Experimental Study of Informal Rewards in Peer Production
Open accessAbstract
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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Those at the top of the chart may experience the opposite effect, whereby a provisional reward for a serendipitous move could increase their confidence and motivation to persevere.
“Conversely, those at the top of the chart may experience the opposite effect, whereby a provisional reward for a serendipitous move could increase their confidence and motivation to persevere (Restivo & van de Rijt, 2012).”
From Relative Feedback Increases Disparities in Effort and Performance in Crowdsourcing Contests (2022) · cites this paper as Restivo & van de Rijt, 2012
The Methods describe randomly awarding barnstars to a sample of the top 1% of Wikipedia editors, and Results and Discussion report greater sustained productivity and less discontinuation among recipients (page numbers not provided). This supports the possibility that a reward helps high-performing contributors persevere. The paper does not measure confidence or study rewards for a serendipitous move. (LLM, conf=0.85)
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- Authors
- Restivo, M., & van de Rijt, A.
- Affiliations
- State University of New York (US)
- Corresponding author
- Restivo, Michael
- Venue
- PLoS ONE
- Publisher
- Public Library of Science (PLoS)
- Published
- 2012-03-29
- Volume
- 7
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- e34358
- ISSN
- 1932-6203 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC3315525
- OpenAlex
- W2108478329
- Cited by
- 90
- References
- 16
- Citations by year
- 2026: 6 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 9 · 2020: 4 · 2019: 7 · 2018: 8 · 2016: 5 · 2015: 11 · 2014: 6 · 2013: 7 · 2012: 1
- FWCI
- 25.74
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- PLoS ONE (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- Wikimedia Foundation
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Communication › Wikis in Education and Collaboration
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Science Applications › Open Source Software Innovations
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies
- Keywords
- peer production, Wikipedia, online communities, recognition
- MeSH terms
- Efficiency, Peer Group, Peer Review, Research Design, Reward, Chi-Square Distribution, Social Media
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