ABSTRACT

Many Q&A sites initially run only in English, and then gradually release their multi-lingual variants to serve users who speak other languages. The launch of such multi-lingual sites always lead to an intense dispute about the pros and cons of multi-lingual sites. Although all arguments and concerns sound reasonable, people can rarely provide solid evidence to convince each other. In this paper, from users' comments about the launch of several non-English Stack Overflow sites, we first identify three major concerns including community split, knowledge needs and interests in other languages, and knowledge fragmentation and duplication. To validate these three concerns, we conduct an evidence-based data analysis and comparison of user characteristics, tag usage and cross-site links between the Russian Stack Overflow and the English Stack Overflow on these three concerns. Our study sheds light on the existence value and risks of multi-lingual Q&A sites.

摘要

许多问答网站最初仅以英语运行，然后逐渐发布其多语言变体以服务于讲其他语言的用户。此类多语言网站的推出，总会引发关于多语言网站利弊的激烈争论。尽管所有的论点和担忧听起来都有道理，但人们很少能提供可靠的证据来说服对方。在本文中，我们从用户对几个非英语 Stack Overflow 网站上线的评论中，首先确定了三个主要问题，包括社区分裂、其他语言的知识需求和兴趣以及知识碎片化和重复。为了验证这三个问题，我们进行了基于证据的数据分析和用户特征的比较，俄罗斯 Stack Overflow 和英语 Stack Overflow 之间关于这三个问题的标签使用和跨站点链接。我们的研究揭示了多语言问答网站的存在价值和风险。