Helping Hands: Computer Support for Community-Maintained Artifacts of Lasting Value

这个项目探讨了计算机系统的性质，以支持建设高质量的社区维护的持久价值的文物（CALV）。CALV通过三个关键属性与社区的短暂活动区分开来：（1）社区必须专注于有价值的持久计算机工件;（2）工件必须随时间保持;（3）工件的质量必须对社区很重要。人工制品必须由其维护社区来评价;此外，它可能对不参与维护的更大社区也有价值。CALV在互联网上特别重要，因为它们是志愿者社区可以创建的强大的免费资源。它们有可能彻底改变对许多类型信息的获取，使数百万人能够免费获取信息。就像开源软件释放软件一样，CALV释放了信息库。但是，正如大多数开源软件项目失败一样，大多数CALV也失败了。它们的创建者会变得忙碌或无聊，并且它们无法吸引足够感兴趣的社区来为未来的用户做维护工件的基本工作。在许多情况下，失败可能是适当的。也许这件艺术品没有足够的价值值得维护。然而，在许多其他情况下，重要的资源会因为社区的幻灭、冲突或无效组织而消失。本项目是为了提高有价值的CALV的成功率，使世界各地的人们都能在互联网上创建和维护有价值的资源，而对原则和体现这些原则的计算机工具进行调查。本项目寻求三个方面的工具：（1）激发有价值的贡献。帮助用户找到工作的计算机工具a）他们能够做的，B）会发现有趣的，以及c）将以对社区有价值的方式开发工件。(2)维护CALV及其社区的健康。测量CALV的本地和全球健康的计算机工具，以帮助用户做出符合社区最佳利益的决策。(3)为社区成员提供价值。推荐工具，帮助用户从CALV的许多部分中找到他或她所重视的特定项目。这项研究将涉及三个社区：MovieLens，一个由数千名活跃成员组成的分布式、匿名、娱乐社区; Galactic Gopher，一个地理位置相同、匿名的小型研究生社区;和干细胞研究的生物伦理学知识库，一个分布式的，确定的，专业和学术界。该项目将为每个社区开发计算机工具，这些工具体现了最佳做法，可提高社区在没有外部支持的情况下维护其人工制品的能力。在每一个社区，研究人员将对社区的子群体进行受控的随机分配实验，并开发工具来计算评估社区的整体健康状况，以及每个成员的贡献。该项目将制定原则，使人们能够为可以使用它们的社区创建和维护有价值的CALV。根据这些原则，该项目将为CALV开发实用的计算机工具。这些计算机工具将在开源许可证下创建，并分发给希望在任何地方使用它们的人。为了增加影响，研究将：（1）与多个社区合作（MovieLens、Galactic Gopher、Bioethics）应用这些原则;（2）与独立于研究小组的社区合作，解决紧迫的社会问题（干细胞研究的生物伦理学）;（3）培养具有研究经验的研究生骨干，对加强社区维护的具有持久价值的人工制品的兴趣和能力。

This project explores the nature of computer systems to support the building of high-quality community-maintained artifacts of lasting value (CALVs). CALVs are distinguished from ephemeral activities of communities through three key properties: (1) The community must be focused around a valuable persistent computer artifact; (2) the artifact must be maintained over time; and (3) the quality of the artifact must be important to the community. The artifact must be valued by its maintaining community; it may in addition also be of value to a larger community who does not participate in maintenance. CALVs are of special importance on the Internet because they represent powerful free resources that can be created by volunteer communities. They have the potential to revolutionize access to many types of information, opening free access to millions of people. In much the same way that open source software frees software, CALVs free repositories of information.But, just as most open source software projects fail, most CALVs fail. Their creators get busy or bored, and they fail to attract a community that is interested enough to do the essential work of maintaining the artifact for future users. In many cases, failure may be appropriate. Perhaps the artifact just is not valuable enough to be worth maintaining. In many other cases, however, important resources are lost because a community disbands through disillusionment, conflict, or ineffective organization. This project is an investigation of principles and computer tools that embody those principles to improve the success rate for valuable CALVs, making it possible for people everywhere to create and maintain valuable resources on the Internet.This project seeks tools in three areas: (1) Eliciting Valuable Contributions. Computer tools to help users find work a) they are able to do, b) will find interesting, and c) that will develop the artifact in ways that are valuable to the community. (2) Maintaining the Health of the CALV and its Community. Computer tools to measure the local and global health of the CALV to help users make decisions that are in the best interests of the community. (3) Providing Value to Community Members. Recommender tools to help a user find specific items he or she values from among the many parts of a CALV.This research will involve three communities: MovieLens, a distributed, anonymous, recreational community of thousands of active members; Galactic Gopher, a geographically co-located, pseudonymous, small graduate student community; and the Bioethics of Stem Cell Research repository, a distributed, identified, professional and academic community. For each of these communities the project will develop computer tools that embody the best practices for enhancing the ability of the community to maintain its artifact without external support. In each of these communities, researchers will conduct controlled, random-assignment experiments with subgroups of the community and develop tools to computationally assess the overall health of the community, and the contribution of each member.This project will develop principles to enable people to create and maintain valuable CALVs for communities that can use them. Based on the principles, the project will develop practical computer tools for CALVs. These computer tools will be created under open source licenses and distributed to people who wish to use them everywhere. To increase the impact, the research will: (1) work with multiple communities (MovieLens, Galactic Gopher, Bioethics) to apply the principles; (2) work with communities independent of the research group on pressing problems of society (the bioethics of stem cell research); and (3) develop a cadre of graduate students with research experience, interest and ability in strengthening Community-maintained Artifacts of Lasting Value.