Cheng, Ran, and Julita Vassileva. "Design and evaluation of an adaptive incentive mechanism for sustained educational online communities." User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction 16 (2006): 321-348.

This article addresses the challenge of fostering user participation in online communities during their initial development phase. It proposes an incentive mechanism that adapts rewards for user participation based on individual reputation and community needs. The mechanism measures user activities, assigns users into classes with different statuses and privileges, and dynamically computes rewards for each activity type. This approach aims to balance the quality and quantity of contributions, reducing information overload and enhancing community sustainability. The effectiveness of the mechanism was demonstrated through its application in the Comtella online class resource-sharing system, where it encouraged stable and active participation while mitigating information overload.