IRC Arcs

A simple visualization of IRC communication behavior: Who is talking to whom? Or, more appropriately: Who is namedropping whom?

• Circles represent users
• Arcs represent references

… where a reference is a message from a user containing the name of another user.

Arcs are directional and drawn clockwise: In the upper half of a graph they point from left to right, in the bottom half from right to left. Arc strength corresponds to the number of references from the source to the target.

This visualization favors strong social connections over sociability: Frequent references between the same two users feature more prominently than combined references from several sources to a single target.

1. "Post Idol"

Emphasis on active users.

• Circle size = Number of messages
• Circle color = Average message length

Sorted by amount of incoming references

Sorted by amount of outgoing references

Sorted by rate of incoming/outgoing references

Sorted by user name

Unsorted

2. "Egalitarian lineup"

Inverted semantics of circle color and circle size.

• Circle size = Average message length
• Circle color = Number of messages

Sorted by amount of incoming references

Sorted by amount of outgoing references

Sorted by rate of incoming/outgoing references

Sorted by user name

Unsorted

Martin Dittus 2006-09-30.

The graphs were created with Processing.

The visualization concept is based on research by Martin Wattenberg.