poster

Community Resilience: Quantifying the Disruptive Effects of Sudden Spikes in Activity within Online Communities

Authors:

Aditi Atreyasa,

Stevie Chancellor,

Eshwar ChandrasekharanAuthors Info & Claims

CHI EA '22: CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems Extended Abstracts

Article No.: 339, Pages 1 - 8

https://doi.org/10.1145/3491101.3519813

Published: 28 April 2022 Publication History

CHI EA '22: CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems Extended Abstracts

Community Resilience: Quantifying the Disruptive Effects of Sudden Spikes in Activity within Online Communities

Pages 1 - 8

Abstract
Supplementary Material
References

Abstract

Online communities often experience some form of crisis. Regardless of whether these communities are small groups or entire platforms, the ability to handle disruptions during volatile periods signifies the resilience of a community. In this paper, we analyze the effects of a specific type of crisis event on Reddit: sudden spikes in attention received by a community due to a post from the subreddit hitting r/popular—the default feed that aggregates the most popular content on Reddit. Our results show that r/popular is a source of potential disruptions due to the higher number of comments, authors, and especially removed comments found compared to threads that do not reach r/popular. When looking at r/popular’s effects across subreddits, large communities’ commenting and posting behaviors were less impacted by r/popular threads compared to smaller communities. However, similar-sized subreddits had substantial variations in how their commenting and posting activities were influenced by an r/popular thread. Understanding the causal factors behind these differences has implications for online governance, as well as fostering resilient and healthy communities.

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References

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Cited By

Lambert CChoi FChandrasekharan E(2024)"Positive reinforcement helps breed positive behavior": Moderator Perspectives on Encouraging Desirable BehaviorProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36869298:CSCW2(1-33)Online publication date: 8-Nov-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3686929
Prinster GSmith CTan CKeegan B(2024)Community Archetypes: An Empirical Framework for Guiding Research Methodologies to Reflect User Experiences of Sense of Virtual Community on RedditProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36373108:CSCW1(1-33)Online publication date: 26-Apr-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3637310
Guo QYuan KHe CPeng ZMa X(2024)Exploring the Evolvement of Artwork Descriptions in Online Creative Community under the Surge of Generative AI: A Case Study of DeviantArtExtended Abstracts of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613905.3650851(1-7)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613905.3650851

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cover image ACM Conferences

CHI EA '22: Extended Abstracts of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

April 2022

3066 pages

ISBN:9781450391566

DOI:10.1145/3491101

Editors:
Simone Barbosa
PUC-Rio, Brazil
,
Cliff Lampe
University of Michigan, USA
,
Caroline Appert
Université Paris-Saclay, France
,
David A. Shamma
Toyota Research Institute, USA

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Published: 28 April 2022

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Cited By

Lambert CChoi FChandrasekharan E(2024)"Positive reinforcement helps breed positive behavior": Moderator Perspectives on Encouraging Desirable BehaviorProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36869298:CSCW2(1-33)Online publication date: 8-Nov-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3686929
Prinster GSmith CTan CKeegan B(2024)Community Archetypes: An Empirical Framework for Guiding Research Methodologies to Reflect User Experiences of Sense of Virtual Community on RedditProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36373108:CSCW1(1-33)Online publication date: 26-Apr-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3637310
Guo QYuan KHe CPeng ZMa X(2024)Exploring the Evolvement of Artwork Descriptions in Online Creative Community under the Surge of Generative AI: A Case Study of DeviantArtExtended Abstracts of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613905.3650851(1-7)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613905.3650851

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