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MIT discovered fandom! No wait, they call it a "co-viewing clique". A BNF is now, officially, according to the MIT computer-graphics-and-wordbarf-
Don't you all just feel so validated?
:')
But seriously, data wonks: somebody help me out here. The comments over there seem evenly split between awe and kudos for the sheer volume of data processed and/or the shiny visualizations created therefrom, and serious underwhelm-ment at the results. What exactly, other than discovering fandom*, has this guy done?
More to the point, and p'raps more fun to think about, what COULD he do? What would YOU do with all that linked data? It seems a bit like a 3D map of a web we all navigate, by years of practice that's made the moves instinctual to us but maybe completely foreign, to non-fen.
Think of how you might hear about, and then find, a piece of fanfic. Maybe somebody on your friendslist links it, but the link's broken, so you end up trawling FF.net or AO3 before you realize, wait, it must be posted on the kink meme! So off you go, and by the time you've read it (and six other fics in the same thread) you've forgotten how you got there. This data could, presumably, plot your course on a physical-seeming map...? but the practical applications of this, to me, are not evident.
It could also, I suppose, plot the course of a fanfic to all its readers? Marketers do this kind of data-mining in the hopes of better selling through statistics, but... otherwise, again, why?
*He could have walked down the hall to the MIT Anime Club. They could've at least told him what it's called.
Don't you all just feel so validated?
:')
But seriously, data wonks: somebody help me out here. The comments over there seem evenly split between awe and kudos for the sheer volume of data processed and/or the shiny visualizations created therefrom, and serious underwhelm-ment at the results. What exactly, other than discovering fandom*, has this guy done?
More to the point, and p'raps more fun to think about, what COULD he do? What would YOU do with all that linked data? It seems a bit like a 3D map of a web we all navigate, by years of practice that's made the moves instinctual to us but maybe completely foreign, to non-fen.
Think of how you might hear about, and then find, a piece of fanfic. Maybe somebody on your friendslist links it, but the link's broken, so you end up trawling FF.net or AO3 before you realize, wait, it must be posted on the kink meme! So off you go, and by the time you've read it (and six other fics in the same thread) you've forgotten how you got there. This data could, presumably, plot your course on a physical-seeming map...? but the practical applications of this, to me, are not evident.
It could also, I suppose, plot the course of a fanfic to all its readers? Marketers do this kind of data-mining in the hopes of better selling through statistics, but... otherwise, again, why?
*He could have walked down the hall to the MIT Anime Club. They could've at least told him what it's called.
