Evolutionary Clustering and Analysis of User Behaviour in Online Forums
Donn Morrison, Ian McLoughlin, Alice Hogan, Conor Hayes
2021Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media14 citationsDOIOpen Access PDF
Abstract
In this paper we cluster and analyse temporal user behaviour in online communities. We adapt a simple unsupervised clustering algorithm to an evolutionary setting where we cluster users into prototypical behavioural roles based on features derived from their ego-centric reply-graphs. We then analyse changes in the role membership of the users over time, the change in role composition of forums over time and examine the differences between forums in terms of role composition. We perform this analysis on 200 forums from a popular national bulletin board and 14 enterprise technical support forums.
Topics & Concepts
Cluster analysisComputer scienceDiscussion boardComposition (language)Cluster (spacecraft)Online discussionSimple (philosophy)Data scienceWorld Wide WebArtificial intelligenceEpistemologyProgramming languageLinguisticsPhilosophyComplex Network Analysis TechniquesPeer-to-Peer Network TechnologiesOpinion Dynamics and Social Influence