Increasing Participation in Peer Production Communities with the Newcomer Homepage

TL;DR

This paper introduces the Newcomer Homepage, a centralized platform designed to improve newcomer retention in peer production communities, evaluated through a large-scale controlled experiment across multiple non-English Wikipedias.

Contribution

It presents a novel, research-based homepage design implemented across diverse communities and assesses its impact through controlled experiments, addressing previous limitations of isolated studies.

Findings

Modest gains in attracting newcomers

Effectiveness depends on community context

Highlights importance of tailored interventions

Abstract

For peer production communities to be sustainable, they must attract and retain new contributors. Studies have identified social and technical barriers to entry and discovered some potential solutions, but these solutions have typically focused on a single highly successful community, the English Wikipedia, been tested in isolation, and rarely evaluated through controlled experiments. We propose the Newcomer Homepage, a central place where newcomers can learn how peer production works and find opportunities to contribute, as a solution for attracting and retaining newcomers. The homepage was built upon existing research and designed in collaboration with partner communities. Through a large-scale controlled experiment spanning 27 non-English Wikipedia wikis, we evaluate the homepage and find modest gains, and that having a positive effect on the newcomer experience depends on the newcomer's context. We discuss how this impacts interventions that aim to improve the newcomer experience in peer production communities.