TrustFlow (networking meme)

[cellio]

Interesting. I tried out "TrustFlow", which assesses your "friends" list and their lists and so on and nominates people who are popular among your friends but not directly your friends. Their model is that friend = trusted party (not a safe bet with LJ, but what can you do?), and each person distributes "trust points" evenly among his friends, and after you run this a few levels out you start to get a picture. (Algorithm description.) (I found out about this from dragontdc.)

I recognize many of the names on my list, which isn't surprising. What is surprising is that I don't recognize the top scorer and we have only one friend in common. I'm curious about that.

Here are the results (with their canned text):

I tried out TrustFlow II for LiveJournal. The following people not on the friends list for cellio are close by:

• likesgadgets (350 - 400)
• fiannaharpar (400 - 450)
• chanaleh (550 - 600)
• mg4h, jdulac (600 - 650)
• siobhan1214, lordandrei (700 - 750)
• alexx_kay, giselle0002 (750 - 800)
• tapuz, wanderingpixie, laurens10, lstrobel (800 - 850)
• chrismaverick, persis, nrivkis, pryder, nineweaving (850 - 900)
• l33t_dreams, sundaygray, batyatoon, folkmew, mnemex, papersky (900 - 950)
• demonlurking, cyano, jeremiahblatz, ka3ytl (950 - 1000)
• negothick, peaches57, cadhla, max1975, house_elf, drakemonger, rufinia, blk (1000 - 1050)
• gootmu, beststephi, greenpear, elfwanderer, filkertom, gorgeousgary, jeliza, antoniseb, sdelmonte, fabrisse (1050 - 1100)
• northbard, jd7a, jtdiii, jhitchin, cristovau, ladysprite, teddywolf (1100 - 1150)
• cheshire23, cheshyre, trektone, rubylou, mikoy, landsknecht_po, tytso, zencuppa, redaxe, maedbh7, liamstliam, patoadam, loupnoir (1150 - 1200)
• jeanome, tootsiepop0204, iamzaphod, bess, catalana, joecoustic (1200 - 1250)
• learnedax, jarethsgirl, sylke, jcreed, otherdeb (1250 - 1300)
• rmitz, johno, telynor, theferrett, motogrrl, kaote (1300 - 1350)
• billroper, allisona, catsittingstill, jecklar, vitriol120, baal_kriah, peripsol93, dreda, suecochran, danitapgh, maya_a (1350 - 1400)
• elizabear, atreyukin, museinred, muskrat_john, talyamalka, vettecat (1400 - 1450)

Created by ciphergoth; hosted by LShift.

TrustFlow II: Who is closest to your friends list?

Comments

[profane-stencil.livejournal.com]

After two minutes of, "Machine too busy, please try again later," I got a result filled with people whose journals I read often, but would never add to my fl, and people who used to be on my list.

LJ itself has something similar called Popular with your Friends (http://www.livejournal.com/portal/).

[cellio]

The site worked for me on the first try, so I didn't notice anything. Now it seems to be more erratic.

Thanks for the pointer to the LJ tool. I remembered something like that but had forgotten where it was (and, for that matter, that it was working; I think at one point they took it down due to database load).

[profane-stencil.livejournal.com]

It probably started slowing down when several of us read your post and rushed off to try it!

[rectangularcat]

landsknecht_po is a really shady character....
funny you have my sister (tootsiepop0204) and iamzaphod (meadhbh_9's husband) on there as I guess those are common friends just between meadhbh_9 and I which doesn't explain the lower levels...

[cellio]

You list 104 friends; meadhbh_9 lists 6. So her bucket of trust points goes farther. I haven't looked in detail, but that's probably a factor.

[kayre]

After looking at my results, I'm convinced they've got the explanation backwards; those at the bottom of the list are actually "closest". On the other hand, my top person is also someone with only a few friends, one of whom we have in common, so that may be overwhelming all other data?

[http://users.livejournal.com/merle_/]

I'm not sure about that, because I recognize (and have traded comments with) the people near the top (smaller numbers) of my list, but do not even recognize the people at the bottom.

But it could easily depend on the person. Or the algorithm may be flawed...