Park, Kunwoo, et al. "“Trust Me, I Have a Ph. D.”: A Propensity Score Analysis on the Halo Effect of Disclosing One's Offline Social Status in Online Communities." Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media. Vol. 14. 2020.

This study investigates the impact of a reputation scheme exposing offline social status, such as education degrees, within online communities. Analyzing two Reddit communities, the study examines how these "flairs" affect user interactions. Results show that in a community focusing on scientific articles, users with disclosed academic degrees receive more votes and larger discussions. In a casual science community, benefits varied, but users with higher degrees received more feedback. The findings suggest that reputation schemes linking offline and online worlds can influence feedback behaviors based on community culture, with implications for future reputation mechanism design.