1 Introduction
2.Literature Review
2.1 Social Network Analysis
The social network is a method used by sociologists to analyze the structural characteristics of a group of social actors [1][2]. The theory of Social network view the social network as a diagram where there are many nodes, with a line connected between the node and the node. In other words, this is socialite. Nodes can be individuals, organizations, countries or other social subjects, and socialite can refer relationship of friends, relatives, colleagues, it can also mean interaction due to sharing experiences, resources, or information. There are two main types of research in social networks: one is the analysis of the self-centered network centered on individuals (or nodes ) ; another is the analysis of the overall network based on the network structure.
The analysis of the overall network focuses on individuals in the social network and discusses what impact the individual relationship will have or what factors will influence the relationship. Attribute of relationship determines the type of relationship. Thus, the relationship starting from an individual can be either directional (eg A provides recommendations to B), or non-directional (for example, A and B are neighbors) [2]; They can also be either characterized by two data values (e.g., 1 represents the relationship exists, and 0 represents the relationship does not exist). Also, they can be used tie Strength to represent. The node network action is measured by the concept of “degree.” In general, the network constitutes the individual’s action environment, and it also imposes restrictions on the opportunities for individual actions. Therefore, the social network regards the actors as being embedded in the relational system, which determines the characteristics of individuals. Those individuals are in a good position in the social network has more opportunity and are subject to less restrictive networks. Being in a good position means that you can have more strong negotiating power and greater influence in the exchange, and become the focus of respect and attention of other individuals.
The overall network analysis mainly studies the relationship structure of different roles in the group, which can make up for the lack of self-centered network analysis. For example, two groups of people have the same number of people and relationships, and may even have the same socio-economic background. However, the collective behavior of these two groups of people is essentially different. At this time, it is difficult to explain this difference in the measurement method of “degree” in the analysis of the self-centered network, and the network structure becomes the best explanation for the difference in collective behavior. The overall network analysis is to provide an explanation tool for the network structure. In the overall network analysis, the main concepts include: focus on a measure of network size overall network structure, network density, the network diameter; focusing on different roles and locations in the network of clique analysis, social role analysis, network position analysis, block model and so on.
2.1.1 Characteristics and contributions of social network analysis
Freeman pointed out that contemporary social network research has the following four characteristics:
(1) the study of a particular relationship between social actors’ structure;
(2) based on data on the system;
(3) much depends on the language of graph theory and technology;
(4) Apply mathematical models, statistical techniques, and computer simulations.
The greatest contribution or significance of social network analysis methods is that it is a new social science research paradigm. Barry Wellman (BarryWelllnan) describes five characteristics paradigm[5] network analysis. Liu Jun believes that social network analysis is unique in terms of ontology, epistemology and methodology[5]. Tang Huidao believed that the most prominent contribution of SNA in epistemology and methodology is two :
The first is to get rid of the dilemma where individualist methodology and the reductionist interprets and circularly argue. In the past, in the view of the atomism usually set by economists and psychologists, individual actors were described as making decisions and acting alone without regard to the behavior of other actors” [6]. As some scholars have said: “For the past 30 years, social studies experienced was controlled mainly by the sample survey. However, as is so often pointed out, a sociological survey is the meat grinder, from where it is the individual’s social context in pulled out, and assuming there is no link “[6] among the study subjects. While in the social scene detaching from the individuals, it is impossible to see the connections between social actors and often fails to reveal the nature of some social phenomena. The contribution of social network theory lies in that it gave up the traditional atomistic analysis of individuals as the research object, focused on the relationship between individuals, and explained individual behavior from the perspective of groups. Of course, it is borrowed from psychology, mathematics and statistics and other disciplines, and use a community map or matrix algebra and other tools to do.
Second , social network analysis links micro-social networks and macro-social structures at the level of social relations. Granovetter said that the social network theory is to build a bridge between the microscopic [5] behavior and macroscopic behavior. In order to do this, Grimes proposed “embedded theory”. The research focus of Embeddedness perspective is how individuals influence each other in a network through relationships in a dynamic interactive process, not only affect the individual’s actions, but also to change the mutual relations, thus affecting the overall structure. Luo Jiade [6] specifically pointed out: “We therefore noticed that the influence of factors such as trust, emotional support, resource acquisition, information dissemination, and interpersonal influences on social variables such as social relations, relationship content, relationship strength, social network structure, personal structure position, etc., In turn, these intermediary variables will affect economic action.” For micro–macro connection issues, James Coleman [6] presented the so-called “bathtub” model. Of course, whether social network analysis can really achieve this , that is , the dissolution of many dualistic issues such as the relationship between individuals and society, macro and micro, dynamic and structural , is also in dispute , but at least it is working towards this goal or have this potential.
2.1.2 Relationships in Social Network and Classification of Information Flow
Social network is an online network structure established by people’s commonalities in daily life. For example, hobbies or cooperative relationships between company organizations can be used to establish social network. Of course, these relationships are as strong and weak as those in real life. It can be known that the user in the social network is only a strong relationship with a relatively small number of users, and the connection with a small number of users is a weak link, and. Nodes are not linked to the vast majority.
As with our actual surroundings, there are three modes of connection between nodes in a social network.
1. Unilaterally establishing a focus link.
Such as the subscription function in Github, you can do the unilateral attention of others without the consent of the people you care about. Of course, others can also unilaterally pay attention to you without your consent. In other words, regardless of whether the other party agrees or not, you can choose to follow him and see the information he shows. Of course, users in this mode can also pay attention to each other at the same time. This model is conducive to accept new news to establish a new relationship. Most of the social networking sites are now this relationship model.
2. Simultaneously focus on links.
The establishment of such a relationship model both parties agree on. This relationship model is mainly implemented to reinforce the social network of their original social circle. For example, the current popular WeChat is this kind of relationship mode. The WeChat circle of friends can only be viewed by users who are friends.
3. Unilaterally designated link.
This is where the party who establishes the link chooses who they want to establish contact with. The initiative belongs to the people who wants to establish the relationship, and at the same time, they can choose what you want the other person to see. The “visible to someone” or “not displayed to someone” in some website settings, is based on this relationship model. This kind of linking relationship is also mainly to consolidate the previous contact, and also pays more attention to protecting their privacy, as shown in the Fig 2.1.
Fig 2.1 Three Link Mode
Since there are three kinds of relationship models in social networks, there are corresponding three kinds of information flows in social networks. The flow of information in the unilaterally requested link is unidirectional with respect to the unilateral direction of the flow of information in the established link. The difference is that the flow of information in the unilateral request relation model can be seen only by following your user. The information that comes out of the initiative lies in the acceptance of information. For example, in Github, only the subscriber can see the information of the people who are subscribed, but the people who are subscribed cannot see the information of the subscriber. The unilaterally assigned relational mode of information flow is what the user wants to let the concerned user see and which focused user sees. The initiative lies in side of sending the information. The flow of information corresponding to the second type of simultaneous attention link mode is also bi-directional. Both the receiving information side and the receiving message side can see the information they send, for example, the flow of information in the Renren network is bi-directional. You can see each other’s information. The initiative is shared by both.
2.1.3 The evolution of social networks
With the rapid development of Internet technology and Web, the forms of social networking have also changed along with their different stages of development. In Web1.0 stage, social network was represented by GeoCities , Tripod, and Yahoo. Internet emerged in the mid-90s. And it used HTML to publish web pages. At this time, some people with more ideas began to use the Internet to do something more exotic. For example, GeoCities and Tripod have developed tools that are easily found by others, while companies like Yahoo! offers services as e-mail, instant messaging, team building and mutual question and answer, which completely solve the problem of people’s long-distance communication. In the meanwhile, e-mail provides the function of “mass sending” and “forwarding”, which is very quick and convenient compared to the traditional communication. At this time, the social network has basically satisfied people’s needs such as basic communication and dating in real life. This is the embryonic forms of early social networks. We call them the first generation of social networks.
In Web2.0 stage, social network can be represented by Plaxo and LinkedIn. Plaxo is a mass-mail-based social network that enables users to contact each other in real-time by emailing all contact groups of users. LinkedIn not only did these things, but also made people briefly introduced himself and set up his own virtual resume in LinkedIn. The purpose is to let more people know more about themselves, so LinkedIn is a communication platform built specifically for people in the workplace. At the same time, Compared to Web1.0, we can upload our videos and pictures on social networks in the Web2.0 stage.
The social network at this stage is known as Wechat, Quora and Facebook. These sites have quite a lot of personal customization features, and they are very interactive and can perceive the location, which makes the original static small social network become a kind of social network that doesn’t be limited by the distance. Moreover, social networks with features based on more popular social interests such as hobbies and hobbies, are no longer a mixture of “public networks” and “private networks”, which can pay more attention to the privacy of users. Of course, this has also become a more troubling topic in current social networks. In general, as social networks slowly participate in our actual lives and become more and more mobile, it has already penetrated everyone’s daily activities and is gradually turning into a function that makes us more and more dependent.
2.2 Introduction of Github
With the trend of the socialization of the Internet, our computer industry has not been spared or even developed faster. The open source community provides an efficient and cooperative platform for the software development industry. As a distributed version management and project management system. Github’s philosophy is social programming. It was launched in 2008. At present, the main services provided in the Github social network are Git Code warehouse hosting, web management pages, online code editors, and code snippet sharing. Thus, users’ activity on the Github continues to rise and its users have exceeded 4 million, and it has become more and more influential and received widespread attention in the open source community.
In the web management interface of Github, just like the personal interfaces of other social networks, each user can publish and manage their own published projects or their own code on their own personal web pages, and can also meet their own work needs, or Star and Fork their favorite project codes. Of course, you can comment, like, and copy the developer-shared project code from other developer pages. Github has also realized its socialization and democratization concept, and has formed a free and democratic code collaboration method, allowing programmers to share their own project code, understand their favorite programming languages, and discuss with each other. Mutual cooperation and learning among various programmers provides a good learning platform for programmers. At the same time, it also allows us to have a more thorough understanding of the programming industry. And, compared to other social networks, Github’s user data on the website is more pure. Unlike so many zombie users on Facebook and Twitter, and no buying and selling reviews, the type of users in Github is simple, related to computer programming. Based on these advantages, this article selected Github Website for analysis.
3. Methods
3.1 Data
3.2 Networks
3.3 Measures
3.4 Other Methods
4. Results
5. Discussion
References
[1] Burt, R.S. Models of Network Structure. Annual Review of Sociology, 1980, (6):79-141.
[2] Wasserman, S. and Faust, K. Social Network Analysis: Methods and Applications (Structural Analysis in the Social Science). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
[3] Borgatti, S.P. and Foster, P. The Network Paradigm in Organizational Research: A Review and Typology. Journal of Management, 2003, 29(6): 991-1013.
[4] Freeman, Linton C. The Development of Social Network analysis: A Study in Sociology of science. Vancouver, BC(Canada): Empirical Press, 2004: 39.
[5] Wellman, Barry. Structural Analysis from method and metaphor to theory and substance. In Wellman and Berkowitz(eds). Social Structure: A network Approach, Cambridge University Press, 1988:47.
[6] Konke D. and J.H.Kuklinski. Network Analysis. Beverly Hills Sage, 1982:9.
/docProps/thumbnail.jpeg