Does Online Q&A Activity Vary Based on Topic: A Comparison of Technical and Non-technical Stack Exchange Forums

Abstract

With the increasing demand on knowledge sharing and problem solving, there is a growing participation on online Question & Answer (Q&A) forums in the recent past. We classify the online community participation on Stack Exchange into two different genres, one is technical and another is non-technical. Though several studies have measured community activity, studies that compare activity across forums within different topic areas are limited. In this work we examine the effect of incentives on contributions by exploring the differences between technical and non-technical communities in terms of user's participation. Given the increased attention on discussion forums as part of online learning, especially MOOCs, we believe that our findings can assist with providing better support for learners across different content areas.