Number of questions asked before starting answering
This metric shows how many questions a user asks before they start answering to other’s questions. The metric is calculated only for users who start participating by asking a question.
Question answered by the metric
Among those who start by asking, how many questions one asks before starting answering others’ questions?
Steps to measure
To calculate the number of questions a user asks before answering others’ questions, one needs to do the following.
- Identify all users who started participating by asking a question.
- For those who continued being part of the community, assign a sequential number for all their following posts.
- For each user, find their first post in discussions created by other users.
- Calculate the average among all sequential numbers of the first answers.
Interpretation
This metric shows how quickly users go from asking for help to helping other users in the community. In an ideal world, we want to reduce the value of this metric: the faster users engage in the community in different roles, the better. In reality, this is not always possible, since in some communities there is a big difference between an expert and a learner. If the value of this metric is high in your community (or increases over time), it may indicate cultural problems in the community (for example, old-timers not accepting newcomers).