Analyzing crowd workers in mobile pay-for-answer q&a

Abstract

Despite the popularity of mobile pay-for-answer Q&A services, little is known about the people who answer questions on these services. In this paper we examine 18.8 million question and answer pairs from Jisiklog, the largest mobile pay-foranswer Q&A service in Korea, and the results of a complementary survey study of 245 Jisiklog workers. The data are used to investigate key motivators of participation, working strategies of experienced users, and longitudinal interaction dynamics. We find that answerers are rarely motivated by social factors but are motivated by financial incentives and intrinsic motives. Additionally, although answers are provided quickly, an answerer's topic selection tends to be broad, with experienced workers employing unique strategies to answer questions and judge relevance. Finally, analysis of longitudinal working patterns and community dynamics demonstrate the robustness of mobile pay-for-answer Q&A. These findings have significant implications on the design of mobile pay-for-answer Q&A.