Hsieh, Gary, et al. "" Welcome!" social and psychological predictors of volunteer socializers in online communities." Proceedings of the 2013 conference on Computer supported cooperative work. 2013.

This study investigates the characteristics of volunteer socializers on Reddit, an online social news-sharing community, through a survey of over 1000 users. It identifies social identity, prosocial orientation, and generalized reciprocity as predictors of individuals who voluntarily assist newcomers. Notably, the duration of membership exhibits a quadratic effect on the likelihood of volunteering, with both new and long-standing members more inclined to help than those with mid-range tenure. The paper concludes by discussing design strategies to encourage user participation in newcomer socialization.