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What gets Redditors talking? Predicting discussion initiation and size on Reddit.
Cara Lynch1, Giacomo Livan1,2,3
1Department of Computer Science, University College London, London, United Kingdom.
Plos One
|May 14, 2026
Summary
External domains and author activity predict discussion on Reddit. Linking familiar news sources boosts engagement in r/politics, while r/Conspiracy and r/CryptoCurrency favor novel domains for online conversations.
Area of Science:
- Social Media Analysis
- Computational Social Science
- Network Science
Background:
- Understanding online discussion dynamics is crucial for platform management and information flow.
- Predicting post engagement helps in resource allocation and moderation strategies.
Purpose of the Study:
- To model discussion initiation and growth on Reddit.
- To identify key features predicting comment likelihood and thread size.
Main Methods:
- Extracted textual, semantic, temporal, domain, and author features from Reddit threads.
- Trained subreddit-specific classifiers using transparent feature sets.
- Utilized SHAP for model interpretation.
Main Results:
- External domain linked and its centrality are consistent predictors of discussion start and scale.
- Author activity significantly influences comment likelihood.
- Community context moderates domain preference: r/politics favors established news, while r/Conspiracy and r/CryptoCurrency prefer novel sources.
- Predicting discussion initiation is easier than forecasting its size.
Conclusions:
- Concise, interpretable features capture significant predictive signals for online discussions.
- Results support practical applications for pre-emptive moderation and fact-checking.
- Community-specific analysis is key to understanding diverse online conversation patterns.
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