Answers or no answers : studying question answerability in stack overflow

Some questions posted in community question answering sites (CQAs) fail to attract a single answer. To address the growing volumes of unanswered questions in CQAs, the objective of this paper is two-fold. First, it aims to develop a conceptual framework known as the Quest-for-Answer to explain why s...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Chua, Alton Yeow Kuan, Banerjee, Snehasish
Other Authors: Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: 2020
Subjects:
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/144779
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Institution: Nanyang Technological University
Language: English
id sg-ntu-dr.10356-144779
record_format dspace
spelling sg-ntu-dr.10356-1447792023-03-05T15:58:00Z Answers or no answers : studying question answerability in stack overflow Chua, Alton Yeow Kuan Banerjee, Snehasish Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information Social sciences::Communication Answerability Community Question Answering Some questions posted in community question answering sites (CQAs) fail to attract a single answer. To address the growing volumes of unanswered questions in CQAs, the objective of this paper is two-fold. First, it aims to develop a conceptual framework known as the Quest-for-Answer to explain why some questions in CQAs draw answers while others remain ignored. The framework suggests that the answerability of questions depends on both metadata and content. Second, the paper attempts to empirically validate the Quest-for-Answer framework through a case study of Stack Overflow. A total of 3000 questions divided equally between those answered and unanswered were used for analysis. The Quest-for-Answer framework yielded generally promising results. With respect to metadata, asker’s popularity, participation and asking time of questions were found to be significant in predicting if answers would be forthcoming. With respect to content, level of details, specificity, clarity and the socio-emotional value of questions were significant in enhancing or impeding responses. Accepted version 2020-11-24T05:02:55Z 2020-11-24T05:02:55Z 2015 Journal Article Chua, A. Y. K., & Banerjee, S. (2015). Answers or no answers : studying question answerability in stack overflow. Journal of Information Science, 41(5), 720-731. doi:10.1177/0165551515590096 0165-5515 https://hdl.handle.net/10356/144779 10.1177/0165551515590096 5 41 720 731 en Journal of Information Science © 2015 The Author(s). All rights reserved. This paper was published in Journal of Information Science and is made available with permission of The Author(s). application/pdf
institution Nanyang Technological University
building NTU Library
continent Asia
country Singapore
Singapore
content_provider NTU Library
collection DR-NTU
language English
topic Social sciences::Communication
Answerability
Community Question Answering
spellingShingle Social sciences::Communication
Answerability
Community Question Answering
Chua, Alton Yeow Kuan
Banerjee, Snehasish
Answers or no answers : studying question answerability in stack overflow
description Some questions posted in community question answering sites (CQAs) fail to attract a single answer. To address the growing volumes of unanswered questions in CQAs, the objective of this paper is two-fold. First, it aims to develop a conceptual framework known as the Quest-for-Answer to explain why some questions in CQAs draw answers while others remain ignored. The framework suggests that the answerability of questions depends on both metadata and content. Second, the paper attempts to empirically validate the Quest-for-Answer framework through a case study of Stack Overflow. A total of 3000 questions divided equally between those answered and unanswered were used for analysis. The Quest-for-Answer framework yielded generally promising results. With respect to metadata, asker’s popularity, participation and asking time of questions were found to be significant in predicting if answers would be forthcoming. With respect to content, level of details, specificity, clarity and the socio-emotional value of questions were significant in enhancing or impeding responses.
author2 Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information
author_facet Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information
Chua, Alton Yeow Kuan
Banerjee, Snehasish
format Article
author Chua, Alton Yeow Kuan
Banerjee, Snehasish
author_sort Chua, Alton Yeow Kuan
title Answers or no answers : studying question answerability in stack overflow
title_short Answers or no answers : studying question answerability in stack overflow
title_full Answers or no answers : studying question answerability in stack overflow
title_fullStr Answers or no answers : studying question answerability in stack overflow
title_full_unstemmed Answers or no answers : studying question answerability in stack overflow
title_sort answers or no answers : studying question answerability in stack overflow
publishDate 2020
url https://hdl.handle.net/10356/144779
_version_ 1759854847959498752