The Slashdot Top 40

For our machine learning project, we attempted to automatically guess ratings or labels for Slashdot comments based on their content. As a side effect, we generated some data on what words and phrases tend to appear disproportionately often in high-ranked (low-ranked, interesting, uninteresting, funny, unfunny, etc.) comments.

The set of the top 40 "Funny" phrases turns out to be a hodgepodge of cultural references. I am not sure I understand all of them.

1 xkcd.com $
2 xkcd.com
3 nukem forever
4 carrier $
5 slashdot editor
6 skynet
7 clod $
8 woman $
9 grue
10 newt
11 no carrier
12 asparagus
13 nigerian prince
14 porn with
15 grue $
16 an outrage
17 kentucky $
18 eight camera
19 reality distortion
20 god what
21 six video
22 electronic games
23 locally $
24 paperbacks
25 distortion field
26 its belly
27 my underwear
28 am intrigued
29 penny-arcade.com $
30 priceless $
31 lycra
32 emacs $
33 polar bear
34 cried out
35 burma shave
36 an african
37 porn for
38 your grip
39 expects the
40 not talk

("$" means end of comment; "^" means beginning of comment.)

The list of top "Interesting" phrases suggests that workplace stories are interesting:

employees were; what worked; department i; our clients; wap; reviews on; file servers; work etc; could connect; stance that; updates the; those available; hitting my; europe to; i'm seeing; happening with; snuff; time anyone; spam has; to snuff; the bases; thin and; my college; street to; extreme programming; be neutral; late 19th; management they; from game; tenacity; withstanding; own account; right beside; magpies; from intel's; my food; obscure stuff; language when; and trash; been dragging

Meanwhile, the phrases least likely to be found in "Interesting" comments are either insulting or profane:

^ no; insensitive; again $; you insensitive; ^ oh; clod; insensitive clod; ^ you; ^ just; ^ then; ^ well; the hell; ^ or; slashdot; ^ and; you $; post $; ^ yes; ^ why; ^ but; ^ yeah; um; you mean; ^ they; wikipedia.org $; then $; religious; ^ now; clod $; mod; is called; ^ not; right $; ^ he; ^ ah; first post; ^ is; ^ your; ^ it's; fuck

These lists were generated using a corpus of 55,561 comments posted between June and November 2008.