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.

1. Understanding
Alexander Serebrenik
Bogdan Vasilescu

3. • 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.

4. StackOverflow and GitHub: Associations between software development and crowdsourced knowledge,
Vasilescu, B., Filkov, V. and Serebrenik, A., In Social Computing, 2013, IEEE.

5. • 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

6. 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

7. Faster answers
&
Catalyzes other activities
(mails, commits) ?

8. 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

9. sample
No significant differences
in #questions, #answers,
length of engagement
Disengagement of
women is SO specific!

10. Faster answers
&
Catalyzes other activities
(mails, commits)
Women disengage
faster

11. Faster answers
&
Catalyzes other activities
(mails, commits)
Women disengage
faster

12. STOP!
How did we know who are the women
and who are the men on Stack
Overflow?

13. More
details?
Ask me!

14. Understanding

16. Extra slides

17. What is your gender?
/ SET / W&I PAGE 17 30-6-2014

18. What is your gender?
/ SET / W&I PAGE 18 30-6-2014

19. What is your gender?
/ SET / W&I PAGE 19 30-6-2014

20. What is your gender?
/ SET / W&I PAGE 20 30-6-2014
Name +
Location =
Gender

21. / SET / W&I PAGE 21 30-6-2014
Lonzo ⇒ Alonzo
w35l3y ⇒ wesley
Name +
Location =
Gender

22. / SET / W&I PAGE 22 30-6-2014
<title>Ben Kamens</title>
…
<h1>We&#8217;re willing to
be embarrassed about what
we
<em>haven&#8217;t</em>
done&#8230;</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

23. Quality of gender resolution: Survey
/ SET / W&I PAGE 23 30-6-2014
Self-
identification
As inferred Total
M F ?
M 60 3 43 106
F 2 5 4 11
Self-
identification
As inferred Total
M F ?
M 90 3 13 106
F 2 9 0 11
+ avatars, other
social media
sites (manually)