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ABSTRACT

An appropriately designed interface to persistent, threaded conversations could reinforce socially beneficial behavior by prominently featuring how frequently and to what degree each user exhibits such behaviors. Based on the data generated by the Netscan data-mining project [9], we have developed a set of tools for illustrating the structure of discussion threads like those found in Usenet newsgroups and the patterns of participation within the discussions. We describe the benefits and challenges of integrating these tools into a multi-faceted dashboard for navigating and reading discussions in social cyberspaces like Usenet and related interaction media. Visualizations of the structure of online discussions have applications for research into the sociology of online groups as well as possible interface designs for their members.

REFERENCES

• 1: Deja.com. Available at http://www.deja.com/.
• 2: DiskMapper software from MicroLogic. Available at http://www.miclog.com/.
• 3: Judith Donath , Karrie Karahalios , Fernanda B. Viégas, Visualizing Conversation, Proceedings of the Thirty-Second Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences-Volume 2, p.2023, January 05-08, 1999
• 4: Hill, W., and J. Hollan. "History Enriched Data Objects: Prototypes and Policy Issues," The Information Society, Volume 10.
• 5: Horton, M. and R. Adams. "Request for Comments 1036: Standard for Interchange of USENET Messages." Available at ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc1036.txt.
• 6: Kantor, B. and P. Lapsley. "Request for Comments 977: Network News Transfer Protocol." Available at ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc977.txt.
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• 8: Miller, Ethan L., Dan Shen, Junli Liu, and Charles Nicholas, "Performance and Scalability of a Large-Scale N-gram Based Information Retrieval System," Journal of Digital Information, January 2000, http://www.cse.ucsc.edu/~elm/Papers/telltale.JODI.pdf
• 9: Netscan Web site. Available at http://netscan.research.microsoft.com.
• 10: Warren Sack, Discourse Diagrams: Interface Design for Very Large-Scale Conversations, Proceedings of the 33rd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences-Volume 3, p.3034, January 04-07, 2000
• 11: Ben Shneiderman, Tree visualization with tree-maps: 2-d space-filling approach, ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG), v.11 n.1, p.92-99, Jan. 1992 [doi>10.1145/102377.115768]
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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.4 INFORMATION SYSTEMS APPLICATIONS
      H.4.3 Communications Applications
          Subjects: Computer conferencing, teleconferencing, and videoconferencing

Additional Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.1 MODELS AND PRINCIPLES
  H.4 INFORMATION SYSTEMS APPLICATIONS
      H.4.3 Communications Applications
          Subjects: Electronic mail
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)

  I. Computing Methodologies
  I.3 COMPUTER GRAPHICS

General Terms:
Design, Documentation, Human Factors, Management, Performance, Theory

Keywords:
Usenet, asynchronous threaded discussions, newsgroup, persistent conversation, social cyberspaces, visualization