Weighing Contribution: Scatter Plot Analysis

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around analyzing contributions of forum members based on their on-topic and off-topic posts. Participants explore methods to weigh contributions effectively, considering both quantity and relevance of posts.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Debate/contested
  • Technical explanation

Main Points Raised

  • One participant suggests using a scatter plot to visualize the contributions, indicating that it could effectively represent the data.
  • Another participant proposes a word count as a potential metric for evaluating contributions, emphasizing that longer, on-topic posts may carry more weight.
  • A different viewpoint mentions that all posts in their forum would be on-topic, implying that the analysis may not be as meaningful in that context.
  • One participant introduces the idea of assessing the reading level of posts, suggesting that contributions should be compared based on their complexity relative to the original post.
  • Another participant raises the concept of using the lower bound of the Wilson score confidence interval for a Bernoulli parameter as a scoring method.
  • One participant proposes a formula that subtracts a factor of off-topic contributions from on-topic contributions to create a weighted score.
  • A participant shares a link to a scatter plot they created, although they express concern about sharing it without obscuring member names.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants express various methods for weighing contributions, with no consensus on a single approach. Multiple competing views remain regarding the best metrics to use for analysis.

Contextual Notes

Some suggestions depend on the definitions of "on-topic" and "off-topic," which may vary among participants. The effectiveness of proposed methods may also be limited by the specific context of the forum.

DaveC426913
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I have a list of people whose contribution I'm trying to analyze.
Some people contribute a lot but are off-topic.
Some contribute a little but are on-topic.

How might I weigh them to show an accurate idea of who are the lesser value contributors?

A small sample:
Code: 
Contributor On~topic Off~topic Total ~ %On ~ %Off
A ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 79 ~ ~ ~ 49 ~ ~ 128 ~ 61.7 ~ 38.3
B ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 81 ~ ~ ~ 21 ~ ~ 102 ~ 79.4 ~ 20.6
C ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 25 ~ ~ ~ 14 ~ ~ ~39 ~ 64.1 ~ 35.9
D ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~1 ~ ~ ~ ~0 ~ ~ ~ 1 ~100.0 ~ ~0.0
A contributed 128 comments but 49 of them are off-topic, that's only 61.7%.
D contributed only 1 comment, and it is on-topic, that's a 100% score.

But did D really contribute as effectively as A?

[EDIT]
I guess a scatter plot would work effectively, wouldn't it?
 
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Which one am I?

You could do a word count maybe?
 
Heh. Different forum.
The analysis of a thread here would be particularly dull. All posts would be on-topic; all contributors would score 100%.

I did a scatterplot.

I don't think I should post it here - unless I obscure the member names.

But, yeah, a word count would be much better. Some highly on-topic posts are several screens long.
 
Ahh okay then you might be interested in the hero’s challenge on Differential privacy synthetic generation.

They are looking for a scheme to allow researchers to look at real data that has been mangled to make it impossible to identify the customer from the data.

https://www.herox.com/UnlinkableDataChallenge/community
 
You could also rate the reading level of the text and compare scores from the original post ie first is 1st year college followon posts that are of the same level get higher score than ones that too high or too low in grade.
 
How about (# of on-topic contributions) - (some factor) * (# of off-topic contributions). This would reward people for contributing, and penalize the off-topic contributions.
 
masked-thread-contributors.png

Here it is, full-size:
http://www.davesbrain.ca/miscpix/masked-thread-contributors.png
 

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