Increasing Participation in Peer Production Communities with the Newcomer Homepage
Morten Warncke-Wang, Rita Ho, Marshall Miller, Isaac Johnson

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…
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