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text/1_intro.tex

@@ -31,9 +31,9 @@ or AskUbuntu focusing on the Ubuntu operating system. This distincts StackExchan
 %DONE -> add mentor ship program+desc rough description: exampl for onboarding
 %DONE stackexhange tries many things over the years: mentorship program+ref,  list more examples here, see section 2
 
-Communities face different challenges during their lifetime\cite{kraut2012building}. In the beginning, bootstrapping the community and gaining a critical mass of users is the main challenge. In the following phase, community growth is the main challenge. In the third phase, the goal is to keep the community in a lively and ordered state. The main challenges are onboarding of new users,  ensure steady user engagement and constributions, and regulation. Running a community also includes technical, financial, personel, and other challanges. A community has to solve all these challenges to a certain degree to exist and keep existing. Many communities have been created over the years and a lot of these communities went extinct. A recent example of a seasure of existence is \emph{Yahoo! Answers} which shut down in May 2021\footnote{\url{https://help.yahoo.com/kb/SLN35642.html}}.
+Communities face different challenges during their lifetime\cite{kraut2012building}. In the beginning, bootstrapping the community and gaining a critical mass of users is the main challenge. In the following phase, community growth is the main challenge. In the third phase, the goal is to keep the community in a lively and ordered state. The main challenges in this phase are onboarding of new users, ensure steady user engagement and contributions, and regulation. Running a community also includes challenges in other areas, for instance, technical, financial, and personel challanges. A community has to solve all these challenges to a certain degree to exist and continue existing. Many communities have been created over the years and a lot of these communities also went extinct. A recent example of a community shutdown of a larger-scale community is \emph{Yahoo! Answers} which shut down in May 2021\footnote{\url{https://help.yahoo.com/kb/SLN35642.html}}.
 
-StackExchange is continually working on improving their platform. Their team implemented serveral changes to the platform to tackle different challenges that arose over time, for instance, updating the code of conduct to ensure a more friendly tone in user interactions\footnote{\url{https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/240839/the-new-new-be-nice-policy-code-of-conduct-updated-with-your-feedback}}, improving the review queue for reported content for moderators\cite{ponzanelli2014improving}, or the \emph{Mentorship Research Project}\cite{ford2018we}\footnote{\url{https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/357198/mentorship-research-project-results-wrap-up}}.
+StackExchange is continually working on improving their platform. Their team implemented several changes to the platform to tackle different challenges that arose over time, for instance, updating the \emph{code of conduct} to ensure a more friendly tone in user interactions\footnote{\url{https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/240839/the-new-new-be-nice-policy-code-of-conduct-updated-with-your-feedback}}, improving the review queue for reported content for moderators\cite{ponzanelli2014improving}, or the \emph{Mentorship Research Project}\cite{ford2018we}\footnote{\url{https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/357198/mentorship-research-project-results-wrap-up}}.
 
 The \emph{Mentorship Research Project} was a research project to improve the onboarding process of new users. In the study new users who created their first question had the option the let their question be reviewed by a mentor (a user familiar with the community). The mentor world reviw the question and suggest changes to the question, for instance, more context to the question. The user would then adjust their question and post it in the community. The result of the suty was that mentored questions were received segnificantly better than non-mentored questions. Although, this is just a research project, StackExchange could create some automated system to help new users during their onboarding phase.
 
@@ -41,18 +41,28 @@ The \emph{Mentorship Research Project} was a research project to improve the onb
 
 
 
-In August of 2018, the StackExchange team introduced a small change that may have had a huge impact on the platform. They added a new feature to visibly mark questions from new contributors, as part of their effort to make the site more welcoming for new users\footnote{\url{https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/314287/come-take-a-look-at-our-new-contributor-indicator}}. 
-Specifically, members who want to answer a question created by a new contributor are shown a notification in the answer box that this question is from a new contributor. The StackExchange team hopes that this little change encourages members to be more friendly and forgiving toward new users. 
+In August of 2018, the StackExchange team introduced a small change that may have had a huge impact on the platform. They added a new feature to visibly highlight questions from new contributors, as part of their effort to make the site more welcoming for new users\footnote{\url{https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/314287/come-take-a-look-at-our-new-contributor-indicator}}. Specifically, members who want to answer a question created by a new contributor are shown a notification in the answer box that this question is from a new contributor. The StackExchange team hopes that this little change encourages members to be more friendly and forgiving toward new users. 
 % write about the change investigated
 % stackexchange new contriutor post: https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/314287/come-take-a-look-at-our-new-contributor-indicator?cb=1
 % what did change intend?
 
-This thesis evaluates whether this change has a real impact on the community and if so how the community reacts. For this analysis, this thesis utilizes Vader \cite{hutto2014vader}, a sentiment analysis tool, to measure the sentiments of the answers submitted to questions of new contributors. Furthermore, this thesis includes the votes these questions receive 
-and the number of questions new contributors ask. Interrupted time series are then applied to these values to evaluate whether the change achieved its purpose of making the platform more welcoming. 
+
+This thesis evaluates whether this change has a real impact on the community and if so how the community reacts. For this analysis, this thesis uses a 2-step approach:
+\begin{enumerate}
+ \item Gather data:
+  \begin{enumerate}
+   \item sentiment values of the answers submitted to questions of new contributors
+   \item vote score on questions of new contributors
+   \item number of questions new contributors ask
+  \end{enumerate}
+ \item Perform an \emph{Interrupted Time Series} (ITS) analysis on the gathered data
+\end{enumerate}
+This thesis utilizes Vader \cite{hutto2014vader}, a sentiment analysis tool, to measure the sentiments of the answers submitted to questions of new contributors. The ITS analysis evaluates whether the change achieved its purpose of making the platform more welcoming.
+Higher sentiment values, higher vote scores, and higher question count indicate better community interactions and welcomingness towards new contributors. Also, when new contributors have a good experience with their first question, they are more likely to post further questions.
 % how is change investigated by this thesis
 % vader library
 
-This thesis investigates the ten largest communities of the StackExchange platform measured by the number of posts. This includes most prominent communities, for instance, StackOverflow, MathOverflow, Math, AskUbuntu, and SuperUser as well as some lesser-known communities.
+This thesis investigates the ten largest communities of the StackExchange platform measured by the number of posts. This includes most prominent communities, for instance, StackOverflow, MathOverflow, MathStackExchange, AskUbuntu, and SuperUser as well as some lesser-known communities.
 % write about other communities (e.g. i investigated)
 
 

text/3_method.tex

@@ -88,7 +88,7 @@ Although the ITS analysis takes data density variability and seasonality into ac
 %3 segment example like it will be used later
 % with lower sentiment first and higher sentiment after the change
 % 
-For demonstration purposes, this section shows how to create a synthetic example for ITS. The example has 3 segments, equal to the number of segments that will be used in the analysis in the next sections. In this example the sentiment is lower before the change occurs and high after the change has occurred. This example also includes data density variablily, i.e., there are a different amount of data points for each month. The example is shown visually in figure \ref{itsexample} is generated by the following algorithm:
+For demonstration purposes, this section shows how to create a synthetic example for an ITS analysis. The example has 3 segments, equal to the number of segments that will be used in the analysis in the next sections. In this example, the sentiment is lower before the change occurs and high after the change has occurred. This example also includes data density variablily, i.e., there are a different amount of data points for each month. The example is shown visually in figure \ref{itsexample} is generated by the following algorithm:
 \begin{itemize}
  \item Select time frame: for instance, 15 months before and after the change
  \item Select base values: before the change choose a base value of $0.10$ and after the change choose a base value of $0.15$