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Observations and analysis of the origins of lognormal distributions of user post lengths in Internet discussions |
Paweł Sobkowicz 1, Mike A. Thelwall 2, Kevan Buckley 2, Georgios Paltoglou 2, Antoni Sobkowicz 3 |
1. Nie afiliowany, Warszawa 02-777, 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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Presentation: Poster at 6 Ogólnopolskie Sympozjum "Fizyka w Ekonomii i Naukach Społecznych", by Paweł SobkowiczSee 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 |