I have chosen to explore the DH Project, Six Degrees of Francis Bacon. This network is a representation of the various relationships present in the early modern period.
Nodes and Edges
The nodes of this network represent the different individuals that Francis Bacon (likely) met and/or established some sort of relationship with as well as the people that those individuals are connected to. The edges show that the two nodes (or people) have interacted before. The color of the edges indicates the certainty of the interaction. Black edges are user-contributed, and gray edges are statistically inferred. If a relationship is user-contributed, then a reference is provided as verification. This network is collaborative, meaning the network is dynamic and ever-changing since any scholar from anywhere in the world can contribute by modifying, adding, or removing edges and nodes.
Relationships
This network is unweighted, meaning that the edges between nodes do not represent the strength of the relationship. An edge can be drawn even if two people have only met (or it is likely that they met). I believe this makes the network easier to understand, since having weighted edges could 1) be difficult to quantify (e.g. Would a son-father relationship be weaker, as strong, or stronger than a husband-wife relationship? Would scholars be able to agree on the strength of a relationship?) and 2) be distracting given the large number of nodes. If one is curious about the relationship between two nodes and/or its certainty, they could press on the edge between the nodes to learn more.
Project Interactions
The user can click specific nodes to gain information about the people that are part of the network. The smaller the node, the more degrees of separation from Francis Bacon. The network starts with Francis Bacon as the central node, but the user can click on to a different node and visualize it so that person is the focus of the network. This allows users to gain even more insight into the relationships between people of the early modern era.
