If you are interested in understanding trends in who posts, then you will want to classify the accounts or “authors” in your data.
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We have noticed that some people confuse a gather that uses a list of accounts with an author classifier. Here are some ways to help you distinguish:
- A gather collects data; a classifier applies a class (or label) to the data you have collected.
- You do not collect any new data when you apply an author classifier, you simply apply a label to each bit of data you already have collected that was posted by an author you classified.
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To create an author classifier from the data that you have gathered:
- Give your classifier a name and a description. For example, name: “Political Position” and description: “Noting the political position of authors”
- Create all the classes that you will need. For example, you could add “pro-army” and “anti-government”, and include a description for what each of those mean.
- Once you have created these classes, you can then classify authors in your data. The authors in your data will appear in a list that will be ordered by the number of posts gathered (highest first). Click edit on any author and you will be able to add one or more classes to that author.
- Once you are done adding classes to the authors, you can finish and view the classifier. You will then see a button to run the classifier. The classifier will be applied to all gathered data. It will add a class (or label) to all data that it matches. This will allow you to, for example, find out how many posts were made by authors you classed as “anti-government” or “pro-army”.
Once you run this classifier, any new data that you gather will have this classifier applied to it.
- You can archive a classifier, and all the classes (labels) will be removed from your data.
- You can restore a classifier you have archived and the classes (lables) will be applied again to your data.