Exploring how topic characteristics influence online discussion quality

Abstract

The quality of online discussions is essential to community development. Prior research has provided evidence of how different factors, such as anonymity, influence the discussion quality, but little is known about how topic characteristics and online discussion quality are related. We analyzed a collection 726 posts about 10 topics, and the finding suggest that domain and sentiment polarity of topics has effect on the politeness of discussions. Sensitive and sociological topics might engage more relevant posts.