research-article

Out With The Old, In With The New?: Unpacking Member Turnover in Online Production Groups

Authors:

Allen Yilun Lin,

Haiyi ZhuAuthors Info & Claims

Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, Volume 1, Issue CSCW

Article No.: 117, Pages 1 - 19

https://doi.org/10.1145/3134752

Published: 06 December 2017 Publication History

Abstract

Nearly any group is subject to turnover : some people leave, while others join. Turnover can be especially high in online groups, since participation typically is strictly voluntary. We investigated the effects of member turnover in online groups, specifically in Wikipedia's WikiProjects. We based our studies on theories from organizational science, which suggest that it is not just the amount of turnover, but the characteristics of those leaving and those joining that matter. We characterized leavers and newcomers by their prior productivity, tenure (in the group or community), and participation in other groups within the larger community. Furthermore, we considered the moderating effect of group size on turnover. We analyzed data from 88,427 editors who participated in 1,054 WikiProjects, finding that (1) the positive effects of newcomers to a group were larger than the negative effects of leavers, (2) prior productivity, tenure, and participation in other groups all played significant roles, and (3) the effects of leavers and newcomers were amplified in larger groups.

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Cited By

TSUGAWA SNIIDA S(2021)Analyzing the Effects of Social Network Structure on the Growth and Survival of Online Communities in RedditIEICE Transactions on Communications10.1587/transcom.2020CQP0006E104.B:7(760-769)Online publication date: 1-Jul-2021
https://doi.org/10.1587/transcom.2020CQP0006
Seering JHammer JKaufman GYang DBernhaupt RMueller FVerweij DAndres JMcGrenere JCockburn AAvellino IGoguey ABjørn PZhao SSamson BKocielnik R(2020)Proximate Social Factors in First-Time Contribution to Online CommunitiesProceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3313831.3376151(1-14)Online publication date: 21-Apr-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3313831.3376151
Tsugawa SNiida S(2019)The impact of social network structure on the growth and survival of online communitiesProceedings of the 2019 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining10.1145/3341161.3343526(1112-1119)Online publication date: 27-Aug-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3341161.3343526
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Index Terms

Out With The Old, In With The New?: Unpacking Member Turnover in Online Production Groups
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Collaborative and social computing
    1. Collaborative and social computing theory, concepts and paradigms
      1. Computer supported cooperative work

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cover image Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction

Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction Volume 1, Issue CSCW

November 2017

2095 pages

EISSN:2573-0142

DOI:10.1145/3171581

Editors:
Clifford Lampe
University of Michigan
,
Jeff Nichols
Google
,
Karrie Karahalios
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
,
Geraldine Fitzpatrick
Vienna University of Technology
,
Uichin Lee
KAIST
,
Andres Monroy-Hernandez
Snap Inc.
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Wolfgang Stuerzlinger
Simon Fraser University

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Copyright © 2017 ACM.

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Association for Computing Machinery

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Publication History

Published: 06 December 2017

Published in PACMHCI Volume 1, Issue CSCW

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Cited By

TSUGAWA SNIIDA S(2021)Analyzing the Effects of Social Network Structure on the Growth and Survival of Online Communities in RedditIEICE Transactions on Communications10.1587/transcom.2020CQP0006E104.B:7(760-769)Online publication date: 1-Jul-2021
https://doi.org/10.1587/transcom.2020CQP0006
Seering JHammer JKaufman GYang DBernhaupt RMueller FVerweij DAndres JMcGrenere JCockburn AAvellino IGoguey ABjørn PZhao SSamson BKocielnik R(2020)Proximate Social Factors in First-Time Contribution to Online CommunitiesProceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3313831.3376151(1-14)Online publication date: 21-Apr-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3313831.3376151
Tsugawa SNiida S(2019)The impact of social network structure on the growth and survival of online communitiesProceedings of the 2019 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining10.1145/3341161.3343526(1112-1119)Online publication date: 27-Aug-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3341161.3343526
Karumur RYu BZhu HKonstan JMandryk RHancock MPerry MCox A(2018)Content is King, Leadership LagsProceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3173574.3174080(1-13)Online publication date: 21-Apr-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3173574.3174080

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