Community Data Science

The Introduction of Documentation in FLOSS Projects

Community decay and abandonment are persistent risks to free/libre and open source software (FLOSS) projects. As such, large institutions such as GitHub or Mozilla offer advice to FLOSS projects on how to organize their work for sustainability and community-building. Guides recommend the production of README files and CONTRIBUTING guides as useful tools in recruiting new project contributors and driving activity. Yet…

https://blog.communitydata.science/the-introduction-of-documentation-in-floss-projects/

Science of Community Dialogue: The Impacts of Organizational Interventions in Open Source Software Engineering

This dialogue will take place on November 7th at 12pm CT and will explore how free/libre and open source software (FLOSS) projects adapt their work processes to recruit new contributors and build the project communities that they want, and how FLOSS projects redesign collaboration processes within different environments and moments in project lifecycles.…

http://blog.communitydata.science/science-of-community-dialogue-the-impacts-of-organizational-interventions-in-open-source-software-engineering/

Our own @groceryheist@social.coop has won the @ica_cm@sciences.social best paper award (for the third year in a row!) at #ica23. This year it was for his work characterizing and correcting bias in machine learning used for measurement in social science studies. Congratulations!

FOSSY 2025 Wrap Up: Cathy Richards “Designing for Collaboration: A Toolkit for Open and Inclusive Environmental Research”

Our fourth speaker of the Science of Community, Cathy Richards, shared lessons learned from the Open Environmental Data Project (OEDP), focusing on how the toolkit translates open infrastructure into inclusive, practical frameworks that empower communities to use data for local action and advocacy.  This is the 4th of our 12 part series sharing…

http://blog.communitydata.science/fossy-2025-wrap-up-cathy-richards-designing-for-collaboration-a-toolkit-for-open-and-inclusive-environmental-research/

Last chance to register for our 13th Science of Community Dialogue: The Impacts of Organizational Interventions in Open Source Software Engineering! Learn more register: https://wiki.communitydata.science/The_Impacts_of_Organizational_Interventions_in_Open_Source_Software_Engineering

Welcome new student members of the CDSC!

Most years, the CDSC is lucky enough to recruit some amazing new Ph.D. students to the lab. This fall is no exception and we are thrilled to welcome an extraordinary group across several of our group's campuses. The students join us from a wide variety of places, backgrounds, and prior affiliations (which should be encouraging for any prospective students looking to join the group in the future!).

http://blog.communitydata.science/welcome-new-student-members-of-the-cdsc/

We will be hosting a virtual Science of Community Dialogue this Friday (9/27) at 12pm CT!
Seth Frey (UC Davis) and Sohyeon Hwang (Northwestern) will be discussing how communities self-govern amidst competing pressures in complex, multi-layered environments. A full session description and the link to register can be found here: https://wiki.communitydata.science/Dialogues/Complexities_of_Community_Governance

FOSSY 2025 Wrap Up: Steve Feng and Anita Sarma “Glue Work Makes the Community Work: Sustaining OSS Through Invisible Labor”

Our tenth talk for the Science of Community Track at FOSSY 2025 featured Zixuan (Steve) Feng and Anita Sarma discussed how glue work —like maintaining code, updating docs, and supporting users—is essential to OSS success but often overlooked and undervalued. The talked about their teams 300+ OSS practitioner studies to define, trace, and elevate…

http://blog.communitydata.science/fossy-2025-wrap-up-steve-feng-and-anita-sarma-glue-work-makes-the-community-work-sustaining-oss-through-invisible-labor/

FOSSY 2025 Wrap Up: Matt Gaughan (@mgone@hci.social) do sponsored open source ecosystems manage feature deployments?”

Matt kicked off the Science of Community track on Friday, August 1st, discussing his current research on how the recent growth of sponsored open source libraries (projects stewarded by large, formally incorporated organizations) provides new organization relationships and processes to better understand FOSS libraries organized as communities of volunteer…

http://blog.communitydata.science/fossy-2025-wrap-up-matt-gaughan-how-do-sponsored-open-source-ecosystems-manage-feature-deployments/

FOSSY 2024 Wrap Up: Bogdan Vasilescu on “Navigating Dependency Abandonment” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Pk4w0ZHN6I&ab_channel=SoftwareFreedomConservancy https://blog.communitydata.science/fossy-2024-wrap-up-bogdan-vasilescu-on-navigating-dependency-abandonment/

CDSC PhD Application Info Session and Q & A – October 18

CDSC group retreat at Purdue, 2024 Thinking about applying to graduate school? Wonder what it’s like to pursue a PhD? Interested in understanding relationships between technology and society? Curious about how to do research on online communities like Reddit, Wikipedia, or GNU/Linux? The Community Data Science Collective is hosting a Q&A on October 18th at 12 pm PT, 2pm CT, 3pm ET…

https://blog.communitydata.science/cdsc-phd-application-info-session-and-q-a-october-18/

3 days left to submit your proposal for FOSSY 2025!
Visit https://wiki.communitydata.science/FOSSY_(2025) to learn more about the Science of Community Track. We can't wait to see you there!

The Relationship Between Facebook and Tradition or How a Peacock Invaded a Garden

A question that's been bugging me for the past months is how a digital medium can amplify remnants of traditional pre-modern life. I'm only a recent addition to the Collective and, despite thinking a lot about digitality and how it affects social processes, I've only marginally been part of online communities myself. However, living back and forth, in a perpetual state of limbo, between…

https://blog.communitydata.science/the-relationship-between-facebook-and-tradition-or-how-a-peacock-invaded-a-garden/

Decentralizing Social Media: The challenges and opportunities of federated systems

A Virtual Thought Leader Dialogue on May 23, from 4 - 5:15 p.m. CST. Register here to join. Based on File:Decentralization.jpg, by Adam Aladdin, CC-BY-SA 3.0 How can we create more trustworthy and accountable social media that support diverse communities? Decentralized social media—systems that allow users to connect and communicate across independent services like Mastodon or…

https://blog.communitydata.science/decentralizing-social-media-the-challenges-and-opportunities-of-federated-systems/

FOSSY 2024 Wrap Up: Kaylea Champion on “Research Says…..Insights on Building, Leading, and Sustaining Open Source” http://youtube.com/watch?v=_-a2Uh1Is78&feature=youtu.be https://blog.communitydata.science/kaylea-champion-on-research-says-insights-on-building-leading-and-sustaining-open-source/

Meet us at FOSSY!

The Free and Open Source Software Yearly conference (FOSSY) is less than a month away and we will be there! We will be running the Science of Community track on Friday August 2nd and Saturday August 3rd. Check out the full schedule here. We're excited to have a number of really amazing speakers presenting their work. Check out the list below:

https://blog.communitydata.science/meet-us-at-fossy-2/

CDSC at the NCA 2025:

CDSC members will be presenting at this years National Communication Association (NCA) Convention in Denver! You are warmly invited to join CDSC members during our talks and other scheduled events. Please come say hi! Check out group members attending and what research they'll be sharing: Dyuti Jha: Dyuti will be presenting her paper titled "Mapping the Digital Life of Caste-Based Hate Speech"

http://blog.communitydata.science/cdsc-at-the-nca-2025/

Join the CDSC on November 7th for our next Community Dialogue!
Northwestern Student @mgone@hci.social and Professor Igor Steinmacher will discuss how FLOSS projects adapt their work processes to recruit new contributors and build the project communities that they want. Learn more and register: https://wiki.communitydata.science/The_Impacts_of_Organizational_Interventions_in_Open_Source_Software_Engineering

What happens when we blur the boundaries of AI and a trusted companion?
Join CDSC member Hseun-Chiu Chi and Professor Jasmine McNealy in our 12th Science of Community Dialogue that explores how companion chatbots invite deep emotional disclosure while raising concerns about data privacy—and how some communities are pushing back through AI refusal.

Learn more at: https://wiki.communitydata.science/AI_Boundaries:_Refusal_and_Privacy

We're hosting our 12th Community Dialogue on Oct. 17 from 12-2pm CT! CDSC member Hsuen-Chi (Hazel) Chiu will be joined by Professor Jasmine McNealy to discuss AI refusal and privacy. Click here to register and learn more: https://wiki.communitydata.science/AI_Boundaries:_Refusal_and_Privacy

Community Dialogue – AI Boundaries: Refusal and Privacy

Join the Community Data Science Collective (CDSC) for our 12th Science of Community Dialogue! This Community Dialogue will take place on October 17th, 2025 at 12:00 pm CT. This dialogue explores how companion chatbots invite deep emotional disclosure while raising concerns about data privacy—and how some communities are pushing back through AI refusal. Professor Jasmine McNealy (University of Florida) will join 

http://blog.communitydata.science/community-dialogue-ai-boundaries-refusal-and-privacy/

FOSSY 2025 Wrap-Up: Kaylea Champion “Plausible Slop: Generative AI and Open Source Cybersecurity”

For our final talk of the Science of Community track at FOSSY 2025, Kaylea Champion explored how generative AI tools are disrupting open source cybersecurity—not through advanced attacks, but by flooding communities with “plausible slop,” or misleading, low-effort reports. She shared research on the burden this places on experts, who must balance welcoming newcomers with…

http://blog.communitydata.science/fossy-2025-wrap-up-kaylea-champion-plausible-slop-generative-ai-and-open-source-cybersecurity/

FOSSY 2025 Wrap Up: Igor Steinmacher “Lessons from a Decade of Open Source Sustainability Research”

Igor Steinmacher walked through lessons learned from a decade of OSS research for our 9th talk of the Science of Community Track. He explored long-term sustainability challenges in FOSS communities, including onboarding, maintainer burnout, and governance. He presented interventions like mentorship strategies, structured contribution paths, and the use of LLMs to support…

http://blog.communitydata.science/fossy-2025-wrap-up-igor-steinmacher-lessons-from-a-decade-of-open-source-sustainability-research/

FOSSy 2025 Wrap Up: Dawn Foster on “Power Dynamics, Rug Pulls, and Other Impacts on FOSS Sustainability

The 8th presenter for the Science of Community track was Dawn Foster, who talked about the power imbalances in FOSS projects, and their potential for disruption. She explored real-world case studies and offered practical steps to help contributors make smarter, more sustainable choices. This is the 8th of our 11 part series sharing highlights from the Science of…

http://blog.communitydata.science/fossy-2025-wrap-up-dawn-foster-on-power-dynamics-rug-pulls-and-other-impacts-on-foss-sustainability/

Prospective PhD Student Q&A – September 26th

Thinking about applying to graduate school? Wonder what it’s like to pursue a PhD or M.S.? Interested in understanding relationships between technology and society? Curious about how to do research on online communities like Reddit, Wikipedia, or GNU/Linux? The Community Data Science Collective is hosting a virtual Q&A session on Friday, September 26th at 10am PT / 12pm CT / 1pm ET…

http://blog.communitydata.science/prospective-phd-student-qa-september-26th/

FOSSY 2025 Wrap-Up: Ben Ford “It’s all about the ecosystem!”

Ben Ford wrapped up Friday as the sixth speaker in the Science of Community track at FOSSY 2025, talking about the idea that the ecosystem is the product and the thing that you build and sell only exists to support it, something OSS companies might learn from. You can check out Ben's slide deck here. This is the 6th of our 11 part series sharing highlights from the Science of Community track at FOSSY 2025.…

http://blog.communitydata.science/fossy-2025-wrap-up-ben-ford-its-all-about-the-ecosystem/

FOSSY 2025 Wrap Up: Laura Langdon “From Campus to Network: Creating the UC System-Wide OSPO Initiative”

In the fifth talk of the Science of Community track at FOSSY 2025, Laura Langdon shared lessons learned from the early stages of building a network of academic Open Source Program Office's (OSPO) across the University of California system. She discussed both the benefits and challenges encountered while developing this first-of-its-kind system-wide network.  This is…

http://blog.communitydata.science/fossy-2025-wrap-up-laura-langdon-from-campus-to-network-creating-the-uc-system-wide-ospo-initiative/

FOSSY 2025 Wrap Up: Mike Jang “Open source your repository: a roadmap”

Mike Jang, the third talk of the Science of Community track at FOSSY 2025, covered how open sourcing existing software is more than just "pushing a button", it involves things like auditing security, sharing with your community, setting ground rules, and more. Jang shared insights on how to access a template repository, a checklist to follow, tips for hackathons, and how to understand the work…

http://blog.communitydata.science/fossy-2025-wrap-up-mike-jang-open-source-your-repository-a-roadmap/

FOSSY 2025 Wrap-Up: Justin Ribeiro “The Creative Trade-Off: Governance, Conflict, and Their Impact On Innovation In Open-Source Software”

In the second talk of the Science of Community track, Dr. Justin Ribeiro discussed how development approaches shape creativity at the project level, drawing from a study of 40 open source projects, over 10,000 releases, and interview with developers across corporate and community-run efforts. This is the second of our 12 part series…

http://blog.communitydata.science/fossy-2025-wrap-up-justin-ribeiro-the-creative-trade-off-governance-conflict-and-their-impact-on-innovation-in-open-source-software/

Only One Week Until FOSSY 2025, Come See Us There!

Let the countdown begin! FOSSY 2025 begins next week July 31st through August 3rd. We'll be there, running the Science of Community track on Friday, August 1st and Saturday August 2nd. The Science of Community track is inspired by the CDSC Science of Community Dialogues, which aim to bring together practitioners and researchers to discuss scholarly work that is relevant to the efforts of practitioners.

http://blog.communitydata.science/only-one-week-until-fossy-2025-come-see-us-there/