those. IIRC there is a prison network that might be a fair comparison. [1] http://www.amazon.com/Linked-The-New-Science-Networks/dp/0738206679 http://www.amazon.com/Linked-The-New-Science-Networks/dp/073...
dasickis 13y ago
Or even a college which the average distance between any two people is 2 - 3 degrees. Additionally, this story is written from the perspective of Harry Potter so weaker ties won't be included as it doesn't advance the story. Source: https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-data-team/anatomy-of-facebook/10150388519243859 https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-data-team/anatomy-of... -- "When we limit our analysis to a single country, be it the US, Sweden, Italy, or any other, we find that the world gets even smaller, and most pairs of people are only separated by 3 degrees"

languagehacker 13y ago

Interesting visualization. I'm wondering where this data is coming from. You could probably construct a similar network out of all of the character pages on http://harrypotter.wikia.com http://harrypotter.wikia.com.

malahay 13y ago
That's where we got our data from! This project was done with a team of 4, and everyone entered data while trying to check facts from the Wikia. I realize that there are some edges that are missing and some other characters, but we hoped that this subset of characters and relations would be a good approximate of the real harry potter universe. If you want to take a look at the data: https://github.com/efekarakus/potter-network/tree/master/data https://github.com/efekarakus/potter-network/tree/master/dat...

Mtinie 13y ago

Can you tell us a bit about the tools that were used to create this?

jpan135 13y ago
The visuals are generated primarily using D3.js (great data visualization tool). Source: I'm on the team that worked on this. Edit: This project is open-sourced - Check it out at https://github.com/efekarakus/potter-network https://github.com/efekarakus/potter-network :)

joshvm 13y ago

Worth pointing out if you haven't read the entire series and plan on doing so, you should keep well away - character markers are all (needlessly?) spoilerific.

malahay 13y ago
Ah good point, I am sorry about that.

onuryavuz 13y ago

What is your reference for the average path length within a real social network? Six degrees of seperation?

malahay 13y ago
Yup that's right!
- onuryavuz 13y ago
  Cool. I have a question in my mind that you might answer or comment on. As the social networks and internet usage grow steadily, should we expect a decrease in average path length of a social network? Will "six degrees of seperation" be updated to "X degrees of seperation" in the future where X<6?
  - tokenuser 13y ago
    G'day, I am one of the others who worked on this. Study back in 2011 showed that in Facebook at least, the average degrees of separation was 3.74 (and closer to 2 or 3 for regional connections) ... so as we enter a more digitally connected world, Stanley Milgram's "Smallworld" study (that gave us the original 6 DoS metric) is contracting.

m00dy 13y ago

eline sağlık kanka :)

malahay 13y ago
Cok tesekkurler :)

jcutrell 13y ago

It'd be really particularly interesting to understand the connections themselves with some kind of context. I'd also really like to see things like a subcollection of the network, and how they would interact if they were put into a discrete network. Cool stuff!

tokenuser 13y ago
If you are referring to ego networks (the connections between your immediate connections), the visualization gets part way there. If you hover over a node, it pops up a character bio. If you click a node, it shows the immediate peer connections, but it does not go to the next step and show the connections between the people you are connected to. Analytically, that is a great social network analysis concept, since you can determine the balanced triads and determine what needs to happen to either unbalance a network (and cause the relationships to unravel) or balance a network and make it stable.
malahay 13y ago
Hey thanks a lot for the feedback! The yellow edges represents allies (for example: Hermione-Harry). The green edges are enemies. That's an interesting idea. As a subnetwork, we allow the viewers to click on one of the four triads and it will only display those edges. However, for T3 and T1 there are so many edges that it's still not that easy to follow :)