35 min read

Counting Kaggle Followers through Meta Kaggle

This is a short post on how to count your followers on Kaggle, and who the current Kagglers are with the largest following. It also serves as preparation for my next blog post in which I will practice some network analysis on the table that we’ll create in this post.

Kaggle, true to form as the home of data science and machine learning on the internet, provides a lot of information on the activity of the community in the appropriately named Meta Kaggle dataset. Here you can find tables for all the notebooks, datasets, or discussions on the platform. And much more. Many insightful notebooks are built on Meta Kaggle, and many datasets, such as Hidden Gems and its summary notebook, are linked to it.

Let’s get started with our set of standard tabular reading and wrangling libraries:

libs <- c('dplyr', 'tibble',   # wrangling
          'lubridate',         # datetime
          'tidyr', 'gt',       # wrangling, table styling
          'vroom', 'readr')    # read & write data
invisible(lapply(libs, library, character.only = TRUE))

Follow the white rabbit

The wondrous land of Kaggle community connections is chiefly contained in the file UserFollowers.csv. Let’s download and read it:

follow <- vroom("../../static/files/UserFollowers.csv", col_types = cols())

Here are the first few rows of that table:

follow |> 
  head(10) |> 
  gt() |> 
  opt_row_striping()
Id UserId FollowingUserId CreationDate
64 368 993 05/23/2017
122289 368 67483 08/07/2018
323230 368 1663522 09/18/2019
412502 368 1302389 03/08/2020
447841 368 391404 04/27/2020
798317 368 769452 06/21/2021
851009 421 1053193 08/18/2021
851010 421 727004 08/18/2021
970078 421 656212 01/11/2022
448467 440 473824 04/27/2020

It is constructed from the point of view of the individual user, and their UserId and CreationDate (i.e join date), which has decided to follow other Kagglers with a certain FollowingUserId. So if we want to aggregate it from the point of view of the Kagglers that are being followed, we count the FollowingUserId instances.

The goal is to have a table of the top 500 followed Kagglers. But we also want to join this table later to another table that contains more user info; but that doesn’t have some Kagglers that no longer have an account on the platform (for whichever reason). So we’re being a bit more generous and start with the top 700 here. The first 5 rows of that table look as follows:

top500 <- follow |> 
  count(FollowingUserId, sort = TRUE) |> 
  slice_head(n = 700)

top500 |> 
  head(5) |> 
  gt()
FollowingUserId n
5309 17091
71388 13855
708283 13307
1723677 11885
54836 10829

The most popular Kagglers have more than 10,000 followers. That’s very impressive! But who exactly are they? This table only contains their user ID. If you’re on Kaggle, then you might have an idea of who might be hiding behind these numbers. But we’d like to know for sure. This is where another Meta Kaggle table comes to the rescue.

Join the fun

What we need is the Users.csv, which contains the details for each of the (more than 10 million!) Kagglers. (This is a large file, and I recommend downloading the most recent version). Let’s read that in as well:

users <- vroom("./Users.csv", col_types = cols())

The user ID here is encoded as Id, and we also have the UserName (your unique user name), DisplayName (how your name is shown on your Kaggle profile, can be changed), and the date of joining Kaggle (RegisterDate) together with the current PerformanceTier. The latter goes from 0 to 4 for Novice, Contributor, Expert, Master, and Grandmaster; with tier 5 indicating a member of the Kaggle team.

Here are some sample rows, which already contain a number of familiar names:

users |> 
  head(50) |> 
  gt() |> 
  opt_row_striping() |> 
  tab_options(container.height = px(400))
Id UserName DisplayName RegisterDate PerformanceTier
1 kaggleteam Kaggle Team 03/24/2011 5
368 antgoldbloom Anthony Goldbloom 01/20/2010 2
808 alexxanderlarko Alexander Larko 05/14/2010 4
993 benhamner Ben Hamner 05/31/2010 3
1455 mjahrer Michael Jahrer 06/25/2010 4
1902 solorzano José H. Solórzano 07/21/2010 4
1988 jasonbrownlee Jason Brownlee 07/31/2010 2
2036 konradb Konrad Banachewicz 08/03/2010 4
2140 dslate David J. Slate 08/05/2010 4
2242 domcastro Bluefool 08/08/2010 4
3090 dyakonov Alexander D'yakonov 09/28/2010 4
3256 jhoward Jeremy Howard 10/13/2010 4
3258 wcukierski Will Cukierski 10/13/2010 5
3346 ejlok1 Eu Jin Lok 10/21/2010 4
4398 ccccat Sergey Yurgenson 12/02/2010 4
5309 abhishek Abhishek Thakur 01/12/2011 4
5642 blindape José A. Guerrero 01/27/2011 4
6234 martinpiotte Martin Piotte 02/12/2011 0
6388 confirm Kohei 02/16/2011 4
6696 zachmayer Zach 03/02/2011 4
7756 owenzhang1 Owen 04/04/2011 4
8507 antorsae Andres Torrubia 04/05/2011 3
9028 dansbecker DanB 04/06/2011 4
9766 breakfastpirate BreakfastPirate 04/14/2011 4
9974 gertjac Gert 04/19/2011 4
10171 dynamic24 dynamic24 04/23/2011 4
14756 nigelcarpenter Nigel Carpenter 08/17/2011 3
16295 pjreddie pjreddie 09/12/2011 2
17379 xavierconort Xavier Conort 09/23/2011 4
18102 gaborfodor beluga 10/05/2011 4
18463 mathurinache Mathurin Aché 10/11/2011 3
19099 alexryzhkov Alexander Ryzhkov 10/22/2011 4
19298 lucamassaron Luca Massaron 10/26/2011 4
19390 lopuhin Konstantin Lopuhin 10/27/2011 4
19605 jeongyoonlee Jeong-Yoon Lee 11/01/2011 3
23583 claytonmiller Clayton Miller 11/17/2011 2
24266 leustagos Leustagos 11/22/2011 4
26782 paweljankiewicz Paweł Jankiewicz 12/13/2011 4
29346 efimov Dmitry Efimov 01/12/2012 4
29756 qwang88 Qingchen 01/17/2012 4
32300 tqchen Tianqi Chen 02/22/2012 3
35069 takiba iwiwi 03/12/2012 4
35609 gmobaz gmobaz 03/17/2012 3
37166 philippsinger Psi 03/29/2012 4
37594 wendykan Wendy Kan 04/01/2012 3
41959 thakurrajanand DataGeek 05/03/2012 3
42188 joseffeigl Josef Feigl 05/05/2012 4
42245 goldenlock gezi 05/06/2012 3
47226 anttip anttip 06/19/2012 3
48625 mlandry mlandry 07/01/2012 4

Now we’re joining this table to our followers ranking on "FollowingUserId" = "Id", and take the top 500 users that are present in both tables:

top500 <- top500 |> 
  left_join(users, by = c("FollowingUserId" = "Id")) |> 
    filter(!is.na((UserName))) |>
    slice_head(n = 500) |> 
    rownames_to_column("rank")

This is the result, the full table of the top 500 followed Kaggle users, ranked by number of followers:

top500 |> 
  select(rank, UserName, DisplayName, RegisterDate, n) |> 
  gt() |> 
  opt_row_striping() |> 
  tab_options(container.height = px(400))
rank UserName DisplayName RegisterDate n
1 abhishek Abhishek Thakur 01/12/2011 17091
2 sudalairajkumar SRK 11/28/2012 13855
3 bestfitting bestfitting 09/07/2016 13307
4 cdeotte Chris Deotte 03/14/2018 11885
5 titericz Giba 08/23/2012 10829
6 jessemostipak Jesse Mostipak 02/11/2020 9686
7 headsortails Heads or Tails 04/09/2017 9351
8 rtatman Rachael Tatman 07/10/2017 9127
9 tunguz Bojan Tunguz 09/11/2015 8669
10 dansbecker DanB 04/06/2011 8452
11 kanncaa1 DATAI 07/06/2017 7605
12 mrisdal Meg Risdal 12/29/2015 6852
13 cpmpml CPMP 12/16/2012 5931
14 christofhenkel Dieter 11/17/2017 5517
15 hengck23 ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎ 07/11/2013 5244
16 philippsinger Psi 03/29/2012 5232
17 alexisbcook Alexis Cook 12/11/2018 5013
18 kazanova Μαριος Μιχαηλιδης KazAnova 06/24/2013 4621
19 wowfattie Guanshuo Xu 12/02/2015 4621
20 shivamb Shivam Bansal 01/22/2018 4543
21 jhoward Jeremy Howard 10/13/2010 4498
22 usharengaraju Tensor Girl 06/27/2015 4270
23 artgor Andrew Lukyanenko 09/24/2016 4180
24 anokas anokas 01/16/2016 4017
25 parulpandey Parul Pandey 07/26/2015 3974
26 gpreda Gabriel Preda 10/27/2016 3961
27 ruchi798 Ruchi Bhatia 06/04/2019 3924
28 andradaolteanu Andrada Olteanu 08/09/2019 3847
29 zusmani Zeeshan-ul-hassan Usmani 04/19/2016 3669
30 rohanrao Vopani 07/09/2013 3359
31 colinmorris ColinMorris 11/25/2015 3280
32 kenjee Ken Jee 06/28/2020 3162
33 kashnitsky Yury Kashnitsky 03/27/2014 2730
34 frtgnn Firat Gonen 10/07/2018 2556
35 psilogram Silogram 12/09/2012 2552
36 mjahrer Michael Jahrer 06/25/2010 2508
37 raddar raddar 08/24/2015 2414
38 janiobachmann Janio Martinez Bachmann 09/03/2017 2351
39 mpwolke Marília Prata 03/29/2019 2322
40 allunia Laura Fink 11/04/2015 2200
41 zfturbo ZFTurbo 11/08/2015 2169
42 gaborfodor beluga 10/05/2011 2133
43 ogrellier olivier 01/02/2016 2111
44 arthurtok Anisotropic 09/25/2016 2027
45 kabure Leonardo Ferreira 05/29/2017 2003
46 sushize Shize Su 02/06/2014 1989
47 aerdem4 Ahmet Erdem 11/22/2015 1958
48 stasg7 Stanislav Semenov 12/13/2013 1926
49 onodera ONODERA 03/24/2015 1911
50 willkoehrsen Will Koehrsen 03/20/2017 1895
51 tanulsingh077 Mr_KnowNothing 02/04/2019 1819
52 robikscube Rob Mulla 06/18/2016 1799
53 residentmario Aleksey Bilogur 10/15/2016 1765
54 subinium Subin An 01/07/2019 1764
55 andrewmvd Larxel 11/15/2016 1740
56 pmarcelino Pedro Marcelino, PhD 03/15/2014 1717
57 serigne Serigne 03/18/2017 1680
58 kyakovlev Konstantin Yakovlev 10/25/2018 1676
59 confirm Kohei 02/16/2011 1649
60 kmader K Scott Mader 11/04/2012 1614
61 mjbahmani MJ Bahmani 04/20/2018 1611
62 karnikakapoor Karnika Kapoor 06/27/2019 1601
63 jesucristo Nanashi 02/04/2019 1596
64 tarunpaparaju Tarun Paparaju 10/22/2017 1590
65 jiweiliu Jiwei Liu 05/09/2013 1547
66 pengyan Eureka 02/28/2014 1544
67 paultimothymooney Paul Mooney 10/05/2017 1528
68 benhamner Ben Hamner 05/31/2010 1526
69 prashant111 Prashant Banerjee 05/17/2018 1486
70 iglovikov Vladimir Iglovikov 01/28/2015 1465
71 gogo827jz Yirun Zhang 05/04/2019 1393
72 haqishen Qishen Ha 10/22/2015 1357
73 dyakonov Alexander D'yakonov 09/28/2010 1346
74 selimsef Selim Seferbekov 02/20/2016 1334
75 mariofilho Mario Filho 06/08/2013 1329
76 jpmiller JohnM 05/31/2015 1319
77 yasufuminakama Y.Nakama 03/06/2018 1267
78 erikbruin Erik Bruin 11/24/2017 1243
79 inversion inversion 09/21/2012 1232
80 konradb Konrad Banachewicz 08/03/2010 1230
81 dott1718 dott 02/14/2013 1181
82 gunesevitan Gunes Evitan 01/15/2019 1177
83 youhanlee YouHan Lee 07/05/2017 1162
84 jessicali9530 Jessica Li 03/29/2018 1154
85 vbmokin Vitalii Mokin 04/07/2018 1138
86 mmueller Faron 06/23/2014 1134
87 ekrembayar Ekrem Bayar 05/03/2017 1119
88 speculation idle_speculation 07/13/2013 1105
89 xiaozhouwang Little Boat 04/20/2014 1101
90 shixw125 weiwei 04/16/2016 1066
91 shentao SeuTao 04/16/2017 1062
92 wcukierski Will Cukierski 10/13/2010 1057
93 ryanholbrook Ryan Holbrook 06/19/2018 1038
94 mathurinache Mathurin Aché 10/11/2011 1024
95 xhlulu xhlulu 10/12/2018 1022
96 xvivancos Xavier 07/06/2017 1001
97 krishnaik06 Krish Naik 06/06/2018 999
98 carloshuertas NxGTR 11/25/2014 997
99 antgoldbloom Anthony Goldbloom 01/20/2010 996
100 alexxanderlarko Alexander Larko 05/14/2010 990
101 plantsgo plantsgo 10/12/2016 986
102 nguyenbadung DungNB 11/06/2017 977
103 faressayah Fares Sayah 06/18/2019 977
104 bishwarup Bishwarup B 02/25/2015 968
105 santiagomota Santiago Mota 02/26/2013 948
106 ash316 Ashwini Swain 10/05/2016 947
107 iafoss Iafoss 08/12/2017 943
108 startupsci Manav Sehgal 11/28/2016 932
109 outrunner outrunner 02/28/2017 931
110 carlmcbrideellis Carl McBride Ellis 11/17/2019 931
111 pavansanagapati Pavan Sanagapati 01/18/2018 930
112 dmytropoplavskiy Dmytro Poplavskiy 10/07/2016 927
113 poonaml Poonam Ligade 01/02/2015 916
114 yassineghouzam Yassine Ghouzam 07/06/2017 911
115 lucamassaron Luca Massaron 10/26/2011 903
116 crawford Chris Crawford 12/09/2015 896
117 brandenkmurray Branden Murray 12/21/2013 894
118 sasrdw Russ Wolfinger 07/30/2015 892
119 alijs1 alijs 07/20/2016 892
120 init27 Sanyam Bhutani 04/04/2018 889
121 lavanyashukla01 Lavanya Shukla 02/23/2018 876
122 tvdwiele Tom Van de Wiele 04/11/2016 868
123 pudae81 pudae 01/01/2017 863
124 mathormad KeepLearning 04/24/2017 862
125 dmitrylarko Dmitry Larko 10/20/2012 861
126 upadorprofzs Murilão 09/20/2019 850
127 shonenkov Alex Shonenkov 05/17/2018 825
128 shujian Shujian Liu 02/05/2016 822
129 owenzhang1 Owen 04/04/2011 820
130 pavelost Pavel Ostyakov 02/23/2016 817
131 wendykan Wendy Kan 04/01/2012 789
132 drn01z3 n01z3 08/27/2015 780
133 andreshg AndresHG 07/25/2019 780
134 yogeshtak Yogesh Tak 12/01/2018 778
135 fatihozturk Fatih Ozturk 01/11/2017 774
136 mobassir Mobassir 07/01/2018 772
137 theoviel Theo Viel 07/12/2018 772
138 rsakata Jack (Japan) 02/26/2014 747
139 phalanx phalanx 02/08/2018 745
140 shtrausslearning Andrey Shtrauss 11/04/2020 741
141 leecming Chun Ming Lee 04/18/2017 733
142 limerobot Limerobot 02/22/2018 727
143 its7171 tito 03/06/2016 726
144 tilii7 Tilii 03/06/2016 723
145 aharless Andy Harless 01/21/2017 708
146 sishihara u++ 02/09/2018 691
147 ashhafez ash hafez 11/04/2014 683
148 ashishpatel26 NowYSM 01/07/2017 682
149 lopuhin Konstantin Lopuhin 10/27/2011 681
150 addisonhoward Addison Howard 05/26/2017 681
151 thebrownviking20 Siddharth Yadav 12/20/2017 677
152 sentdex Sentdex 09/26/2016 673
153 khotijahs1 Siti Khotijah 11/30/2018 665
154 ohseokkim OH SEOK KIM 04/25/2020 661
155 isaienkov Kostiantyn Isaienkov 09/28/2016 649
156 ilu000 Ilu 01/05/2019 647
157 scirpus Scirpus 09/29/2014 643
158 sohier Sohier Dane 06/19/2017 642
159 ibtesama Ibtesam Ahmed 02/05/2018 638
160 alexryzhkov Alexander Ryzhkov 10/22/2011 635
161 adnanzaidi Adnan Zaidi 04/03/2018 635
162 fchollet fchollet 09/01/2013 634
163 nimashahbazi Nima Shahbazi 04/20/2015 630
164 iamleonie Leonie 10/08/2019 626
165 codename007 Lathwal 04/11/2017 621
166 shaz13 Mohammad Shahebaz 07/08/2017 621
167 pranav84 Pranav Pandya 10/08/2016 618
168 fedesoriano fedesoriano 12/18/2020 618
169 dschettler8845 Darien Schettler 02/14/2018 616
170 dimitreoliveira DimitreOliveira 07/23/2017 612
171 fabiendaniel FabienDaniel 12/07/2016 599
172 shivavashishtha Shiva Vashishtha 04/27/2020 599
173 yifanxie Yifan Xie 12/19/2013 596
174 chenglongchen ChenglongChen 05/21/2013 594
175 ihelon Yaroslav Isaienkov 10/05/2017 583
176 awsaf49 Awsaf 08/12/2019 583
177 remekkinas Remek Kinas 04/03/2020 579
178 ryches ryches 04/21/2017 571
179 ambrosm AmbrosM 07/16/2021 571
180 jonathanbouchet Jonathan Bouchet 12/18/2015 570
181 currypurin currypurin 03/04/2017 568
182 alexanderliao Liao 10/12/2017 566
183 kylelee Kyle Lee 12/30/2015 564
184 nischaydnk Nischay Dhankhar 03/21/2020 562
185 garybios Gary 09/16/2017 561
186 senkin13 senkin13 09/14/2016 560
187 paweljankiewicz Paweł Jankiewicz 12/13/2011 558
188 qqgeogor qianqian 08/26/2015 557
189 hidehisaarai1213 Hidehisa Arai 12/12/2017 555
190 vaillant Ian Pan 01/14/2015 550
191 amyjang Amy Jang 05/29/2020 543
192 juliaelliott Julia Elliott 05/03/2016 542
193 mragpavank PAVAN KUMAR D 10/13/2018 538
194 venheads ValeriyBabushkin 08/18/2016 530
195 takuok takuoko 12/20/2016 530
196 suicaokhoailang Khoi Nguyen 01/24/2018 529
197 vahidehdashti Vahideh Dashti 07/10/2020 527
198 h4211819 30CrMnSiA 01/03/2017 526
199 mlandry mlandry 07/01/2012 525
200 mikeskim Mike Kim 10/22/2012 525
201 michau96 Michal Bogacz 07/27/2018 524
202 paulorzp Paulo Pinto 02/22/2016 521
203 boliu0 Bo 06/11/2017 520
204 omercolakoglu Omer Colakoglu 02/05/2018 517
205 selfishgene David Beniaguev 09/27/2013 512
206 shahules Shahules 04/20/2017 512
207 khyeh0719 khyeh 09/13/2017 511
208 aleksandradeis Aleksandra Deis 01/08/2018 510
209 ambarish Bukun 05/27/2013 502
210 odins0n Sanskar Hasija 02/09/2021 498
211 pestipeti Peter 01/12/2017 497
212 kelexu Kele Xu 02/23/2015 495
213 imdevskp Devakumar K. P. 09/30/2017 494
214 breakfastpirate BreakfastPirate 04/14/2011 493
215 ddanevskyi Dmytro Danevskyi 01/25/2016 490
216 timoboz Timo Bozsolik 03/31/2017 489
217 philippsp Philipp Spachtholz 02/28/2017 487
218 rdizzl3 RDizzl3 02/08/2015 485
219 darraghdog Darragh 07/03/2014 482
220 yasserhessein Yasir Hussein Shakir 01/15/2020 481
221 kerneler Kaggle Kerneler 07/19/2018 480
222 seanjv sjv 11/28/2015 479
223 jeffheaton Jeff Heaton 03/10/2014 476
224 aakashnain NAIN 02/23/2016 474
225 tivfrvqhs5 David Austin 01/29/2017 470
226 khoongweihao Wei Hao Khoong 03/20/2018 470
227 anasofiauzsoy Ana Sofia Uzsoy 05/12/2020 469
228 shrutimechlearn Shruti_Iyyer 12/30/2016 468
229 rjqian Renjie Qian 06/26/2017 468
230 ybabakhin Yauhen Babakhin 03/04/2015 467
231 heyytanay Tanay Mehta 07/10/2019 465
232 fahadmehfoooz Fahad Mehfooz 07/23/2020 464
233 tavoosi Saba Tavoosi 12/07/2018 463
234 serkanpeldek Serkan Peldek 12/19/2017 462
235 ishandutta Ishan Dutta 03/07/2020 460
236 mchahhou Chahhou Mohamed 10/19/2013 458
237 mamasinkgs mamas 10/23/2016 458
238 maggiemd Maggie 03/29/2017 454
239 keetar keetar 08/31/2016 452
240 ragnar123 Martin Kovacevic Buvinic 08/24/2017 452
241 mylesoneill Myles O'Neill 03/05/2015 451
242 nullrecurrent Jiayang Gao 09/02/2019 451
243 johnpateha Evgeny Patekha 02/04/2016 449
244 datafan07 Ertuğrul Demir 03/05/2020 446
245 arashnic Möbius 10/21/2016 443
246 nyanpn nyanp 01/05/2018 442
247 tqchen Tianqi Chen 02/22/2012 438
248 kailex kxx 03/11/2013 436
249 mikhailtrofimov Mikhail Trofimov 04/19/2013 435
250 masumrumi Masum Rumi 08/18/2016 435
251 vikasukani Vikas Ukani 07/17/2020 435
252 ccccat Sergey Yurgenson 12/02/2010 432
253 dwin183287 Sharlto Cope 04/09/2014 432
254 debarshichanda Debarshi Chanda 04/14/2020 432
255 pureheart piupiu 03/23/2016 430
256 nvnnghia nvnn 11/27/2018 427
257 gertjac Gert 04/19/2011 425
258 rhtsingh torch 10/05/2017 425
259 brendan45774 Brenda N 01/07/2019 420
260 philculliton Phil Culliton 07/22/2013 419
261 bminixhofer Benjamin Minixhofer 01/18/2017 415
262 aguschin Alexander Guschin 05/24/2014 414
263 andresionek Andre Sionek 01/13/2018 413
264 yashvi Yashvi Patel 12/22/2017 412
265 qiaojian earhian 11/07/2017 410
266 apapiu Alexandru Papiu 08/14/2015 405
267 jeongyoonlee Jeong-Yoon Lee 11/01/2011 403
268 ckomaki Komaki 11/13/2012 403
269 ldfreeman3 LD Freeman 11/19/2017 403
270 joshuaswords Josh 01/05/2020 402
271 zachmayer Zach 03/02/2011 400
272 saurabhshahane Saurabh Shahane 10/26/2018 399
273 sanarasheed Sana Rasheed 01/06/2015 397
274 laurae2 Laurae 02/06/2016 396
275 jasonbrownlee Jason Brownlee 07/31/2010 395
276 andrej0marinchenko Andrej Marinchenko 06/12/2021 393
277 dataraj Raju Kumar Mishra 12/31/2012 392
278 yuval6967 yuval reina 01/15/2018 391
279 rhgrossm To Train Them Is My Cause 12/08/2016 390
280 annavictoria Anna Montoya 11/17/2014 388
281 qiaoshiji 0ct0pus 12/26/2016 385
282 ravichaubey1506 Ravi Ranjan Chaubey 03/13/2019 385
283 adityaecdrid Aditya Soni 12/14/2016 383
284 domcastro Bluefool 08/08/2010 382
285 roydatascience Ashish Gupta 05/16/2018 382
286 leustagos Leustagos 11/22/2011 380
287 ratthachat Jung 10/27/2017 379
288 antorsae Andres Torrubia 04/05/2011 377
289 caesarlupum Caesar Lupum 08/18/2019 377
290 bulentsiyah Bulent Siyah 08/04/2017 374
291 rakshitvig Rakshit Vig 10/22/2021 374
292 yassinealouini Yassine Alouini 03/10/2014 372
293 yaroshevskiy Oleg Yaroshevskiy 11/21/2016 371
294 iangoodfellow Ian Goodfellow 02/06/2013 370
295 vetrirah Vetrivel-PS 08/04/2017 370
296 corochann corochann 02/01/2016 369
297 julian3833 dataista0 (Julián Peller) 07/09/2017 368
298 louise2001 Loulou 08/22/2019 367
299 kaanboke Kaan BOKE 06/14/2021 366
300 meaninglesslives Siddhartha 08/11/2017 363
301 rinnqd Firas Baba 04/04/2018 360
302 harangdev YoonSoo 04/07/2018 360
303 mvahit MVK 10/05/2019 360
304 toshik toshi_k 03/07/2014 357
305 shivan118 shivan kumar 06/11/2019 357
306 bextuychiev bexgboost 03/17/2020 351
307 lanjunyelan yelan 08/28/2018 350
308 saurav9786 Saurav Anand 04/18/2019 350
309 mulicmu Mu Li 01/19/2014 346
310 arunkumarramanan Arunkumar Venkataramanan 03/08/2017 346
311 yiheng Yiheng Wang 08/09/2016 345
312 sreshta140 Sreshta Putchala 05/15/2019 344
313 weimin Weimin Wang 06/04/2014 339
314 samratp Samrat Pandiri 04/20/2017 339
315 surajjha101 Suraj Jha 02/06/2022 337
316 golubev Vlad Golubev 09/19/2017 336
317 tezdhar Mohsin hasan 11/19/2014 334
318 dempton Konstantin Gavrilchik 10/30/2016 333
319 randylaosat randy lao 06/06/2017 333
320 rounakbanik Rounak Banik 02/23/2017 332
321 lordozvlad Devlikamov Vlad 06/10/2020 332
322 tanlikesmath ilovescience 07/29/2016 330
323 prashantkikani Prashant Kikani 09/16/2017 327
324 longyin2 LongYin/杰少 08/10/2017 322
325 halimedogan Halime Doğan 11/08/2020 321
326 chumajin chumajin 11/08/2019 319
327 baomengjiao spongebob 03/23/2017 318
328 gauravduttakiit Gaurav Dutta 03/28/2020 318
329 tereka tereka 01/16/2015 317
330 lyakaap lyakaap 07/29/2017 314
331 sercanyesiloz Sercan Yeşilöz 03/11/2019 314
332 mmoralesr Mario Morales 07/23/2020 314
333 thedrcat Darek Kłeczek 10/11/2017 313
334 tkm2261 tkm2261 10/06/2015 311
335 mahluo Young for you 04/21/2017 311
336 carlolepelaars Carlo Lepelaars 05/31/2018 310
337 aminizahra Zahra Amini 05/09/2021 310
338 crained Charlie Craine 07/08/2014 304
339 pjreddie pjreddie 09/12/2011 301
340 onefourthlabs One Fourth Labs 01/17/2019 301
341 lftuwujie Jie Wu 02/16/2016 300
342 thomaskonstantin Thomas Konstantin 03/17/2020 300
343 agoodman Allen Goodman 01/12/2018 298
344 hasanbasriakcay Hasan Basri Akçay 06/22/2019 298
345 anandhuh Anandhu H 11/04/2020 298
346 iamsouravbanerjee Sourav Banerjee 03/25/2021 296
347 utility utility 12/09/2014 295
348 nigelcarpenter Nigel Carpenter 08/17/2011 294
349 radek1 Radek Osmulski 02/02/2013 294
350 hamelg Greg Hamel 04/08/2014 294
351 thedevastator The Devastator 05/26/2022 294
352 hamditarek Tarek Hamdi 02/27/2018 293
353 naivelamb Xuan Cao 03/31/2017 292
354 kellibelcher Kelli Belcher 06/14/2020 292
355 group16 Gilles Vandewiele 10/15/2015 290
356 poteman poteman 11/05/2015 290
357 yufengg Yufeng Guo 07/26/2017 286
358 funxexcel Kunaal Naik 11/19/2017 285
359 muhammadahmed68 Moezilda 12/23/2020 285
360 kritidoneria KritiDoneria 09/11/2017 284
361 harunshimanto Harun-Ur-Rashid 10/07/2017 283
362 heshamasem Hesham Asem 02/05/2018 282
363 jagangupta Jagan 12/10/2015 280
364 drhabib DrHB 03/27/2017 280
365 vad13irt Vadim Irtlach 09/10/2020 280
366 nicapotato nicapotato 01/13/2017 279
367 sergeifironov Sergei Fironov 11/30/2012 278
368 sgalib Shai 11/16/2016 278
369 vicensgaitan Vicens Gaitan 11/04/2014 277
370 fakeplastictrees fakeplastictrees 02/24/2014 275
371 nagadomi nagadomi 01/27/2014 274
372 marcovasquez Marco Vasquez E 08/09/2019 274
373 brandao Humberto Brandão, Ph.D. 11/04/2015 273
374 fatmakursun Fatma Kurşun 12/17/2017 273
375 steamedsheep sheep 11/27/2016 272
376 mathchi Mehmet Akturk 09/01/2019 272
377 qwang88 Qingchen 01/17/2012 271
378 ishivinal Ouassim Adnane 12/27/2016 271
379 nejumi YuyaYamamoto 03/29/2016 269
380 alincijov Alin Cijov 04/25/2020 268
381 lystdo icebai 10/13/2016 267
382 abhinand05 Abhinand 12/08/2018 266
383 ayuraj Ayush Thakur 09/05/2018 265
384 blurredmachine Paras Varshney 05/30/2020 264
385 whitebird bird 12/12/2015 262
386 fengari Fengari 03/11/2016 261
387 aashita Aashita Kesarwani 12/23/2016 261
388 nthanhtam Tam T. Nguyen 03/15/2013 259
389 nickycan 🐳鲲(China) 10/23/2015 259
390 matleonard Mat Leonard 04/18/2019 258
391 seesee See-- 09/11/2016 256
392 madz2000 Madhav Mathur 02/28/2020 255
393 chizhu2018 chizhu 02/02/2018 254
394 lava18 Lavanya 07/31/2018 254
395 berkayalan Berkay Alan 05/23/2019 254
396 triskelion Triskelion 07/20/2013 253
397 nulldata amrrs 06/23/2015 252
398 osciiart OsciiArt 03/31/2017 250
399 seriousran Chanran Kim 08/01/2017 250
400 mmotoki Matt Motoki 04/11/2015 249
401 nxrprime Trigram 01/13/2020 249
402 clustifier clustifier 11/11/2012 248
403 peterhurford Peter Hurford 05/08/2014 246
404 mihaskalic Miha Skalic 07/05/2014 246
405 gcdatkin Gabriel Atkin 04/09/2019 246
406 imoore Moore 06/20/2020 246
407 jeffd23 Jeff Delaney 06/07/2016 245
408 blindape José A. Guerrero 01/27/2011 243
409 returnofsputnik CoreyLevinson 08/29/2017 243
410 psycon Batucan Senkal 04/20/2020 242
411 therealcyberlord Xingyu Bian 02/19/2019 239
412 salmaneunus Salman Ibne Eunus 07/22/2019 239
413 tetyanayatsenko Tetyana Yatsenko 12/13/2016 238
414 terenceshin Terence Shin 09/13/2018 238
415 davidthaler David Thaler 03/23/2013 237
416 captcalculator Troy Walters 07/08/2015 237
417 gvyshnya Georgii Vyshnia 05/23/2016 236
418 jiashenliu Jiashen Liu 09/07/2016 236
419 caesarmario Mario Caesar 07/22/2019 236
420 amiras Miras Amir 09/05/2015 235
421 takiba iwiwi 03/12/2012 234
422 lovedm 安静 04/09/2017 234
423 hadeux Woo Seung Han 09/16/2019 232
424 brsdincer Baris Dincer 03/27/2021 232
425 hiro5299834 BIZEN 02/24/2015 231
426 vincentlugat Vincent Lugat 03/06/2017 231
427 a763337092 Lindada 09/16/2016 230
428 ks2019 KS 06/29/2018 230
429 kneroma kkiller 12/15/2017 229
430 dulyanov Dmitry Ulyanov 01/27/2014 228
431 wuyhbb Yuanhao 09/25/2017 228
432 ceshine Ceshine Lee 05/14/2013 227
433 ipythonx M.Innat 06/11/2018 227
434 jeongbinpark JeongBin Park 10/28/2020 227
435 kaggleteam Kaggle Team 03/24/2011 226
436 ttahara Tawara 11/24/2015 226
437 takoihiraokazu Takoi 05/24/2016 226
438 backaggle automata 05/24/2018 226
439 btgraham Benjamin Graham 12/01/2013 224
440 underwearfitting sin 05/26/2020 223
441 opanichev Oleg Panichev 06/10/2014 222
442 bryanb BryanB 10/16/2016 220
443 lucabasa Luca Basanisi 07/24/2017 220
444 dynamic24 dynamic24 04/23/2011 219
445 meminozturk Emin Ozturk 05/13/2016 219
446 phunghieu Hieu Phung 04/24/2018 219
447 asuilin Arthur Suilin 04/20/2017 218
448 nadintamer Nadin Tamer 09/08/2017 218
449 frankmollard 🌵 01/09/2020 218
450 vyombhatia vyom bhatia 06/03/2020 218
451 khahuras Kha Vo 04/17/2018 216
452 zikazika Noah Weber 03/31/2018 215
453 piantic Heroseo 07/22/2019 215
454 reighns Hongnan G 07/17/2019 214
455 ligtfeather Tanishq Gautam 08/04/2019 214
456 loaiabdalslam Loai abdalslam 10/07/2018 213
457 azizozmen Aziz Özmen 06/25/2021 213
458 solorzano José H. Solórzano 07/21/2010 212
459 markpeng Mark Peng 05/29/2014 211
460 liaofz Fangzhou Liao 01/10/2016 211
461 sonalisingh1411 🚀𝐒𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐢 𝐒𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐡 05/29/2019 211
462 icecuber icecuber 07/16/2016 210
463 daishu daishu 05/29/2017 210
464 mariapushkareva Marie 10/08/2018 210
465 coreacasa Manuel Campos 11/28/2017 209
466 aquatic Joe Eddy 03/27/2016 208
467 khsamaha Kheirallah Samaha 11/18/2016 208
468 phoenix9032 Doomsday 09/11/2018 208
469 jizhouwei Jizhou Wei 11/11/2020 208
470 nroman Roman 03/06/2018 207
471 goldens Golden 07/24/2018 207
472 nareshbhat Naresha Bhat 12/27/2019 207
473 xucheng 大顺 06/19/2017 206
474 yogidsba Yogita Darade 01/28/2021 205
475 aishwarya2210 Padmavathi D 12/30/2021 203
476 dslate David J. Slate 08/05/2010 202
477 pliptor Oscar Takeshita 04/13/2017 202
478 hely333 Dandelion 03/23/2018 202
479 zaharch nosound 09/13/2018 202
480 finlay MaXXX 05/24/2016 201
481 nitindatta Nitin Datta 07/21/2018 200
482 morizin Mohammed Rizin V K 07/28/2019 200
483 authman عثمان 02/28/2017 199
484 andy2709 NguyenThanhNhan 06/20/2017 199
485 utkukubilay Utku_Kubilay 05/25/2019 199
486 ejlok1 Eu Jin Lok 10/21/2010 198
487 jtrotman James Trotman 05/05/2015 198
488 kylinorange Jun Xie 04/28/2017 198
489 bguberfain Bruno G. do Amaral 09/02/2014 197
490 bolkonsky YuryBolkonsky 07/30/2017 197
491 tikutiku Tom 01/19/2018 197
492 niharika41298 Niharika Pandit 01/20/2019 197
493 anshuls235 Anshul Sharma 10/11/2017 196
494 ruslankl def me(x) 12/26/2017 196
495 nancyalaswad90 Ms. Nancy Al Aswad 11/22/2018 196
496 linshokaku deoxy 11/27/2019 196
497 goldenlock gezi 05/06/2012 195
498 arbazkhan971 ask9 10/21/2017 195
499 marcuslin Marcus Lin 12/04/2017 195
500 ubamba98 Udbhav Bamba 12/14/2017 195

Big names in the top 10, and among them yours truly at rank 7. Which is mind-blowing, to be honest. Among the ten most followed Kagglers in the world. Wow. I hope that I can give interesting ideas and inspiration back to the community.

Seeing Abhishek Thakur in 1st place is no surprise. He was the first 3 x Grandmaster and 4 x Grandmaster, and constantly shares great knowledge on Kaggle and through his popular Youtube channel. SRK, another 4 x GM, was already a Kaggle legend when I joined the platform. And bestfitting has just reclaimed the title of Competitions #1, which they had previously held for several years.

Feel free to scroll through the table and you will recognise many names from Kaggle’s past or present.

Get ready for networking

To wrap up this post, we will prepare a compact dataset which we can then feed into the network analysis tools that I want to practice in the upcoming post. We could do that already based on the UserFollowers.csv file only. But I’d like to work with the user names instead.

In this notation, user_1 is being followed by user_2. We’re also keeping track of the CreationDate, which is the date at which the follow began. And of the Kaggle tiers (e.g. Expert, Master) of both users. The new dataset only contains relationships between the top 500 followed Kagglers.

follow_network <- follow |> 
  left_join(top500 |> select(user_1 = UserName,
                             tier_1 = PerformanceTier,
                             followers_1 = n,
                             FollowingUserId), by = "FollowingUserId") |> 
  left_join(top500 |> select(user_2 = UserName,
                             tier_2 = PerformanceTier,
                             followers_2 = n,
                             UserId = FollowingUserId), by = "UserId") |> 
  filter(!is.na(user_1) & !is.na(user_2)) |> 
  mutate(date = mdy(CreationDate)) |> 
  select(user_1, user_2, tier_1, tier_2, followers_1, followers_2, date)

Here are the first few rows to illustrate what the file looks like. Those rows show the Kaggle founder and now former CEO Anthony Goldblum following his Co-Founder Ben Hamner and a few other people:

follow_network |> 
  head(5) |> 
  gt() |> 
  opt_row_striping()
user_1 user_2 tier_1 tier_2 followers_1 followers_2 date
benhamner antgoldbloom 3 2 1526 996 2017-05-23
kmader antgoldbloom 4 2 1614 996 2018-08-07
lavanyashukla01 antgoldbloom 2 2 876 996 2019-09-18
imdevskp antgoldbloom 3 2 494 996 2020-03-08
parulpandey antgoldbloom 4 2 3974 996 2020-04-27

This is all for the scope of this post. See the next posts for a continuation of this analysis and a deeper dive into Kaggle community dynamics. Have fun!