PieSpy Social Network Bot: Inferring and Visualizing Social Networks on IRC [1] -- a paper talking about a bot trying to infer and visualize social networks on a channel, via Many-to-Many
[2].
One interesting aspect is the inferrence engine:
- Direct Addressing of Users -- user A addresses user B as part of the message
- Temporal Proximity -- if a message by B follows a message by A after some silence, infer that B is answering A
- Temporal Density -- if several users are posting messages after some silence, infer that they are having a conversation
[new]
From the piespy page: We are able to model an IRC channel as a social network, as each individual user is an entity and their interactions imply relationships and flows.
Dou!
I know many situations where strong bonds cause less conversation, and weak bonds cause more conversation.
(Er, for instance, romantic relationships..!) 
CategoryIrc