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Sanjay Kairam @skairam.bsky.social · Sep 8

Big thanks to @galenweld.bsky.social for leading this work , along with Carl Pearson, @bradspahn.bsky.social, @timalthoff.bsky.social, and @amyxzhang.bsky.social, along with colleagues at Reddit for supporting this research!

Sanjay Kairam @skairam.bsky.social · Sep 8

This paper used a broad set of tools under the hood to study communities: from factor analysis to LIWC-22 to interaction motifs to hierarchical models. Check out the paper to learn more! arxiv.org/pdf/2508.08596

arxiv.org

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Sanjay Kairam @skairam.bsky.social · Sep 8

If you design or manage communities, how do you think about encouraging replies, surfacing gratitude, and encouraging inclusive language? What strategies have worked (or not) for you in the past?

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Sanjay Kairam @skairam.bsky.social · Sep 8

Style: More expressions of gratitude, feeling, and third-person plural drive SOVC generally. "Netspeak" (e.g. lol, haha, emoji) and a focus on the future are signals of stronger membership & belonging. Is this the case in your favorite communities?

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Sanjay Kairam @skairam.bsky.social · Sep 8

Structure: We find that reciprocal replies are great predictors of stronger communities across all three dimensions; reciprocal upvotes drive feelings of membership, while reciprocal downvotes surprisingly don't decrease SOVC.

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Sanjay Kairam @skairam.bsky.social · Sep 8

We identify 19 features capturing the style and structure of conversations, which together explain 33% of the variance in SOVC scores, with style capturing more than structure.

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Sanjay Kairam @skairam.bsky.social · Sep 8

We find that community experiences (SOVC) on Reddit can reliably be distinguished along three dimensions: Membership & Belonging, Cooperation & Shared Values, and Connection & Influence.

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Sanjay Kairam @skairam.bsky.social · Sep 8

Think of a community as an engine. What would you listen for to know if it's running right? The murmur of messages, the rumble of replies, the sparks of support

In this #ICWSM2026 paper, we identify topic-agnostic conversation features that reveal how well a community is vibing.

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Sanjay Kairam @skairam.bsky.social · Sep 8

Crunching away on a paper for #CHI2026 about online communities, moderation, or sociolinguistics?

You may be want to check out recent work led by
@galenweld.bsky.social on predicting SOVC within subreddits based on the style and structure of conversations.

arxiv.org/abs/2508.08596

How Conversational Structure and Style Shape Online Community Experiences

Sense of Community (SOC) is vital to individual and collective well-being. Although social interactions have moved increasingly online, still little is known about the specific relationships between t...

arxiv.org

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Reposted by Sanjay Kairam

Marianne Aubin Le Quéré @mariannealq.bsky.social · Jun 5

Out today in Social Media + Society!

In a new paper with @skairam.bsky.social, we conduct a longitudinal survey with Reddit trace data to compare the demographics and behaviors of users who follow local subreddits and those who do not.

Here's what we learned🧵

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Screenshot of title and abstract of article in Social Media & Society.

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Sanjay Kairam @skairam.bsky.social · Apr 7

Excited to be talking about my online communities research tomorrow at @princetoncitp.bsky.social! Hope to see you in person, but otherwise you can catch the livestream from anywhere!

Princeton Center for Information Technology Policy @princetoncitp.bsky.social · Apr 7

Tomorrow at #CITP: Tuesday Seminar at 12:30pm w/
@skairam.bsky.social presenting his talk: "The Threads That Bind: Crafting Successful Online Communities" in Sherrerd Hall 306. Sanjay previously launched #Reddit for #Researchers & is now at #OpenAI.

4/8/25 - Livestream available for all.

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Sanjay Kairam @skairam.bsky.social · Nov 27

I’m excited about how far we got the program in a short time and am very confident in the Reddit team’s ability to keep making progress on RFR.

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Sanjay Kairam @skairam.bsky.social · Nov 27

What a treat to work on this project with @manoelhortaribeiro.bsky.social -- so happy to see it out in the world!

What if we could help prevent rule-breaking in online communities by guiding contributors towards better contributions before they even hit submit?

Read Manoel's thread to learn more!

Manoel Horta Ribeiro @manoelhortaribeiro.bsky.social · Nov 27

New @acm-cscw.bsky.social paper, new content moderation paradigm.

Post Guidance lets moderators prevent rule-breaking by triggering interventions as users write posts!

We implemented PG on Reddit and tested it in a massive field experiment (n=97k). It became a feature!

arxiv.org/abs/2411.16814

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Sanjay Kairam @skairam.bsky.social · Nov 27

Thanks!

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Sanjay Kairam @skairam.bsky.social · Nov 27

Definitely exciting! Thanks!

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