The social roles of bots and assisted editing programs

This paper investigates software programs as non-human social actors in Wikipedia, arguing that influence must not be overlooked in social scientific research of the on-line encyclopedia project. Using statistical and archival methods, the roles of assisted editing programs and bots are examined. The proportion of edits made by these non-human actors is shown to be significantly more than previously described in earlier research. Categories and Subject Descriptors H.5.3:n. [Information Interfaces]: Group and Organization Interfaces – Collaborative computing, Web-based interaction, Computer-supported cooperative work; K.4.3 [Computers and Society]: Organizational Impacts – Computer-supported collaborative work. Keywords Wikipedia, wiki, bots, automation, governance, collaboration

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2009
• Where: WIKIS
• Authors: R. Stuart Geiger
• Keywords: Computer-supported Collaborative Work, Computer-supported Cooperative Work, Internet Technology, Non-human Social Actors, WIKIS 2009