Research:Theoretical perspectives on editor motivations

Created

17:39, 30 June 2025 (UTC)

Contact

Tanja Anđić

Wikimedia Foundation

Collaborators

Michael Raish

Wikimedia Foundation

Duration: 2025-04 – 2025-06

editor motivations, theories of motivation, sustained action, retention, onboarding, serious games

Research:Projects

This page documents a completed research project.

The motivations of editors, and how to sustainably motivate editors to contribute, is a key focus of past and recent initivatives within the Wikimedia ecosystem. In order to understand motivations of editors specifically, we should first understand how motivations are defined generally and the mechanisms thought to underlie motivation towards sustained action within the broader academic literature. This can help us to have a shared language around motivation, and its conceptual implementation within product designs, organized activities, and other initiatives.

Motivations: an overview

Key concepts

Studies of motivation within the field of education likely parallel the challenges of engaging newcomers and sustaining the motivations of seasoned editors within the Wikimedia ecosystem most closely (as opposed to, say, motivations in employment, or even the majority of online communities, as other online communities typically require much less learning in order to successfully engage in them). Edward Deci and Richard Ryan's overarching Self-Determination Theory (SDT) offers the most holistic and applicable theory of motivation for the Wikimedia ecosystem, and within the literature on serious games -- the use of game-like features in educational contexts -- is by far the most cited theory of motivation^[1]. Self-Determination Theory posits three forms of motivation - amotivation, extrinsic motivation, and intrinsic motivation - as a continuum, which are shaped and regulated by the basic human needs of competence, autonomy, and relatedness^[2]^[3].

Intrinsic motivation: motivation to engage in an activity out of pure interest, curiosity, or enjoyment with no external influence.
Extrinsic motivation: motivation to engage in an activity with external influence, whether rewards, punishments, or an instrumental purpose (e.g. to achieve a different goal)
Amotivation: lack of motivation or intent to engage in an activity
Autonomy: need and desire to control one's own actions and self-organize activity
Competence: the ability (or perception of one's ability) to successfully complete or engage in an activity
Relatedness: feeling connected to others, a sense of affiliation or belonging
Regulation: the level of internalization and integration ranging from external influences into inner values, promoted or inhibited by meeting the needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness

Motivation type	Amotivation	Extrinsic motivation				Intrinsic motivation
Regulation	Non-regulation	External regulation	Introjected regulation	Identified regulation	Integrated regulation	Intrinsic regulation
Drivers of motivation	No intention to engage in activity	Responding to external rewards or punishment (BF Skinner as an example - “if I hit the button, I get a treat”)	Responding to rewards or punishment, but internally driven (shame, guilt, or pride - taking in regulations without identifying with them)	Recognizing underlying value of activity but for an instrumental purpose (towards another goal)	Recognized value and integrated with sense of self, values, and identity	The activity is intrinsically interesting, would do it with no outside influence
Example (reversion)	Why would I revert someone?	If I revert 10 edits, I get the next achievement	I've kept my patrolling streak for a month, I'd be so disappointed if I lost it	This is important work, but I'm really doing it to qualify for adminship	Cleaning up vandalism is important, it prevents misinformation, other editors recognize my good work, and I know how to spot good faith edits so I can help protect those editors	Spotting and mass reverting vandalism is just plain fun!
Locus of causality	Impersonal	External	Somewhat external	Somewhat internal	Internal	Internal
Duration of activity		Unlikely to result in sustained activity		Somewhat likely to result in sustained activity	More likely to result in sustained activity
Adapted from Deci & Ryan (2000:237)^[2]

The majority of active editors, whatever activity they do, are likely experiencing somewhere between integrated extrinsic motivation and intrinsic motivation. It is not surprising, for example, that the top motivations indicated by active editors in the 2024 Community Insights survey are categorizable as intrinsic (learning new things, fixing mistakes) or values-integrated extrinsic (contributions helping others, preventing misinformation, filling content gaps, the wiki philosophy of openness and collaboration). However, these over-arching motivations do little to help us understand the specific ways in which diverse editors integrate motivations. For example, "helping others" is very broad, but showing different forms of helping to editors can help newcomers and seasoned editors to find their 'place' in the Wikimedia ecosystem - helping others can mean readers generally, but perhaps lesser-known forms of helping could be "saving articles from deletion by adding more reliable information" (and by extension, saving the effort of other editors) or "bringing the quality of articles in New Page Patrol up to help both patrollers and editors."

Though intrinsic motivation is often seen heirarchically as the ideal form of motivation, for some activities such as patrolling, purely intrinsic motivation may not be the "best" form of motivation: Notably, Deci & Ryan argue that relatedness specifically is not vital to intrinsic motivation,^[2] but it may be a vital mechanism for good moderation by taking into account the fact that reversion acts on the work and, by proxy, motivations of other people. Without care for the broader community and values, it can be difficult to remain neutral while over-zealous reversion can have detrimental effects on other editors. Thus, for on-wiki activities, underlining the value of a particular activity and how it may integrate into editors' broader sense of self and community may be a vital; this is especially so for structured tasks which may seem decontextualized to editors who are unaware of how the broader ecosystem functions.

Threats and supports to motivation

While we can posit that autonomy is a relatively well-met aspect of editing, newcomers and seasoned editors taking on new tasks face numerous threats to competence and relatedness. The ecosystem of any one Wikimedia project is so complex that it can take years to learn the rules and guidelines, spaces of communication, and various tools available. In the meantime, the primary feedback new editors receive on their edits is negative - for example, they are often reverted, but rarely thanked for their edits - challenging both their sense of competence (receiving primarily negative feedback) and relatedness (the primary and often first interaction with others is punitive).

Below is an incomplete brainstorming table of existing threats and supports to motivation as categorized by autonomy, competence, and relatedness with related (though not analyzed in these terms) articles for further reading when available.

Existing threats and supports to motivation by need
	Autonomy	Competence	Relatedness
Threats	Inability to discover and choose new activities Insufficient information about why a task is important Feeling like you’re the only (or one of few) editors maintaining a space/project/task/tool Maintaining a status (permissions, access to a resource, leaderboard position, streak)	Reversion^[4] Critical messages/feedback^[5] Complex rules and guidelines^[6] Difficulty finding rules and guidelines^[7] Unstated norms Overly challenging tasks Inaccessible language (ie. “wikispeak”) Inability to safely ask questions Complex interface / markup^[8]	Reversion^[4] Critical messages/feedback^[5] Questioning of one’s values or reputation (e.g. being called a “deletionist”) Inability to discover community spaces Conflict or harassment^[5]
Supports	Choosing what to work on^[7] Acknowledgement of feelings (boring or difficult tasks) Understanding importance of the work Alignment with values	Optimally challenging tasks for one’s level of experience Thanks^[9]^[10] Positive messages/feedback^[11] Reversion but with encouraging feedback^[4]^[12] Badges/barnstars Lurking, learning from actions of others^[7] Maintaining articles you've worked on previously^[7]^[13]	Thanks^[9]^[10] Positive messages^[14] Badges/barnstars^[15] Collaborative projects (e.g. WikiProjects)^[16] Offline communication spaces Other editors editing an article you recently worked on Pageviews (e.g. readers as a form of relatedness, people helped)^[17] Sense of social reputation^[18]^[19]

Discovery, Onboarding, and Serious Games

The goals of onboarding newcomers to edit, and encouraging experienced editors to take on new activities, are complex. Editors are tasked with not just learning the material of a topic they want to edit about and finding a space where that topic needs expansion, but also learning rules and guidelines such as neutral point of view and reliable sources, as well as learning how to use the editor or advanced tools, and then finding a space where they feel comfortable editing. This is not to mention understanding how edit histories and talk pages function, or knowing where to seek help. For experienced editors who may be ready to take on new tasks, simply knowing that those tasks may exist is a hurdle in itself. Balancing between slowly introducing editing concepts without overwhelming editors and the vast amount of available spaces to learn and contribute to is a difficult task.

One potential approach is serious games -- the use of game-like features in educational settings^[1]. Importantly, we do not want to gamify editing or encourage unhealthy relationships to editing; alongside the likelihood of decreasing the quality of edits and encouraging unhealthy competition among editors, per the Deci & Ryan's motivation continuum^[2]^[3], purely game-oriented (points, leaderboards, streaks, conditional rewards) features are unlikely to result in sustained activity and may actually undermine the sense of autonomy for editors, leading to further attrition. Per Krath et al. (2021)^[1], gamification is not in itself effective as an educational tool, but instead must be theoretically grounded in the mechanisms of motivations, emotions, and cognition in order to build appropriate principles and structures which encourage futher learning. For the Wikimedia ecosystem, if designed correctly, game-based education can help to aid discovery of activities, tools, and communities, allow editors to understand and set goals for themselves, and provide novel ways to learn about how Wikimedia projects work even if they do not ultimately take on any specific task.

This concept of serious games has already been applied in many Growth Team features such as the Newcomer Homepage, Structured Tasks, and Mentorship module. As the 2025-2026 Foundation Annual Plan aims to fuel volunteer growth through easier editing features and a central hub for organizing on-wiki activity, existing and new features should be developed and revised with motivations in mind, asking how each facet of a feature may undermine or support the needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness.

Krath et al.'s extensive literature review of serious games and game-based learning offers valuable insights for implementing game-based learning (see Table 5), as well as a comprehensive overview of supporting theories of learning and motivation (see Appendix D).

The first columns of these tables are direct quotations from Table 5 of Krath et al., with the second column brainstorming applicable features based on the review article, and the third column summarizing open questions and potential pitfalls:

Principles that guide towards the intended behavioral outcomes
Theoretical principles	Examples	What to watch out for
P1: Clear and relevant goals. Gamification can transparently illustrate goals and their relevance. Supported by: Goal-setting theory, flow theory, self-determination theory, ARCS model, constructivist learning theory, theory of reasoned action, theory of planned behavior	Skill trees, levels, high-level goals with pathways to achievement (e.g. creating a Featured Article can be a high-level goal, with a multitude of smaller goals for how to become an editor who can make one)	Make sure goals are relevant and achievable Emphasize autonomy by allowing for self-directed goal setting Make sure goals are also just difficult enough - “difficult goals produce a higher level of performance than easy goals, and [..] specific difficult goals produce a higher level of performance than ambiguous difficult goals”
P3: Immediate feedback. Gamification can provide users with direct feedback on their actions. Supported by: Self-determination theory, self-efficacy theory, goal-setting theory, ARCS model, social cognitive theory, theory of planned behavior, technology acceptance model, transtheoretical model of behavior change, flow theory	Guided mentorship, thanks, reversion, percentile ranks	How do we ensure feedback is quick and informative? While points and achievements can indicate progress in the Wikimedia ecosystem, often mistakes are corrected through reversion - how do we provide kind, immediate feedback when a mistake is made? Are there ways to destigmatize reversion (for example, making it an "achievement" and noting how many people have been reverted)?
P4: Positive reinforcement. Gamification can reward users for their performance and communicate the relevance of their achievements. Supported by: Reinforcement theory, ARCS model, self-efficacy theory, transtheoretical model of behavior change, self-determination theory, activity theory, social learning theory	Percentile ranks ("x% of editors have made this many edits", "x% of editors have done this activity"), situated leader boards (e.g. among people who started in a similar timeframe), badges/barnstars, unlocked achievements, readership metrics	“positive external stimuli must be primarily informative and not controlling in nature to achieve the desired effects (Ryan & Deci, 2017)” Punishments and monetary awards can be counterproductive
P8: Guided paths. Gamification can nudge users towards the actions necessary for achieving the goals. Supported by: Constructivist learning theory, sociocultural theory of cognitive development, theory of planned behavior, self-efficacy theory	Skill trees and pathways, unlocked achievements that nudge towards new editing options, high-level goals with sub-goals	Ensure learning process is within the zone of proximal development of a particular user
P10: Simplified user experience. Gamification systems are usually easy to use and can simplify content. Supported by: Technology acceptance model, multimedia learning theory, cognitive load theory	Centralization of specific activities and spaces to discover editing opportunities	Watch out for cognitive load and distractions Use self-explanatory features and explanatory feedback

Principles that foster individual relevance
Theoretical principles	Examples	What to watch out for
P2: Individual goals. Gamification can allow users to set their own goals. Supported by: Self-determination theory, achievement goal theory, goal-setting theory, social cognitive theory	Skill trees with multiple pathways, providing potential high-level goals with multiple lower-level pathway goals (e.g. Featured Article, Did You Know, expanding knowledge on a geographic area, getting on a leaderboard)	What sorts of goals are relevant to editors?
P7: Adaptive content. Gamification can adapt tasks and complexity to the abilities and knowledge of the user. Supported by: Transtheoretical model of behavior change, self-determination theory, flow theory, self-efficacy theory, goal-setting theory, constructivist learning theory, sociocultural theory of cognitive development	Suggested edits that draw on tacit knowledge (geographic location like city, state, country; interest based on past edits; interest based on self-directed filtering - e.g. not just film, but horror film)	“it is important to tailor tasks and complexity to the individual's skills, knowledge, and behavioral level” - how can we integrate competence, self-direction, and scaffolding while being responsive to skills, knowledge, and behavior? Are we assuming the difficulty of certain tasks compared to others (e.g. is expanding a stub a difficult task? Is it more difficult than cleaning up an article for NPOV? Is reverting edits more difficult than content editing?)
P9: Multiple choices. Gamification can allow users to choose between several different options to achieve a certain goal. Supported by: Experiential learning theory, situated learning theory, self-determination theory	High-level goals and skill trees with multiple achievement pathways	How can we link prior knowledge to new scenarios? Problem-based learning, case-based learning and apprenticeship can help. Likewise, we might harness tacit knowledge that editors may not know they have? (An easy example: their city!)

Principles that enable social interaction and positive social effects
Theoretical principles	Examples	What to watch out for
P5: Social comparisons. Gamification can allow users to see their peer's performance. Supported by: Self-efficacy theory, social cognitive theory, social learning theory, cognitive load theory, social comparison theory	Percentile ranks ("x% of editors have made this many edits", "x% of editors have done this activity"), situated leader boards (e.g. among people who started editing in a similar timeframe), team-based competitions, discussion groups	“the opportunity to make private comparisons and the certainty of not revealing one's inferiority to others are essential for social comparison processes to be motivating (Buunk & Gibbons, 2007)” Introductions of hierarchy Leaderboards may be unachievable (with so many prolific editors or moderators) - can there be social comparisons to similar users?
P6: Social norming. Gamification can connect users to support each other and work towards a common goal. Supported by: Theory of reasoned action, activity theory, self-determination theory, theory of planned behavior, technology acceptance model	Backlog drives, WikiProjects, TeaHouses, Talk pages, team-based competitions, alerts that an article was edited after an edit made (or even further, an edited article was removed from Articles for Deletion, was patrolled, etc)	Backlogs are a great example of existing connectedness and work towards a common goal - how might we encourage other forms of teamwork and collaboration that brings mutual support? What are the risks?

Spaces for further research

Motivations can be studied across the Wikimedia ecosystem at varying levels of analysis. Below are some potential spaces to explore further, which arose as a result of this research.

The original scope of this work was to better understand factors in motivations for users who take advanced actions that could be construed as moderation actions, with or without extended rights (T391499), and thus some of the potential research here skews towards this group of editors.

Mentorship, relatedness, and competence

Preliminary analysis of the Newcomer Mentorship module introduced progressively since late 2021 has shown no significant effect on newcomer retention when comparing those who had access to a mentor and those who did not. Among those who asked a question of their mentors, about a third asked as their first edit. However, the mentorship module data and participants may be able to give us more nuanced insights as to when mentorship may or may not work, and by extension provide more information for understanding paths to achieving feelings of relatedness and competence among newcomers. Building on the existing analyses, further research could be done on whether editors who ask questions of their mentor after making some edits on their own are more likely to benefit from mentorship. Likewise, analyses of time-to-response or mentor level activity may show different results. Mentors may also be receiving substantial conflict-of-interest question requests (e.g. how to write one's own biography) and pairing analyses of mentorship with responses to the Welcome Survey may show different impacts of mentorship. As the prevalence of asking questions is low among newcomers (less than 3%), newcomers who succeed in making a certain number of edits could also be surveyed about the mentorship process. It is likewise possible that mentorship becomes more valuable at advanced editing stages, and exploration of whether mentorship would be valuable to editors wanting to "level up" in their on-wiki activities could be a longer-term project.

Understanding moderator motivations through applications for extended rights and analyses of extended rights group dynamics

Smaller scale data suggests that editors tend to complete advanced actions like reversion through their own watchlists, and tend to think of these actions as just another part of editing^[7]. However, substantial moderation activity happens through organized spaces or permissions like New Page Patrol, Articles for Deletion, and more. Requests for permissions discussions offer rich textual data to understand how editors frame their motivations for requesting a specific right, and how rights-granters assess the motivations and qualifications of applicants. The trajectories of applicants can likewise be studied further - both before applying and after - to understand factors that shape successful permission users. The pool of applicants likewise offers potential research participants, who can directly be asked about their experiences, motivations, and barriers they face before and after applying and/or receiving a permission. Finally, the talk pages of specific permissions offer valuable insights into the dynamics of extended rights groups and the difficulties they face. Likewise, some extended rights groups have leaderboards and backlog metrics, which can help to understand the impact of gamified components in these group dynamics.

Progression systems

Building on existing newcomer infrastructure, progression systems should be explored with the above-listed theoretical groundings in mind, both with central foci of autonomy, competence, and relatedness, and the broader aspects of education such as bolstering relevance, individual goals and goal-setting, social comparisons, and so on. One question asked of the original task of this project was to understand whether incentives may help motivate experienced editors to take on new actions. The answer to this is "maybe", but incentives themselves are unlikely to motivate editors towards sustained activity, and may be especially harmful if they are conditional (e.g. a reward given that can be taken away such as access to a resource, or awards which do not provide context for the achievement). However, some incentives may be used among many other game-like features to help editors discover new aspects of editing, find out about high-level editing goals like getting a Did You Know or Featured Article, collaborate with others, and set goals for themselves with guided flexible paths. Progression systems could likewise be informed by either editors or non-editors who are "gamers", as they can help to understand which features may replicate negative aspects of games (such as "grinding"), and how to make adequately challenging task suggestions.

References

↑ ^a ^b ^c Krath, Jeanine; Schürmann, Linda; von Korflesch, Harald F. O. (2021-12-01). "Revealing the theoretical basis of gamification: A systematic review and analysis of theory in research on gamification, serious games and game-based learning". Computers in Human Behavior 125: 106963. ISSN 0747-5632. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2021.106963.
↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d Deci, Edward L.; and Ryan, Richard M. (2000-10-01). "The "What" and "Why" of Goal Pursuits: Human Needs and the Self-Determination of Behavior". Psychological Inquiry 11 (4): 227–268. ISSN 1047-840X. doi:10.1207/S15327965PLI1104_01.
↑ ^a ^b Cook, David A.; Artino, Anthony R. (2016-10). "Motivation to learn: an overview of contemporary theories". Medical Education 50 (10): 997–1014. ISSN 1365-2923. PMC 5113774. PMID 27628718. doi:10.1111/medu.13074. Check date values in: |date= (help)
↑ ^a ^b ^c Halfaker, Aaron; Kittur, Aniket; Riedl, John (2011-10-03). "Don't bite the newbies: how reverts affect the quantity and quality of Wikipedia work". WikiSym '11. New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery. pp. 163–172. ISBN 978-1-4503-0909-7. doi:10.1145/2038558.2038585.
↑ ^a ^b ^c Collier, Benjamin; Bear, Julia (2012-02-11). "Conflict, criticism, or confidence: an empirical examination of the gender gap in wikipedia contributions". CSCW '12. New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery. pp. 383–392. ISBN 978-1-4503-1086-4. doi:10.1145/2145204.2145265.
↑ "Community Insights/Community Insights 2024 Report - Meta". Retrieved 2025-06-25.
↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e "Research:Centralized contributions for moderation activity - Meta". Retrieved 2025-06-25.
↑ Kuznetsov, Stacey (2006-06-01). "Motivations of contributors to Wikipedia". SIGCAS Comput. Soc. 36 (2): 1–es. ISSN 0095-2737. doi:10.1145/1215942.1215943.
↑ ^a ^b Pennington, J. Nathan Matias, Reem Al-Kashif, Julia Kamin, Max Klein, Eric (2020-06-09). "Volunteers Thanked Thousands of Wikipedia Editors to Learn the Effects of Receiving Thanks" (in en-US). Retrieved 2025-06-25.
↑ ^a ^b "Research:Understanding thanks - Meta". Retrieved 2025-06-25.
↑ Zhu, Haiyi; Zhang, Amy; He, Jiping; Kraut, Robert E.; Kittur, Aniket (2013-04-27). "Effects of peer feedback on contribution: a field experiment in Wikipedia". ACM. pp. 2253–2262. ISBN 978-1-4503-1899-0. doi:10.1145/2470654.2481311.
↑ Faulkner, Ryan; Walling, Steven; Pinchuk, Maryana (2012-08-27). "Etiquette in Wikipedia: weening new editors into productive ones". WikiSym '12. New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery. pp. 1–4. ISBN 978-1-4503-1605-7. doi:10.1145/2462932.2462939.
↑ Thom-Santelli, Jennifer; Cosley, Dan R.; Gay, Geri (2009-04-04). "What's mine is mine: territoriality in collaborative authoring". CHI '09. New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery. pp. 1481–1484. ISBN 978-1-60558-246-7. doi:10.1145/1518701.1518925.
↑ Zhu, Haiyi; Kraut, Robert; Kittur, Aniket (2012-02-11). "Effectiveness of shared leadership in online communities". CSCW '12. New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery. pp. 407–416. ISBN 978-1-4503-1086-4. doi:10.1145/2145204.2145269.
↑ Gallus, Jana (2017-12). "Fostering Public Good Contributions with Symbolic Awards: A Large-Scale Natural Field Experiment at Wikipedia". Management Science 63 (12): 3999–4015. ISSN 0025-1909. doi:10.1287/mnsc.2016.2540. Check date values in: |date= (help)
↑ Forte, Andrea; Kittur, Niki; Larco, Vanessa; Zhu, Haiyi; Bruckman, Amy; Kraut, Robert E. (2012-02-11). "Coordination and beyond: social functions of groups in open content production". CSCW '12. New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery. pp. 417–426. ISBN 978-1-4503-1086-4. doi:10.1145/2145204.2145270.
↑ Menking, Amanda; Erickson, Ingrid (2015-04-18). "The Heart Work of Wikipedia: Gendered, Emotional Labor in the World's Largest Online Encyclopedia". CHI '15. New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery. pp. 207–210. ISBN 978-1-4503-3145-6. doi:10.1145/2702123.2702514.
↑ Algan, Yann; Benkler, Yochai; Fuster Morell, Mayo; Hergueux, JJrrme (2013). "Cooperation in a Peer Production Economy Experimental Evidence from Wikipedia.". SSRN Electronic Journal. ISSN 1556-5068. doi:10.2139/ssrn.2843518.
↑ Arazy, Ofer; Liifshitz-Assaf, Hila; Nov, Oded; Daxenberger, Johannes; Balestra, Martina; Cheshire, Coye (2017-02-25). "On the "How" and "Why" of Emergent Role Behaviors in Wikipedia". CSCW '17. New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery. pp. 2039–2051. ISBN 978-1-4503-4335-0. doi:10.1145/2998181.2998317.

[:6-1] Krath, Jeanine; Schürmann, Linda; von Korflesch, Harald F. O. (2021-12-01). "Revealing the theoretical basis of gamification: A systematic review and analysis of theory in research on gamification, serious games and game-based learning". Computers in Human Behavior 125: 106963. ISSN 0747-5632. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2021.106963.

[:0-2] Deci, Edward L.; and Ryan, Richard M. (2000-10-01). "The "What" and "Why" of Goal Pursuits: Human Needs and the Self-Determination of Behavior". Psychological Inquiry 11 (4): 227–268. ISSN 1047-840X. doi:10.1207/S15327965PLI1104_01.

[:7-3] Cook, David A.; Artino, Anthony R. (2016-10). "Motivation to learn: an overview of contemporary theories". Medical Education 50 (10): 997–1014. ISSN 1365-2923. PMC 5113774. PMID 27628718. doi:10.1111/medu.13074. Check date values in: |date= (help)

[:1-4] Halfaker, Aaron; Kittur, Aniket; Riedl, John (2011-10-03). "Don't bite the newbies: how reverts affect the quantity and quality of Wikipedia work". WikiSym '11. New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery. pp. 163–172. ISBN 978-1-4503-0909-7. doi:10.1145/2038558.2038585.

[:2-5] Collier, Benjamin; Bear, Julia (2012-02-11). "Conflict, criticism, or confidence: an empirical examination of the gender gap in wikipedia contributions". CSCW '12. New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery. pp. 383–392. ISBN 978-1-4503-1086-4. doi:10.1145/2145204.2145265.

[6] "Community Insights/Community Insights 2024 Report - Meta". Retrieved 2025-06-25.

[:3-7] "Research:Centralized contributions for moderation activity - Meta". Retrieved 2025-06-25.

[8] Kuznetsov, Stacey (2006-06-01). "Motivations of contributors to Wikipedia". SIGCAS Comput. Soc. 36 (2): 1–es. ISSN 0095-2737. doi:10.1145/1215942.1215943.

[:4-9] Pennington, J. Nathan Matias, Reem Al-Kashif, Julia Kamin, Max Klein, Eric (2020-06-09). "Volunteers Thanked Thousands of Wikipedia Editors to Learn the Effects of Receiving Thanks" (in en-US). Retrieved 2025-06-25.

[:5-10] "Research:Understanding thanks - Meta". Retrieved 2025-06-25.

[11] Zhu, Haiyi; Zhang, Amy; He, Jiping; Kraut, Robert E.; Kittur, Aniket (2013-04-27). "Effects of peer feedback on contribution: a field experiment in Wikipedia". ACM. pp. 2253–2262. ISBN 978-1-4503-1899-0. doi:10.1145/2470654.2481311.

[12] Faulkner, Ryan; Walling, Steven; Pinchuk, Maryana (2012-08-27). "Etiquette in Wikipedia: weening new editors into productive ones". WikiSym '12. New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery. pp. 1–4. ISBN 978-1-4503-1605-7. doi:10.1145/2462932.2462939.

[13] Thom-Santelli, Jennifer; Cosley, Dan R.; Gay, Geri (2009-04-04). "What's mine is mine: territoriality in collaborative authoring". CHI '09. New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery. pp. 1481–1484. ISBN 978-1-60558-246-7. doi:10.1145/1518701.1518925.

[14] Zhu, Haiyi; Kraut, Robert; Kittur, Aniket (2012-02-11). "Effectiveness of shared leadership in online communities". CSCW '12. New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery. pp. 407–416. ISBN 978-1-4503-1086-4. doi:10.1145/2145204.2145269.

[15] Gallus, Jana (2017-12). "Fostering Public Good Contributions with Symbolic Awards: A Large-Scale Natural Field Experiment at Wikipedia". Management Science 63 (12): 3999–4015. ISSN 0025-1909. doi:10.1287/mnsc.2016.2540. Check date values in: |date= (help)

[16] Forte, Andrea; Kittur, Niki; Larco, Vanessa; Zhu, Haiyi; Bruckman, Amy; Kraut, Robert E. (2012-02-11). "Coordination and beyond: social functions of groups in open content production". CSCW '12. New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery. pp. 417–426. ISBN 978-1-4503-1086-4. doi:10.1145/2145204.2145270.

[17] Menking, Amanda; Erickson, Ingrid (2015-04-18). "The Heart Work of Wikipedia: Gendered, Emotional Labor in the World's Largest Online Encyclopedia". CHI '15. New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery. pp. 207–210. ISBN 978-1-4503-3145-6. doi:10.1145/2702123.2702514.

[18] Algan, Yann; Benkler, Yochai; Fuster Morell, Mayo; Hergueux, JJrrme (2013). "Cooperation in a Peer Production Economy Experimental Evidence from Wikipedia.". SSRN Electronic Journal. ISSN 1556-5068. doi:10.2139/ssrn.2843518.

[19] Arazy, Ofer; Liifshitz-Assaf, Hila; Nov, Oded; Daxenberger, Johannes; Balestra, Martina; Cheshire, Coye (2017-02-25). "On the "How" and "Why" of Emergent Role Behaviors in Wikipedia". CSCW '17. New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery. pp. 2039–2051. ISBN 978-1-4503-4335-0. doi:10.1145/2998181.2998317.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]

[11]

[12]

[13]

[14]

[15]

[16]

[17]

[18]

[19]