提出新评估方法与轻量模型,实现更真实高效的社交传播预测。
Beyond Leakage and Complexity: Towards Realistic and Efficient Information Cascade Prediction
- 按时间顺序划分数据,杜绝未来信息泄露
- 构建含购买转化的电商传播数据集Taoke,覆盖完整传播链
- 轻量模型CasTemp快速预测二次传播转化,适合实际应用
信息传播流行度预测是分析社交网络内容扩散的关键问题。现有研究存在三大缺陷:(1) 评估中存在时间泄露——随机分割使模型可访问未来信息,导致结果不真实;(2) 特征贫乏的数据集缺乏下游转化信号(如点赞、评论或购买),限制实际应用;(3) 复杂图模型计算效率低,训练需数日仅获微小提升。本文从任务设计、数据构建和模型开发三方面系统解决:首先提出时间有序分割策略,按时间窗口划分数据,确保模型在真实预测场景下评估;其次构建大规模电商传播数据集Taoke,包含丰富的推广者/商品属性及真实购买转化数据,完整记录从推广到变现的传播全周期;最后提出CasTemp轻量框架,通过时间游走建模传播动态,基于杰卡德相似度选择跨传播邻居关系,并采用带时间感知注意力的GRU编码。在无泄漏评估下,CasTemp在四个数据集上达到领先性能,速度提升达数量级,尤其在预测第二阶段传播转化方面表现突出,对实际应用具有重要意义。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Information cascade popularity prediction is a key problem in analyzing content diffusion in social networks. However, current related works suffer from three critical limitations: (1) temporal leakage in current evaluation--random cascade-based splits allow models to access future information, yielding unrealistic results; (2) feature-poor datasets that lack downstream conversion signals (e.g., likes, comments, or purchases), which limits more practical applications; (3) computational inefficiency of complex graph-based methods that require days of training for marginal gains. We systematically address these challenges from three perspectives: task setup, dataset construction, and model design. First, we propose a time-ordered splitting strategy that chronologically partitions data into consecutive windows, ensuring models are evaluated on genuine forecasting tasks without future information leakage. Second, we introduce Taoke, a large-scale e-commerce cascade dataset featuring rich promoter/product attributes and ground-truth purchase conversions--capturing the complete diffusion lifecycle from promotion to monetization. Third, we develop CasTemp, a lightweight framework that efficiently models cascade dynamics through temporal walks, Jaccard-based neighbor selection for inter-cascade dependencies, and GRU-based encoding with time-aware attention. Under leak-free evaluation, CasTemp achieves state-of-the-art performance across four datasets with orders-of-magnitude speedup. Notably, it excels at predicting second-stage popularity conversions--a practical task critical for real-world applications.
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