Talk given at the Southampton Data Analysis Workshop (18.-19. September 2014) about the analysis of the Zooniverse citizen science platform and WikiProjects as a subset of Wikipedia.

1. Observation and Analysis of
Social Machines
Markus Luczak-Roesch
Web and Internet Science Group
University of Southampton
@mluczak | mail@markus-luczak.de

2. On the market of data analysis methods
we are the customer.
Image source: http://mrg.bz/uzjgr8

3. Social Machines?
• Understanding socio-technical
systems at the interface of
• their intended problem solving
capabilities and
• the social interaction they
support.
• Derive indicators for the
success of Social Machines
and their underpinning in
system components.
Image source: http://www.onnai.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/social_machine_mkl2.gif

4. Zooniverse

5. Two paths to science

6. Talk and Task participation
Talk contributions
Classifications

7. Participation patterns
20
18
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
Project
A
Participant X
Part. Y
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
Ac#ve
users
in
%
Month
since
registra#on
Project
B
Project
C

8. Ecosystem effects
PH
GZ
SF
NN
CC
SG
SW
PF
AP

9. Linguistic change
Project initial 10% most recent 10%
PH transit, star, day, aph,
look, one, planet, like,
possibl, dip
day, transit, httparchive. . . ,
possibl, star, kid, dip, look,
planet, like
SF like, look, fish, sea,
scallop, thing, imag, right,
star, left
corallinealga, anemon,
object, hermitcrab, bryozoan,
stalkedtun, shrimp, left,
cerianthid, sanddollar
NN field, record, one, use,
enter, get, work, can,
specimen, button
like, field, record, date, name,
can, click, look, get, label

10. Linguistic change
Project initial 10% most recent 10%
PH transit, star, day, aph,
look, one, planet, like,
possibl, dip
day, transit, httparchive. . . ,
possibl, star, kid, dip, look,
planet, like
SF like, look, fish, sea,
scallop, thing, imag, right,
star, left
corallinealga, anemon,
object, hermitcrab, bryozoan,
stalkedtun, shrimp, left,
cerianthid, sanddollar
NN field, record, one, use,
enter, get, work, can,
specimen, button
like, field, record, date, name,
can, click, look, get, label

11. Coordination and annotation
Microposts Science
91%
10
8
6
4
2
0
PH SG SW NN GZ CC PF SF AP WS PH SG SW NN GZ CC PF SF AP WS
Help Chat
10
8
6
4
2
0
PH SG SW NN GZ CC PF SF AP WS PH SG SW NN GZ CC PF SF AP WS
Vocabulary shift Vocabulary shift

12. RE-TRACE INFORMATION FLOWS TO
CAPTURE SOCIO-TECHNICAL
PROBLEM SOLVING
Image source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Minard.png

13. Information flows in Citizen Science

14. Information flows in Citizen Science

15. Information flows in Citizen Science

16. Information flows in Citizen Science

17. Information flows in Citizen Science

18. Social Machine algorithms as
cascades of information
• They emerge.
• They branch and merge.
• They may be(come) undesired.
• They die.
M1
M3 M2

19. FROM SYSTEM SNAPSHOTS TO
LONGITUDINAL STUDIES
A footer

20. Observing Wikipedia
The growth in edits (x), discussions (y) and Wikipedians (bubble
radius) of Wikiprojects based on their root project page

21. Wikipedia: Past, Present, Future
Synergistic to the Web’s Growth, Wikipedia has evolved from a resource of ?
documents, to data, and to people. ?
?
Wikipedia continues to enrol and mobilise people and technology. ?
The evolution of Wikipedia is part of a complex and fluid?
eco-system of social machines.
Understanding Wikipedia involves studying it as a system in and of itself, ?
and as an actor in the in the growing and re-configuring Web.

22. Interactions Beyond Wikipedia

23. • Flows of information
and interactions are
the traces of socio-technical
problem
solving
• Social Machines
require
observational and
longitudinal
analysis
Markus Luczak-Roesch
mail@markus-luczak.de
www.markus-luczak.de
@mluczak