Published in San Diego Union Tribune, 2023
This is an op-ed published in the San Diego Union Tribune as part of a set of commentaries on ChatGPT. Read more
Published in Cognitive Science, 2022
Free and open-source software projects have become essential digital infrastructure over the past decade. These projects are largely created and maintained by unpaid volunteers, presenting a potential vulnerability if the projects cannot recruit and retain new volunteers. At the same time, their development on open collaborative development platforms provides a nearly complete record of the community’s interactions; this affords the opportunity to study naturally occurring language dynamics at scale and in a context with massive real-world impact. The present work takes a dynamical systems view of language to understand the ways in which communicative context and community membership shape the emergence and impact of language use—specifically, sentiment and expressions of gratitude. We then present evidence that these language dynamics shape newcomers’ likelihood of returning, although the specific impacts of different community responses are crucially modulated by the context of the newcomer’s first contact with the community. Read more
Published in Quantitative Science Studies, 2021
Supervised machine learning, in which models are automatically derived from labeled training data, is only as good as the quality of that data. We report to what extent a random sample of ML application papers across disciplines give specific details about whether best practices were followed in labeling training data. Read more
Published in Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction (CSCW 2021), 2021
We report findings from an interview-based study of maintainers of free and/or open-source software (F/OSS) projects. F/OSS maintainers perform complex and often-invisible interpersonal and organizational work to keep their projects operating as active communities of users and contributors. We particularly focus on how this labor of maintaining and sustaining changes as projects and their software grow and scale across many dimensions. Read more
Published in Proceedings of the 2020 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAT* 2020), 2019
Many machine learning projects for new application areas involve teams of humans who label data for a particular purpose, from hiring crowdworkers to the paper’s authors labeling the data themselves. In this paper, we investigate to what extent a sample of machine learning application papers in social computing – specifically papers from ArXiv and traditional publications performing an ML classification task on Twitter data – give specific details about whether best practices in human annotation were followed. Read more
Published in Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction (CSCW 2020), 2019
This paper presents an overview and case studies of ORES, Wikipedia’s real-time machine learning as a service platform, which is designed in line with Wikipedia’s values of open participation, decentralization, and continual iteration. ORES decouples and reduces incidental complexity around several aspects of applying machine learning in a user-generated content platform, including curating training data sets, building models to serve predictions, auditing predictions, and developing interfaces or automated agents that act on those predictions. Read more
Published in Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction (PACMHCI, CSCW 2019), 2019
A short paper (or note) quantitatively examining changing paper lengths in the Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work, focusing on the rise and fall of the 4-page note format. Read more
Published:
An ongoing series of short papers that report from discussions where we share our experiences doing data science well (or at least better), for many definitions of the term. Read more
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This report of a survey of academic data scientists discusses what data science in the academy is, and various issues around the career paths for those in universities who practice and support data science. We provide evidence-based recommendations about how universities can better support an emerging set of roles and responsibilities around data and computation within and across academic fields. Read more
Recommended citation: R. Stuart Geiger, Charlotte Mazel-Cabasse, Chihoko Cullens, Laura Noren, Brittany Fiore-Gartland, Diya Das, and Henry Brady (2018). _Career Paths and Prospects in Academic Data Science: Report of the Moore-Sloan Data Science Environments Survey._ Report. Berkeley, California: UC-Berkeley Institute for Data Science. https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/xe823/
Published in Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (JCSCW), 2018
Data analytics increasingly relies on open source software (OSS) libraries that extend scripted languages like python and R. Software documentation for these libraries is crucial for people across all experience levels, but documentation work raises many challenges, particularly in open source communities. In this collaboration between ethnographers and data scientists, we discuss the types, roles, practices, and motivations around documentation in data analytics OSS libraries. Read more
Recommended citation: Geiger, R.S., Varoquaux, N., Mazel-Cabasse, C., and Holdgraf, C. (2018). ”The Types, Roles, and Practices of Documentation in Data Analytics Open Source Software Libraries: A Collaborative Ethnography of Documentation Work.” Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (JCSCW), 27(3). DOI:10.1007/s10606-018-9333-1 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10606-018-9333-1
Published in Big Data & Society, 2017
Scholars and practitioners across domains are increasingly concerned with algorithmic transparency and opacity, interrogating the values and assumptions embedded in automated, black-boxed systems, particularly in user-generated content platforms. I report from an ethnography of infrastructure in Wikipedia to discuss an often understudied aspect of this topic: the local, contextual, learned expertise involved in participating in a highly automated social-technical environment. Read more
Recommended citation: R. Stuart Geiger. (2017). "Beyond opening up the black box: Investigating the role of algorithmic systems in Wikipedian organizational culture." Big Data & Society 4(2). https://doi.org/10.1177/2053951717730735
Published in Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Compter Interaction, 2017
A mixed-method trace ethnographic analysis of issues around the governance of automated software agents in Wikipedia, focusing on how to interpret cases where bots reverted each other’s edits. Read more
Recommended citation: R. Stuart Geiger and Aaron Halfaker. 2017. “Operationalizing conflict and cooperation between automated software agents in Wikipedia: A replication and expansion of Even Good Bots Fight." Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction (Nov 2017 issue, CSCW 2018 Online First) 1, 2, Article 49. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1145/3134684. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:conflict-bots-wp-cscw.pdf.
Published in SocArxiv Preprints, 2017
This report is a high-level summary analysis of the 2017 GitHub Open Source Survey dataset, presenting frequency counts, proportions, and frequency or proportion bar plots for every question asked in the survey. Read more
Recommended citation: R. Stuart Geiger. (2017). "Summary Analysis of the 2017 GitHub Open Source Survey." _SocArXiv Preprints._ doi: 10.17605/OSF.IO/ENRQ5
Published in Information, Communication, and Society, 2016
This article introduces and discusses bot-based collective blocklists (or blockbots) in Twitter, which have been developed by volunteers to combat harassment in the social networking site in a more decentralized and counterpublic way than actions taken by Twitter, Inc. staff. I discuss how such forms of automation require that communities encode specific understandings of what harassment is and how to identify it, relating these cases to several longstanding issues around the governance and moderation of the public sphere. Read more
Recommended citation: Geiger, R. Stuart. (2016). “Bot-based collective blocklists in Twitter: the counterpublic moderation of harassment in a networked public space.” Information, Communication, and Society 19(6). http://stuartgeiger.com/blockbots-ics.pdf
Published in Proceedings of HCOMP, Citizen-X Workshop, 2014
We review various crowdsourcing and collective action systems, identifying particular sets of civic values and assumptions. Read more
Recommended citation: Matias, N. and Geiger, R.S. “Defining, Designing, and Evaluating Civic Values in Human Computation and Collective Action Systems.” In Proceedings of HCOMP 2014, Citizen-X Workshop. http://stuartgeiger.com/defining-civic-values-hcomp-matias-geiger.pdf.
Published in Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, 2014
On the history and continued relevance of the term "broadcasting" in an era of social media. Read more
Recommended citation: Geiger, R. Stuart and Lampinen, Airi. (2014). “Old Against New, or a Coming of Age? Broadcasting in an Era of Electronic Media.” Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media 58(3). http://www.stuartgeiger.com/jobem.pdf
Published in Proceedings of CHI, 2014
This paper discusses the Snuggle project, built to support newcomer socialization and reflexive critique of Wikipedia's existing socialization processes. Read more
Recommended citation: Halfaker, Aaron., Geiger, R. Stuart., and Treveen, Loren. (2014). “Snuggle: Designing for Efficient Socialization and Ideological Critique.” In Proceedings of the 2014 ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing (CHI 2014). http://www-users.cs.umn.edu/~halfak/publications/Snuggle/halfaker14snuggle-personal.pdf
Published in Information, Communication, and Society, 2014
This article introduces and discusses the role of bespoke code in Wikipedia, which is code that runs alongside a platform or system, rather than being integrated into server-side codebases. Read more
Recommended citation: Geiger, R. Stuart. (2014). “Bots, Bespoke Code, and the Materiality of Software Platforms.” Information, Communication, and Society 17. http://stuartgeiger.com/bespoke-code-ics.pdf
Published in Ecology and Society, 2013
We examined how graduate students experienced and social-ecological research initiative within the large-scale, geographically distributed Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network. Read more
Recommended citation: Romolini, Michele., Sydne Record, Rebecca. Garvoille, Y. Marusenko, and R. Stuart Geiger. (2013) “The Next Generation of Scientists: Examining the Experiences of Graduate Students in Network-Level Science.” In Ecology and Society 18(3). http://stuartgeiger.com/lter-network-level-science-es.pdf
Published in Proceedings of WikiSym, 2013
This paper examines what happened when one of Wikipedia's counter-vandalism bots unexpectedly went offline. Read more
Recommended citation: Geiger, R. Stuart and Halfaker, Aaron. (2013). “When the Levee Breaks: Without Bots, What Happens to Wikipedia’s Quality Control Processes?” In Proceedings of the 9th International Symposium on Wikis and Open Collaboration (WikiSym 2013). http://stuartgeiger.com/wikisym13-cluebot.pdf
Published in American Behavioral Scientist, 2013
A mixed-method, multi-study analysis of editor retention, socialization, gatekeeping, and governance in Wikipedia. Read more
Recommended citation: Halfaker, Aaron., R. Stuart Geiger, Jonathan Morgan, and John Riedl. (2013). “The Rise and Decline of an Open Collaboration System: How Wikipedia’s reaction to sudden popularity is killing it.” American Behavioral Scientist 57(5). http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0002764212469365
Published in Proceedings of CSCW, 2013
This paper establishes a quantitative metric for measuring editor activity through temporal edit sessions. Read more
Recommended citation: Geiger, R. Stuart and Halfaker, Aaron. (2013). “Using Edit Sessions to Measure Participation in Wikipedia.” In Proceedings of the 2013 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW 2013). http://www.stuartgeiger.com/cscw-sessions.pdf
Published in Information and Organization, 2012
This paper studies the role of computational infrastructure and organizational structure in the Open Science Grid. Read more
Recommended citation: Ribes, David, Steve Jackson, R. Stuart Geiger, Matt C. Burton, and Tom Finholt (2012). “Artifacts that organize: Delegation in the distributed organization.” Information and Organization 23:1–14. http://www.stuartgeiger.com/artifacts-that-organize.pdf
Published in Proceedings of WikiSym, 2012
We introduce and advocate a multi-faceted theory of literacy to investigate the knowledges and organizational forms are required to improve participation in Wikipedia’s communities. Read more
Recommended citation: Ford, Heather and R. Stuart Geiger. (2012). “”Writing up rather than writing down”: Becoming Wikipedia Literate.” In Proceedings of the 8th International Symposium on Wikis and Open Collaboration (WikiSym 2012). New York: ACM Digital Library. http://www.stuartgeiger.com/becoming-wikipedia-literate.pdf
Published in Proceedings of ICWSM, 2012
A descriptive study of Wikipedia's highly-automated socialization processes and an A/B test to improve templated messages to newcomers. Read more
Recommended citation: Geiger, R. Stuart, Aaron Halfaker, Maryana Pinchuk, and Steven Walling (2012). “Defense Mechanism or Socialization Tactic? Improving Wikipedia’s Notifications to Rejected Contributors.” In Proceedings of the 2012 International Conference on Weblogs and Social Media (ICWSM 2012). http://stuartgeiger.com/defense-mechanism-icwsm.pdf
Published in Proceedings of CHI (alt.CHI), 2012
We introduce IP over Xylophone Players (IPoXP), a novel Internet protocol between two computers using xylophone-based Arduino interfaces Read more
Recommended citation: Geiger, R. Stuart, Yoon J. Jeong, and Emily Manders (2012). “Black-Boxing the User: Internet Protocol over Xylophone Players.” In Proceedings of the 2012 ACM Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (alt.CHI 2012). New York: ACM Digital Library. http://stuartgeiger.com/ipoxp.pdf
Published in Wikipedia: A Critical Point of View, 2011
I describe the complex social and technical environment in which bots exist in Wikipedia, emphasizing not only how bots produce order and enforce rules, but also how humans produce bots and negotiate rules around their operation. Read more
Recommended citation: Geiger, R. Stuart. (2011). “The Lives of Bots.” In G. Lovink and N. Tkacz (eds.) In Wikipedia: A Critical Point of View. Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures. http://www.stuartgeiger.com/lives-of-bots-wikipedia-cpov.pdf
Published in Proceedings of WikiSym, 2011
This paper investigates Wikipedia's article deletion processes, finding that it is heavily populated by specialists. Read more
Recommended citation: Geiger, R. Stuart and Heather Ford. (2011) “Participation in Wikipedia’s Deletion Processes.” In Proceedings of the 7th International Symposium on Wikis and Open Collaboration (WikiSym 2011). New York: ACM Digital Library. http://www.stuartgeiger.com/papers/article-deletion-wikisym-geiger-ford.pdf
Published in Proceedings of HICSS , 2011
We detail the methodology of ‘trace ethnography’, which combines the richness of participant-observation with the wealth of data in logs so as to reconstruct patterns and practices of users in distributed sociotechnical systems Read more
Recommended citation: Geiger, R. Stuart and David Ribes (2011). “Trace Ethnography: Following Coordination through Documentary Practices.” In Proceedings of the 44th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS). http://www.stuartgeiger.com/trace-ethnography-hicss-geiger-ribes.pdf
Published in Proceedings of CSCW , 2010
This paper traces out a heterogeneous network of humans and non-humans involved in the identification and banning of a single vandal in Wikipedia. Read more
Recommended citation: Geiger, R. Stuart and David Ribes (2010). “The Work of Sustaining Order in Wikipedia: The Banning of a Vandal.” In Proceedings of the 2010 ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW 2012). New York: ACM Digital Library. http://www.stuartgeiger.com/papers/cscw-sustaining-order-wikipedia.pdf
Published in Proceedings of Wikisym, 2009
A short paper showing the recent explosive growth of automated editors (or bots) in Wikipedia, which have taken on many new tasks in administrative spaces. Read more
Recommended citation: Geiger, R. Stuart (2009). “The Social Roles of Bots and Assisted Editing Tools.” In Proceedings of the 5th International Symposium on Wikis and Open Collaboration. New York: ACM Digital Library. http://www.stuartgeiger.com/papers/geiger-wikisym-bots.pdf
Published in Gnovis, 2009
Habermasians have been debating about the role of the Internet in the public sphere, but they have all taken for granted the highly-automated software infrastructures that mediate our knowledge of the blogosphere. Read more
Recommended citation: Geiger, R. Stuart (2009). “Does Habermas Understand the Internet? The Algorithmic Construction of the Blogo/Public Sphere.” Gnovis: A Journal of Communication, Culture, and Technology. 10(1). http://www.stuartgeiger.com/papers/gnovis-habermas-blogopublic-sphere.pdf