Peer produced goods, such as online knowledge bases and free/libre open source software rely on contributors who often choose their tasks regardless of consumer needs. These goods are susceptible to underproduction: when popular goods are relatively low quality. Although underproduction is a common feature of peer production, very little is known about how to counteract it. We use a detailed longitudinal dataset from English Wikipedia to show that more experienced contributors—including those who contribute without an account—tend to contribute to underproduced goods. A within-person analysis shows that contributors’ efforts shift toward underproduced goods over time. These findings illustrate the value of retaining contributors in peer production, including those contributing without accounts, as a means to counter underproduction.

中文翻译：

---

应对同行生产的商品生产不足的问题


同行生产的产品，例如在线知识库和免费/自由开源软件，依赖于贡献者，他们经常选择自己的任务，而不管消费者的需求。当受欢迎的商品质量相对较低时，这些商品很容易出现生产不足的情况。尽管生产不足是同行生产的一个常见特征，但人们对如何解决这一问题知之甚少。我们使用英语维基百科的详细纵向数据集来表明，经验丰富的贡献者（包括那些没有帐户的贡献者）往往会为生产不足的商品做出贡献。一项内部分析表明，随着时间的推移，贡献者的努力转向生产不足的商品。这些发现说明了保留同行生产贡献者（包括那些没有账户的贡献者）作为应对生产不足的一种手段的价值。