Status Inertia:The Speed Imperative in the Attainment of Community Status - Paper published as Stewart, Daniel. 2005. "Social Status in an Open Source Community", American Sociological Review, 70:5.

This paper examines the role of tenure in establishing social status within an online community of free software developers. As tenure increases, an actor's status becomes increasingly taken-for-granted, thus making it difficult for actors to generate mobility outside of their current social strata. The results of empirical analyses suggest that the broader community plays a major role in deciding one's social position-a judgment that can be made fairly quickly and decisively. Therefore, members of the community who desire high status should work quickly to establish a positive reputation or else run the risk of being cast into an inert low status social position.