Asking for Help in Community Question-Answering : The Goal-Framing Effect of Question Expression on Response Networks

Community question-answering (CQA) enables both information retrieval and social interactions. CQA questions are viewed as goal-expressions from the askers’ perspectives. Most prior studies mainly focused on the goals expressed in the questions, but not on how responders’ expectations and responses are influenced by the goal-expressions. To fill the gap, this research proposes the use of framing theory to understand how different expressions of goals influence responses. Cues of questions were used to identify goal-frames in CQA questions. Social network analysis was used to construct response networks whose nodes represent postings and connections represent responses. Our results reveal that goal-frames with high complexity, high specificity, and rewards tend to increase the centrality of questions. In contrast, low complexity and low specificity tend to generate extensive conversations. Implications for both researchers and practitioners are discussed in the final section. CCS CONCEPTS • Information systems → Information retrieval; Retrieval tasks and goals; Question answering. • Networks → Network types; Overlay and other logical network structures; Online social networks.