Intimate partner violence online: Expectations and agency in question and answer websites

Women in Need-The Nature of Social Support in an Online Community

Some women, especially victims of violence, seek support in online groups. The objective of this research was to investigate the nature of the social support women receive in such online communities. For this purpose, all the posts from a large online support community group for women in Slovenia, Women in Need, from 2002 to the end of 2020 were retrieved and analyzed manually as well as by using a text-mining approach. The results show that women in the investigated community mostly seek informational support, spend little time actively contributing to online discussions, and rarely become engaged members of supportive groups within the focal online space. Some recommendations on how to improve the functionality of online social support sites are provided.

Measuring the effectiveness of answers in Yahoo! Answers

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to investigate the ways in which effectiveness of answers in Yahoo! Answers, one of the largest community question answering sites (CQAs), is related to question types and answerer reputation. Effective answers are defined as those that are detailed, readable, superior in quality and contributed promptly. Five question types that were studied include factoid, list, definition, complex interactive and opinion. Answerer reputation refers to the past track record of answerers in the community.

Design/methodology/approach

– The data set comprises 1,459 answers posted in Yahoo! Answers in response to 464 questions that were distributed across the five question types. The analysis was done using factorial analysis of variance.

Findings

– The results indicate that factoid, definition and opinion questions are comparable in attracting high quality as well as readable answers. Although reputed answerers generally fared better in offering detailed and high-quality answers, novices were found to submit more readable responses. Moreover, novices were more prompt in answering factoid, list and definition questions.

Originality/value

– By analysing variations in answer effectiveness with a twin focus on question types and answerer reputation, this study explores a strand of CQA research that has hitherto received limited attention. The findings offer insights to users and designers of CQAs.