Ask the Geek Way: Impacts of Using Markdown in Questions on Answers Received in Online Technical Q&A Communities

The answers provided in technical Question and Answer (Q&A) communities (e.g., Stack Overflow) play an important role in the knowledge acquisition of IT professionals. However, those seeking answers often encounter difficulties in obtaining timely and high-quality responses. Existing research suggests that the way questions are presented has a significant influence on the answers obtained. Our study examines how question presentation, characterized through the lens of Markdown, influences the answers received in technical Q&A communities. The results show that questions formatted with Markdown are associated with more and higher-quality answers. However, using Markdown seems to adversely affect the timeliness of the responses. Further analysis reveals that the negative impact is primarily due to specific Markdown syntax elements, such as hyperlinks. These results have important implications for both theory and practice in the field of online Q&A communities.