Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-08T16:25:33.912Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

18 - Social Computing: Answer vs. Vote

from Part III - Sequential Decision-Making

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2021

Yan Chen
Affiliation:
University of Science and Technology of China
Chih-Yu Wang
Affiliation:
Academica Sinica, Taipei
Chunxiao Jiang
Affiliation:
Tsinghua University, Beijing
K. J. Ray Liu
Affiliation:
University of Maryland, College Park
Get access

Summary

In many social computing systems, users decide sequentially whether to participate or not and, if they participate, whether to create a piece of content directly (i.e. answering) or to rate existing content contributed by previous users (i.e. voting). We present in this chapter a game-theoretic model that formulates the sequential decision-making of strategic users under the presence of this answering–voting externality. We prove theoretically the existence and uniqueness of a pure strategy equilibrium. We show that there exist advantages for users with higher abilities and for answering earlier. Therefore, the equilibrium exhibits a threshold structure and the threshold for answering gradually increases as answers accumulate. To show the validness of the game-theoretic model, we analyze user behavior data collected from a popular question-and-answer site Stack Overflow and show that the main qualitative predictions of the game-theoretic model match up with observations made from the data. Finally, we formulate the system designer’s problem and abstract several design principles that could potentially guide the design of incentive mechanisms for social computing systems in practice.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×