README.md

Generative models of online discussion threads

Welcome to our tutorial on generative models of online discussion threads. The tutorial is based on the survey:

• Aragón, P., Gómez, V., Garcı́a, D. & Kaltenbrunner, A. Generative models of online discussion threads: state of the art and research challenges. J. Internet Serv. Appl. 8, 15 (2017). DOI 10.1186/s13174-017-0066-z

The notebook for the hands-on session is based on the genthreads R package developed by Alberto Lumbreras and then extended in collaboration with Matteo Manca. The purpose is to provide tutorial attendeeds with computational and statistical tools to:

• Represent data from online discussion threads using array structures
• Visualize online discussion threads as tree networks
• Apply different generative models of online discussion threads:
  • Gómez et al. 2013
  • Aragón et al. 2017
• Validate generative models through structural properties:
  • Degree
  • Subtree (cascade) size
  • Depth

Acknowledgment

This work is supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under the Maria de Maeztu Units of Excellence Programme (MDM-2015-0502).