Turnover in online communities is very high, with most people who initially post a message to an online community never contributing again. In this paper, we test whether the responses that newcomers receive to their first posts influence the extent to which they continue to participate. The data come from initial posts made by 2,777 newcomers to six public newsgroups. We coded the content and valence of the initial post and its first response, if it received one, to see if these factors influenced newcomers' likelihood of posting again. Approximately 61% of newcomers received a reply to their initial post, and those who got a reply were 12% more likely to post to the community again; their probability of posting again increased from 44% to 56%. They were more likely to receive a response if they asked a question or wrote a longer post. Surprisingly, the quality of the response they received-its emotional tone and whether it answered a newcomer's question-did not influence the likelihood of the newcomer's posting again.

Early socialization experiences have a long-term impact on newcomers’ satisfaction, performance, and intention to stay in a group. We know that newcomers proactively shape their own socialization, but we know little about the behavioral tactics they employ, or how the words they choose affect their acceptance by the group. The present article highlights three common conversational strategies of newcomers to online groups: (a) group-based membership claims, in which newcomers describe initial participation in the group; (b) identity-based membership claims, in which they describe their similarity to the group’s focal social category; and (c) information requests, in which they ask for help. Using machine learning to identify these conversational strategies automatically in 12,000 newcomers’ messages to approximately 100 online groups, we find that they are correlated with increased group responsiveness. We follow this analysis with two controlled field experiments to demonstrate that when individuals attest to previous group participation and make specific requests for information, community responsiveness increases, but claims of shared identity with the group have no impact.

Conversation is a critical element to the success of online communities, both for the communities as a whole and the individual members. Yet conversations often fail: Forty percent of potential thread-starting messages in Usenet groups receive no response. When this happens, those who are trying to get information, support, or discussion from a group receive no benefit from their efforts. This paper presents a multi-method series of studies into community responsiveness to two rhetorical strategies: self-disclosing introductions and making requests. Introductions signal legitimacy and commitment, and requests reduce community effort by making clear what is needed. An analysis of a longitudinal sample of 40,931 messages from 99 Usenet groups shows that introductions referencing lurking and a personal connection to the topic of discussion increase the likelihood of getting a reply. So does making requests. Machine learning detects introductions and requests automatically within the text. A pair of experiments in which introductions and requests are added or removed from previously posted messages and reposted to Usenet groups shows that introductions referencing the group history cause an increase in reply counts, but requests do not. The research will inform the design of an automatic intervention triggered at the time messages are written that makes suggestions for strengthening rhetorical strategies when the community is unlikely to respond.

People come to online communities seeking information, encouragement, and conversation. When a community responds, participants benefit and become more committed. Yet interactions often fail. In a longitudinal sample of 6,172 messages from 8 Usenet newsgroups, 27% of posts r eceived no response. The information context, posters' prior engagement in the community, and the content of their posts all influenced the likelihood that they received a reply, and, as a result, their willingness to continue active participation. Posters were less likely to get a reply if they were newcomers. Posting on-topic, introducing oneself via autobiographical testimonials, asking questions, using less complex language and other features of the messages, increased replies. Results suggest ways that developers might increase the ability of online communities to support successful individual-group interactions.

Wikis are sites that support the development of emergent, collective infrastructures that are highly flexible and open, suggesting that the systems that use them will be egalitarian, free, and unstructured. Yet it is apparent that the flexible infrastructure of wikis allows the development and deployment of a wide range of structures. However, we find that the policies in Wikipedia and the systems and mechanisms that operate around them are multi-faceted. In this descriptive study, we draw on prior work on rules and policies in organizations to propose and apply a conceptual framework for understanding the natures and roles of policies in wikis. We conclude that wikis are capable of supporting a broader range of structures and activities than other collaborative platforms. Wikis allow for and, in fact, facilitate the creation of policies that serve a wide variety of functions.

Deliberative mass collaboration systems, such as Wikipedia, are characterized as undisciplined, unstructured social spaces where individuals participate in collective action. However, examination of Wikipedia reveals that it contains a bureaucratic structure, which ensures that collective goals are primary drivers of that collective action. To support large-scale activity, deliberative mass collaboration systems must provide ways of reconciling the tension between individual agency and collective goals. Wikipedia’s unusual policy, ignore all rules (IAR), serves as this tension release mechanism. IAR supports individual agency when positions taken by participants might conflict with those reflected in established rules. Hypotheses are tested with Wikipedia data regarding individual agency, bureaucratic processes, and IAR invocation during the content exclusion process. Findings indicate that in Wikipedia each utterance matters in deliberations, rules matter in deliberations, and IAR citation magnifies individual influence but also reinforces bureaucracy.

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