Reddit Smarter is a data analytics tool for Reddit users to gain useful insight into trends on the social media platform's many communities (called 'subreddits').
When a user types the name of a subreddit into the search feature, Reddit Smarter pulls the most recent posts to that subreddit and plots the the average karma received on each post by time of day posted, the total karma awarded by time of day, the average karma a post receives by the length of the title, and it allows users to query for certain keywords in post titles to see how posts with those keywords in the title perform compared to posts without the keywords.
Reddit limits the rate at which requests can be made to their API and the size of the requests that can be made, but Reddit Smarter gathers post information at the maximum rate allowed by the Reddit API, and displays the results dynamically changing as more information is received received.
- Collection of posts by Subreddit ordered by time posted (newest to oldest) through Reddit API using Cloudsearch
- Analysis of average karma by time of day posted (in Reddit Smarter user's local timezone)
- Analysis of average karma by post title length and by inclusion of keyword
- Visual display powered by Graph.js
Access to Reddit's API was achieved using the snoowrap JavaScript package. To eliminate the need for users to authenticate their Reddit accounts with the app in order to use the site and to avoid the need to store and track users' authentication tokens on the backend, Reddit Smarter runs as a Reddit Script, using its own API access keys to interact with Reddit's API.
Reddit does not allow more than 1000 search results to be collected from a single search using any of their methods of search, and the ability to limit search results by time posted is only available using cloudsearch, so Reddit Smarter takes advantage of this feature.
getPosts() {
let startLength = this.posts.length;
this.r.getSubreddit(this.targetSubreddit)
.search({query: `timestamp:${this.createTime}..${this.endTime}`,
sort: "new", time: "all", syntax: "cloudsearch", limit: 100})
.then( (results) =>{
for (let i = 0; i < 100; i++) {
if (results[i]) {
this.posts.push(results[i]);
}
}
this.assignPostDetails();
this.analyze.receivePosts(this.posts);
this.endTime = this.posts[this.posts.length - 1].created - 1;
if (this.posts.length < this.maxPosts &&
!this.paused &&
startLength !== this.posts.length) {
this.getPosts();
} else if (this.posts.length >= this.maxPosts ||
startLength == this.posts.length) {
this.assignCompleteStatus();
}
}
);
}The above code demonstrates the collection of posts. First the targeted subreddit is selected, and a search is conducted on the subreddit, collecting 100 posts that were posted between the time the subreddit was created and the value in the endTime variable, which starts out set to the current time minus 36 hours (to avoid posts that are new and will still gain much more karma from skewing the results). Finally, the search also requests that the results be sorted with the newest posts coming first.
This is important for the next step, which will push any results received into the array of results that is being tracked. The next two commands this.assignPostDetails() and this.analyze.receivePosts(this.posts) will update the header info on the page and update the graphs on the page with the new information that has been collected. Next, the value of endTime is set to the time at which the oldest post we have collected was posted (minus 1ms).
Next, function decides whether it should call itself again. If we have not reached the maximum number of posts that Reddit Smarter allows (25,000) and if some posts were collected by the last search (meaning we haven't reached the end of all the posts on the subreddit), and the search has not been paused, then the getPosts method will call itself again to continue collecting more posts (but this time the range of times being searched will exclude the times at which the posts we have collected were posted, because the value of endTime has been changed). If the end of the posts have been reached, it will let users know that the search is complete by changing the status to "Complete".
The speed and efficiency with which Reddit Smarter can analyze post data and update the visual display can be most starkly seen in the keyword search component.
The graph continues to update each second as 100 additional posts are collected from Reddit, but it also updates itself (both the average karma displayed for each column and the column labels) as a user types into the search bar. Additionally, we can see that number of posts that match and do not match the keyword update themselves in the header as each character is typed into the keyword field.
This is accomplished by only requiring a single update to each component as each character is typed into the search field, and by computing all of the information for the keyword search using only a single, linear time complexity loop.
-
Display only a single graph at a time, and provide users with buttons to select which type of graph they would like to see (will improve efficiency and allow many more graphs to be added)
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Allow users to schedule posts they would like to post in the future (will require each user to authenticate with Reddit). Include the ability to set post flair and add a comment when the post goes up on Reddit.