Crowdsourcing participation inequality: A SCOUT model for the enterprise domain

In large scale online multi-user communities, the phenomenon of 'participation inequality,' has been described as generally following a more or less 90-9-1 rule [9]. In this paper, we examine crowdsourcing participation levels inside the enterprise (within a company's firewall) and show that it is possible to achieve a more equitable distribution of 33-66-1. Accordingly, we propose a SCOUT ((S)uper Contributor, (C)ontributor, and (OUT)lier)) model for describing user participation based on quantifiable effort-level metrics. In support of this framework, we present an analysis that measures the quantity of contributions correlated with responses to motivation and incentives. In conclusion, SCOUT provides the task-based categories to characterize participation inequality that is evident in online communities, and crucially, also demonstrates the inequality curve (and associated characteristics) in the enterprise domain. © 2010 ACM.