Contributions in Online Communities
Within online communities there are more or less two groups of people: people who contribute and people who only benefit from others’ contributions. Both groups benefit equally from the contribution of users, but contributors have to invest time and effort into their contributions. In addition to that, people who do not contribute typically make up a vast majority of the community. For example Wikipedia has a vast amount of people reading its articles, but only a small percentage of people editing articles. Even among those people editing articles, only a portion of them are active users making significant contributions. Most people think that other people will contribute so they choose not to contribute anything. Such a situation is similar to what we learned in class about people that observe a crime.
Value of contributing V>0
Value of not contributing V>0 (since they can still read Wikipedia articles.)
Cost of contributing C>0
Most people may think that C>V so they choose not to contribute. Because Wikipedia offers a service to people even if they do not contribute, the value of not contributing is greater than zero. People are still able to view any article they want without doing research and adding to the library of Wikipedia.
In the article by Robert Kraut, he explains how to encourage contribution in online communities. When people decide whether to contribute to an online community, “they are less likely to do a rational analysis of the decision and the information presented to them and are more likely to be influenced by superficial cues and to use rules of thumb to help them make their decision.” For example when people see that other people they know have also contributed to the community, they tend to follow along and contribute as well. As we saw in class with the iclicker question about birthdays, people tend to copy others when it comes to making decisions. Setting public goals for a community can also motivate people to contribute. For example certain institutions (such as Cornell University) will have signs around campus stating “We need $25,000,000 in order to build a new stadium.” On that same sign they may also publicize how much people have already donate. Such a sign gives the community a set cause, while at the same time shows them that other people in the community have already contributed.
Kraut, R.E., & Resnick, P. In preparation. Encouraging contribution to online communities. Evidence-based social design: Mining the social sciences to build successful online communities. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press