Fostering Public Good Contributions with Symbolic Awards: A Large-Scale Natural Field Experiment at Wikipedia

This natural field experiment tests the effects of purely symbolic awards on volunteer retention in a public goods context. The experiment is conducted at Wikipedia, which faces declining editor retention rates, particularly among newcomers. Randomization assures that award receipt is orthogonal to previous performance. The analysis reveals that awards have a sizeable effect on newcomer retention, which persists over the four quarters following the initial intervention. This is noteworthy for indicating that awards for volunteers can be effective even if they have no impact on the volunteers’ future career opportunities. The awards are purely symbolic, and the status increment they produce is limited to the recipients’ pseudonymous online identities in a community they have just recently joined. The results can be explained by enhanced self-identification with the community, but they are also in line with recent findings on the role of status and reputation, recognition, and evaluation potential in online communities. Data, as supplemental material, are available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2016.2540 . This paper was accepted by John List, behavioral economics

Social contribution settings and newcomer retention in humanitarian crowd mapping

Organisers of crowd mapping initiatives seek to identify practices that foster an active contributor community. Theory suggests that social contribution settings can provide important support functions for newcomers, yet to date there are no empirical studies of such an effect. We present the first study that evaluates the relationship between colocated practice and newcomer retention in a crowd mapping community, involving hundreds of first-time participants. We find that certain settings are associated with a significant increase in newcomer retention, as are regular meetings, and a greater mix of experiences among attendees. Factors relating to the setting such as food breaks and technical disruptions have comparatively little impact. We posit that successful social contribution settings serve as an attractor: they provide opportunities to meet enthusiastic contributors, and can capture prospective contributors who have a latent interest in the practice

Social contribution settings and newcomer retention in humanitarian crowd mapping

Organisers of crowd mapping initiatives seek to identify practices that foster an active contributor community. Theory suggests that social contribution settings can provide important support functions for newcomers, yet to date there are no empirical studies of such an effect. We present the first study that evaluates the relationship between colocated practice and newcomer retention in a crowd mapping community, involving hundreds of first-time participants. We find that certain settings are associated with a significant increase in newcomer retention, as are regular meetings, and a greater mix of experiences among attendees. Factors relating to the setting such as food breaks and technical disruptions have comparatively little impact. We posit that successful social contribution settings serve as an attractor: they provide opportunities to meet enthusiastic contributors, and can capture prospective contributors who have a latent interest in the practice

What’s in it for me? Enlightening motivation within a social network decision-making

This paper addresses the motivations by which people engage in social networking, according to the existing literature. Understanding these motivations allows firms to set processes to explore them, in order to establish and develop a decision support social network, supported by social network sites. Participating in social networks draws upon the interaction of intrinsic and extrinsic factors. On one hand, intrinsic factors refer to motivation embedded in the action itself (comes within the individual), rather than from external rewards such as money or recognition. On the other hand, extrinsic factors refer to the motivation coming outside the individual. Considering that solutions to problems are expected within a decision support social network, some potential problems are identified and addressed.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The long-term impact of social mixing policies on neighbourhood reputations:a comparative study between Ponte Lambro in Milan and the New Deal for Communities area in Bristol

The fight against neighbourhood effects has been led by urban renewal policies through ethnicity, income and tenure mixing as well as demolition and poverty deconcentration strategies. These saw in the (perceived) homogeneity of the working-class social housing neighbourhood the spatialisation of deviance and disadvantage. While the existing literature has been critical in evaluating the impact of social mixing policies, particularly focusing on community cohesion, social mobility and wellbeing, studies have focused on short-term outcomes, neglecting longer-term assessments, especially in Europe. This thesis explores the impact of two government-led social mixing schemes (New Deal for Communities, Bristol; Contratto di Quartiere, Milan) by examining whether there have been improvements in the long run in internal and external neighbourhood reputations - as aspired by the policies - through a comparative and longitudinal qualitative analysis of discourse. The internal neighbourhood reputation is informed by focus groups and interviews, alongside remote Participatory Photo Mapping, with residents of the inner-city NDC area in Bristol and of Ponte Lambro, peripheral neighbourhood in Milan. Whereas the evolution of the external neighbourhood reputation in both contexts is investigated through the Critical Discourse Analysis of local newspaper articles mentioning the two urban areas before and after the implementation of the social mixing policies. Research findings demonstrate that local interventions involving community participation and long-term plans do not automatically correspond to positive reputations and that territorial stigmas can persist in contexts of urban divide and socio-economic inequalities. Although, in both contexts, reputations have not significantly improved, the neighbourhood of Ponte Lambro is still experiencing mainly negative discourse from both media and the local community of residents; whilst the reputations of Bristol’s NDC area appear to clash more substantially, as the increased negative external reputation does not meet the more mixed or balanced perceptions of participants. By offering case study recommendations based on the research findings, this thesis concludes that both comparative and longitudinal approaches in qualitative urban research should be prioritised to provide an integrated picture of policy aims and impacts over time, at both the neighbourhood and the city levels

Exploring personality-targeted UI design in online social participation systems

We present a theoretical foundation and empirical findings demonstrating the effectiveness of personality-targeted design. Much like a medical treatment applied to a person based on his specific genetic profile, we argue that theory-driven, personality-targeted UI design can be more effective than design applied to the entire population. The empirical exploration focused on two settings, two populations and two personality traits: Study 1 shows that users' extroversion level moderates the relationship between the UI cue of audience size and users' contribution. Study 2 demonstrates that the effectiveness of social anchors in encouraging online contributions depends on users' level of emotional stability. Taken together, the findings demonstrate the potential and robustness of the interactionist approach to UI design. The findings contribute to the HCI community, and in particular to designers of social systems, by providing guidelines to targeted design that can increase online participation. Copyright © 2013 ACM

Participation of New Editors After Times of Shock on Wikipedia

User participation is vital to the success of collaborative crowdsourcing platforms such as Wikipedia. Previously user participation has been studied during “normal times”. However, less is known about participation following shocks that draw attention to an article. Such events can be recruiting opportunities due to increased attention; but can also pose a threat to the quality and control of the article and drive away newcomers. We study the collaborative dynamics of Wikipedia articles after times corresponding to shocks generated by drastic increases in attention as indicated by data from Google trends.We find that participation following such events is indeed different from participation during normal times–both newcomers and incumbents participate at higher rates during shocks. We also identify collaboration dynamics that mediate the effects of shocks on continued participation after the shock. The impact of shocks on participation is mediated by the amount of negative feedback given to newcomers in the form of reverted edits and the amount of coordination editors engage in through edits of the article’s talk page.National Science Foundation Grant No. IIS-1617820Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/148429/1/Zhang et al. 2019.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/148429/4/3253-Article Text-6302-1-10-20190531.pdfDescription of Zhang et al. 2019.pdf : Preprint versionDescription of 3253-Article Text-6302-1-10-20190531.pdf : Final Versio

Reviewing Motivations for Engaging in Decision Support Social Networks

This paper reviews the motivations for people to engage in decision support social networks, from existing connections between social network sites and decision support. The paper points out the three intertwined levels that influence interactions and motivation of people when engaged in social network participation: communities, networks and electronic networks of practice. Participating in social networks draws upon the interaction of intrinsic and extrinsic factors. Intrinsic factors refer to motivation embedded in the action itself (comes within the individual), rather than from external rewards or extrinsic factors such as money or recognition. The paper also identifies some problems in engaging in decision support social networks and discusses potential solutions, namely: to create and maintain a critical number of users; the issue of time in decision processes; linguistic barriers and issues of confidentiality.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Encounters with Authority: Tactics and negotiations at the periphery of participatory platforms

Digital participatory platforms like Wikipedia are often celebrated as projects that allow anyone to contribute. Any user can sign up and start contributing immediately. Similarly, projects that engage volunteers in the production of scientific knowledge create easy points of entry to make contributions. These low barriers to entry are a hallmark feature in digital participatory labor, limiting the number of hoops a new volunteer has to jump through before they can feel like they are making a difference. Such low barriers to participation at the periphery, or edges of participatory platforms, have presented a problem for organizational scholars as they wonder how such projects can achieve consistent results when opportunities to train and socialize newcomers are constrained by a need for low barriers. As a result, scholarship has focused on answering the question of newcomer learning and socialization by examining how newcomers make sense of their new digital workspaces rather than focus on how institutional constraints are imposed. In this research, I draw on a growing body of scholarship that pushes against the perception of openness and low barriers on digital participatory platforms to unpack the constraints on participation that newcomers confront and, in particular, to show how such constraints resemble characteristics of institutionalized newcomer onboarding tactics. To approach this question, I conducted 18 months of participant observation and conducted 36 interviews with experts, newcomers, and project leaders from the crowdsourced citizen science platform Planet Hunters and the peer produced encyclopedia, Wikipedia. I analyzed my data using a grounded theory research design that is sensitized using the theoretical technology of Estrid Sørensen’s Forms of Presence as a way to pay attention to the sociomaterial configurations of newcomer practice, attending to the actors (both human and nonhuman) that play a part in the constraints and affordances of newcomer participation. By drawing on Sørensen’s Forms of Presence, the analytical focus on the newcomer experience shifts from looking at either top-down institutional tactics of organizations or bottom-up individual tactics of newcomers to thinking about the characteristics of relationships newcomers have with other members and platform features and the effects of these relationships as they relate to different opportunities for learning and participation. Focusing on the different ways that learning and participation are made available affords the exploration of how the authority of existing practices in particular settings are imposed on learners despite the presence of low barriers to participation. By paying attention to the sociomaterial configuration of newcomer participation, my findings unpack the tactics that newcomers encounter at the periphery, or edges of participatory platforms, as well as how they find their work being included or excluded from the platform. I use the findings to develop a taxonomy of encounters that describes how newcomers can participate in a self-guided experience as the existing literature describes, but also experience moments of guided and targeted encounters. What this taxonomy of encounters suggests is that the periphery of participatory platforms can be at once an open space for exploration and experimentation but also a well-managed space where, despite low barriers to initial participation, a newcomer must negotiate what I describe as the guardrails of participation that define the constraints and affordances that shape their experience