{"id":701,"date":"2018-11-12T10:15:04","date_gmt":"2018-11-12T10:15:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/commtech.nyuad.im\/homework\/?p=701"},"modified":"2018-11-12T10:15:40","modified_gmt":"2018-11-12T10:15:40","slug":"stack-exchange","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/commtech.nyuad.im\/homework\/2018\/11\/12\/stack-exchange\/","title":{"rendered":"Stack Exchange – Keith Anto"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It was the first time I was using Stack Exchange, and I honestly found it quite similar to other platforms I have seen\/used in the past including Reddit and Quora. When entering the site, I found the options for the different \u201cstacks\u201d quite limiting. There were less than 150 sites altogether, and this contributed to the limited type of groups users could join. Nevertheless, I found myself joining 6 different communities: 1. Sports, 2. Academia, 3. Bitcoin, 4. Economics, 5. The Workplace, 6. Personal finance & money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I posted my first question on the Sports community. Earlier in the day,\nI was struggling to find some data for my Capstone Project, and I thought maybe\nit might be a good idea to post the question. In less than an hour, one user\nresponded to it, and gave me links to useful resources. And, a couple of hours\nlater, another person replied to my posting. Someone even \u201cupvoted\u201d my\nquestion. I gained a total of 5 reputation points, bringing my total to 6 (you\nget 1 for joining the community). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I also posted questions in another communities, including one in the\nAcademia one, and another in the Personal finance & money one. While both\nquestions were answered by various individuals, I did not get any reputation points\nsince neither questions were \u201cupvoted\u201d by other users. In most of interactions,\nit was quite interesting to observe the seriousness of the answers, including\ncomments that pushed for some of my question to be closed because it was\napparently \u201coff-topic\u201d. Neverthless, I appreciated some of the answers and they\nturned out to be quite useful. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I enjoyed the elements of interactivity in the Stack Exchange platform.\nFor one, the \u201creputation points\u201d was a good system to track and rank users\nbased on contribution. This helped create a structured community with users\njudged on their usefulness. Users could set targets to reach different levels\nbased on their \u201creputation points\u201d, and unlocked different sets of skills as\nthey gained more points. At the same time, the \u201cupvote\u201d and \u201cdownvote\u201d function\nhelped sustain orderliness in the community. It is also interesting to see how\nusers regulated other users. For example, for my questions in the Academia and\nPersonal finance & money communities, other users commented suggestions\nthat my question was not relevant in the following community and that my\nquestion should be titled differently for clearer understanding respectively.\nMy final point is regarding the tag system in Stack Exchange. While posting\nyour question, each user is supposed to set tags on their questions to set them\ninto categories. Hence, when I was answering questions in the Sports community,\nI chose to answer those that were classified as \u201cfootball\u201d, since I knew the\nmost information regarding this sport. It was a brilliant way to self-organize\nquestions into categories within each community, something that was reflected\nin our readings this week (i.e. Here comes everybody). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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