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Observations and analysis  of the origins of lognormal distributions of  user post lengths in  Internet discussions

Paweł Sobkowicz 1Mike A. Thelwall 2Kevan Buckley 2Georgios Paltoglou 2Antoni Sobkowicz 3

1. Nie afiliowany, Warszawa 02-777, Poland
2. School of Technology, University of Wolverhampton, Wulfruna Street, Wolverhampton WV1 1LY, United Kingdom
3. Warsaw University of Technology, Faculty of Mechatronics, Św. Andrzeja Boboli 8, Warszawa 05-525, Poland

Abstract

This paper presents an analysis of the length of comments posted in Internet  discussion fora, based on a collection of large datasets from diverse environments. We found that despite differences in language, discussed topics and emotions, the distributions are very regular and well described by  lognormal distribution, despite differences in topics, language and emotions of writers. We discuss possible origins of this regularity and suggest the existence of a universal mechanism deciding the length of single topic communication.  We suggest that the observed logarithmic dependence may be due to  a normal distribution of comment length measured in a non-linear,  logarithmic-like  mental space of each user, in accordance with Weber's law. We present also results of experiment measuring the accuracy of measuring the text length, strongly supporting the hypothesis of logarithmic mental representation.

 

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Related papers

Presentation: Poster at 6 Ogólnopolskie Sympozjum "Fizyka w Ekonomii i Naukach Społecznych", by Paweł Sobkowicz
See On-line Journal of 6 Ogólnopolskie Sympozjum "Fizyka w Ekonomii i Naukach Społecznych"

Submitted: 2011-12-26 10:25
Revised:   2011-12-26 10:25