TY - GEN
T1 - An Empirical Study on Neophytes of Stack Overflow
T2 - 17th International Conference on Evaluation of Novel Approaches to Software Engineering, ENASE 2022
AU - Al Jobair, Abdullah
AU - Mohammad, Suzad
AU - Maisha, Zahin Raidah
AU - Mostafa, Md Jubair Ibna
AU - Haque, Md Nazmul
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2022 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved.
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - Stack Overflow (SO) is the most popular question and answers (Q&A) platform for programmers with a rapidly expanding community of new users. However, the unwelcoming environment towards new users has been under discussion for several years, which is a major concern towards the enhancement of a skillful community. In this work, we study a specific group of users who are either registered in the last 45 days or have a reputation less than or equal to 50 and term them as “neophytes”. We investigate whether neophytes actually face hurdles while collaborating in Stack Overflow and, if so, identify the reasons behind this phenomenon by qualitative and quantitative analysis. Our study finds that neophytes are indeed facing hurdles while collaborating in the platform. The reasons behind the hurdles include harsh moderation of posts, negligence of the posts, deleting or closing of posts, downvoting without providing any proper reasoning, etc. Our findings can provide guidelines to create a more user-friendly Stack Overflow community. Furthermore, this study can guide researchers to observe the reactions of neophytes in adverse situations and recommend some steps for the community to make positive changes to the Stack Overflow environment.
AB - Stack Overflow (SO) is the most popular question and answers (Q&A) platform for programmers with a rapidly expanding community of new users. However, the unwelcoming environment towards new users has been under discussion for several years, which is a major concern towards the enhancement of a skillful community. In this work, we study a specific group of users who are either registered in the last 45 days or have a reputation less than or equal to 50 and term them as “neophytes”. We investigate whether neophytes actually face hurdles while collaborating in Stack Overflow and, if so, identify the reasons behind this phenomenon by qualitative and quantitative analysis. Our study finds that neophytes are indeed facing hurdles while collaborating in the platform. The reasons behind the hurdles include harsh moderation of posts, negligence of the posts, deleting or closing of posts, downvoting without providing any proper reasoning, etc. Our findings can provide guidelines to create a more user-friendly Stack Overflow community. Furthermore, this study can guide researchers to observe the reactions of neophytes in adverse situations and recommend some steps for the community to make positive changes to the Stack Overflow environment.
KW - Hostile Environment
KW - Neophyte
KW - New User
KW - Stack Overflow (SO)
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85140987331
U2 - 10.5220/0011081100003176
DO - 10.5220/0011081100003176
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85140987331
T3 - International Conference on Evaluation of Novel Approaches to Software Engineering, ENASE - Proceedings
SP - 197
EP - 208
BT - Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Evaluation of Novel Approaches to Software Engineering, ENASE 2022
A2 - Kaindl, Hermann
A2 - Mannion, Mike
A2 - Maciaszek, Leszek
A2 - Maciaszek, Leszek
PB - Science and Technology Publications, Lda
Y2 - 25 April 2022 through 26 April 2022
ER -