Session 3: answerbag analysis

Missions accomplished:

1. Top-rated question accumulated 41 points.
2. 21 responses to a single question.
3. Technically it’s not a mission, but I achieved level 5 (contributor) and I feel this deserves some recognition.

Strategy:

I utilized two separate online personas in order to test different aspects of various theories. Dolores was a 30-something, semi-maternal and caring new community member. Tina was a 19 year old college student who was very outspoken and opinionated. Dolores was used to test the strength of community norms, as well as to evaluate social support mechanisms. Tina was used to evaluate community participation, narcissism and the effect of immersion into the community.

My analysis of the relationship page revealed a very detailed breakdown of relationship types, as well as high volumes of questions and answers. What I immediately noticed was that there was an emotional component to the types of questions that had the highest point value. This community seemed to be formed around concrete links. Members rallied to support an individual who felt lonely, to offer dating advice, etc. The largest clusters were around controversy, abuse, and the very profound question “Can you describe your father in one word?” (1,600+ answers in just 17 hours!) Having established that emotion / affective response would be a critical component of this forum I focused my questions relationships.

Results:

Dolores (top question / answer returns)
DQ1. Shaking a child is still an acceptable form of discipline, right? (9 responses, -12 points)
DQ2. Do you remember your first kiss? (3 responses, 5 points)
DQ3. Should I propose to my boyfriend on Valentine’s Day? (6 responses, 18 points)
DR1. Response to “Name something orange - be creative” - Construction workers wearing high visibility shirts. (19 points)

Tina (top question / answer returns)
TQ1. Can you describe your relationship with your mother in one word? (21 responses, 41 points)
TQ2. What did you get for Valentine’s Day? (17 responses, 32 points)
TQ3. What’s the worst Valentine’s gift? (Rejected as duplicate, 40 points)
TR1. Response to “How will O.J. Simpson be remembered, as a great football player or a criminal?” - Who’s O.J. Simpson? (11 points)

Analysis:

DQ1: This was an interesting question to pose because it revealed an immediate communal moral standard - there was outcry against this behavior, and a death threat.
DQ2: With this question I was experimenting with the role of emotional connection in motivating a response. Ages ago a friend of mine pointed out that she could still remember her first kiss and that it was a defining moment of her life. For that reason I opted to start with this question. The responses were inconclusive.
DQ3: The majority of the questions that Dolores asked struck dead ends, with either a lack of interest or a lack of input from the community. This question was the exception, possibly because there was more information about Dolores provided in the question (that she had a boyfriend, they had been involved for some time, and that she was nervous about proposing). The responses indicate a level of social support, but not necessarily friendship. The responders offered encouragement, and suggested that breaking a gender role could be acceptable.
DR1: It’s not clear if humor or originality were what prompted this response’s high ranking. In general, posts which were very humorous or very helpful were awarded the highest point values.

In general, the deeper Tina was immersed into the community - that is, the more fleshed out and “real” she was in her questions and answers - the higher her response rates.

TQ1: I remarked earlier on the question about summarizing your father in a single word. I attempted this type of a question by asking if “you can summarize your relationship with your mother in one word?” This question was an appeal to individual narcissism. My theory was that the thing people would most want to talk about was themselves. This question was also used to evaluate community participation. The answers given here reflected a degree of trust in the questioner, a sense of extroversion, and a willingness to self-efface. The answers were a combination of deeply personal and humorous (deflective). That some of the answers were evasive is provocative, because it indicates a sense of reluctance in response, but a sense of obligation to respond. This conclusion immediately produces a couple of different scenarios: that community members felt compelled to answer, even while not wanting to share all of their feelings, or that lurkers were attempting to participate but were unsure of their reception. Further study of this phenomenon is recommended.
TQ2: This was a second appeal to narcissism, but the responses were much more casual and open. This is not surprising because the level of information being asked for is at a much more superficial level than the previous question.
TQ3: “What’s the worst valentine’s day present ever?” was posed as a question to garner humorous responses. This question snagged 40 points before it was rejected for being a duplicate. The responses to this question were humorous, but could also disturbing.
TR1: This response was briefly the top-rated response for humor value, but has since slipped to a lower ranking because it was less insightful than other answers offered.

I was having flashbacks to Ling et al while attempting to motivate responses to my posts and questions, because while I had several theoretical models to utilize I could not get consistency in question responses or answer comments. Commenting on user responses did not increase the total number of responses. Not commenting on the user responses did not seem to affect the total number of responses, or the number of points awarded. Awarding points also did not seem to influence participation one way or the other.

I look forward to reviewing the posts I have made over the next two days and seeing if any further conclusions can be drawn or if the last two objectives can be met for this exercise.