Assmann, Jakob, Philipp Sandner, and Sophie Ahrens. "Users' influence on the success of online communities." 2009 42nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. IEEE, 2009.

This study explores the impact of user behavior on the success of an online community within a massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) in Germany, leveraging a dataset of 1,389 participant surveys and game log files. It identifies key success dimensions: content, revenue, loyalty, and growth, highlighting the significant role of overlapping online and offline social networks. The findings emphasize that user satisfaction with the platform and commitment to the community are crucial for these success metrics, noting that the effect of commitment on positive user behavior is consistent regardless of membership duration.