Freedom versus standardization: Structured data generation in a peer production community

Andrew Hall; Sarah McRoberts; Jacob Thebault-Spieker; Yilun Lin; Shilad Sen; Brent Hecht; Loren G Terveen

doi:10.1145/3025453.3025940

Freedom versus standardization: Structured data generation in a peer production community

Andrew Hall, Sarah McRoberts, Jacob Thebault-Spieker, Yilun Lin, Shilad Sen, Brent Hecht, Loren G Terveen

Computer Science and Engineering

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

9 Scopus citations

Abstract

In addition to encyclopedia articles and software, peer production communities produce structured data, e.g., Wikidata and OpenStreetMap's metadata. Structured data from peer production communities has become increasingly important due to its use by computational applications, such as CartoCSS, MapBox, and Wikipedia infoboxes. However, this structured data is usable by applications only if it follows standards. We did an interview study focused on OpenStreetMap's knowledge production processes to investigate how - and how successfully - this community creates and applies its data standards. Our study revealed a fundamental tension between the need to produce structured data in a standardized way and OpenStreetMap's tradition of contributor freedom. We extracted six themes that manifested this tension and three overarching concepts, correctness, community, and code, which help make sense of and synthesize the themes. We also offered suggestions for improving OpenStreetMap's knowledge production processes, including new data models, sociotechnical tools, and community practices (e.g. stronger leadership).

Original language	English (US)
Title of host publication	CHI 2017 - Proceedings of the 2017 ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Subtitle of host publication	Explore, Innovate, Inspire
Publisher	Association for Computing Machinery
Pages	6352-6362
Number of pages	11
ISBN (Electronic)	9781450346559
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1145/3025453.3025940
State	Published - May 2 2017
Event	2017 ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI 2017 - Denver, United States Duration: May 6 2017 → May 11 2017

Publication series

Name	Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings
Volume	2017-May

Other

Other	2017 ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI 2017
Country/Territory	United States
City	Denver
Period	5/6/17 → 5/11/17

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
We would like to thank our interviewees for volunteering to participate in this study. We would also like to thank Morten Warncke-Wang for his feedback on our work. This work was funded in part by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF IIS-1552955; NSF IIS-1526988; NSF IIS-0964695; NSF IIS-1218826; NSF IIS-1111201) and the U.S. Department of Education (USDE GAANN-p200A100195).

Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 ACM.

Keywords

OpenStreetMap
Peer-production communities
Standardization
Structured data

Access

10.1145/3025453.3025940

OpenUrl availability

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Cite this

Hall, A., McRoberts, S., Thebault-Spieker, J., Lin, Y., Sen, S., Hecht, B., & Terveen, L. G. (2017). Freedom versus standardization: Structured data generation in a peer production community. In CHI 2017 - Proceedings of the 2017 ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems: Explore, Innovate, Inspire (pp. 6352-6362). (Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings; Vol. 2017-May). Association for Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/10.1145/3025453.3025940

Freedom versus standardization: Structured data generation in a peer production community. / Hall, Andrew; McRoberts, Sarah; Thebault-Spieker, Jacob et al.
CHI 2017 - Proceedings of the 2017 ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems: Explore, Innovate, Inspire. Association for Computing Machinery, 2017. p. 6352-6362 (Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings; Vol. 2017-May).

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

Hall, A, McRoberts, S, Thebault-Spieker, J, Lin, Y, Sen, S, Hecht, B & Terveen, LG 2017, Freedom versus standardization: Structured data generation in a peer production community. in CHI 2017 - Proceedings of the 2017 ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems: Explore, Innovate, Inspire. Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings, vol. 2017-May, Association for Computing Machinery, pp. 6352-6362, 2017 ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI 2017, Denver, United States, 5/6/17. https://doi.org/10.1145/3025453.3025940

Hall A, McRoberts S, Thebault-Spieker J, Lin Y, Sen S, Hecht B et al. Freedom versus standardization: Structured data generation in a peer production community. In CHI 2017 - Proceedings of the 2017 ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems: Explore, Innovate, Inspire. Association for Computing Machinery. 2017. p. 6352-6362. (Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings). doi: 10.1145/3025453.3025940

Hall, Andrew ; McRoberts, Sarah ; Thebault-Spieker, Jacob et al. / Freedom versus standardization : Structured data generation in a peer production community. CHI 2017 - Proceedings of the 2017 ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems: Explore, Innovate, Inspire. Association for Computing Machinery, 2017. pp. 6352-6362 (Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings).

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Freedom versus standardization: Structured data generation in a peer production community

Abstract

Publication series

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Bibliographical note

Keywords

Access

OpenUrl availability

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