Conversations in developer communities: a preliminary analysis of the yahoo! pipes community

Abstract

In this paper we describe several issues end-users may face when developing web mashup applications in visual language tools like Yahoo! Pipes. We explore how these problems manifest themselves in the conversations users have in the associated discussion forums, and examine the community practices and processes at work in collaborative debugging, and problem solving. We have noticed two valences of engagement in the community: core and peripheral. Core engagement involves active question asking and answering and contribution of example content. Peripheral engagement refers to those who read but don't post, and those who post legitimate questions and content, but whose posts receive no response. We consider what the characteristics are of each of these groups, why there is such a strong divide, and how the periphery functions in the community process.