Discovering Factions in the Computational Linguistics Community

Yanchuan Sim, Noah A. Smith, David A. Smith

Abstract: We present a joint probabilistic model of who cites whom in computational linguistics, and also of the words they use to do the citing. The model reveals latent factions, or groups of individuals whom we expect to collaborate more closely within their faction, cite within the faction using language distinct from citation outside the faction, and be largely understandable through the language used when cited from without. We conduct an exploratory data analysis on the ACL Anthology. We extend the model to reveal changes in some authors' faction memberships over time.