The Hidden Costs of Requiring Accounts: Quasi-Experimental Evidence From Peer Production

Benjamin Mako Hill; Aaron Shaw

doi:10.1177/0093650220910345

The Hidden Costs of Requiring Accounts: Quasi-Experimental Evidence From Peer Production

Benjamin Mako Hill^*, Aaron Shaw

^*Corresponding author for this work

Communication Studies

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

12 Scopus citations

Abstract

Online communities, like Wikipedia, produce valuable public information goods. Whereas some of these communities require would-be contributors to create accounts, many do not. Does this requirement catalyze cooperation or inhibit participation? Prior research provides divergent predictions but little causal evidence. We conduct an empirical test using longitudinal data from 136 natural experiments where would-be contributors to wikis were suddenly required to log in to contribute. Requiring accounts leads to a small increase in account creation, but reduces both high- and low-quality contributions from registered and unregistered participants. Although the change deters a large portion of low-quality participation, the vast majority of deterred contributions are of higher quality. We conclude that requiring accounts introduces an undertheorized tradeoff for public goods production in interactive communication systems.

Original language	English (US)
Pages (from-to)	771-795
Number of pages	25
Journal	Communication Research
Volume	48
Issue number	6
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1177/0093650220910345
State	Published - Aug 2021

Funding

The authors gratefully acknowledge audiences at the ETH Zurich Center for Law & Economics, UC Berkeley MORS at the Haas School of Business, the ANN-SONIC Conference on Peer Production Networks, the Information Society Project at Yale Law School, the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, and the BYOR Workshop at Northwestern for feedback on earlier versions of this work. Computing resources for the project were supported and managed through the Hyak shared scalable compute cluster for research at the University of Washington. Yochai Benkler inspired the project and Danny Horn showed us the way to the data. Our collaboration benefited from time at both the Helen Riaboff Whiteley Center at the University of Washington Friday Harbor Labs and the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Support for this research was provided by Northwestern University, the University of Washington, and the U.S. National Science Foundation (IIS-1617129, IIS-1617468, and CNS-1703049). The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Support for this research was provided by Northwestern University, the University of Washington, and the U.S. National Science Foundation (IIS-1617129, IIS-1617468, and CNS-1703049).

Keywords

information systems
online communities
peer production
public information goods

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Communication
Language and Linguistics
Linguistics and Language

Access to Document

10.1177/0093650220910345

Cite this

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title = "The Hidden Costs of Requiring Accounts: Quasi-Experimental Evidence From Peer Production",

abstract = "Online communities, like Wikipedia, produce valuable public information goods. Whereas some of these communities require would-be contributors to create accounts, many do not. Does this requirement catalyze cooperation or inhibit participation? Prior research provides divergent predictions but little causal evidence. We conduct an empirical test using longitudinal data from 136 natural experiments where would-be contributors to wikis were suddenly required to log in to contribute. Requiring accounts leads to a small increase in account creation, but reduces both high- and low-quality contributions from registered and unregistered participants. Although the change deters a large portion of low-quality participation, the vast majority of deterred contributions are of higher quality. We conclude that requiring accounts introduces an undertheorized tradeoff for public goods production in interactive communication systems.",

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author = "Hill, {Benjamin Mako} and Aaron Shaw",

note = "Funding Information: The authors gratefully acknowledge audiences at the ETH Zurich Center for Law & Economics, UC Berkeley MORS at the Haas School of Business, the ANN-SONIC Conference on Peer Production Networks, the Information Society Project at Yale Law School, the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, and the BYOR Workshop at Northwestern for feedback on earlier versions of this work. Computing resources for the project were supported and managed through the Hyak shared scalable compute cluster for research at the University of Washington. Yochai Benkler inspired the project and Danny Horn showed us the way to the data. Our collaboration benefited from time at both the Helen Riaboff Whiteley Center at the University of Washington Friday Harbor Labs and the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Support for this research was provided by Northwestern University, the University of Washington, and the U.S. National Science Foundation (IIS-1617129, IIS-1617468, and CNS-1703049). Funding Information: The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Support for this research was provided by Northwestern University, the University of Washington, and the U.S. National Science Foundation (IIS-1617129, IIS-1617468, and CNS-1703049). Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} The Author(s) 2020.",

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AB - Online communities, like Wikipedia, produce valuable public information goods. Whereas some of these communities require would-be contributors to create accounts, many do not. Does this requirement catalyze cooperation or inhibit participation? Prior research provides divergent predictions but little causal evidence. We conduct an empirical test using longitudinal data from 136 natural experiments where would-be contributors to wikis were suddenly required to log in to contribute. Requiring accounts leads to a small increase in account creation, but reduces both high- and low-quality contributions from registered and unregistered participants. Although the change deters a large portion of low-quality participation, the vast majority of deterred contributions are of higher quality. We conclude that requiring accounts introduces an undertheorized tradeoff for public goods production in interactive communication systems.

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The Hidden Costs of Requiring Accounts: Quasi-Experimental Evidence From Peer Production

Abstract

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Keywords

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