Slides from CHI 2018 paper presentation describing the pilot Stack Overflow just-in-time mentorship program.
Abstract:
Online question-and-answer (Q&A) communities like Stack
Overflow have norms that are not obvious to novice users.
Novices create and post programming questions without feedback, and the community enforces site norms through public
downvoting and commenting. This can leave novices discouraged
from further participation. We deployed a month long, just-in-time mentorship program to Stack Overflow in which we redirected novices in the process of asking a question to an on-site Help Room. There, novices received feedback on their question drafts from experienced Stack Overflow mentors. We present examples and discussion of various question improvements including: question context, code formatting, and wording that adheres to on-site cultural norms. We find that mentored questions are substantially improved over non-mentored questions, with average scores increasing by 50%. We provide design implications that challenge how socio-technical communities onboard novices across domains.
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“We Don’t Do That Here”: How Collaborative Editing with Mentors Improves Engagement in Social Q&A Communities
1. “We Don’t Do That Here”:
How Collaborative Editing with Mentors Improves
Engagement in Social Q&A Communities
Denae Ford
North Carolina State University
Kristina Lustig
Stack Exchange, Inc.
Jeremy Banks
Stack Exchange, Inc.
Chris Parnin
North Carolina State University
@DenaeFord
11. Design Principles
Provide formative and timely feedback
Allow mistakes in private space
Do not answer questions, help others ask better questions
11
[Epstein et al., 2002]
[Baron 1993]
[Wenger, 1998]
[Kraut et al., 2012]
[Kraut et al., 2012][Fedor et al., 1993]
[Ford et al., 2016]
[Kraut et al., 2012]
13. Study Design Goals
To observe and measure changes in question quality
To understand feedback provided by mentors
To improve experience for new question askers
To learn how to scale these benefits to the whole community
13
21. Novice receives
feedback on
question
Novice writes
question
Novice selects to
post their
question
Novice
selects to join
Help Room
Petter
Friber
2 days later…
Mason
3 hours later…
Jerem
y
The last message was posted 5 days ago.
};
edit copy draft back to Stack Overflow
Hey @KristinaLustig, thanks for coming. :) This is the Stack Overflow chat
room we're using to help people improve their questions. This message is
automated but everything else is real! Before we start: do you have any
particular concerns, or are you just doublechecking before you post?
Welcome @KristinaLustig I'm here to help you with the question, are you
in chat?
edited post draft.
room mode changed to Private: only approved users may enter
this room (this should only be used for moderation purposes)
Wed 15:19
chat they will b
leave
send
help | f
22. Novice receives
feedback on
question
Novice writes
question
Novice edits
question draft
Novice selects to
post their
question
Novice
selects to join
Help Room
Novice posts
question
26. Mentored questions have higher quality.
MENTORED QUESTIONS HAD A
50% SCORE INCREASE
26
GOOD NEUTRAL BAD
mentored 25% 49% 25%
not
mentored
(control)
18% 51% 30%
6 -30
p <0.05 p <0.05
27. Mentors suggest high-fidelity improvements.
Paraphrasing title and content (Question Phrasing)
Formatting code to make question scannable
Community triage
Including all the pieces of a question (Question Framing)
Community culture of asking
27
28. Mentors suggest high-fidelity improvements.
Paraphrasing title and content (Question Phrasing)
Formatting code to make question scannable
Community triage
Including all the pieces of a question (Question Framing)
Community culture of asking
28
30. Community Triage
30
“ok the fact is that on SO you can’t ask for libs you would need to do that on
another site [link] (with some [rules] that we can check if you like), instead if you
like some code it would be really great if you tried something, do you have some
code, do you have some post that you already checked?” (A30 -Mentor)
32. Community Triage
32
“Your question is off topic here....We’re not a hacking service.” (C72 -Mentor)
"ok the fact is that on SO you can’t ask for libs you would need to do that on
another site [link] (with some [rules] that we can check if you like), instead if you
like some code it would be really great if you tried something, do you have some
code, do you have some post that you already checked?” (A30 -Mentor)
34. Community Culture of Asking
34
“You can probably remove ‘Hello’ and ‘Problem’ from the top of the question.
While it’s good to be social, it’s kind of just fluff on a Q&A site.” (D1 -Mentor)
35. Community Culture of Asking
35
“You can probably remove ‘Hello’ and ‘Problem’ from the top of the question.
While it’s good to be social, it’s kind of just fluff on a Q&A site.” (D1 -Mentor)
“You also might want to edit out the “Thank you!” at the end. I know it
seems polite, but people object to it on Stack Overflow.” (D5 -Mentor)
“Ok thanks for you help. I hope this time people won’t attack me.” (D62 -Novice)
36. Participants are satisfied with their interactions.
36
Likert Statement Median
I feel that I am a part of the
Stack Overflow community. 4
I feel more comfortable
posting on Stack Overflow. 4
The help that I received from
this program was useful to me. 5
I would recommend this
program to other SO users. 5
I would like to participate in
this program again. 5
NOVICES SATISFIEDWITH
THEIR EXPERIENCE
“If we can get the [original poster]
through the first question with a
positive experience and they can
see how this site really works, then
we should get more good questions
which feeds in to having more good
answers.” (M5 -Mentor)
MENTORS INTERESTEDIN
OFFERING GUIDANCE
38. Having a human mentor surprised novices and made them feel
welcomed
Interpret dialogue for non-native English speaker
Organic conversations to work through questions
Advantages of humans helping humans
38
Source: https://www.businessinsider.com.au/why-the-iraq-war-cost-2-trillion-2013-3
39. Identity-Based Mentoring
39
Novice: Yeah,
actually I am!
I thought I picked up on
your name too!
Mentor: Hey! are you
from Egypt by chance?
Identity-Based Mentoring
[Stack Overflow 2018 Developer Survey]
Egypt
Yossef
40. 40
Implications for community-based mentorship
Asking community members about their interest
Mentor many-to-many, one-to-many, and one-to-one
Integrate mentorship functionality precisely when needed
Source: http://humansofthearsenal.com/post/143654160037/im-taking-part-because-we-want-things-to-change
41. 41
Implications for community-based mentorship
http://community.rstudio.com/
https://www.askquestions.tech/faq
http://pythontutor.com/visualize.html
42. Online Q&A communities are widely used, but unfamiliar norms
can leave novices discouraged from participating.
Just-in-time mentoring provided novices with help to ask a well-
received question, precisely when they needed it.
Identifying novice-mentor interactions can define new onboarding
and feedback experiences in other online communities.
http://bit.ly/StackMentorPodcast
http://bit.ly/StackMentorPaper
dford3@ncsu.edu
Summary
43. http://bit.ly/StackMentorPodcast
http://bit.ly/StackMentorPaper
dford3@ncsu.edu
@DenaeFord @KristinaLustig @JeremyBanks @ChrisParnin
Thank You!
Online Q&A communities are widely used, but unfamiliar norms
can leave novices discouraged from participating.
Just-in-time mentoring provided novices with help to ask a well-
received question, precisely when they needed it.
Identifying novice-mentor interactions can define new onboarding
and feedback experiences in other online communities.