An Example Case: Reddit

Reddit is an online forum divided into subreddits, threads, and comments. Each subreddit has its own unique rules and moderators and is built around set themes. As of June 2017, the most popular subreddits are AskReddit, Funny, TodayILearned, and Science according to http://redditlist.com. Each subreddit has different threads, which can be a question, a statement, or even a link to an article or video. People comment on these threads and then comment on those comments. They can then comment on those comments- commenting indefinitely. Furthermore, they can upvote or downvote both comments and threads.

Reddit’s Hot Algorithm

By default, if someone visits Reddit, they are immediately taken to a page listing the most “Hot” threads. As the first place people visit, being put on the Hot list brings people from across Reddit to a post, rather than the much smaller and interest-specific audience brought together in a sub-Reddit.
How does the hot algorithm work?
Reddit is open source, meaning that anyone can explore their code. On the code repository GitHub, (https://github.com/reddit/reddit) I was able to find the hot formula in the location reddit/r2/r2/lib/db/_sorts.pyx
Threads will only stay on the front page briefly, quickly dropping out as other threads with a higher time score (seconds since December 8, 2005) take its place. Since the vote ranking is logarithmic, there is a huge emphasis on the first commenters\cite{Salihefendic2017} .

\cite{Salihefendic2017}

Why Polemic Science Issues?

More scientific papers than ever are being published \cite{Larsen2017}, and in cases of public interest, often contradict each other.This preponderance of conflicting information means that there are too many studies for a layman to easily judge. Thus, according to Luhman’s theory, we rely on social systems to process complexity and give us a simpler picture of the world. By looking at polemical science debates, we can analyze a dynamic and changing system. For these reasons, I chose to look at science issues.
The categories I chose, Artificial Intelligence, Global Warming, Genetically Modified Organisms, the CRISPR gene editing tool, and the debate over Vaccines were categories that interested me. I have been building a crude Artificial Intelligence throughout the year and was introduced to debates over Artificial Intelligence. The debate over Global Warming and Vaccines has come to the forefront in my home country, the United States, after a recent election and seemed pertinent. An interest in the debate over Genetically Modified Organisms and CRISPR stems from growing up in a family of geneticists.

Instruments

To collect and analyze Reddit comments, I wrote a script in the Python computing language. Reddit, which is open source, offers a service called PRAW written in Python, which allows for the easy mining of threadsand comments. I, therefore, used Python for this project. Another computer language- R, provides stronger statistical analysis tools, and a more straightforward implementation of Yule’s I score, but seeing that I could measure it on Python and also use the PRAW kit, I decided to use Python when writing my program “SuperYule”.