Develop bespoke code thought in literature

thesis/2-Background.tex

@@ -70,18 +70,19 @@ Very crucial for the current analysis will also be Livingstone's observation in
 ``In the Wikimedia software, there are tasks that do all sorts of things [...].
 If these things are not in the software, an external bot could do them. [...]
 The main difference is where it runs and who runs it''~\cite{Livingstone2016}.
-
-This thought/note is also scrutinised by Geiger~\cite{Geiger2014} who examines in detail what the difference and repercussions are of code that is part of the core software and code that runs alongside it (such as bots). %TODO more detail: so what are they?
+This thought/note is also scrutinised by Geiger~\cite{Geiger2014} who examines in detail what the difference and repercussions are of code that is part of the core software and code that runs alongside it (such as bots) which he calls ``bespoke code''.
+Geiger(syn) pictures Wikipedia as a big socio-technical assemblage of software pieces and social processes, often completely intransparent for an outside observer who is not able to identify the single components of this system and how they interact with one another to provide the end result to the public.
+He underlines that components/parts/... which are not strictly part of the server-side codebase but run by various volunteers (which is well true for the most parts of Wikipedia, it is a community project) on their private infrastructure constitute the major part of Wikipedia and also that they can experience/suffer an outage/downtime any time/at any moment.
+The vital tasks they perform such as for example vandalism fighting are often taken for granted, much to their developers' aggravation.
 
 \begin{comment}
-- "inofficial", run and maintained by the community
-    \cite{GeiRib2010}
-    "often-unofficial technologies have fundamentally
-    transformed the nature of editing and administration in
-    Wikipedia"
-    "Of note is the fact that these tools are largely
-    unofficial and maintained by members of the Wikipedia
-    community."
+\cite{GeiRib2010}
+"often-unofficial technologies have fundamentally
+transformed the nature of editing and administration in
+Wikipedia"
+"Of note is the fact that these tools are largely
+unofficial and maintained by members of the Wikipedia
+community."
 \end{comment}
 
 %TODO: gibts es vergleichbare concerns zu den Gamification concerns bei semi-automated tools bei anderen mechanismen?

thesis/5-Overview-EN-Wiki.tex

@@ -14,6 +14,24 @@ traces that users leave in interacting on that platform. Such researchers then s
 signal and significance from these found datasets as they can at scale in order to answer a research
 question"
 * more traditional social science/qualitative methods, e.g. interviews, observations, experiments
+
+\cite{Geiger2014}
+"the idea that Wikipedia only takes place on wiki-
+pedia.org – or even entirely on the Internet – is a huge misunderstanding (Konieczny, 2009;
+Reagle, 2010). Wikipedia is not a virtual world, especially one located entirely on the wiki."
+e.g. in order to get hold of abuse_filter_history I had to engage with
+- wikipedia.org
+- mediawiki.org
+- irc channels
+- phabricator
+- gerrit
+- toolserver/cloudservices
+----
+other spaces Wikipedia takes place
+- mailinglists
+- WomenEdit/offenes Editieren @Wikimedia
+- Wikimania
+- Wikimedia's office and daily work
 \end{comment}
 
 The \emph{abuse\_filter} and \emph{abuse\_filter\_action} tables from \emph{enwiki\_p} were downloaded on 6.01.2019 via quarry~\footnote{\url{https://quarry.wmflabs.org/}}.

thesis/6-Discussion.tex

@@ -12,6 +12,19 @@ Difference bot/filter: filters are part of the "platform". (vgl also ~\cite{Geig
 They are a MediaWiki extension, which means they are run on official Wikimedia infrastructure. (vgl \cite{Geiger2014} and "bespoke code")
 This makes them more robust and bestow them another kind of status.
 Bots on the other hand are what Stuart Geiger calls "bespoke code": they are auxiliary programms developed, mantained and run by single community members, typically (at least historically?) not on Wikimedia's infrastructure, but instead on private computers or third party servers.
+Is this difference really significant nowadays though? A lot of bots are run on the toolserver which makes the "not server-side" distinction really difficult.
+The toolserver is yet another infrastructure run and maintained by the Wikimedia foundation.
+So arguments such as reduced reliability through running on a private machine in a person's living room become kind of obsolete.
+\begin{comment}
+\cite{Geiger2014}
+"What if, from the beginning, I had decided to run my bot on the toolserver, a
+shared server funded and maintained by a group of German Wikipedians for all kinds of pur-
+poses, including bots? If so, the bot may have run the same code in the same way, producing
+the same effects in Wikipedia, but it would have been a different thing entirely."
+"when life got in the way, it was something I literally pulled the plug on
+without so much as a second thought."
+\end{comment}
+
 A key difference is also that while bots check already published edits which they eventually may decide to revert, filters are triggered before an edit ever published.
 
 * another difference bots/filters, it's easier to ddos the bot infrastructure, than the filters: buy a cluster and edit till the revert table overflows

thesis/introduction.tex

@@ -10,6 +10,12 @@
 \label{chap:introduction}
 
 %TODO check Aaron Swartz' blog for opening quotes
+\begin{comment}
+Another candidate for an opening quote:
+\cite{Geiger2014}
+"Bots aren’t usually part of some master plan – if they were, they probably wouldn’t be bots."
+-- Wikipedia is a system run by volunteers which has grown organically. Stuff is often implemented the way it is because somebody was good at this particular technology and felt like doing it at the precise moment.
+\end{comment}
 
 ``Code 2.0 TO WIKIPEDIA, THE ONE SURPRISE THAT TEACHES MORE THAN EVERYTHING HERE.'' reads one of the inscriptions of Lawrence Lessig's ``Code Version 2.0'' (p.v)~\cite{Lessig2006}.
 And although I'm not quite sure what exactly Lessig meant by this regarding the update of his famous book, I readily agree that Wikipedia is important because it teaches us stuff.