Ian Holsman wrote: > How would you compare it against Microsoft's Netscan > (http://netscan.research.microsoft.com/Static/Default.asp) > ? > which also tries to find the main contributors in different communities.
I think "main" implies metrics and I really didn't want to go there. I think contribution is inversily proportional to the distance from the center of gravity of the group, but I wanted to keep it subjective to avoid building altars than that people want to fight to step on. > Is 'agora' public knowledge? > > what does the 'decay' area do? > > How does one differentiate between a useful communication and a flame > war? I remember seeing Mark Smith (the netscan developer) talk about how > he could identify the different types via the length of the conversation. > > Overall a big '+1' > > Will Glass-Husain wrote: > >> Replying to the community list as requested... >> >> Neat app! Not immediately intuitive as to how to interpret it, but >> with a >> little experimentation I could see patterns. For example, it was >> interesting to notice how my email moved from the outskirts of the circle >> with data from early months to the center of the circle in later >> months (for >> the projects I'm involved with). >> >> I'm still unclear on what to look for in terms of community "health". >> What >> are some of the general macro patterns you've seen with this tool? What >> insight does this provide into the community? The docs provide a good >> micro >> level description of how the app models the relationships between >> individuals, but don't discuss the macro patterns that emerge. It'd be >> interesting to hear some of your thoughts. >> >> Best, >> WILL >> >> >> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Stefano Mazzocchi" >> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> To: "Apache Committers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> Sent: Thursday, July 14, 2005 12:14 PM >> Subject: [ANN] Introducing Apache Agora - reloaded! >> >> >>> NOTE: please excuse the noise if you are not interested, but there is no >>> easier way to reach all of you and I thought many of you might be >>> interested in this. >>> >>> <hat type="director" mode="off> >>> >>> A few years ago, around the time the incubator started to appear as the >>> escape valve for the growth problems that some projects were exhibiting, >>> I started to wonder if there could be a way, for those mentoring and >>> providing oversight for particular projects, to make their job easier, >>> especially if they were not participating in the day-to-day work of the >>> various communities they were helping grow strong and self-sufficient. >>> >>> The task is very difficult, not only due to the nature of the problem >>> (and the unstructuredness of the data), but also about the fact that you >>> don't want to create more problems that you are solving: for example, >>> you won't want people to feel spied or abused by numerical rating and >>> rankings. >>> >>> The result of that thinking was Apache Agora, a system that I designed >>> and implemented 3 years ago and that has been running (quite silently) >>> on Nagoya since then. >>> >>> Since Nagoya is going away, I moved Agora over to minotaur and I have >>> aligned it with the existing mail archive (the same one that we use to >>> power our official mod_mbox based archives). Find it at >>> >>> +---------------------------------------------------------------+ >>> | | >>> | http://people.apache.org/~stefano/agora/ | >>> | | >>> +---------------------------------------------------------------+ >>> >>> >>> what is this? >>> ------------- >>> >>> Agora is a community visualizer. If you wonder who is the core of a >>> particular community (for example, to know who to ask for something) or >>> how big/active/diverse/balanced a community is, Agora is for you. >>> >>> >>> how does it work? >>> ----------------- >>> >>> Agora is composed of two pieces: >>> >>> 1) a python scripts that reads mbox files and generates 'precooked' data >>> >>> 2) a java applet that reads the precooked data and visualizes it >>> >>> the script is running every week (on sundays) on minotaur and it's fully >>> incremental, meaning that knows where it lefts off the week before. >>> >>> how about the network? >>> ---------------------- >>> >>> The network is created by harvesting the email addresses and linking >>> them depending on the fact that one address replied to a message sent by >>> another address. >>> >>> I say address because an address is not a person, as there might be >>> several addresses belonging to the same person (and no, the system >>> doesn't (yet) allow different addresses that belong to the same person >>> to be smooshed together) >>> >>> In order to reduce noise, the network is the pruned. All addresses that >>> only received or sent email are removed from the graph. So, the >>> resulting graph is a smaller version of those nodes that exhibit minimal >>> connectivity characteristics (and helps to remove, for example, agents >>> like bugzilla or SVN or spam, that never reply, or lurkers that don't >>> participate in discussions). >>> >>> >>> how do I start using it? >>> ------------------------ >>> >>> The tree on the left lists all the 'precooked data' that agora is able >>> to understand. This is a mirror of the list of the folders in >>> /home/apmail/public-arch on minotaur.apache.org and will be >>> automatically updated when new mail lists will be added (so infra@ nor I >>> have to do anything! you can always count on my lazy ass ;-) >>> >>> In order to see anything, you have to click on one of the files on the >>> tree, wait for a few seconds (until the file icon turns reddish) and >>> then click on the "load" button. This will load the data, create the >>> network, perform the pruning and show it in the graph pane. >>> >>> >>> cool, I have a graph, now what? >>> ------------------------------- >>> >>> Click the "start" button and the graph will clusterize. If you merged >>> data from different mailing lists, you will see them forming different >>> groups. >>> >>> If you click on a node, it will show the address related to that node. >>> >>> if you right-click anywhere, a fisheye zoom will tell you more about >>> that area. >>> >>> If you double-click, you can make nodes 'sticky'. >>> >>> >>> is there more info on this? >>> --------------------------- >>> >>> Sure, I wrote a minimal documentation here. >>> >>> >>> where is the code? >>> ------------------ >>> >>> svn co https://svn.apache.org/repos/private/committers/agora/ >>> >>> >>> can I fix things? >>> ----------------- >>> >>> Sure, patches welcome. Although note that I'm working on the next >>> generation of this tool for my day job (based on RDF data and very >>> general instead of my own precooked mail-oriented format) at >>> http://simile.mit.edu/welkin/ >>> >>> shouldn't this be put in a more official location? >>> -------------------------------------------------- >>> >>> If the community finds it useful, I'd be glad and honored to move this >>> to a more official location. Speak up on if you feel that's the case. >>> > +1 > >>> where should I discuss about this? >>> ---------------------------------- >>> >>> Do *NOT* reply to this list. Please send your replies to >>> community@apache.org >>> >>> Thank you and sorry for the noise. >>> >>> </hat> >>> >>> -- >>> Stefano. >>> >> >> >> --------------------------------------------------------------------- >> To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >> For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >> > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > -- Stefano. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
