Benjamin Mako Hill @mako@social.coop
A new paper I worked on describes how Discord moderators build innovative solutions to scaling problems with tools from their past experience w/ Reddit as guides & templates. The work was led by Charlie Kiene w/ Aaron Jiang. #CSCW2019 https://mako.cc/copyrighteous/how-discord-moderators-build-innovative-solutions-to-problems-of-scale-with-the-past-as-a-guide
Spam/phishing email from the "atdot.cc support team" elicits a fleeting happy fantasy before reality rushes back in. Alas, if any such team exists, I am the only member.😔
Benjamin Mako Hill
boosted
I have noticed
the slush
that was in
the food court
and which
is quite probably
flavored
like Kool-Aid
forgive me
for posting the picture:
I'd like to use "sinonym" as another word for an immoral act. Or perhaps to refer to the Chinese name for something. Sadly, I think it might just be another word for another word.
Read about my research groups newest project on measuring and modeling "underproduction" of software infrastructure. Project is led by Kaylea Champion w/ help from Aaron Shaw, Mortan Warncke-Wang & me. Funding is from the Ford and Sloan Foundations. https://blog.communitydata.science/new-project-software-infrastructure-risk/
Benjamin Mako Hill
boosted
this talk by @mako last year on how the tools of free software have been co-opted in order to create freedom for companies instead of freedom for humans did a great job of bringing together a bunch of threads I've been following recently as well as pointing out new insights and ways forward.
highly recommended if you care about ways in which software can help people and are concerned about our work being subverted.
Benjamin Mako Hill
boosted
@elmiko
Thank you for sharing!
It's really important to remind us of the moral dimension of software freedom and to link this to human freedom: Free Software is primarily for people and not to create freedom for companies.
I found two summaries of the talk. One by @doctorow at @boingboing
"How markets plundered Free Software's best stuff and used it to create freedom for companies, not people"
https://boingboing.net/2018/06/21/digital-enclosure.html
And one by @mako on his website:
Benjamin Mako Hill
boosted
watching this nice video from last year's libreplanet, i'm finding it to be thought provoking. if you are into the social aspects of #foss techniques and ideologies, check it out:
Benjamin Mako Hill
boosted
This echoes @mako’s thoughts:
‘These decisions to embrace nonfree and private development tools undermine our credibility in advocating for software freedom and compromise our freedom, and that of our users, in ways that we should reject.’
— Free Software Needs Free Tools 👉🏻 https://mako.cc/writing/hill-free_tools.html
The analysis is built around a series of Bayesian regression models at different stages of user experience that we used to unpack the way that the relationships between gender/feedback and sharing/participation look very different among less/more experienced users.
One important takeaway hidden by looking only at overall averages is that although boys are more likely to share the the projects they create initially, the reverse is true among more experienced users!
Posted a write-up of my recent paper (led by Emilia Gan and Sayamindu Dasgupta) showing how the relationship between gender & feedback and users' decision to share their work on @Scratch shifts as users' gain experience. https://blog.communitydata.science/scratch-gender-feedback-dynamics/
Found a snake in my study at @CASBSStanford!🐍 I opened a sliding door nearby and it wandered outside onto a deck. The head of facilities then flung it off with a tool. I believe this constitutes "defeat" of the snake under the standard academic rules. https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/faq-the-snake-fight-portion-of-your-thesis-defense
Nora will present the paper ("Privacy, Anonymity, and Perceived Risk in Open Collaboration: A Study of Service Providers") at #CHI2019 in Glasgow on May 8th! Come see her talk!
One potential source of this difference is that while many online communities set norms about anonymous participation openly, the people who are blocked/deterred by privacy concerns that are incompatible w/ the status quo are simply never heard.
Check out my new paper documents how online collaboration platforms imagine anonymous users in ways that are strikingly differently than anonymous users see themselves. Paper was led by Nora McDonald w/ Rachel Greenstadt and Andrea Forte. #CHI2019 https://blog.communitydata.science/new-research-on-how-anonymity-is-perceived-in-open-collaboration/
To help you make your scientific study #exceedinglyreproducible, my student Jeremy Foote has published software to make PDF flipbooks of your lab meetings for deposition into your university's institutional archives. https://blog.communitydata.cc/exceedingly-reproducible-research/
Current approaches to #reproducibility in science is unambitious and fundamentally flawed. My research collective's new proposal for Exceedingly Reproducible Research outlines the error of your ways, and the ERR of ours. https://blog.communitydata.cc/exceedingly-reproducible-research/
My surgeon insistently and repeatedly tells me that under absolutely no circumstances should I "eat anything at all after midnight" and "none of us want to deal with the consequences of you not doing so."
All I can think: I'm a mogwai.
