Visualizing "Answer People" In Online Discussions

Marc Smith writes "'Answer people,' the folks who contribute much of the value in the Internet, are a small minority of all online users. According to a recent paper my co-authors and I have published in the Journal of Social Structure, less than 2% of authors in Usenet newsgroups are likely to be the helpful 'answer person' type — authors who reply to many other people with brief replies. The paper Visualizing the Signatures of Social Roles in Online Discussion Groups contains social network visualizations of the ties created when authors reply to one another. These images highlight the difference between these helpful folks and other types of contributors. The findings may apply to other threaded discussions, maybe even here at Slashdot."

Comments

Time & place

[Joebert]

There's a few places where I'm an "answer guy", there's a few places where I'm not.

It really has nothing to do with my personality, it has alot more to do with how the conversation area is setup.