• It is rare that there are specific instructions of the type and amount of contribution that is expected of users in online communities
• The purpose of this study is to test both the benefits and limits of specific, high-challenge goals in online communities
• This study focused on group goals, and the benefits and limits of high challenge goals

Three hypotheses:

• Hypothesis 4: In an online community, specific, numeric goals will motivate greater contributions than non-specific goals
• Hypothesis 5: Members assigned individual goals will provide more contributions than members assigned group goals
• Hypothesis 6: In an online community, contribution will drop off when goals exceed some difficulty threshold