Can I filter Users by reputation or up_vote_count using the API?

Question

Howdy,

Is it possible to do API calls that pull back all users with, say, > 10,000 reputation? Or up_vote_count, etc.

The advanced search page implies that we should use third-party search engines. Here's a search on DuckDuckGo that searches for all questions with points > 300:

http://duckduckgo.com/?q=votes%3A300+site%3Astackoverflow.com

Is that the answer as of now?

Answer 1

Yes, maybe. for post score and user rep, there are api methods that will give you the results you want.

For data points that are not covered by the sort param, you would need to build a dataset of users and then filter that. Data points such as up_vote_count are definitely not going to be/cannot be indexed by a search engine. I have a service that will be going online after the API contest hubbub dies down that will provide detailed metrics such as you describe.

But in the meantime, for the points that are exposed.....

http://api.stackoverflow.com/1.0/users?sort=reputation&min=10000&order=desc&pagesize=100

If you are doing this manually, you will need to page until you get 0 results.

you can use SOAPI-EXPLORE to , umm, explore these possibilities.

If you would like to use a c# library, such as Soapi.CS, it could be as simple as

var epicQuestions = SO
    .Questions
    .Sort(QuestionSort.Votes)
    .Min(300)
    .PageCount(-1)
    .ToList();

Generates the following request to build the results:

http://api.stackoverflow.com/1.0/questions?min=300&page=1&pagesize=100&sort=Votes

var badassUsers = SO
    .Users
    .Sort(UserSort.Reputation)
    .Min(10000)
    .PageCount(-1)
    .ToList();

Generates the following request to build the results:

http://api.stackoverflow.com/1.0/users?min=10000&page=1&pagesize=100

http://api.stackoverflow.com/1.0/users?min=10000&page=2&pagesize=100

http://api.stackoverflow.com/1.0/users?min=10000&page=3&pagesize=100

http://api.stackoverflow.com/1.0/users?min=10000&page=4&pagesize=100

http://api.stackoverflow.com/1.0/users?min=10000&page=5&pagesize=100

http://api.stackoverflow.com/1.0/users?min=10000&page=6&pagesize=100

http://api.stackoverflow.com/1.0/users?min=10000&page=7&pagesize=100 <-- i live on this page right now ;-)

http://api.stackoverflow.com/1.0/users?min=10000&page=8&pagesize=100

Answer 2

Another option is to provide yourself with a local database of all (or almost all) users which will allow you to perform any analysis you like.

You will find that the Stack Overflow user base is very bottom heavy with low rep/low activity/orphaned user accounts.

It is not likely that these records will provide you with any sort of meaningful data an omitting them from any data acquisition will improve your processing time by an order of magnitude. Trust me, I know. ;-)

Here is a very quick and easy way to get this data into a SQLite data table using Soapi.CS