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Participation in an online mathematics community: differentiating motivations to add

Authors:

Yla R. Tausczik,

James W. PennebakerAuthors Info & Claims

CSCW '12: Proceedings of the ACM 2012 conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work

Pages 207 - 216

https://doi.org/10.1145/2145204.2145237

Published: 11 February 2012 Publication History

Abstract

Why do people contribute content to communities of question-answering, such as Yahoo! Answers? We investigated this issue on MathOverflow, a site dedicated to research-level mathematics, in which users ask and answer questions. MathOverflow is the first in a growing number of specialized Q&A sites using the Stack Exchange platform for scientific collaboration. In this study we combine responses to a survey with collected data on posting behavior on the site. User behavior suggests that building reputation is an important incentive, even though users do not report this in the survey. Level of expertise affects users' reported motivation to help others, but does not affect the importance of reputation building. We discuss the implications for the design of communities to target and encourage more contributions.

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Cited By

Charkhsaz FIsaai MDayani M(2024)How to Analyze and Enhance Participation in Electronic Networks of PracticeFoundations of Management10.2478/fman-2024-000716:1(103-126)Online publication date: 2-Aug-2024
https://doi.org/10.2478/fman-2024-0007
Yang YMao XWu M(2024)Unveiling the Dynamics of Extrinsic Motivations in Shaping Future Experts’ Contributions to Developer Q&A CommunitiesIET Software10.1049/2024/83548622024(1-15)Online publication date: 8-Feb-2024
https://doi.org/10.1049/2024/8354862
Perin MMelo Lde Souza Cde Almeida AFigueira Filho F(2024)Developing and validating a scale for motivation in participating in time-bounded collaborative eventsInternational Journal of Human-Computer Studies10.1016/j.ijhcs.2024.103223185:COnline publication date: 1-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2024.103223
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Index Terms

Participation in an online mathematics community: differentiating motivations to add
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Collaborative and social computing

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Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

CSCW '12: Proceedings of the ACM 2012 conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work

February 2012

1460 pages

ISBN:9781450310864

DOI:10.1145/2145204

General Chairs:
Steven Poltrock
Boeing Research & Technology
,
Carla Simone
University of Milano-Biccoca
,
Program Chairs:
Jonathan Grudin
Microsoft Research
,
Gloria Mark
University of California, Irvine
,
John Riedl
University of Minnesota

Copyright © 2012 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Published: 11 February 2012

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CSCW '12

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CSCW '12: Computer Supported Cooperative Work

February 11 - 15, 2012

Washington, Seattle, USA

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CSCW '12 Paper Acceptance Rate 164 of 415 submissions, 40%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 2,235 of 8,521 submissions, 26%

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CSCW '25

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Cited By

Charkhsaz FIsaai MDayani M(2024)How to Analyze and Enhance Participation in Electronic Networks of PracticeFoundations of Management10.2478/fman-2024-000716:1(103-126)Online publication date: 2-Aug-2024
https://doi.org/10.2478/fman-2024-0007
Yang YMao XWu M(2024)Unveiling the Dynamics of Extrinsic Motivations in Shaping Future Experts’ Contributions to Developer Q&A CommunitiesIET Software10.1049/2024/83548622024(1-15)Online publication date: 8-Feb-2024
https://doi.org/10.1049/2024/8354862
Perin MMelo Lde Souza Cde Almeida AFigueira Filho F(2024)Developing and validating a scale for motivation in participating in time-bounded collaborative eventsInternational Journal of Human-Computer Studies10.1016/j.ijhcs.2024.103223185:COnline publication date: 1-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2024.103223
Vargo ATag BBlakely CKise K(2023)Poverty Traps in Online Knowledge-Based Peer-Production CommunitiesInformatics10.3390/informatics1003006110:3(61)Online publication date: 13-Jul-2023
https://doi.org/10.3390/informatics10030061
Yang YMao X(2023)Understanding Developers' Contribution Motivation in Stack Overflow: A Systematic Review2023 30th Asia-Pacific Software Engineering Conference (APSEC)10.1109/APSEC60848.2023.00046(359-368)Online publication date: 4-Dec-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/APSEC60848.2023.00046
Kim CWang H(2022)From Receivers to Givers: Understanding Practice of Reciprocity in an Online Support CommunityProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/35129386:CSCW1(1-17)Online publication date: 7-Apr-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3512938
Chhabra AIyengar SSaini JMalik V(2021)Analysis and Modeling of Activity-Selection Behavior in Collaborative Knowledge-BuildingTransactions on Computational Collective Intelligence XXXVI10.1007/978-3-662-64563-5_7(116-160)Online publication date: 5-Dec-2021
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Wang GYu L(2020)Analysis of Enterprise Sustainable Crowdsourcing Incentive Mechanism Based on Principal-Agent ModelSustainability10.3390/su1208323812:8(3238)Online publication date: 16-Apr-2020
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Chhabra AIyengar SSaini JMalik V(2020)Activity-selection Behavior and Optimal User-distribution in Q&A WebsitesComputational Collective Intelligence10.1007/978-3-030-63007-2_67(853-865)Online publication date: 30-Nov-2020
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Wang TMentzakis EBrede MIanni A(2019)Estimating Determinants of Attrition in Eating Disorder Communities on Twitter: An Instrumental Variables ApproachJournal of Medical Internet Research10.2196/1094221:5(e10942)Online publication date: 3-May-2019
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