IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/net/wpaper/0911.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Moderated Online Communities and User-Generated Content

Author

Abstract

Online communities provide a social sphere for people to share information and knowledge. While information sharing is becoming a ubiquitous online phenomenon, how to ensure information quality or induce quality content, however, remains a challenge due to the anonymity of commentators. This paper introduces moderation into reputation systems. We show that moderation directly impacts strategic commentators incentive to generate useful information, and moderation is generally desirable to improve information quality. Interestingly, we find that when being moderated with different probabilities based on their reputations, commentators may display a pattern of reputation oscillation, in which they generate useful content to build up high reputation and then exploit their reputation. As a result, the expected performance from high-reputation commentators can be inferior to that from low-reputation ones (reversed reputation). We then investigate the optimal moderation resource allocation, and conclude that the seemingly abnormal reversed reputation could arise as an optimal result. The paper concludes with a discussion of the development of a scientific moderation system with application to academic publishing.

Suggested Citation

  • Jianqing Chen & Hong Xu & Andrew B. Whinston, 2009. "Moderated Online Communities and User-Generated Content," Working Papers 09-11, NET Institute.
  • Handle: RePEc:net:wpaper:0911
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.netinst.org/Chen_Xu_Whinston_09-11.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jean Tirole & Roland Bénabou, 2006. "Incentives and Prosocial Behavior," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(5), pages 1652-1678, December.
    2. Martin W. Cripps & George J. Mailath & Larry Samuelson, 2004. "Imperfect Monitoring and Impermanent Reputations," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 72(2), pages 407-432, March.
    3. William H. DeLone & Ephraim R. McLean, 1992. "Information Systems Success: The Quest for the Dependent Variable," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 3(1), pages 60-95, March.
    4. Kreps, David M. & Wilson, Robert, 1982. "Reputation and imperfect information," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 253-279, August.
    5. Chrysanthos Dellarocas, 2005. "Reputation Mechanism Design in Online Trading Environments with Pure Moral Hazard," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 16(2), pages 209-230, June.
    6. Milgrom, Paul & Roberts, John, 1982. "Predation, reputation, and entry deterrence," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 280-312, August.
    7. Dina Mayzlin, 2006. "Promotional Chat on the Internet," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 25(2), pages 155-163, 03-04.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sarah C. Rice, 2012. "Reputation and Uncertainty in Online Markets: An Experimental Study," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 23(2), pages 436-452, June.
    2. Ekmekci, Mehmet & Gossner, Olivier & Wilson, Andrea, 2012. "Impermanent types and permanent reputations," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 147(1), pages 162-178.
    3. Du, Chuang, 2012. "Solving payoff sets of perfect public equilibria: an example," MPRA Paper 38622, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Guillermo Ordonez, 2005. "Don't Ask Why Things Went Wrong: Nested Reputation and Scapegoating Inefficiency," Levine's Working Paper Archive 618897000000000988, David K. Levine.
    5. Qingmin Liu, 2006. "Information Acquisition and Reputation Dynamics," Discussion Papers 06-030, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
    6. Jungju Yu, 2021. "A Model of Brand Architecture Choice: A House of Brands vs. A Branded House," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 40(1), pages 147-167, January.
    7. Bohren, J. Aislinn, 2024. "Persistence in a dynamic moral hazard game," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 19(1), January.
    8. Mehmet Ekmekci & Nuh Dalkiran, 2013. "Limits to Reputations," 2013 Meeting Papers 49, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    9. Mailath, George J. & Samuelson, Larry, 2015. "Reputations in Repeated Games," Handbook of Game Theory with Economic Applications,, Elsevier.
    10. Jihong Lee & Qingmin Liu, 2009. "Reputation and Repeated Bargaining with a Third Party," 2009 Meeting Papers 151, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    11. Ekmekci, Mehmet, 2011. "Sustainable reputations with rating systems," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 146(2), pages 479-503, March.
    12. Guido Merzoni & Federico Trombetta, 2012. "Foundations of trust, interpersonal relationships and communities," Rivista Internazionale di Scienze Sociali, Vita e Pensiero, Pubblicazioni dell'Universita' Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, vol. 120(3), pages 295-312.
    13. Alp E. Atakan & Mehmet Ekmekci, 2012. "Reputation in Long-Run Relationships," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(2), pages 451-480.
    14. Guillermo Ordonez, 2008. "Essays on Learning and Macroeconomics," Levine's Working Paper Archive 122247000000002250, David K. Levine.
    15. Aislinn Bohren, 2016. "Using Persistence to Generate Incentives in a Dynamic Moral Hazard Problem," PIER Working Paper Archive 16-024, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania, revised 15 Oct 2016.
    16. Philippe Jehiel & Larry Samuelson, 2012. "Reputation with Analogical Reasoning," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 127(4), pages 1927-1969.
    17. Nuh Aygün Dalkıran, 2016. "Order of limits in reputations," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 81(3), pages 393-411, September.
    18. Paul A. Pavlou & Angelika Dimoka, 2006. "The Nature and Role of Feedback Text Comments in Online Marketplaces: Implications for Trust Building, Price Premiums, and Seller Differentiation," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 17(4), pages 392-414, December.
    19. Liu, Qingmin & Skrzypacz, Andrzej, 2014. "Limited records and reputation bubbles," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 2-29.
    20. Zijun (June) Shi & Kannan Srinivasan & Kaifu Zhang, 2023. "Design of Platform Reputation Systems: Optimal Information Disclosure," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 42(3), pages 500-520, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    moderation; reputation; online community; knowledge management;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • K21 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law - - - Antitrust Law
    • L41 - Industrial Organization - - Antitrust Issues and Policies - - - Monopolization; Horizontal Anticompetitive Practices
    • L42 - Industrial Organization - - Antitrust Issues and Policies - - - Vertical Restraints; Resale Price Maintenance; Quantity Discounts
    • L12 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Monopoly; Monopolization Strategies
    • L86 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Information and Internet Services; Computer Software
    • L63 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Manufacturing - - - Microelectronics; Computers; Communications Equipment

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:net:wpaper:0911. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Nicholas Economides (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.NETinst.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.