Experimental Study of Informal Rewards in Peer Production

We test the effects of informal rewards in online peer production. Using a randomized, experimental design, we assigned editing awards or “barnstars” to a subset of the 1% most productive Wikipedia contributors. Comparison with the control group shows that receiving a barnstar increases productivity...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Restivo, Michael, van de Rijt, Arnout
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2012
Materias:
Research Article
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3315525/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22479610
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0034358
Descripción
Sumario:We test the effects of informal rewards in online peer production. Using a randomized, experimental design, we assigned editing awards or “barnstars” to a subset of the 1% most productive Wikipedia contributors. Comparison with the control group shows that receiving a barnstar increases productivity by 60% and makes contributors six times more likely to receive additional barnstars from other community members, revealing that informal rewards significantly impact individual effort.

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