In this study, the researchers analyze the impact of toxic speech on the behavior of editors on Wikipedia. They analyze 57 million comments made on user talk pages of editors across six language editions of Wikipedia to understand the potential effects of toxicity on editor activity. The results show that toxic comments consistently lead to reduced activity of editors, resulting in multiple human-years of lost productivity. Toxic comments also increase the risk of editors leaving the project altogether. The study emphasizes the importance of mitigating toxic speech on collaborative platforms like Wikipedia to ensure their long-term success.
https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/2/12/pgad385/7457939