"Could You Define That in Bot Terms"?

Abstract

Bots are estimated to account for well over half of all web traffic, yet they remain an understudied topic in HCI. In this paper we present the findings of an analysis of 2284 submissions across three discussion groups dedicated to the request, creation and discussion of bots on Reddit. We set out to examine the qualities and functionalities of bots and the practical and social challenges surrounding their creation and use. Our findings highlight the prevalence of misunderstandings around the capabilities of bots, misalignments in discourse between novices who request and more expert members who create them, and the prevalence of requests that are deemed to be inappropriate for the Reddit community. In discussing our findings, we suggest future directions for the design and development of tools that support more carefully guided and reflective approaches to bot development for novices, and tools to support exploring the consequences of contextuallyinappropriate bot ideas.

Human-Machine Collaboration for Content Regulation

“…Reddit moderators are volunteer Reddit users who take on the responsibility of maintaining their communities by participating in a variety of tasks. These tasks include (1) coordinating with one another to determine policies and policy changes that guide moderation decisions, (2) checking submissions, threads, and content flagged by users for rule violations, (3) replying to user inquiries and complaints, 6 (4) recruiting new moderators, (5) inviting high-profile individuals to conduct AMA (Ask Me Anything) sessions [80], (6) creating bots [70] or editing Automod rules (described below in this section) to help automate moderation tasks, and (7) improving the design of the subreddit using CSS tools. Moderators usually prefer to focus primarily on a few of these Human-Machine Collaboration for Content Regulation 31:5 Fig.…”

Does Transparency in Moderation Really Matter?

“…Each subreddit is regulated by a volunteer group of users called moderators who participate in a variety of tasks that include creating subreddit rules, removing content that violates rules, and responding to user inquiries and complaints. Moderators also use automated tools or bots that assist them in enacting a variety of moderation tasks [27,39]. Part of moderators' work includes configuring automated tools for moderation, and verifying whether these tools are operating as expected [27].…”

"I Hope This Is Helpful"

“…In line with previous adoptions of this approach for analysis [37,66,81], two authors independently and inductively coded all comments at the comment level for both semantic and latent meaning. These authors then iteratively refined this list of codes together into themes connecting across the comments, then shared these themes with the other authors for finalization.…”