27. A computer-implemented method for facilitating the production of an online thesaurus used to generate sentiment data for online content, comprising: generating and storing in a computer memory a plurality of valid sentiment adjective word-senses in a vocabulary data repository by determining whether each adjective from a set of possible adjectives is a valid sentiment based at least upon evaluation of a set of rules that define valid sentiments; and for each generated valid sentiment adjective word-sense, determining a set of related adjectives that meets a plurality of connection rules that limit, for each related adjective in the set, a degree of distance in meaning between the related adjective and the valid sentiment adjective word-sense; and storing, in a thesaurus data structure in a computer memory, the set of related adjectives, along with indications of the plurality of connection rules that have been met, to correspond with the valid sentiment adjective word-sense, such that, responsive to an indication of one of the related adjectives, the valid sentiment adjective word-sense can be retrieved.
29. The method of claim 27 wherein the plurality of connection rules specify that two adjectives can be related if they represent no more than one shift in meaning.