Motivation of Knowledge Sharing in Social Q&A

Sept. 13, 2012Uichin LeeKAIST KSE

Questions in, Knowledge iN?: A Study of Naver's Question Answering

Community

Kevin K. Nam, Mark S. Ackerman, Lada A. Adamic

University of MichiganCHI 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.”

Higher points elicit more answersPoint bounty for best answers

Law Category

Points postedPoints 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 activity levels of a user

Weekly contributions averaged over users who posted > 100 answers and became active more than a year prior to the crawl.

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 HarperBook chapter in New Media and Innovative Technologies, 2008

Q&A: Dimensions• Purpose: Answering ad hoc questions• Place/Channel: The web• Platform: Asynchronous, may require some research• Population: Weak ties• Profit model: Gratitude, status, occasional payment

• Control: No formal control, no formal hierarchy• Place/Channel: The web• Size: Unlimited, scale-free• Access: Unrestricted• Participation: Self-determined

• 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

Porter et al. (2004)

Wasko et al. (2004)

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