Ransbotham, Sam, and Gerald C. Kane. "Membership turnover and collaboration success in online communities: Explaining rises and falls from grace in Wikipedia." MIS quarterly (2011): 613-627.

This study explores the impact of membership retention on collaboration within online communities, using 2,065 Wikipedia featured articles as a case. It finds a curvilinear relationship between membership retention and effective collaboration, suggesting that a mix of new and experienced contributors enhances the chances of an article being promoted to featured status but also increases the risk of demotion. The findings challenge previous assumptions that participant retention always positively affects collaborative outcomes, and differentiate between knowledge creation and retention phases in community-based peer production, indicating that communities might experience higher than ideal turnover during the knowledge retention phase.