TY - GEN
T1 - Could you define that in bot terms?
T2 - Requesting, creating and using bots on Reddit
AU - Long, Kiel
AU - Vines, John
AU - Sutton, Selina
AU - Brooker, Phillip
AU - Feltwell, Tom
AU - Kirman, Ben
AU - Barnett, Julie
AU - Lawson, Shaun
PY - 2017/5/11
Y1 - 2017/5/11
N2 - 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 contextually-inappropriate bot ideas.
AB - 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 contextually-inappropriate bot ideas.
UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3025453.3025830
UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3025453.3025830
U2 - 10.1145/3025453.3025830
DO - 10.1145/3025453.3025830
M3 - Chapter in a published conference proceeding
SN - 978-1-4503-4655-9
SP - 3488
EP - 3500
BT - CHI '17 Proceedings of the 35th Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
PB - Association for Computing Machinery
CY - New York, U. S. A.
ER -