From 739d48dba07d6347a8024fef34dbbdc5417d51a7 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Lyudmila Vaseva <vaseva@mi.fu-berlin.de>
Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2019 16:59:02 +0200
Subject: [PATCH] Add trace ethnography paper to lit notes

---
 literature/notes | 174 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 174 insertions(+)

diff --git a/literature/notes b/literature/notes
index 703391a..fd0787b 100644
--- a/literature/notes
+++ b/literature/notes
@@ -2410,3 +2410,177 @@ to actively to help them become socialized into Wikipedia."
 "more curmudgeonly old-timers should be
 kept away from newcomers until they have gained some ex-
 perience in the system."
+
+====================================================================
+\cite{GeiRib2011}
+
+- Define/Present the methodology of trace ethnography
+- Illustrate it using the case study of tracing/banning vandals on wikipedia
+
+
+Def
+"combines the richness of participant-observation
+with the wealth of data in logs so as to reconstruct
+patterns and practices of users in distributed
+sociotechnical systems."
+
+"integrates and extends
+a number of longstanding techniques across the social
+and computational sciences"
+
+"exploits the proliferation of
+documents and documentary traces"
+
+"traces not only
+document events but are also used by participants
+themselves to coordinate and render accountable many
+activities"
+
+"heterogeneous data – which include transaction logs,
+version histories, institutional records, conversation
+transcripts, and source code"
+"allowing us to retroactively reconstruct specific actions
+at a fine level of granularity"
+
+"sets of
+such documentary traces can then be assembled into
+rich narratives of interaction"
+
+"turn thin documentary traces into
+“thick descriptions” [10] of actors and events"
+
+extends/assembles various existing methods to counteract the common concern with the limitations of traditional single-sited participant observation
+
+"explicitly or implicitly,
+documentary traces are the primary mechanism in
+which users themselves know their distributed
+communities and act within them."
+
+"traces can only
+be fully inverted through an ethnographic
+understanding of the activities, people, systems, and
+technologies which contribute to their production."
+
+traditional ethnographic observation is costly and inpractical in distributed settings (and may miss phenomena that occur between sites)
+
+Strategies for studying distributed systems:
+- study documentary practices
+"trails of correspondence
+between scientists [24,26], the manuals and handbooks
+that seek to harmonize practice within corporate
+organizations [22], trading records in global financial
+markets[15], or the standards and protocols that guide
+technology development and use [5]"
+"often the case even in
+traditional co-located organizations."
+
+following workers around (traditional ethnographic observation) -> following documents around
+"following these documents as they travel
+across the site, asking how, where, and by whom they
+are produced, edited, revised or filed"
+"By focusing
+on the lifecycles of these documents, the researcher is
+able to follow workflows of activity across an
+organization"
+
+- participant-generated ethnography
+"having participants capture their own qualitative data"
+user-authored diaries or journals
+plus: "balance the need for rich,
+thick, and highly-empirical data with the practical
+limitations involved with performing ethnographic
+fieldwork,"
+minus: "on its
+own, it lacks the same holistic understanding gained
+though ethnographic observation."
+"there may be entire swaths
+of activity that are left of these logs (whether because
+they are embarrassing for recorders, or simply
+considered too mundane to be worth mentioning)."
+
+- historical and archival ethnography (vgl Challenger Bsp)
+
+- Multi-Sited Ethnography (‘Follow the Actors’)
+"especially around topics like
+globalization, migration, nationalism, and other issues
+that are not typically present in a single site."
+"researcher travels to multiple sites"
+NOTE: "visiting multiple
+sites is intended not to give the ethnographer more
+cases, (i.e. for a broader or more representative
+sample), but to expand a single case beyond its
+immediate location."
+ANT: follow the actors (mobile populations, materials, stories, ideologies, metaphors, conflicts)
+
+- Strategically-situated ethnography
+be at the right place at the right time
+"Instead of
+trying 'to be everywhere' in a large network
+[...]
+deliberately situated themselves at the particular times
+and places where a system is being designed,
+constructed, contested, broken, or repaired [25]."
+"identify the most relevant, important, or
+representative local sites in a distributed organization,"
+
+"In studies of science, focusing on a moment of
+controversy can be particularly revealing, as expert
+participants pick apart each others’ evidence and
+arguments [7]."
+
+"most heavily relying logs
+and records that are automatically generated in digital
+environments"
+--> especially in software platforms for the production and distribution of content, zB:
+"blogs, wikis, source code repositories,
+content management systems (CMS),"
+
+"who changed what to a
+document and when, so that an author can
+reconstruct the history of a document"
+
+Understanding codes!
+"Embedded within these
+archival records of who changed what and when, we
+found a wide variety of codes that we initially passed
+over, seeing them as either incomprehensible markup
+or relatively non-descriptive"
+"Like all codes, they are
+sociotechnical, and therefore their meaning can only be
+understood in relation to their broader cultural and
+computational systems"
+
+Critique:
+"it only can observe what the system
+or platform records, which are always incomplete."
+
+Case study: tracing vandals in Wikipedia
+Inverting the traces:
+- collect MediaWiki revision data (for a single user)
+- analyse edit-summary fields (used sparsely by humans, but extensively by bots and tools in a regular fashion)
+- pay special attention to markers (codes): observe users that leave them, try to understand when are they used
+- look around for documentation
+- try out the semi-automatic software tools for themselves to get a understanding of what tasks they perform and what traces are generated along the way (these tools generally prescript narrow paths of action)
+
+"Becoming familiar with traces requires both
+immersion in the average, everyday affairs of a group
+and active investigation of otherwise backgrounded
+actors, software, and data."
+
+the tools (Huggle and Twinkle) issue warnings with automatically decided warning level
+
+1) initial ethnographic fieldwork: identify routines
+2) locate/aggregate via documentary analysis
+3) assemble a chain of activity
+
+bsp of Wikipedians inverting the traces themselves for a disciplinary hearing about a conflict between admins
+
+Limitations:
+"the methodology described does
+not tell us how the organizational routine of four
+escalating warning was originally developed and
+implemented, or the attitudes vandal fighters hold
+towards it."
+
+Concerns:
+- ethical: breaching privacy via thickening the traces; no possibility for informed consent
-- 
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