Glossary
Four kinds of term: the coding vocabulary, the words this site uses in a particular way, the method's own jargon, and the Nigerian agricultural and forum language that appears in the quotes.
Words this site uses precisely
| term | meaning here |
|---|---|
| unit | One page of one thread — the unit of analysis. Nairaland paginates at 32 posts, so a unit is up to 32 posts of one conversation. A long thread is many units. "Pages" and "units" mean the same thing on this site. |
| thread | A whole conversation, one or more units. Headline counts use threads, because units are an artefact of the forum's pagination. |
| quote | A verbatim run of characters the model copied out of a single post, checked back against that exact post. Never a paraphrase, never stitched from two posts, never translated. If it did not match, it is not shown as evidence. |
| verified | Of a quote: exact means it matched the cited post character-for-character after whitespace and unicode normalisation; fuzzy means it matched closely enough to be the same sentence; failed means it did not match the post it claimed, so it is discarded rather than linked. |
| grounded | Of a claim: it carries the id of a specific post on the same page, so a reader can click through and check it. Claims citing posts that were not on the page were dropped when the record was written. |
| instance | One emission of a label. A page can emit the same label several times citing different posts, so instances always exceed pages. |
Method terms
| term | meaning |
|---|---|
| codebook | The fixed list of labels a page may be coded with, frozen before the full run. Fixing it in advance is what makes counts comparable across 8,479 pages; the cost is that anything outside it lands in unclassified. |
| closed coding | Assigning labels from that fixed list, rather than inventing a description per page. The vocabulary is enforced during generation, so an off-vocabulary label is structurally impossible rather than merely discouraged. |
| held-out | Pages deliberately excluded from the sample the codebook was derived from, used to test it. Measuring a vocabulary on the pages it was written from flatters it. |
| unclassified | The residue: content that mattered but fitted no field. Watched deliberately — if it never falls, the codebook is wrong. |
| gazetteer | The list of the 36 states and the FCT that free-text locations are matched against. A location naming only a town resolves to nothing, which is expected rather than an error. |
Nigerian agriculture and forum usage
| term | meaning |
|---|---|
| offtaker | A buyer who commits in advance to take a harvest. Their reliability is a recurring subject, because a promise to buy is not a sale. |
| "internet farmer" | The forum's own insult for someone who advises without farming. The distinction between a practising farmer and an internet farmer is one the community polices itself, and it is the reason credibility signals are worth collecting at all. |
| POP | Point of lay — a hen at the age where she begins laying, and a common unit of sale. |
| day-old chick / DOC | Chicks sold at a day old, the usual entry point for poultry, and a price everyone tracks. |
| noiler / cockerel | Dual-purpose and male chicken breeds raised where broilers are too costly to feed. |
| BSF | Black soldier fly, farmed for larvae used as protein in feed — a response to feed cost. |
| garri | Processed, granulated cassava. Staple food and a heavily traded commodity. |
| Pidgin | Nigerian Pidgin, an English-based creole widely used on the forum. Quotes are left in the original rather than translated. |
The coding vocabulary
Generated from the frozen codebook, so these cannot drift from the labels actually used. Each links to the pages coded with it.
Page types — what kind of artefact a page is
| label | definition | pages |
|---|---|---|
| discussion_qa | People asking and answering each other. The pages most findings rest on, and about a fifth of the corpus. | 1828 |
| farm_diary | A running progress log, usually one author posting updates over months. Looks like advertising to any authorship heuristic, and is its opposite. | 339 |
| promo_listing | Selling something: bumps, contact details, 'still available'. The largest single class, and well over half the corpus. | 5001 |
| price_list | Recurring posted prices, often brand by brand. Rare as a page type, but the densest source of price data in the corpus. | 41 |
| buyer_request | Someone seeking to buy in quantity rather than to sell. | 173 |
| training_offer | Paid courses, ebooks and mentorship. | 147 |
| news_repost | A copied article plus reactions to it. | 637 |
| scam_alert | Fraud reports, disputes, and warnings about a named seller. | 79 |
| directory_thread | Exchanging phone numbers or recruiting into a group -- in practice, very often a WhatsApp group. | 101 |
| off_topic | Banter or politics with no agricultural content. | 118 |
| mixed | Genuinely two of the above at once. Most often an expert running a tutorial that is also an advert for their own training. | 15 |
Themes — what a page is about (counted per thread)
| label | definition | pages |
|---|---|---|
| feed_cost | The price of animal feed as a subject of discussion -- distinct from someone being harmed by it, which is a pain point. | 14 |
| chick_price | What day-old chicks and point-of-lay birds cost. | — |
| fertilizer_cost_access | Obtaining fertilizer at all, and at what price, including subsidy schemes. | 1 |
| agrochemical_efficacy | Whether a herbicide, pesticide or vaccine actually works. | 72 |
| seed_stem_sourcing | Where to obtain seed, suckers, stems or seedlings, and whether a given source is genuine. | 183 |
| livestock_health_mortality | Animals falling sick or dying, and what to do about it. | 106 |
| herbal_vs_conventional_treatment | Traditional or herbal remedies weighed against veterinary drugs. | 52 |
| crop_pest_disease | Pests and diseases affecting crops. | 202 |
| water_irrigation | Water supply, boreholes, and dry-season irrigation. | 148 |
| soil_manure | Soil fertility, composting and manure. | 89 |
| housing_equipment | Pens, cages, ponds, greenhouses, and the equipment inside them. | 305 |
| feed_formulation | Mixing feed rather than buying it: ratios, ingredients, milling. | 256 |
| sack_container_farming | Growing in sacks, bags or containers, typically in small urban spaces. | 1 |
| price_volatility_timing | Prices moving, and when to buy or sell because of it. | 226 |
| market_access_offtakers | Finding buyers, and whether an offtaker who promised to buy actually will. | 846 |
| transport_logistics | Moving produce: what it costs, what spoils on the way, and who carries it. | 130 |
| storage_post_harvest | Keeping produce after harvest without losing it. | 63 |
| capital_credit_grants | Money to start or expand -- loans, grants and government schemes. | 164 |
| profitability_claims | Claims about what a venture earns, and the argument over whether they are real. | 123 |
| fraud_scam | Deception as a subject: how it is done and how to avoid it. | 181 |
| farm_management_outsourcing | Paying someone else to run a farm you own, and whether they can be trusted to. | 115 |
| theft_crop_loss | Produce or livestock stolen. | 54 |
| insecurity_herdsmen | Violence, banditry and herder-farmer conflict as it affects farming. | 187 |
| expertise_verification | Establishing whether someone actually farms. The forum's own distinction between a practising farmer and an 'internet farmer'. | 165 |
| knowledge_transfer | One person teaching another how to do something. The most common theme in the corpus by a wide margin, which makes it a poor discriminator on its own. | 1033 |
| training_extension | Formal training, extension services and agricultural education. | 102 |
| youth_in_agriculture | Young people entering farming, and the argument about whether they should. | 98 |
| diaspora_relocation | Nigerians abroad farming at home, or returning to farm. | 5 |
| policy_government | Government action or inaction: bans, subsidies, import waivers. | 164 |
| group_formation | Forming a group, cooperative or association. In practice, usually a WhatsApp group. | 89 |
| association_pricing | Setting or defending prices collectively through an association. | 2 |
| joint_sourcing | Buying inputs, or sharing transport, storage or labour, together. | 12 |
| contact_directory | Collecting and exchanging contacts so members can find each other. | 53 |
Pain points — what is hurting someone, not merely discussed
| label | definition | pages |
|---|---|---|
| feed_too_expensive | Feed costing more than the poster can sustain. | 135 |
| bird_mortality | Birds dying at a scale that hurts. | 171 |
| input_adulteration | Feed, drugs, agrochemicals or seed that turned out to be fake or diluted. The most frequently reported pain in the corpus. Distinguished from `defrauded` by what went wrong: the goods arrived, but they were not what they claimed to be. | 199 |
| no_buyers | Produce ready, and nobody buying it. | 190 |
| price_crash | The selling price collapsing, often after the poster had already committed to producing. | 124 |
| transport_cost | Moving goods costing more than the margin can carry. | 127 |
| stolen_harvest | Crops or animals taken. | 104 |
| herdsmen_invasion | Livestock or armed herders destroying a farm. | 87 |
| defrauded | Money lost to a person who took it. Distinguished from `input_adulteration` by what went wrong: nothing of value arrived at all. | 252 |
| no_credit | Unable to raise capital on any available terms. | 163 |
| labour_scarcity | Unable to find or keep farm workers. | 64 |
| erratic_rainfall | Rain arriving late, early, or not at all. | 81 |
| storage_loss | Produce spoiling or being eaten before it could be sold. | 31 |
Actor roles — who is speaking
| label | definition | pages |
|---|---|---|
| smallholder | Farms at small scale, often alongside other work. | 5244 |
| commercial_farmer | Farms at scale, as the primary business. | 1160 |
| new_entrant | Starting out, asking the beginner's questions. | 159 |
| input_dealer | Sells feed, drugs, seed, chemicals or equipment. | 613 |
| offtaker_buyer | Buys produce, usually in quantity. | 444 |
| processor | Turns raw produce into something else: milling, oil pressing, packaging. | 1705 |
| transporter | Moves goods. | 40 |
| vet_or_extension | A veterinary or agricultural-extension professional. | 309 |
| trainer_consultant | Sells knowledge: courses, consultancy, mentorship. | 1789 |
| investor | Puts money in without farming, expecting a return. | 1592 |
| landowner | Owns land, typically seeking a farmer or partner for it. | 1049 |
| observer | Present in the discussion without a stake in it. | 528 |