Hi Ifueko!
I really enjoyed your session and the exhaustive answers, thanks a lot!
I'm an up and coming financial engineer and trader, and we use a lot of ML, DL and AI to draw insights and create actions. While I consider myself a beginner at programming, because of my econ and stat background, I have some good theoretical knowledge and I'm currently trying to research into applying sentimental learning to ascertain correlations and causation between people's sentiments, trade volumes and values, using engagements on twitter, reddit and facebook. I've read a lot about the Naive Baye's Algorithm and it's popularity in analysing sentiments, however, I'm trying to figure if NLP is much more effective, given its wider reach at analysing textual information, and giving a better qualitative approach. Please which do you think would be more effective or should I use both and test for the highest efficacy?
I think this is a bit dangerous. Attempting to ascertain sentimental correlations and apply them to huge financial decisions may work in certain contexts and you could definitely train a model with 99% training accuracy on this task, but future situations that are dependent on complex human action can never be adequately represented by a numerical parameterization and a finite state machine. If the model is not large enough, we will not learn all the possible combinations of interactions. If it is too large, then we only learn the context of our training dataset. That being said, you could do both and get good results during training. Personally, I do not have extensive NLP experience or Bayesian experience in production, but their fundamentals suggest that they would learn this type of model well independently or in conjunction. Naïve Bayes is good for state estimation-based decision making, and NLP can be used to model language and extract sentiment. However, these models depend completely on the input dataset that one utilizes, and the chosen labels (if using a supervised method) that are often subjective. Using data from the internet is also dangerous because it is next to impossible to have humans annotate every piece of training data without spending a large amount of money, and learning from problematic input data can lead to problematic situations.
To make this less vague, take the 2016 example where Tay, a chatbot made by Microsoft and trained on Twitter data, became extremely racist in less than a day of online training (https://twitter.com/geraldmellor/status/712880710328139776). Attempting to determine causation in a data driven sense is a slippery slope, and until AI solves the data-driven generalization problem (which I believe may be never) I wouldn't build a system like this in production until I could guarantee significant human supervision and have looked at the ethical implications on those who do not financially benefit from the proposed system.
At the end of the month, we give out prizes in 3 categories: Best Content, Top Engagers and
Most Engaged Content.
Best Content
Top Engagers
Most Engaged Content
Best Content
We give out cash prizes to 7 people with the best insights in the past month. The 7 winners are picked
by an in-house selection process.
The winners are NOT picked from the leaderboards/rankings, we choose winners based on the quality, originality
and insightfulness of their content.
Top Engagers
For the Top Engagers Track, we award the top 3 people who engage the most with other user's content via
comments.
The winners are picked using the "Top Monthly Engagers" tab on the rankings page.
Most Engaged Content
The Most Engaged Content recognizes users whose content received the most engagement during the month.
We pick the top 3.
The winners are picked using the "Top Monthly Contributors" tab on the rankings page.
Here are a few other things to know for the Best Content track
1
Quality over Quantity — You stand a higher chance of winning by publishing a few really good insights across the entire month,
rather than a lot of low-quality, spammy posts.
2
Share original, authentic, and engaging content that clearly reflects your voice, thoughts, and opinions.
3
Avoid using AI to generate content—use it instead to correct grammar, improve flow, enhance structure, and boost clarity.
4
Explore audio content—high-quality audio insights can significantly boost your chances of standing out.
5
Use eye-catching cover images—if your content doesn't attract attention, it's less likely to be read or engaged with.
6
Share your content in your social circles to build engagement around it.
Contributor Rankings
The Rankings/Leaderboard shows the Top 20 contributors and engagers on TwoCents a monthly and all-time basis
— as well as the most active colleges (users attending/that attended those colleges)
The all-time contributors ranking is based on the Contributor Score, which is a measure of all the engagement and exposure a contributor's content receives.
The monthly contributors ranking tracks performance of a user's insights for the current month. The monthly and all-time scores are calcuated DIFFERENTLY.
This page also shows the top engagers on an all-time & monthly basis.
All-time Contributors
All-time Engagers
Top Monthly Contributors
Top Monthly Engagers
Most Active Colleges
Contributor Score
The all-time ranking is based on users' Contributor Score, which is a measure of all
the engagement and exposure a contributor's content receives.
Here is a list of metrics that are used to calcuate your contributor score, arranged from
the metric with the highest weighting, to the one with the lowest weighting.
1
Subscriptions received
2
Tips received
3
Comments (excluding replies)
4
Upvotes
5
Views
6
Number of insights published
Engagement Score
The All-time Engagers ranking is based on a user's Engagement Score — a measure of how much a
user engages with other users' content via comments and upvotes.
Here is a list of metrics that are used to calcuate the Engagement Score, arranged from
the metric with the highest weighting, to the one with the lowest weighting.
1
A user's comments (excluding replies & said user's comments on their own content)
2
A user's upvotes
Monthly Score
The Top Monthly Contributors ranking is a monthly metric indicating how users respond to your posts, not just how many you publish.
We look at three main things:
1
How strong your best post is —
Your highest-scoring post this month carries the most weight. One great post can take you far.
2
How consistent the engagement you receive is —
We also look at the average score of all your posts. If your work keeps getting good reactions, you get a boost.
3
How consistent the engagement you receive is —
Posting more helps — but only a little.
Extra posts give a small bonus that grows slowly, so quality always matters more than quantity.
In simple terms:
A great post beats many ignored posts
Consistently engaging posts beat one lucky hit
Spamming low-engagement posts won't help
Tips, comments, and upvotes from others matter most
This ranking is designed to reward
Thoughtful, high-quality posts
Real engagement from the community
Consistency over time — without punishing you for posting again
The Top Monthly Contributors leaderboard reflects what truly resonates, not just who posts the most.
Top Monthly Engagers
The Top Monthly Engagers ranking tracks the most active engagers on a monthly basis
Here is what we look at
1
A user's monthly comments (excluding replies & said user's comments on their own content)
2
A user's monthly upvotes
Most Active Colleges
The Most Active Colleges ranking is a list of the most active contributors on TwoCents, grouped by the
colleges/universities they attend(ed)
Here is what we look at
1
All insights posted by contributors that attended a particular school (at both undergraduate or postgraduate levels)
2
All comments posted by contributors that attended a particular school (at both undergraduate or postgraduate levels) —
excluding replies
Below is a list of badges on TwoCents and their designations.
Comments