Tested
Likely
Empower Connection
Increases retention & contagious prosocial behaviors
A stand-alone button, or reaction, that expresses thanks and gratitude.
Being assigned to receive thanks increased two-week retention of Wikipedia contributors by 2 percentage points on average for newcomers and experienced participants across communities (p < 0.001).
This works as either a react icon for when users may 'like' content, or as a stand-alone button beneath content.
According to a study by Cornell's Citizen & Technology Lab, they: "organized 344 volunteers over the last year to thank 2,702 contributors to Wikipedia in Arabic, German, Polish, and Persian languages." They found that organizing volunteers to thank others both increased two-week retention of newcomers and experienced contributors by 2 percentage points on average, and caused people to send more thanks to others by 43% on average.
A grade of Likely is given to interventions that someone has rigorously experimented, published their methods and data, all without a conflict of interest being present. However, it is still awaiting peer review, i.e. it is a preprint.
This is the third highest grade that we give interventions.
J. Nathan Matias, Reem Al-Kashif, Julia Kamin, Max Klein and Eric Pennington
June 20, 2020
Min.
Total
2702
Max.
–
Citizen and Technology (CAT) Lab
Research Article or Manuscript
Do you think this intervention could have more benefits, unacknowledged drawbacks, or other inaccuracies that we've neglected to mention here?
We always welcome more evidence and rigorous research to back up, debunk, or augment what we know.
If you want to be a part of that effort, we'd love to have your help!
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