Transcript Introduction to Q&A systems

Motivation of Knowledge Sharing
in Social Q&A
Sept. 13, 2012
Uichin Lee
KAIST KSE
Questions in, Knowledge iN?:
A Study of Naver's Question
Answering Community
Kevin K. Nam, Mark S. Ackerman,
Lada A. Adamic
University of Michigan
CHI 2009
Interactions in Naver KiN
Research Methods
• Naver dataset (via crawling):
– Expertise score
– Reward vs. answers
– Patterns of participation (intensity, active periods)
• Focused interviews (26 KiN users):
– Motivation for participation
– Allocation of expertise
Patterns of Participation
• Those who ask don’t answer
• Top answers’(called gurus) z-score
Motivation for Participation
• Altruism and helping others
– “Since I was a doctor, I was browsing the medical directories [in KiN]. I found a
lot of wrong answers and information, and was afraid they would cause
problems. So I thought I’d contribute in fixing it hoping that it’d be good for
the society. [Sangmin]”
– I try to answer so that regular people can share knowledge, rather than
technical knowledge. ...Someone needs it, and I have the ability to do it, and
it’ll be a service to society. [Mirae]
• Business motives
– “I’ve been working as an insurance agent for 9 years. I started answering in
Knowledge-iN as part of my business activity. In the evening, I answered
questions to solicit potential clients.... So when I’d leave an answer, I’d say I
would meet with you face-to-face to talk about more details and give you
advice. [Taein]”
– Two interviewees stated that they had originally started on Naver to gain
clients, but they found it to be less valuable than they had hoped. Instead,
they stayed as a hobby and for altruistic reasons.
Motivation for Participation
• Learning
– “My first intention [in answering] was to organize and
review my knowledge and practice it by explaining it
to others. [Taein]”
– “Answering questions helps me study. I can learn from
answering [in Translation]. I get to review what I used
to know such as vocabularies and idioms. [Minhyuk]”
• Hobby and personal competence
– “Yes [I answer everyday]. I am addicted (laughs).
[Nami]”
Motivation for Participation
• Points
– “I don’t care about the points. [but] It’s fun to see points
accumulate and my character level up [increase to the next
level]. [Jeyeon]”
– “Usually questions w/ points do not seem frivolous. I feel like
answering questions with points, not because of the points, but
because those questions are more detailed and seek realistic
help.”
Point bounty for best answers
Higher points elicit more answers
Law Category
Points posted
Points posted
Allocation of Expertise
• Knowledge level and quality of Naver KiN:
– Useful for getting information on commonsense knowledge,
current events, basic domain knowledge, advice and
recommendations from people, and diverse opinions
– But looking for Internet cafes for more detailed/expertise
information
• Why?
– Just to cover as many questions as possible (and earning points):
time pressure
– Minimizing their efforts on answering; still others are willing to
answer questions “slightly” beyond their expertise
– Other factors: lack of detailed information in the question, lack
of sense of community
Allocation of Expertise
• Intermittent participation
Weekly contributions averaged over users who posted > 100
answers and became active more than a year prior to the crawl.
Weekly activity levels of a user
 in-active periods due to family
obligation, loss of internet access, etc.
Summary
• Participation patterns:
– Facts vs. discussion, heavy tailed in/out-degree dist.
– Intermittent participation (due to personal reasons)
• Less expertise level of answers (due to lack of
motivation, lack of sense of community, etc.)
• Answers tend to focus on a few categories
• YA: best answers tend to have lengthy answers; KiN:
best answers are generally located at the last answer
position (or second to the last)
• Motivation (KiN): altruism, business, learning, hobby
and personal competence, points, etc.
Motivations for Answering
Questions Online
Daphne R. Raban and F. Maxwell Harper
Book chapter in New Media and
Innovative Technologies, 2008
Q&A: Dimensions
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Purpose: Answering ad hoc questions
Place/Channel: The web
Platform: Asynchronous, may require some research
Population: Weak ties
Profit model: Gratitude, status, occasional payment
Porter et al. (2004)
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Control: No formal control, no formal hierarchy
Place/Channel: The web
Size: Unlimited, scale-free
Access: Unrestricted
Participation: Self-determined
Wasko et al. (2004)
• Diversity: Highly diverse, only language can constitute barrier
• Interface design: Free text, search option usually offered
• Incentive structure: Quality ratings, people ratings, payment, social
gratification
New…
Stability of Power Law Networks
• Strength of Weak Ties (SWT) (Granovetter, 1983)
– Weak ties are known for providing better access to information and
resources beyond those available in one’s close social circle (aka
bridging roles)
• Power law nature of online community activity
– A critical mass of active participants is needed to sustain an online
community (Markus, 1990; Marwell and Oliver, 1993).
– An online community is vulnerable to the desertion of active members
but resistant to departure of infrequent users because much of its
strength derives from weak ties among members (Granovetter, 1983;
Constant et al., 1996).
– It is important to have community leaders and persons playing other
social roles; the success of active community members leads to the
success of the community as a whole (Welser et al., 2007).
Knowledge Sharing Motivations
• Intrinsic motivations
– Information ownership (retention; even after
providing answers)
– Perceived benefits/costs (benefits: respect,
reputation, tangible incentives vs. costs: lack of time,
unfamiliarity, weak trust, etc.)
• Enjoyment and feelings of gratitude and respect
• Commitment to a perceived social role (social cognition)
– Individual attitudes (+job/organizational attitudes; say
stackoverflow?)
Knowledge sharing: A review and directions for future research, Sheng Wang, Raymond A. Noe, Human Resource Management Review 2010
Knowledge Sharing Motivations
• Extrinsic Motivations
– Reputation (points, leader boards, ranking)
– Norms (e.g., best answers, interest votes, flagging
answers as inappropriate)
– Monetary rewards
– Social capital (e.g., conversations between users,
ratings/answer quality, tips; leading to sustainable
social networks)
– Cultural capital (skills and familiarity with cultural
codes; e.g., netiquette, special expressions, etc)
Knowledge Sharing Motivations
• Free riding: a small fraction of people is active,
and the large majority is mostly inactive
• Are free riders beneficial?
– Better than negative contributions
– Bring information diversity (questions); enriching
QA databases
– Free riders learn over time (free riders as lucker);
they may be turned to contributors some time
later (improving social capital)
Summary
• Power law nature of online community
activity
• Knowledge sharing motivations
– Intrinsic motivations: perceived ownership,
benefits/costs, attitudes, etc.
– Extrinsic motivations: reputation, social norms,
monetary rewards, social/cultural capitals, etc.
• Lurking and de-lurking