There exists in the literature on social status a
tension between the forces that sort members of a
community into differing social strata and the
forces that constrain membership in relatively
stable status orders. This study conducts a primary
investigation into the manner in which social forces
exert pressures that initially shape and define an
actor's status, but eventually constrain an actor's
movement in a status ordering. The results of
empirical analyses of dyadic relationships within an
open source software community present a vivid
example of social cues at work in establishing both
status mobility and stability. In the process of
status formation, others will tend to evaluate a
focal actor's reputation according to socially
driven cues provided by others. Ironically, these
same social forces eventually produce status
stability. It is argued here that this effect is
largely a product of both uncertainty reduction
(through informational cues) and conformity (through
normative forces).