Start Date
10-12-2017 12:00 AM
Description
Using a novel identification strategy, we study whether and how users of online communities alter their behavior when they are appointed the highest position within a community, in terms of “moderators” who create and enforce governance policies. Our data comes from Stack Exchange, a network of more than 160 online communities, over the period from 2010 to 2017. These communities regularly hold democratic elections of moderators. By focusing on elections decided by a narrow vote margin, we can exploit a regression discontinuity that represents a quasi-random assignment of moderatorship. We find that moderatorship catalyzes desirable user behavior: closely elected moderators contribute more content to the community, which is also rated higher and bookmarked more often by other users. Rather than being the result of increased resources and tools granted by moderatorship, we observe that the effects are mostly driven by a psychological mechanism, in terms of increased community affiliation.
Recommended Citation
Förderer, Jens, "Self-Governance of Online Communities: Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Design" (2017). ICIS 2017 Proceedings. 3.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/icis2017/Economics/Presentations/3
Self-Governance of Online Communities: Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Design
Using a novel identification strategy, we study whether and how users of online communities alter their behavior when they are appointed the highest position within a community, in terms of “moderators” who create and enforce governance policies. Our data comes from Stack Exchange, a network of more than 160 online communities, over the period from 2010 to 2017. These communities regularly hold democratic elections of moderators. By focusing on elections decided by a narrow vote margin, we can exploit a regression discontinuity that represents a quasi-random assignment of moderatorship. We find that moderatorship catalyzes desirable user behavior: closely elected moderators contribute more content to the community, which is also rated higher and bookmarked more often by other users. Rather than being the result of increased resources and tools granted by moderatorship, we observe that the effects are mostly driven by a psychological mechanism, in terms of increased community affiliation.