What are we talking about?
Three years ago we started this blog in hopes that it would become more than a blog– perhaps we could become an influence and an online community which would promote unity, friendship and vibrant discussions, not only about our experiences in UBF, but about God, the Bible, Christianity and life in general. So what have we been talking about?
Here are some word clouds generated free by the Wordle website.
This cloud and the one above both show a small snapshot of the last 5 articles:
Any observations on what we’ve been talking about?
Here is a word cloud based on the last 100 articles on ubfriends:
Here is a word cloud based on the last 100 comments here:
I think we’ve been talking about The Wizard of Oz. And figs.
Of course we have. Figs are the favorite food of people like me doomed to hell. And my thoughts on the gospel are apparently just crafty, foolish wizardry. (Ok last sarcastic remark from me today…maybe)
Is this an accurate reflection? We just had one article with “fig,” but FIG is big and bold in the pic. I guess I don’t get it.
Ben, this is a word count picture based on the last 5 articles (if I’m understanding Wordle correctly). So it is just a small snapshot of the latest articles. A more clear picture would be to dig into all the comments and all the articles. I’ll look for a crawler snapshot later.
So yes we have had one article about “figs” but that word has occurred roughly the same number of times as “people”. Our articles lately have had high counts of “bible”, “UBF”, “God”, “people”, “fig”, “life”, and “Wizard”.
Apparently this was compiled from a few recent articles. It’s a snapshot of what we’ve been talking about lately.
Yes, this is just from the most recent articles. I’ll try to find a cloud generator that “digs deeper”. If someone has a suggestion, I’m all ears!
It is interesting to compare the recent word cloud (what we’ve actually written) with the tag cloud on the front page (what we said we were talking about based on how we tagged the 200+ articles). The topics seem rather consistent to me, except that we’ve actually talked a lot about UBF and have no tag for that.
Brian, if it’s possible to dump the textual contents of the SQL database (articles plus comments, or just articles) to a single text file, without the authors’ and commenters’ names, then I can produce the cloud using statistical software.
Or we can install and use this widget:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/ultimate-tag-cloud-widget/
On second thought, that widget might only display the tags, not all the words.
Yes that widget would just be our own tags. The best I can do right now is to point to the feed URLs, in my comment below. Wordle seemd to handle that rather well.
I just added two more word clouds, based on the last 100 articles and the last 100 comments.
I copied and pasted text from the two feeds:
http://www.ubfriends.org/feed/
http://www.ubfriends.org/comments/feed/
I love the one with the black background.
The only name that I can see is “Toh.”
Yes, and “Ben” is rather neatly inside the C of Christian.
In the one with the white background, “Brian” is bigger than “God.”
I can see a small “Lee” in there too. And yes my narcissistic tendencies are revealed =)
So does the last 100 comments word cloud reveal a hidden message? “TODAY in JANUARY GOD wants BRIAN KARCHER to STAY in UBF”… or maybe I just comment here too much? :))
Today, God and people are asking Brian Karcher to stay in UBF for the month of January.
Ah thank God it’s only one month…
Well thanks everyone for my daily humor, gospel insight and bash over the head. I really do learn from all these things. For example, I am thankful to see David’s crashing of this blog because I see how some UBF leaders must feel about me.
If anyone wants to discuss (charitably) my views on homosexuals, please read my article and the ensuing comments:
I’m Christian especially if you’re gay
Or check out my gay rights pacifist site:
Just Being There
I continue to work out my views on such things, and as always I’m open to change and even paradigm-shifts when necessary. Grace and Peace.
Just for fun, I ran my life narrative through Wordle. Here is what it looks like:
http://wp.me/a2vrlC-1qU
Any guesses as to the number one word used in my narrative? :)
UBFriends.
LOL, nice try. But yes “UBF” was HUGE compared to all other words in my narrative. It is so clear to me that I “married” UBF, exalting UBF above God, Jesus, bible, family, my wife, and above all things. If there is any way to explain my change the past 2 years, it is that I reduced UBF and now place far more value on God, Jesus and my family.
And UBFriends.