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Main Authors: Khadpe, Pranav, Xu, Olivia, Kaufman, Geoff, Kulkarni, Chinmay
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.20390
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author Khadpe, Pranav
Xu, Olivia
Kaufman, Geoff
Kulkarni, Chinmay
author_facet Khadpe, Pranav
Xu, Olivia
Kaufman, Geoff
Kulkarni, Chinmay
contents Contributors to open source software packages often describe feeling discouraged by the lack of positive feedback from users. This paper describes a technology probe, Hug Reports, that provides users a communication affordance within their code editors, through which users can convey appreciation to contributors of packages they use. In our field study, 18 users interacted with the probe for 3 weeks, resulting in messages of appreciation to 550 contributors, 26 of whom participated in subsequent research. Our findings show how locating a communication affordance within the code editor, and allowing users to express appreciation in terms of the abstractions they are exposed to (packages, modules, functions), can support exchanges of appreciation that are meaningful to users and contributors. Findings also revealed the moments in which users expressed appreciation, the two meanings that appreciation took on -- as a measure of utility and as an act of expressive communication -- and how contributors' reactions to appreciation were influenced by their perceived level of contribution. Based on these findings, we discuss opportunities and challenges for designing appreciation systems for open source in particular, and peer production communities more generally.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2407_20390
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Hug Reports: Supporting Expression of Appreciation between Users and Contributors of Open Source Software Packages
Khadpe, Pranav
Xu, Olivia
Kaufman, Geoff
Kulkarni, Chinmay
Human-Computer Interaction
Contributors to open source software packages often describe feeling discouraged by the lack of positive feedback from users. This paper describes a technology probe, Hug Reports, that provides users a communication affordance within their code editors, through which users can convey appreciation to contributors of packages they use. In our field study, 18 users interacted with the probe for 3 weeks, resulting in messages of appreciation to 550 contributors, 26 of whom participated in subsequent research. Our findings show how locating a communication affordance within the code editor, and allowing users to express appreciation in terms of the abstractions they are exposed to (packages, modules, functions), can support exchanges of appreciation that are meaningful to users and contributors. Findings also revealed the moments in which users expressed appreciation, the two meanings that appreciation took on -- as a measure of utility and as an act of expressive communication -- and how contributors' reactions to appreciation were influenced by their perceived level of contribution. Based on these findings, we discuss opportunities and challenges for designing appreciation systems for open source in particular, and peer production communities more generally.
title Hug Reports: Supporting Expression of Appreciation between Users and Contributors of Open Source Software Packages
topic Human-Computer Interaction
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.20390