{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/97251"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/97251","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"Delving into the successes and failures of stack exchange communities","abstract":"In this day and age, the Internet has become an integral part of our lives. Question and answer (Q&A) networks like Stack Exchange have grown to become major sources of knowledge on the Internet. On the Internet, users devote time into looking for answers to questions they have. Sometimes, these users are able to find these answers and other times they do not, thus wasting their time. If these Q&A networks become more successful, there would be higher chances for these users to find answers to their questions since there will be more information on the Internet. The aim of this study is to understand what factor(s) cause a network to be a success or a failure, therefore, improving the network. In this study, we have analyzed data from such Q&A networks, Stack Exchanges. Through data analysis, we have found a factor that causes most of these networks to become successful. Applying the insights that we obtained, we built a model to group the Stack Exchange groups to successful and unsuccessful networks. Our model has achieved over 71% accuracy in predicting Stack Exchange groups’ success that are at least a year old. These results provide insights on how useful these factors are in determining the success of a Q&A network. The implications of these results will allow us to help these networks to become successful, which will increase the quality of the Internet.","abstract_html":"In this day and age, the Internet has become an integral part of our lives. Question and answer (Q&A) networks like Stack Exchange have grown to become major sources of knowledge on the Internet. On the Internet, users devote time into looking for answers to questions they have. Sometimes, these users are able to find these answers and other times they do not, thus wasting their time. If these Q&A networks become more successful, there would be higher chances for these users to find answers to their questions since there will be more information on the Internet. The aim of this study is to understand what factor(s) cause a network to be a success or a failure, therefore, improving the network. In this study, we have analyzed data from such Q&A networks, Stack Exchanges. Through data analysis, we have found a factor that causes most of these networks to become successful. Applying the insights that we obtained, we built a model to group the Stack Exchange groups to successful and unsuccessful networks. Our model has achieved over 71% accuracy in predicting Stack Exchange groups’ success that are at least a year old. These results provide insights on how useful these factors are in determining the success of a Q&A network. The implications of these results will allow us to help these networks to become successful, which will increase the quality of the Internet.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Agrawal, Ashish"],"institution":"University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"M.S.","degree_level":"Thesis","degree_discipline":"Computer Science","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Sundaram, Hari"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2017,"date_issued":"2017-08-10T19:14:24Z","date_published":"2017-08-10T19:14:24Z","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:24:32Z","subjects":["Stack exchange","Question and answer (Q&A) network","Growth"],"languages":["en"],"rights":["Copyright 2017 Ashish Agrawal"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/2142/97251","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Sundaram, Hari"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Agrawal, Ashish"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2017-08-10T19:14:24Z","2017-01-18","2017-05"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["text"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Computer Science"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Thesis"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["M.S."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Stack exchange","Question and answer (Q&A) network","Growth"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["en"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Copyright 2017 Ashish Agrawal"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["http://hdl.handle.net/2142/97251"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["In this day and age, the Internet has become an integral part of our lives. Question and answer (Q&A) networks like Stack Exchange have grown to become major sources of knowledge on the Internet. On the Internet, users devote time into looking for answers to questions they have. Sometimes, these users are able to find these answers and other times they do not, thus wasting their time. If these Q&A networks become more successful, there would be higher chances for these users to find answers to their questions since there will be more information on the Internet. The aim of this study is to understand what factor(s) cause a network to be a success or a failure, therefore, improving the network. In this study, we have analyzed data from such Q&A networks, Stack Exchanges. Through data analysis, we have found a factor that causes most of these networks to become successful. Applying the insights that we obtained, we built a model to group the Stack Exchange groups to successful and unsuccessful networks. Our model has achieved over 71% accuracy in predicting Stack Exchange groups’ success that are at least a year old. These results provide insights on how useful these factors are in determining the success of a Q&A network. The implications of these results will allow us to help these networks to become successful, which will increase the quality of the Internet.","Submission original under an indefinite embargo labeled 'Open Access'. The submission was exported from vireo on 2017-08-10 without embargo terms","The student, Ashish Agrawal, accepted the attached license on 2017-01-18 at 10:27.","The student, Ashish Agrawal, submitted this Thesis for approval on 2017-01-18 at 10:37.","This Thesis was approved for publication on 2017-01-18 at 11:33.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #10540 on 2017-08-10 at 13:37:23","Made available in DSpace on 2017-08-10T19:14:24Z (GMT). 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Sometimes, these users are able to find these answers and other times they do not, thus wasting their time. If these Q&A networks become more successful, there would be higher chances for these users to find answers to their questions since there will be more information on the Internet. The aim of this study is to understand what factor(s) cause a network to be a success or a failure, therefore, improving the network. In this study, we have analyzed data from such Q&A networks, Stack Exchanges. Through data analysis, we have found a factor that causes most of these networks to become successful. Applying the insights that we obtained, we built a model to group the Stack Exchange groups to successful and unsuccessful networks. Our model has achieved over 71% accuracy in predicting Stack Exchange groups’ success that are at least a year old. These results provide insights on how useful these factors are in determining the success of a Q&A network. The implications of these results will allow us to help these networks to become successful, which will increase the quality of the Internet.","Submission original under an indefinite embargo labeled 'Open Access'. The submission was exported from vireo on 2017-08-10 without embargo terms","The student, Ashish Agrawal, accepted the attached license on 2017-01-18 at 10:27.","The student, Ashish Agrawal, submitted this Thesis for approval on 2017-01-18 at 10:37.","This Thesis was approved for publication on 2017-01-18 at 11:33.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #10540 on 2017-08-10 at 13:37:23","Made available in DSpace on 2017-08-10T19:14:24Z (GMT). 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