README.md

---
license: other
license_name: agpl-3.0
license_link: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.txt
language:
- en
pretty_name: elliquiy-rp_2023-04
size_categories:
- 100K<n<1M
configs:
- config_name: default
  data_files:
  - split: train
    path: "elliquiy-rp_2023-04.parquet"
---

# Elliquiy roleplaying forum data

A collection of 6,640,593 posts and 112,328 thousands of mostly _erotic_ roleplaying forum threads from Elliquiy, from about mid-2005 through early April 2023. About 9 GB of uncompressed text data (including formatting tags). The data is from the larger [raw Forum RP dataset](https://huggingface.co/datasets/lemonilia/Roleplay-Forums_2023-04) I also uploaded.

Basic automated cleaning was performed, but the messages are still (by deliberate choice) mostly in HTML format, with the notable exception of converting linebreaks into `\n`.

In addition to the messages, some metadata was provided for convenience, as well as alternative usernames that could be used instead of directly usernames (in the format of `User0`, `User1` ... `UserN`). These are unique per-thread, but not globally.

Consider this a **work in progress**. I might update the dataset in the future as I improve the cleaning procedure.

# Limitations
During the scraping procedure (occurred on April 2023) some information like text color and links was lost in the process. Most of the data is adult-themed, and given that usernames inside the posts still exist, it would be best if usernames weren't directly used when training a model with this data.

Given the text formatting used by many users, complete and thorough conversion to Markdown seems very difficult without losing information in the process or causing other issues.

# Dataset field explanation
## Threads
| Field | Explanation
|-----|-----
| thread-id | The forum software's given thread id
| thread-title | User-given thread title
| category-id | The id of the subforum where the thread was posted
| category-name | The full name of the subforum. "Small Groups" subforums are dedicated to roleplays for more than two participants, and "Solo" are generally for two participants but more than two may appear here as well.
| participant-count | The number of users writing in the thread
| message-count | The total number of messages in the thread
| word-count-total | The cumulative sum of space-separated words in the thread, calculated by python's `split()` function, including HTML tags
| word-count-median | The median message length in words, calculated by python's `split()` function, including HTML tags

## Messages
| Field | Explanation
|-----|-----
| index | Message number, starting from zero at the beginning of the thread. Added mainly for debugging purposes
| from | The name of the user who wrote the message. **Avoid using** if possible
| from-alternative | Alternative, locally-unique name for the user in the form of `User0` ... `UserN`
| timestamp | ISO UTC message timestamp

# Cleaning procedure details
## At the element level
- Converted post dates to ISO format
- Simplified blockquotes
- Removed attributes (class, style) from most tags
- Changed stylistic div/span into their closest HTML counterpart
  - Some deprecated tags have been used
- Cosmetic font sizes consolidated into three categories: `<small>`, normal, `<big>`
- Font changes removed
- Special CSS effects removed
- Background-colored text into `<mark>`
- Spoiler tags converted into `<details><summary>` blocks
  - However, inline spoilers don't work well with this—to be checked out at a later time
- Removed left/right "floating text" `<div>`
- Removed left/right/justify text-alignment `<div>`
- Center alignment elements changed to `<center>` (deprecated tag)
- Tried to reduce the amount of `<table>` elements inappropriately used for cosmetic purposes
  - More work needed

## At the text level
- Removed non-standard unicode spaces
- Changed generic spoiler text
- Removed some leftover BB tags (most often the result of user error)
  - More work needed
- Shortened some bare URLs
- Tried to turn into `<a>` links some URLs, when possible (the data was scraped using a forum function that mangled links in some way)
- Changed `elliquiy.com` URLs into `example.com`
- Removed some site-internal URLs
- Converted all smilies into emoji
- Removed excessive newlines and leading/trailing spaces
- Fixed some HTML element spacing issue
  - More work needed

## NOT done
- Replacing HTML escape characters
- Changing fancy punctuation to ASCII punctuation
- Removing usernames entirely
  - Removing them from the message bodies themselves might not be easy.