Rewarding, but not for everyone: Interaction acts and perceived post quality on social Q&A sites

Abstract

The study analyzed 1,007 Stack Overflow posts to investigate the relationships among interaction types, user reputation, the position of a post, and perceived post quality. Interaction Process Analysis (IPA), a well-established method for studying small group interaction, was used to code the posts. The Wilcoxon rank-sum tests and multiple regression results show significant main and interaction effects. The study found that performing certain interaction acts (e.g., IPA.d: Problem of Decision, such as agrees/disagrees) can be rewarding in terms of attaining higher perceived post quality. However, not all users can reap this reward. Differential rewards based on user reputation level was observed. The implications of these findings for research and practice were discussed.