academic

Created
Wed, 11/09/2019 - 13:04
Both this blog post and the paper it describes are collaborative work led by Charles Kiene with Jialun “Aaron” Jiang. Introducing new technology into a work place is often disruptive, but what if your work was also completely mediated by technology? This is exactly the case for the teams of volunteer moderators who work to …
Created
Tue, 30/03/2021 - 10:56
I wrote this blog post with Kaylea Champion and a version of this post was originally posted on the Community Data Science Collective blog. Critical software we all rely on can silently crumble away beneath us. Unfortunately, we often don’t find out software infrastructure is in poor condition until it is too late. Over the …
Created
Wed, 03/11/2021 - 18:11
Ever considered doing research about online communities, free culture/software, and peer production full time? It’s PhD admission season and my research group—the Community Data Science Collective—is doing an open-to-anyone Q&A about PhD admissions this Friday November 5th. We’ve got room in the session and its not too late to sign up to join us! The …
Created
Wed, 10/11/2021 - 06:55
Should online communities require people to create accounts before participating? This question has been a source of disagreement among people who start or manage online communities for decades. Requiring accounts makes some sense since users contributing without accounts are a common source of vandalism, harassment, and low quality content. In theory, creating an account can …