Anonymity in Questions and Answers about Health

Abstract

Social Question & Answer (Q&A) sites are a unique source of health information that draw from personal, rather than professional experience. When people ask or answer questions about health using these sites, they may do so using their real name, or another type of identity such as pseudonymity (e.g., a username or nickname) or anonymity. People’s behavior may differ when they have a choice about which type of identity they choose, especially the context of different levels of sensitivity of content (e.g., health vs. non- health). In this work, we explore the relationship between different types of identity (e.g., anonymity and pseudonymity) and several Q&A metrics of user behavior on Yahoo Answers in the context of health and non-health content using path analysis. We find that health-related questions are more likely to be asked and answered anonymously. We also find that anonymous answers have more upvotes and downvotes than pseudonymous answers indicating more engagement. We conclude by suggesting that health Q&A sites and other online health communities may improve the quality of discussion by providing anonymity features and implementing moderation mechanisms.