understanding stack overflow
DESCRIPTION
In this talk we briefly discuss some of our recent studies of Stack Overflow, a popular Q&A site targeting software developers. As opposed to studies of software artefacts discussed at Stack Overflow (e.g., APIs or programming examples), we focus on studying individuals active on Stack Overflow---who are they, what motivates them, and what affects their participation in Stack Overflow discussions. Our findings indicate that Stack Overflow is no different from other communities of software developers in terms of gender representation but is significantly different from them in terms of gender engagement: controlling for engagement duration women and men ask and answer comparable number of questions, but women disengage faster. We conjecture that faster disengagement of women is the less pretty consequence of gamification mechanisms embedded in Stack Overflow, the same gamification mechanisms that provide developers with faster answers than ever before, attract numerous contributors and ultimately catalyse software development. As an additional contribution we present genderComputer, a tool inferring gender of an individual based on her/his name and location. The talk is based on the following papers: * Gender, representation and online participation: A quantitative study, Vasilescu, B., Capiluppi, A. and Serebrenik, A., Interacting with Computers. 2013, Oxford University Press. * How social Q&A sites are changing knowledge sharing in open source software communities, Vasilescu, B., Serebrenik, A., Devanbu, P. T. and Filkov, V., In CSCW, 2014, ACM. * StackOverflow and GitHub: Associations between software development and crowdsourced knowledge, Vasilescu, B., Filkov, V. and Serebrenik, A., In Social Computing, 2013, IEEE.TRANSCRIPT
Understanding
Alexander SerebrenikBogdan Vasilescu
• More active committers ask more on SO• More active askers commit more on GitHub
StackOverflow and GitHub: Associations between software development and crowdsourced knowledge, Vasilescu, B., Filkov, V. and Serebrenik, A., In Social Computing, 2013, IEEE.
StackOverflow and GitHub: Associations between software development and crowdsourced knowledge, Vasilescu, B., Filkov, V. and Serebrenik, A., In Social Computing, 2013, IEEE.
• Contributors to both communities (more likely developers than non-developers) are more active than those who focus on just one.
How Social Q&A sites are changing knowledge sharing in open source software communities, Vasilescu, B., Serebrenik, A., Devanbu, P.T. and Filkov, V., In CSCW 2014, ACM.
help
How Social Q&A sites are changing knowledge sharing in open source software communities, Vasilescu, B., Serebrenik, A., Devanbu, P.T. and Filkov, V., In CSCW 2014, ACM.
help
Faster answers&
Catalyzes other activities (mails, commits) ?
sample
Engage for longer
Ask more questions
No diff in #answers
Women can contribute to SO
but choose not to!
Gender, representation and online participation: A quantitative study, Vasilescu, B., Capiluppi, A., and Serebrenik, A., Interacting with Computers, 2013, Oxford University Press
sample
No significant differences in #questions, #answers, length of engagement
Disengagement of women is SO specific!
Faster answers&
Catalyzes other activities (mails, commits)
Women disengage faster
Faster answers&
Catalyzes other activities (mails, commits)
Women disengage faster
GAMIFICATION
STOP!How did we know who are the women
and who are the men on Stack Overflow?
More details?
Ask me!
Understanding
Extra slides
04/12/2023 / SET / W&I
What is your gender?
PAGE 17
04/12/2023 / SET / W&I
What is your gender?
PAGE 18
?
04/12/2023 / SET / W&I
What is your gender?
PAGE 19
04/12/2023 / SET / W&I
What is your gender?
PAGE 20
Name + Location = Gender
04/12/2023 / SET / W&I PAGE 21
Lonzo Alonzo ⇒
w35l3y wesley ⇒
Name + Location = Gender
04/12/2023 / SET / W&I PAGE 22
<title>Ben Kamens</title>…<h1>We’re willing to be embarrassed about what we <em>haven’t</em> done…</h1>
Heuristics: title + first h1
Ben Kamens We’re willing to be embarrassed about what we haven’t done…
<PERSON>Ben Kamens</PERSON> We’re willing to be embarrassed about what we haven’t done…
Stanford Named Entity Tagger
04/12/2023 / SET / W&I
Quality of gender resolution: Survey
PAGE 23
Self-identification
As inferred TotalM F ?
M 60 3 43 106F 2 5 4 11
Self-identification
As inferred TotalM F ?
M 90 3 13 106F 2 9 0 11
+ avatars, other social media sites (manually)