Authors:
Abdullah Al Jobair
;
Suzad Mohammad
;
Zahin Raidah Maisha
;
Md. Nazmul Mostafa
and
Md. Jubair Ibna Haque
Affiliation:
Department of Computer Science & Engineering, Islamic University of Technology, Boardbazar, Gazipur, Bangladesh
Keyword(s):
Neophyte, Stack Overflow (SO), New User, Hostile Environment.
Abstract:
Stack Overflow (SO) is the most popular question and answers (Q&A) platform for programmers with a rapidly expanding community of new users. However, the unwelcoming environment towards new users has been under discussion for several years, which is a major concern towards the enhancement of a skillful community. In this work, we study a specific group of users who are either registered in the last 45 days or have a reputation less than or equal to 50 and term them as “neophytes”. We investigate whether neophytes actually face hurdles while collaborating in Stack Overflow and, if so, identify the reasons behind this phenomenon by qualitative and quantitative analysis. Our study finds that neophytes are indeed facing hurdles while collaborating in the platform. The reasons behind the hurdles include harsh moderation of posts, negligence of the posts, deleting or closing of posts, downvoting without providing any proper reasoning, etc. Our findings can provide guidelines to create a mo
re user-friendly Stack Overflow community. Furthermore, this study can guide researchers to observe the reactions of neophytes in adverse situations and recommend some steps for the community to make positive changes to the Stack Overflow environment.
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