Episode 140: Courtney Miller and Hongbo Fang on Toxicity and Information Flow in Open Source Communities

Guest Courtney Miller | Hongbo Fang Panelists Richard Littauer |
Eriol Fox Show Notes Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast
where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. We
are super excited to talk to our guests today on the topic of
toxicity in open source. Today, we have joining us, Courtney Miller
and Hungbo Fang, who are both PhD students at Carnegie Mellon
University. We asked them to come on because we were curious about
their work, and they came highly recommended by Bogdan Vasilescu.
We’ll hear more about Courtney’s talk and her paper on her
award-winning work exploring toxicity in open source communities,
and we’ll find out the work Hongbo has done focusing on information
flow and where people talk about open source. Download this episode
now to learn more! [00:02:49] Courtney tells us about the talk she
gave at the Linux Open Source Summit on her work exploring toxicity
in open source communities. [00:03:55] We find out if there was a
data set that was used to find the information. [00:05:08] Hongbo
focuses on information flow and where do people talk about open
source, and he tells us what his involvement is with this work.
[00:06:57] Courtney tells us what she saw within the hundred issues
and how she broke them down and tagged them to get to the
conclusions she had. [00:08:44] We hear how Courtney used the
technical definition of toxicity introduced by Google’s Perspective
API tool to inform the decisions of what toxicity means. [00:12:01]
Eriol wants to know whether Courtney’s had thoughts or intentions
of looking into the content moderation space to see if there’s any
similarities between what’s happening there. [00:14:29] Richard
wonders what we can do to improve the state of toxicity in open
source and wonders if she has any future work that can make this
better. [00:16:08] Hongbo shares his thoughts about the future and
what we can do to solve this from a quantitative angle. [00:17:02]
Based on Courtney’s work, we find out if she thinks AI has
improved, if she has hope, and Hongbo shares his thoughts as well.
[00:19:20] Eriol wants to know how community members can help
researchers by talking about things that are less referenced in the
paper, and how Courtney thinks about tackling some of the harder to
read parts of toxicity with new emerging spaces. [00:24:54] We find
out if there’s a place where open source could have a restorative
justice around toxicity and what action is there for the open
source community to move from talking about our experiences of
toxicity to how we can heal. [00:27:40] Hongbo explains what his
work is mainly focused on, how he’s holding this space, and
suggestions he has for the future on how we can improve information
flow. [00:34:31] Richard talks about a paper called, The Tyranny of
Structurelessness by Jo Freeman, and wonders if Hongbo has any
suggestions for how to help open source projects with information
gap issues. [00:39:33] Find out where you can follow Courtney,
Hongbo, and their work online. Quotes [00:12:11] "Open source
toxicity is not new, it’s very old. The long-term effects of this
toxicity, especially in open source, is why I was really moved to
do this research.” [00:14:56] “If you can identify toxic comments,
and deal with them, instead of making the maintainers spend the
emotional labor every time dealing with this stuff – [that] can be
very helpful.” [00:15:17] “Maintainers are often toxic in their own
projects.” [00:15:40] “We have issue templates – what about issue
response templates?” [00:25:47] “If a community has leadership that
tolerates certain things, it’s going to happen. If the community
has leadership that does not tolerate certain things, it’s not
going to happen.” Spotlight [00:41:21] Eriol’s spotlight is Digital
Safety Snacks by Pen America. [00:41:58] Richard’s spotlight is an
article he read called, The Opposite of Rape Culture is Nurturance
Culture by Nora Samaran. [00:42:40] Hongbo’s spotlight is the book,
Roads and Bridges: The Unseen Labor Behind Our Digital
Infrastructure by Nadia Eghbal. [00:43:32] Courtney’s spotlight is
the book, Working in Public: The Making and Maintenance of Open
Source Software by Nadia Eghbal, and the tool, Betty. Links
SustainOSS (https://sustainoss.org/) SustainOSS Twitter
(https://twitter.com/SustainOSS?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor)
SustainOSS Discourse (https://discourse.sustainoss.org/)
podcast@sustainoss.org (mailto:podcast@sustainoss.org) Richard
Littauer Twitter
(https://twitter.com/richlitt?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor)
Eriol Fox Twitter (https://twitter.com/EriolDoesDesign) Courtney
Miller Twitter (https://twitter.com/courtneyelta?lang=en) Courtney
Miller-GitHub (https://courtney-e-miller.github.io/) Courtney
Miller LinkedIn
(https://www.linkedin.com/authwall?trk=gf&trkInfo=AQGvhLpJ5bQFGAAAAYK81Q-A0uWlwtLgwE79a-9Evj7n8RNvlxcJ-ev6jmZWyxl-7O3juI8yF9SLUUwAQQ8Xs_d3Re5brEfG26DUUnt2ZH3YGYXmQGAaEhwNubkkw1Ilf5Ottjo=&original_referer=&sessionRedirect=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.linkedin.com%2Fin%2Fcourtney-e-miller%2F)
Hongbo Fang Twitter (https://twitter.com/fang_hongbo?lang=en)
Hongbo Fang LinkedIn
(https://www.linkedin.com/in/hongbo-fang-358ba615b) Sustain
Podcast-Episode 40: How Open Source Maintainers Don’t Get Rich with
Bogdan Vasilescu
(https://podcast.sustainoss.org/guests/bogdan-vasilescu)
Perspective API (https://perspectiveapi.com/) Christian Kästner
(https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~ckaestne/) Kat Lo Twitter
(https://twitter.com/lolkat) Meedan Twitter
(https://twitter.com/Meedan) Open Source Diversity
(https://opensourcediversity.org/) The Tyranny of Structurelessness
by Jo Freeman (https://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm) “Did
You Miss My Comment or What?” Understanding Toxicity in Open Source
Discussions (paper)
(https://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/Web/People/ckaestne/pdf/icse22_toxicity.pdf)
Roads and Bridges (https://www.roadsbridges.com/) Sustain
Podcast-Episode 51: Working in Public: Nadia Eghbal and her new
book about Making and Sustaining Open Source Software
(https://podcast.sustainoss.org/guests/nadia) Nadia Asparouhova
(Eghbal) Website (https://nadia.xyz/) Digital Safety Snacks by Pen
America (https://pen.org/event-series/digital-safety-snacks/) The
Opposite of Rape Culture is Nurturance Culture by Nora Samaran
(https://norasamaran.com/2016/02/11/the-opposite-of-rape-culture-is-nurturance-culture-2/)
Roads and Bridges: The Unseen Labor Behind Our Digital
Infrastructure by Nadia Eghbal
(https://www.fordfoundation.org/work/learning/research-reports/roads-and-bridges-the-unseen-labor-behind-our-digital-infrastructure/)
Working in Public: The Making and Maintenance of Open Source
Software by Nadia Eghbal
(https://press.stripe.com/working-in-public) Betty
(https://github.com/leopard-ai/betty) Credits Produced by Richard
Littauer (https://www.burntfen.com/) Edited by Paul M. Bahr at
Peachtree Sound (https://www.peachtreesound.com/) Show notes by
DeAnn Bahr Peachtree Sound (https://www.peachtreesound.com/)
Special Guests: Courtney Miller and Hongbo Fang.