title: Neo4j super node issue - fanning out pattern
body: <p>I'm new to the Graph Database scene, looking into Neo4j and learning Cypher, we're trying to model a graph database, it's a fairly simple one, we got <em>users</em>, and we got <em>movies</em>, <em>users</em> can <strong>VIEW</strong> <em>movies</em>, <strong>RATE</strong> <em>movies</em>, create <em>playlists</em> and <em>playlists</em> can <strong>HAVE</strong> <em>movies</em>.</p>
  
  <p>The question is regarding the Super Node performance issue. And I will quote something from a very good book I am currently reading - <em>Learning Neo4j by Rik Van Bruggen</em>, so here it is:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>A very interesting problem then occurs in datasets where some parts of the graph
    are all connected to the same node. This node, also referred to as a dense node or a
    supernode, becomes a real problem for graph traversals because the graph database
    management system will have to evaluate all of the connected relationships to
    that node in order to determine what the next step will be in the graph traversal. </p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>The solution to this problem proposed in the book is to have a Meta node with 100 connections to it, and the 101th connection to be linked to a new Meta node that is linked to the previous Meta Node.</p>
  
  <h2><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/DMQGs.png" alt="DENSE_LIKES fanning out"></h2>
  
  <p>I have seen a blog post from the official Neo4j Blog saying that they will fix this problem in the upcoming future (the blog post is from January 2013) - <a href="http://neo4j.com/blog/2013-whats-coming-next-in-neo4j/" rel="noreferrer">http://neo4j.com/blog/2013-whats-coming-next-in-neo4j/</a></p>
  
  <p>More exactly they say:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>Another project we have planned around “bigger data” is to add some specific optimizations to handle traversals across densely-connected nodes, having very large numbers (millions) of relationships. (This problem is sometimes referred to as the “supernodes” problem.)</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>What are your opinions on this issue? Should we go with the Meta node fanning-out pattern or go with the basic relationship that every tutorial seem to be using? Any other suggestions?</p>