{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,11]],"date-time":"2025-10-11T02:19:53Z","timestamp":1760149193407,"version":"build-2065373602"},"reference-count":34,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"3","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2023,7,13]],"date-time":"2023-07-13T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1689206400000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100002241","name":"Japan Science and Technology Agency","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["JPMJCR20G3"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["JPMJCR20G3"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100002241","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Informatics"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Online knowledge-based peer-production communities, like question and answer sites (Q&amp;A), often rely on gamification, e.g., through reputation points, to incentivize users to contribute frequently and effectively. These gamification techniques are important for achieving the critical mass that sustains a community and enticing new users to join. However, aging communities tend to build \u201cpoverty traps\u201d that act as barriers for new users. In this paper, we present our investigation of 32 domain communities from Stack Exchange and our analysis of how different subjects impact the development of early user advantage. Our results raise important questions about the accessibility of knowledge-based peer-production communities. We consider the analysis results in the context of changing information needs and the relevance of Q&amp;A in the future. Our findings inform policy design for building more equitable knowledge-based peer-production communities and increasing the accessibility to existing ones.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/informatics10030061","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2023,7,14]],"date-time":"2023-07-14T00:49:30Z","timestamp":1689295770000},"page":"61","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":1,"title":["Poverty Traps in Online Knowledge-Based Peer-Production Communities"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"10","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-6605-0113","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Andrew","family":"Vargo","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Core Informatics, Graduate School of Informatics, Osaka Metropolitan University, Sakai 599-8531, Japan"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-7831-2632","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Benjamin","family":"Tag","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Human Centred Computing, Faculty of Information Technology, Monash University, Clayton 3800, Australia"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-9503-9797","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Chris","family":"Blakely","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Applied Information Technology, The Kyoto College of Graduate Studies for Informatics, Kyoto 606-8225, Japan"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Koichi","family":"Kise","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Core Informatics, Graduate School of Informatics, Osaka Metropolitan University, Sakai 599-8531, Japan"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2023,7,13]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Anderson, A., Huttenlocher, D., Kleinberg, J., and Leskovec, J. 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