Joseph Reagle
Biographic Data
| ID | 5629441 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Joseph Reagle |
| GIVEN NAMES | Joseph |
| FAMILY NAME | Reagle |
| SIGNATURE | REAGLE J |
| AFFILIATIONS | Northeastern University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0650-9097 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 17 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 45 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 16 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1996 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
A history of the advice genre on Reddit
Though there is robust literature on the history of the advice genre, Reddit is an unrecognized but significant medium for the genre. This lack of attention, in part, stems from the lack of a coherent timeline and framework for understanding the emergence of dozens of advice-related subreddits. Noting the challenges of Reddit historiography, I trace the development of the advice genre on the platform, using the metaphors of evolutionary and famil…
Even pseudonyms and throwaways delete their Reddit posts
Concerned researchers of user-generated content might want to avoid using, citing, or quoting sensitive content likely to be deleted by their authors, even when pseudonymous or using one-time “throwaway” accounts. At Reddit, how many authors actually delete their submissions, why, and are they concerned if their deletion end up elsewhere? I analyze the three most popular sensitive-topic subreddits (r/Advice, r/AmItheAsshole, and r/relationship_ad…
Disguising Reddit sources and the efficacy of ethical research
Concerned researchers of online forums might implement what Bruckman (2002) referred to as disguise . Heavy disguise, for example, elides usernames and rewords quoted prose so that sources are difficult to locate via search engines. This can protect users (who might be members of vulnerable populations, including minors) from additional harms (such as harassment or additional identification). But does disguise work? I analyze 22 Reddit research r…
Spinning words as disguise
Ethical researchers who want to quote public user-generated content without further exposing these sources have little guidance as to how to disguise quotes. Reagle (2021b) showed that researchers’ attempts to disguise phrases on Reddit are often haphazard and ineffective. Are there tools that can help? Automated word spinners, used to generate reams of ad-laden content, seem suited to the task. We select 10 quotations from fictional posts on r/A…
Aoir Ethics Panel 2
This panel is one of two sessions organized by the AoIR Ethics Working Committee. It collects five papers exploring a broad (but in many ways common) set of ethical dilemmas faced by researchers engaged with specific platforms such as Reddit, Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, and private messaging platforms. These include: a study of people's online conversations about health matters on Reddit in support of a proposed situated ethics framework for resear…
Wikipedia @ 20
Wikipedia's first twenty years: how what began as an experiment in collaboration became the world's most popular reference work. We have been looking things up in Wikipedia for twenty years. What began almost by accident—a wiki attached to a nascent online encyclopedia—has become the world's most popular reference work. Regarded at first as the scholarly equivalent of a Big Mac, Wikipedia is now known for its reliable sourcing and as a bastion of…
Introduction
Nerd vs. bro
Increasingly, geek culture is criticized as one that is biased; in particular, geek claims of meritocracy are thought to be naïve because they do not recognize the privilege (i.e., unseen advantages) of extant members. But some geeks are resistant to this critique. Why? Beyond the natural tendency to be defensive and the unproductive comparison of personal suffering, there is a geek-specific reason. Geek identity is informed by the trope of geek …
Following the Joneses
I argue that the proliferation of the term FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) and its siblings (FOBO, FODA, MOMO, FODO) can be understood as envy-related anxiety about missed experiences (fear of missing out) and belonging (fear of being left out). Beyond feelings, people who speak of FOMO also speak of it as a behavior, most often as a compulsivity (related to what I characterize as conspicuous sociality) and as an illness to be remedied. And although F…
The obligation to know
In addition to documenting and sharing information, geek culture has a complementary norm obliging others to educate themselves on rudimentary topics. This obligation to know is expressed by way of jargon-laden exhortations such as “check the FAQ” (frequently asked questions) and “RTFM” (read the fucking manual). Additionally, the geek lexicon includes designations of the stature of the knower and the extent of what he or she knows (e.g. alpha ge…
Wikipedia and encyclopedic production
Wikipedia is often presented within a foreshortened or idealized history of encyclopedia-making. Here we challenge this viewpoint by contextualizing Wikipedia and its modes of production on a broad temporal scale. Drawing on examples from Roman antiquity onward, but focusing on the years since 1700, we identify three forms of encyclopedic production: compulsive collection, stigmergic accumulation, and corporate production. While each could be cha…
Free as in sexist?” Free culture and the gender gap
Despite the values of freedom and openness, the free culture movement’s gender balance is as skewed (or more so) as that of the computing culture from which it arose. Based on the collection and analysis of discourse on gender and sexism within this movement over a six–year period, I suggest three possible causes: (a) some geek identities can be narrow and unappealing; (b) open communities are especially susceptible to difficult people; and, (c) …
Good Faith Collaboration
How Wikipedia collaboration addresses the challenges of openness, consensus, and leadership in a historical pursuit for a universal encyclopedia. Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, is built by a community—a community of Wikipedians who are expected to “assume good faith” when interacting with one another. In Good Faith Collaboration, Joseph Reagle examines this unique collaborative culture. Wikipedia, says Reagle, is not the first effort to crea…
Timelineswikipedia
Joseph Reagle's work on Wikipedia and its predecessors opened my eyes to a fascinating history. I'm delighted he has provided this account of the origin of the most interesting digital object since the Web itself. --- Jonathan Grudin
Trust in electronic markets
This paper is included in the First Monday Special Issue #3: Internet banking, e-money, and Internet gift economies, published in December 2005. Special Issue editor Mark A. Fox asked authors to submit additional comments regarding their articles. This paper was certainly a creature of its time. A decade ago the Internet bubble was receiving its first puffs of exaggerated exuberance. For me, this time was also informed by Barlow's A Declaration o…
An alternative to government regulation and censorship
The RSACi system was developed to provide parents and consumers with objective, detailed reformation about the content of an Internet site, allowing them to make informed decisions regarding site access for themselves and their children
Trust in electronic markets
Relative to information security and electronic commerce, trust is a necessary component. Trust itself represents an evaluation of information, an analysis that requires decisions about the value of specific information in terms of several factors. Methodologies are being constructed to evaluate information more systematically, to generate decisions about increasingly complex and sophisticated relationships. In turn, these methodologies about inf…
Good Faith Collaboration
How Wikipedia collaboration addresses the challenges of openness, consensus, and leadership in a historical pursuit for a universal encyclopedia. Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, is built by a community—a community of Wikipedians who are expected to “assume good faith” when interacting with one another. In Good Faith Collaboration, Joseph Reagle examines this unique collaborative culture. Wikipedia, says Reagle, is not the first effort to crea…
Wikipedia and encyclopedic production
Wikipedia is often presented within a foreshortened or idealized history of encyclopedia-making. Here we challenge this viewpoint by contextualizing Wikipedia and its modes of production on a broad temporal scale. Drawing on examples from Roman antiquity onward, but focusing on the years since 1700, we identify three forms of encyclopedic production: compulsive collection, stigmergic accumulation, and corporate production. While each could be cha…
The obligation to know
In addition to documenting and sharing information, geek culture has a complementary norm obliging others to educate themselves on rudimentary topics. This obligation to know is expressed by way of jargon-laden exhortations such as “check the FAQ” (frequently asked questions) and “RTFM” (read the fucking manual). Additionally, the geek lexicon includes designations of the stature of the knower and the extent of what he or she knows (e.g. alpha ge…
An alternative to government regulation and censorship
The RSACi system was developed to provide parents and consumers with objective, detailed reformation about the content of an Internet site, allowing them to make informed decisions regarding site access for themselves and their children
Trust in electronic markets
Relative to information security and electronic commerce, trust is a necessary component. Trust itself represents an evaluation of information, an analysis that requires decisions about the value of specific information in terms of several factors. Methodologies are being constructed to evaluate information more systematically, to generate decisions about increasingly complex and sophisticated relationships. In turn, these methodologies about inf…
Trust in electronic markets
This paper is included in the First Monday Special Issue #3: Internet banking, e-money, and Internet gift economies, published in December 2005. Special Issue editor Mark A. Fox asked authors to submit additional comments regarding their articles. This paper was certainly a creature of its time. A decade ago the Internet bubble was receiving its first puffs of exaggerated exuberance. For me, this time was also informed by Barlow's A Declaration o…
Timelineswikipedia
Joseph Reagle's work on Wikipedia and its predecessors opened my eyes to a fascinating history. I'm delighted he has provided this account of the origin of the most interesting digital object since the Web itself. --- Jonathan Grudin
Good Faith Collaboration
How Wikipedia collaboration addresses the challenges of openness, consensus, and leadership in a historical pursuit for a universal encyclopedia. Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, is built by a community—a community of Wikipedians who are expected to “assume good faith” when interacting with one another. In Good Faith Collaboration, Joseph Reagle examines this unique collaborative culture. Wikipedia, says Reagle, is not the first effort to crea…
Free as in sexist?” Free culture and the gender gap
Despite the values of freedom and openness, the free culture movement’s gender balance is as skewed (or more so) as that of the computing culture from which it arose. Based on the collection and analysis of discourse on gender and sexism within this movement over a six–year period, I suggest three possible causes: (a) some geek identities can be narrow and unappealing; (b) open communities are especially susceptible to difficult people; and, (c) …
Wikipedia and encyclopedic production
Wikipedia is often presented within a foreshortened or idealized history of encyclopedia-making. Here we challenge this viewpoint by contextualizing Wikipedia and its modes of production on a broad temporal scale. Drawing on examples from Roman antiquity onward, but focusing on the years since 1700, we identify three forms of encyclopedic production: compulsive collection, stigmergic accumulation, and corporate production. While each could be cha…
The obligation to know
In addition to documenting and sharing information, geek culture has a complementary norm obliging others to educate themselves on rudimentary topics. This obligation to know is expressed by way of jargon-laden exhortations such as “check the FAQ” (frequently asked questions) and “RTFM” (read the fucking manual). Additionally, the geek lexicon includes designations of the stature of the knower and the extent of what he or she knows (e.g. alpha ge…
Following the Joneses
I argue that the proliferation of the term FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) and its siblings (FOBO, FODA, MOMO, FODO) can be understood as envy-related anxiety about missed experiences (fear of missing out) and belonging (fear of being left out). Beyond feelings, people who speak of FOMO also speak of it as a behavior, most often as a compulsivity (related to what I characterize as conspicuous sociality) and as an illness to be remedied. And although F…
Nerd vs. bro
Increasingly, geek culture is criticized as one that is biased; in particular, geek claims of meritocracy are thought to be naïve because they do not recognize the privilege (i.e., unseen advantages) of extant members. But some geeks are resistant to this critique. Why? Beyond the natural tendency to be defensive and the unproductive comparison of personal suffering, there is a geek-specific reason. Geek identity is informed by the trope of geek …
Wikipedia @ 20
Wikipedia's first twenty years: how what began as an experiment in collaboration became the world's most popular reference work. We have been looking things up in Wikipedia for twenty years. What began almost by accident—a wiki attached to a nascent online encyclopedia—has become the world's most popular reference work. Regarded at first as the scholarly equivalent of a Big Mac, Wikipedia is now known for its reliable sourcing and as a bastion of…
Introduction
Aoir Ethics Panel 2
This panel is one of two sessions organized by the AoIR Ethics Working Committee. It collects five papers exploring a broad (but in many ways common) set of ethical dilemmas faced by researchers engaged with specific platforms such as Reddit, Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, and private messaging platforms. These include: a study of people's online conversations about health matters on Reddit in support of a proposed situated ethics framework for resear…
Disguising Reddit sources and the efficacy of ethical research
Concerned researchers of online forums might implement what Bruckman (2002) referred to as disguise . Heavy disguise, for example, elides usernames and rewords quoted prose so that sources are difficult to locate via search engines. This can protect users (who might be members of vulnerable populations, including minors) from additional harms (such as harassment or additional identification). But does disguise work? I analyze 22 Reddit research r…
Spinning words as disguise
Ethical researchers who want to quote public user-generated content without further exposing these sources have little guidance as to how to disguise quotes. Reagle (2021b) showed that researchers’ attempts to disguise phrases on Reddit are often haphazard and ineffective. Are there tools that can help? Automated word spinners, used to generate reams of ad-laden content, seem suited to the task. We select 10 quotations from fictional posts on r/A…
Even pseudonyms and throwaways delete their Reddit posts
Concerned researchers of user-generated content might want to avoid using, citing, or quoting sensitive content likely to be deleted by their authors, even when pseudonymous or using one-time “throwaway” accounts. At Reddit, how many authors actually delete their submissions, why, and are they concerned if their deletion end up elsewhere? I analyze the three most popular sensitive-topic subreddits (r/Advice, r/AmItheAsshole, and r/relationship_ad…
A history of the advice genre on Reddit
Though there is robust literature on the history of the advice genre, Reddit is an unrecognized but significant medium for the genre. This lack of attention, in part, stems from the lack of a coherent timeline and framework for understanding the emergence of dozens of advice-related subreddits. Noting the challenges of Reddit historiography, I trace the development of the advice genre on the platform, using the metaphors of evolutionary and famil…
Computer Science (13 works) · Sociology (8 works) · Internet privacy (6 works) · Political science (6 works) · World Wide Web (6 works) · Business (5 works) · Law (5 works) · Media studies (4 works) · Art (3 works) · Economics (3 works)