Bitcoin Forum

Alternate cryptocurrencies => Altcoin Discussion => Topic started by: Barnacle_Ed on May 23, 2013, 05:28:05 PM


Title: [PISSING CONTEST] How "popular" is your favorite Altcoin? Find out here!
Post by: Barnacle_Ed on May 23, 2013, 05:28:05 PM
While bored on a train ride home the other day, I threw a quick Python script together that tracks how many times each altchain appears in the top N pages on this subforum for funsies and shiggles. This number N is passed in as a command line argument, to try and keep things modular. Additionally, the script counts the number of times that the word "scam" appears in thread titles as a very basic metric to track FUD on this board.


Source code at https://www.dropbox.com/s/8g2ye2ft3xvj5d6/track_altchain_hype.py

I use Python 2.7.3 on my machine. You will also need the BeautifulSoup (http://www.crummy.com/software/BeautifulSoup/) library, but it has easy_install support so that shouldn't be an issue.


Example run from 9:30 am PST today:

Code:
$>python track_altchain_hype.py 10
Parsing url...https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=67
Parsing url...https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=67.40
Parsing url...https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=67.80
Parsing url...https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=67.120
Parsing url...https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=67.160
Parsing url...https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=67.200
Parsing url...https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=67.240
Parsing url...https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=67.280
Parsing url...https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=67.320
Parsing url...https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=67.360
POPULARITY RESULTS:
('LTC', [83, 15404, 950183])
('WDC', [40, 4052, 84124])
('DGC', [28, 2318, 32873])
('PXC', [28, 1631, 18869])
('XRP', [23, 6251, 126662])
('GLD', [21, 1704, 21208])
('DVC', [20, 3692, 82914])
('YAC', [17, 5870, 129839])
('FTC', [16, 2092, 78508])
('BQC', [11, 1912, 40346])
('IXC', [9, 1397, 16831])
('SCAM_INDEX', [9, 286, 7803])
('PPC', [8, 2219, 103103])
('BTE', [8, 1306, 41215])
('PWC', [8, 1013, 16584])
('RYC', [8, 764, 18476])
('JKC', [8, 653, 15343])
('CNC', [7, 1831, 51636])
('NVC', [7, 1757, 50161])
('BTB', [7, 995, 26373])
('NBC', [5, 1306, 18739])
('FRC', [5, 645, 13167])
('TRC', [5, 623, 13955])
('FRK', [3, 581, 12025])
('MNC', [3, 422, 8220])
('BTG', [3, 352, 6042])
('NMC', [3, 11, 304])
('doubloons', [1, 256, 5098])
('SRC', [1, 0, 10])
('SPC', [0, 0, 0])

SCAM RESULTS:
('MNC', [1, u'zacho56'])
('LTC', [1, u'ecliptic'])
('WDC', [0])
('GLD', [0])
('RYC', [0])
('DVC', [0])
('PPC', [0])
('DGC', [0])
('doubloons', [0])
('PXC', [0])
('PWC', [0])
('FRC', [0])
('SRC', [0])
('BQC', [0])
('FRK', [0])
('IXC', [0])
('TRC', [0])
('NBC', [0])
('FTC', [0])
('CNC', [0])
('XRP', [0])
('YAC', [0])
('SPC', [0])
('BTE', [0])
('BTG', [0])
('NVC', [0])
('NMC', [0])
('BTB', [0])
('JKC', [0])

$>


Output for "popularity results" is in the format of [number of threads, number of replies, number of views]

Output for "scam results" is in the format of [number of threads, users who started the threads (if applicable)]



Things I'm planning to improve on:

- Correlate the "scam_index" with the names of altchains to gather data on which coins are considered scams.

- Add additional weight to the counts based on the number of pages in each thread and the thread's position on the board (more visible thread position and more pages in thread == higher popularity weight).

- Keep track of usernames as well to find who the main cheerleaders for each coin are. (Mostly complete, just need to display them properly)

- Write a prettyprinter to make output more self-explanatory and friendly

- Enable sorting by number of replies and views, in addition to number of threads for "popularity" output.

- (Long Term) Write a GUI and allow the output results to be sorted in real-time.



Suggestions I like:

Quote from: mr_random on May 23, 2013, 05:36:08 PM
Suggestion - compile a top 10 list of regulars who use the word scam the most.



Again, this is purely for shits and giggles; I'm not trying to make a quick buck or bash any particular coin or anything here...just display some data that I think is interesting. Questions/comments/constructive feedback/suggestions/rude remarks welcome (but maybe not so much on the rude remarks).

Title: Re: How "popular" is your favorite Altcoin? Find out here!
Post by: mr_random on May 23, 2013, 05:36:08 PM
Suggestion - compile a top 10 list of regulars who use the word scam the most.

Title: Re: How "popular" is your favorite Altcoin? Find out here!
Post by: GSnak on May 23, 2013, 05:40:49 PM
Pretty cool.

Title: Re: How "popular" is your favorite Altcoin? Find out here!
Post by: BitshireHashaway on May 23, 2013, 05:45:33 PM
Lol neat.... go goldcoin!

Title: Re: How "popular" is your favorite Altcoin? Find out here!
Post by: Barnacle_Ed on May 23, 2013, 05:47:41 PM
Quote from: mr_random on May 23, 2013, 05:36:08 PM
Suggestion - compile a top 10 list of regulars who use the word scam the most.

I like it; sounds like a natural extension after keeping track of usernames. Added to first post so I don't forget!

Title: Re: How "popular" is your favorite Altcoin? Find out here!
Post by: Joe_Bauers on May 23, 2013, 05:49:13 PM
Quote from: Barnacle_Ed on May 23, 2013, 05:28:05 PM

Example run from 10:03 am PST today:

Code:
$>python track_altchain_hype.py 10
Parsing url...https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=67
Parsing url...https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=67.40
Parsing url...https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=67.80
Parsing url...https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=67.120
Parsing url...https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=67.160
Parsing url...https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=67.200
Parsing url...https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=67.240
Parsing url...https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=67.280
Parsing url...https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=67.320
Parsing url...https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=67.360
RESULTS:
('ANN', 358923089100485)
('LTC', 85)
('WDC', 38)
('DGC', 32)
('XRP', 27)
('DVC', 23)
('PXC', 22)
('PWC', 19)
('YAC', 18)
('GLD', 16)
('BQC', 13)
('FTC', 11)
('BTE', 10)
('BTB', 10)
('RYC', 8)
('IXC', 8)
('NBC', 8)
('PPC', 7)
('NVC', 7)
('JKC', 7)
('TRC', 6)
('SCAM_INDEX', 6)
('MNC', 4)
('FRC', 3)
('CNC', 3)
('FRK', 2)
('NMC', 2)
('doubloons', 1)
('bitgem', 0)
('SRC', 0)
('SPC', 0)

$>

FXT.  :D

Title: Re: How "popular" is your favorite Altcoin? Find out here!
Post by: Barnacle_Ed on May 24, 2013, 04:45:33 PM
Script updated during train ride home yesterday (and coffeebreak at work today). Following enhancements made:


Quote from: Barnacle_Ed on May 23, 2013, 05:28:05 PM
- Correlate the "scam_index" with the names of altchains to gather data on which coins are considered scams.
Fully done.

- Add additional weight to the counts based on the number of pages in each thread and the thread's position on the board (more visible thread position and more pages in thread == higher popularity weight).
Done, but rather than calculating a "weight" from number of replies and views the script simply prints them out instead. I think this is a more fair indicator, and does not require a fancy algorithm to calculate weight.

- Keep track of usernames as well to find who the main cheerleaders for each coin are.
Somewhat done. Can keep track of usernames and have usernames for users who call coins scams. However, have not yet implemented keeping track of usernames for each coin's cheerleaders.



Also will update 1st post with new output. However, the output of the script is starting to look pretty nasty with all this additional data...so there's a new task for my next train ride home.


Next few tasks:
- Write a prettyprinter to make output more self-explanatory and friendly

- Properly display the cheerleaders for each coin

- Enable sorting by number of replies and views, in addition to number of threads for "popularity" output.

- (Long Term) Write a GUI and allow the output results to be sorted in real-time.

Title: Re: How "popular" is your favorite Altcoin? Find out here!
Post by: Praxis on May 24, 2013, 04:55:11 PM
WDC is popular but what does it help? Its price is still in the toilet.

Title: Re: How "popular" is your favorite Altcoin? Find out here!
Post by: kr4x on May 24, 2013, 04:59:37 PM
yeeeee gldcoin I see you baby up their!

Title: Re: How "popular" is your favorite Altcoin? Find out here!
Post by: Barnacle_Ed on May 24, 2013, 05:03:49 PM
Quote from: Praxis on May 24, 2013, 04:55:11 PM
WDC is popular but what does it help? Its price is still in the toilet.

This script is merely here to track popularity and scam accusations, not price. However, it is interesting to see so many WDC threads despite its drop in price.


Perhaps they're all threads complaining about the loss of WDC value? :)

Title: Re: [PISSING CONTEST] How "popular" is your favorite Altcoin? Find out here!
Post by: Barnacle_Ed on May 30, 2013, 03:45:24 PM
With the recent surge of altcoins this week, I'm thinking of changing the script to dynamically detect the names of coins if appropriate (rather than using hard-coded values, as it currently does).

Have done basically nothing on this since last time, as I've been lazy :-\




However, will continue bumping this...especially since there have been a ton of new alts introduced this week. Probably with daily stats once the prettyprinter is done.

Title: Re: [PISSING CONTEST] How "popular" is your favorite Altcoin? Find out here!
Post by: JohnCar on May 31, 2013, 03:59:20 AM
Nice little script ty :)


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