Academic Work

I study collective action in online communities and seek to understand why some attempts at collaborative production—like Wikipedia and Linux—build large volunteer communities while the vast majority never attract even a second contributor. I am particularly interested in how the design of communication and information technologies shape fundamental social outcomes with broad theoretical and practical implications—like the decision to join a community or contribute to a public good. My research is deeply interdisciplinary, consists primarily of "big data" quantitative analyses, and lies at the intersection of communication, human-computer interaction, and sociology.

I am an Associate Professor in the University of Washington Department of Communication and an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Human-Centered Design & Engineering, the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering, and the Information School. I am a member of Community Data Science Collective which I founded with Aaron Shaw. At UW, I am also Affiliate Faculty in the Center for Statistics and the Social Sciences, the eScience Institute, and the "Design Use Build" (DUB) group that supports research on on human computer interaction. I am also a Faculty Associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University and an affiliate of the Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard.

I received my PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in an interdepartmental program involving the MIT Sloan School of Management and the MIT Media Lab. My dissertation research was advised by Eric von Hippel, Yochai Benkler, Tom Malone and Mitch Resnick.

Articles in Journals & Conference Proceedings^[?]

• Foote, Jeremy, Aaron Shaw, and Benjamin Mako Hill. 2023. “Communication Networks Do Not Predict Success in Attempts at Peer Production.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 28 (3): zmad002. https://doi.org/10.1093/jcmc/zmad002. [Official Link ]
  [Preprint (PDF)]
• Cheng, Ruijia and Benjamin Mako Hill. 2022. “Many Destinations, Many Pathways: A Quantitative Analysis of Legitimate Peripheral Participation in Scratch.” Proceedings of the ACM: Human-Computer Interaction 6 (CSCW2): 381:1-381:26. https://doi.org/10.1145/3555106. [Official Link ]
  [Preprint (PDF)]
  [Preprint (Arxiv)]
• Gan, Emilia F., Tyler Menezes, and Benjamin Mako Hill. 2022. “How Gender, Ethnicity, and Public Presentation Shape Coding Perseverance after Hackathons.” In Proceedings of Koli Calling ’22: 22nd Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research, 1–11. New York, New York: ACM Press. https://doi.org/10.1145/3564721.3564727. [Official Link ]
  [Preprint (PDF)]
• Tran, Chau, Kaylea Champion, Benjamin Mako Hill, and Rachel Greenstadt. 2022. “The Risks, Benefits, and Consequences of Prepublication Moderation: Evidence from 17 Wikipedia Language Editions.” Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction 6 (CSCW2): 333:1-333:25. https://doi.org/10.1145/3555225. [Official Link ] [Preprint (PDF)] [Preprint (Arxiv)]
• TeBlunthuis, Nathan, and Benjamin Mako Hill. 2022. “Identifying Competition and Mutualism between Online Groups.” In Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (ICWSM ’22), 16:993–1004. Palo, Alto, California: AAAI Press. https://doi.org/10.1609/icwsm.v16i1.19352. [Official Link ]
  [Preprint (PDF)]
  [Preprint (Arxiv)]
• Khatri, Sejal, Aaron Shaw, Sayamindu Dasgupta, and Benjamin Mako Hill. 2022. “The Social Embeddedness of Peer Production: A Comparative Qualitative Analysis of Three Indian Language Wikipedia Editions.” In CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’22), 1–18. New York, New York: ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/3491102.3501832. [Official Link ] [Preprint (PDF)] (Awards: CHI '22 Best Paper Honorable Mention Award)
• Cheng, Ruijia, Sayamindu Dasgupta, and Benjamin Mako Hill. 2022. “How Interest-Driven Content Creation Shapes Opportunities for Informal Learning in Scratch: A Case Study on Novices’ Use of Data Structures.” In CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’22), 1–16.. New York, New York: ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/3491102.3502124. [Official Link ] [Preprint (PDF)] (Awards: CHI ‘22 Best Paper Honorable Mention Award)
• TeBlunthuis, Nathan, Charles Kiene, Isabella Brown, Laura (Alia) Levi, Nicole McGinnis, and Benjamin Mako Hill. 2022. “No Community Can Do Everything: Why People Participate in Similar Online Communities.” Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction 6 (CSCW1): 61:1-61:25. https://doi.org/10.1145/3512908. [Official Link ] [Preprint (PDF)] [Preprint (Arxiv)]
• TeBlunthuis, Nathan, Benjamin Mako Hill, and Aaron Halfaker. 2021. “Effects of Algorithmic Flagging on Fairness: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from Wikipedia.” Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction 5 (CSCW): 56:1-56:27. https://doi.org/10.1145/3449130. [Official Link ]
  [Preprint (Arxiv)]
  [Preprint (PDF)]
  [Dataset and Software]
• Champion, Kaylea, and Benjamin Mako Hill. 2021. “Underproduction: An Approach for Measuring Risk in Open Source Software.” In 2021 IEEE International Conference on Software Analysis, Evolution and Reengineering (SANER), 388–99. Piscataway, New Jersey: IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/SANER50967.2021.00043. [Official Link $] [Preprint (PDF)] [Preprint (Arxiv)] [Online Supplement PDF] [Dataset and Software]
• Hill, Benjamin Mako, and Aaron Shaw. 2020. “The Hidden Costs of Requiring Accounts: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from Peer Production.” Communication Research, 48 (6): 771–95. https://doi.org/10.1177/0093650220910345. [Official Link $] [Preprint PDF] [Online Supplement PDF] [Dataset and Software]
• Shorey, Samantha, Benjamin Mako Hill, and Samuel Woolley. 2020. “From Hanging out to Figuring It out: Socializing Online as a Pathway to Computational Thinking.” New Media & Society, May, 1461444820923674. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444820923674. [Official Link $] [Preprint PDF]
• Tran, Chau, Kaylea Champion, Andrea Forte, Benjamin Mako Hill, and Rachel Greenstadt. 2020. “Are Anonymity-Seekers Just like Everybody Else? An Analysis of Contributions to Wikipedia from Tor.” In 2020 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (SP), 1:974–90. San Francisco, California: IEEE Computer Society. https://doi.org/10.1109/SP40000.2020.00053. [Official Link $]
  [Official Link $]
  [Preprint PDF] [Preprint (Arxiv)]
• Champion, Kaylea, Nora McDonald, Stephanie Bankes, Joseph Zhang, Rachel Greenstadt, Andrea Forte, and Benjamin Mako Hill. 2019. “A Forensic Qualitative Analysis of Contributions to Wikipedia from Anonymity Seeking Users.” Proceedings of the ACM: Human-Computer Interaction 3 (CSCW): 531:1-53:26. https://doi.org/10.1145/3359155. [Official Link ] [Preprint PDF]
• Kiene, Charles, Jialun “Aaron” Jiang, and Benjamin Mako Hill. 2019. “Technological Frames and User Innovation: Exploring Technological Change in Community Moderation Teams.” Proceedings of the ACM: Human-Computer Interaction 3 (CSCW): 44:1-44:23. https://doi.org/10.1145/3359146. [Official Link ] [Preprint PDF]
• Narayan, Sneha, Nathan TeBlunthuis, Wm Salt Hale, Benjamin Mako Hill, and Aaron Shaw. 2019. “All Talk: How Increasing Interpersonal Communication on Wikis May Not Enhance Productivity.” Proceedings of the ACM: Human-Computer Interaction 3 (CSCW): 101:1-101:19. https://doi.org/10.1145/3359203. [Official Link ] [Preprint PDF] [Online Supplement PDF]
• McDonald, Nora, Benjamin Mako Hill, Rachel Greenstadt, and Andrea Forte. 2019. “Privacy, Anonymity, and Perceived Risk in Open Collaboration: A Study of Service Providers.” In Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’19), 671:1-671:12. New York, New York: ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/3290605.3300901. [Official Link ] [Preprint PDF]
• Gan, Emilia F., Benjamin Mako Hill, and Sayamindu Dasgupta. 2018. “Gender, Feedback, and Learners’ Decisions to Share Their Creative Computing Projects.” Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction 2 (CSCW): 54:1-54:23. https://doi.org/10.1145/3274323. [Official Link ]
  [Preprint PDF]
• Kiene, Charles, Aaron Shaw, and Benjamin Mako Hill. 2018. “Managing Organizational Culture in Online Group Mergers.” Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction 2 (CSCW): 89:1-89–21. https://doi.org/10.1145/3274358. [Official Link ] [Preprint PDF] (Awards: CSCW '18 Best Paper Honorable Mention Award)
• Dasgupta, Sayamindu, and Benjamin Mako Hill. 2018. “How ‘Wide Walls’ Can Increase Engagement: Evidence From a Natural Experiment in Scratch.” In Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’18), 361:1–361:11. New York, New York: ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/3173574.3173935. [Official Link ]
  [Preprint PDF]
• TeBlunthuis, Nathan, Aaron Shaw, and Benjamin Mako Hill. 2018. “Revisiting ‘The Rise and Decline’ in a Population of Peer Production Projects.” In Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ‘18), 355:1–355:7. New York, New York: ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/3173574.3173929. [Official Link ]
  [Preprint PDF]
• Klein, Maximilian, Jinhao Zhao, Jiajun Ni, Isaac Johnson, Benjamin Mako Hill, and Haiyi Zhu. 2017. “Quality Standards, Service Orientation, and Power in Airbnb and Couchsurfing.” Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction 1 (CSCW): 58:1–58:21. https://doi.org/10.1145/3134693. [Official Link ] [Preprint PDF]
• Dasgupta, Sayamindu, and Benjamin Mako Hill. 2017. “Scratch Community Blocks: Supporting Children As Data Scientists.” In Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’17), 3620–3631. New York, New York: ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/3025453.3025847. [Official Link ]
  [Preprint PDF]
  (Awards: CHI '17 Best Paper Honorable Mention Award)
• Hautea, Samantha, Sayamindu Dasgupta, and Benjamin Mako Hill. 2017. “Youth Perspectives on Critical Data Literacies.” In Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’17), 919–930. New York, New York: ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/3025453.3025823. [Official Link ]
  [Preprint PDF]
• Dasgupta, Sayamindu, and Benjamin Mako Hill. 2017. “Learning to Code in Localized Programming Languages.” In Proceedings of the Fourth (2017) ACM Conference on Learning @ Scale (L@S ’17), 33–39. New York, New York: ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/3051457.3051464. [Official Link ] [Preprint PDF] (Press: Wired)
• Hill, Benjamin Mako, and Andrés Monroy-Hernández. 2017. “A Longitudinal Dataset of Five Years of Public Activity in the Scratch Online Community.” Scientific Data 4 (January): 170002. https://doi.org/10.1038/sdata.2017.2. [Official Link ]
• Narayan, Sneha, Jake Orlowitz, Jonathan Morgan, Benjamin Mako Hill, and Aaron Shaw. 2017. “The Wikipedia Adventure: Field Evaluation of an Interactive Tutorial for New Users.” In Proceedings of the 20th ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing (CSCW ’17). New York, New York: ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/2998181.2998307. [Official Link ]
  [Preprint PDF]
• Kiene, Charles, Andrés Monroy-Hernández, and Benjamin Mako Hill. 2016. “Surviving an ‘Eternal September’: How an Online Community Managed a Surge of Newcomers.” In Proceedings of the 2016 ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’16), 1152–1156. New York, New York: ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/2858036.2858356. [Official Link ]
• Matias, J. Nathan, Sayamindu Dasgupta, and Benjamin Mako Hill. 2016. “Skill Progression in Scratch Revisited.” In Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’16), 1486–1490. New York, New York: ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/2858036.2858349. [Official Link ]
• Dasgupta, Sayamindu, William Hale, Andrés Monroy-Hernández, and Benjamin Mako Hill. 2016. “Remixing As a Pathway to Computational Thinking.” In Proceedings of the 19th ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing (CSCW ’16), 1438–1449. New York, New York: ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/2818048.2819984. [Official Link ]
  [Preprint PDF]
  (Awards: CSCW '16 Best Paper Honorable Mention Award)
• Hill, Benjamin Mako, and Aaron Shaw. 2015. “Page Protection: Another Missing Dimension of Wikipedia Research.” In Proceedings of the 11th International Symposium on Open Collaboration (OpenSym ’15), 15:1–15:4. New York, New York: ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/2788993.2789846. [Official Link ] [Data/Software Online Supplement]
• Huang, Shih-Wen, Minhyang (Mia) Suh, Benjamin Mako Hill, and Gary Hsieh. 2015. “How Activists Are Both Born and Made: An Analysis of Users on Change.Org.” In Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’15), 211–220. New York, New York: ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/2702123.2702559. [Official Link ] [Preprint PDF] [30-second Video "Advertisement" (YouTube)]
• Hill, Benjamin Mako, and Aaron Shaw. 2014. “Consider the Redirect: A Missing Dimension of Wikipedia Research.” In Proceedings of the International Symposium on Open Collaboration (OpenSym ’14), 28:1–28:4. New York, New York: ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/2641580.2641616. [Official Link ] [Data/Software Online Supplement]
• Zhang, Haoqi, Andrés Monroy-Hernández, Aaron Shaw, Sean A. Munson, Elizabeth Gerber, Benjamin Mako Hill, Peter Kinnaird, Shelly D. Farnham, and Patrick Minder. 2014. “WeDo: End-To-End Computer Supported Collective Action.” In Proceedings of the Eighth International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media (ICWSM ’14). Palo Alto, California: AAAI Press. https://www.aaai.org/ocs/index.php/ICWSM/ICWSM14/paper/view/8041. (Short Paper & Poster) [Official Link $] [Preprint PDF]
• Shaw, Aaron, and Benjamin Mako Hill. 2014. “Laboratories of Oligarchy? How the Iron Law Extends to Peer Production.” Journal of Communication 64 (2): 215–38. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcom.12082. [Official Link $] [Preprint PDF]
• Hill, Benjamin Mako, and Aaron Shaw. 2013. “The Wikipedia Gender Gap Revisited: Characterizing Survey Response Bias with Propensity Score Estimation.” PLoS ONE 8 (6): e65782. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0065782. [Official Link ]
• Hill, Benjamin Mako, and Andrés Monroy-Hernández. 2013. “The Remixing Dilemma: The Trade-Off Between Generativity and Originality.” American Behavioral Scientist 57 (5): 643–63. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764212469359. [Official Link $] [Preprint PDF] (Press: Financial Times, Wired UK (Archived), Boing Boing)
• Hill, Benjamin Mako, and Andrés Monroy-Hernández. 2013. “The Cost of Collaboration for Code and Art: Evidence from a Remixing Community.” In Proceedings of the 2013 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW ’13), 1035–1046. New York, New York: ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/2441776.2441893. [Official Link ] [Preprint PDF] (Awards: CSCW '13 Best Paper Award)
• Monroy-Hernández, Andrés, Benjamin Mako Hill, Jazmin Gonzalez-Rivero, and danah boyd. 2011. “Computers Can’t Give Credit: How Automatic Attribution Falls Short in an Online Remixing Community.” In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’11), 3421–3430. New York, New York: ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/1978942.1979452. [Official Link ] [Preprint PDF] (Awards: CHI '11 Best Paper Honorable Mention Award)
• Buechley, Leah, and Benjamin Mako Hill. 2010. “LilyPad in the Wild: How Hardware’s Long Tail Is Supporting New Engineering and Design Communities.” In Proceedings of the 8th ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems (DIS ’10), 199–207. New York, New York: ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/1858171.1858206. [Official Link ] [Preprint PDF] (Press: Etiquette (perma.cc), Women 2.0 )
• Hill, Benjamin Mako, Andrés Monroy-Hernández, and Kristina Olson. 2010. “Responses to Remixing on a Social Media Sharing Website.” In Proceedings of the 4th AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media (ICWSM ’10), 74–81. Palo Alto, California: AAAI Press. https://www.aaai.org/ocs/index.php/ICWSM/ICWSM10/paper/view/1533. [Official Link $] [Preprint PDF]
• Hill, Benjamin Mako. 2007. “Revealing Errors.” M/C Journal 10 (5). https://doi.org/10.5204/mcj.2703. [Official Link ] (Distinctions: Selected as “Feature Article” for issue.)
• Coleman, E. Gabriella, and Benjamin Mako Hill. 2004. “How Free Became Open and Everything Else under the Sun: Introduction.” M/C Journal 7 (3). https://doi.org/10.5204/mcj.2352. [Official Link ] (Distinctions: Selected as “Feature Article” for issue.)
• Michlmayr, Martin, and Benjamin Mako Hill. 2003. “Quality and the Reliance on Individuals in Free Software Projects.” In Proceedings of the 3rd Workshop on Open Source Software Engineering (WOSSE ’03), 105–109. Piscataway, New Jersey: IEEE. [Preprint PDF]

Book Chapters

• Dasgupta, Sayamindu, and Benjamin Mako Hill. 2023. “Designing for Critical Algorithmic Literacies.” In Algorithmic Rights and Protections for Children, edited by Mizuko Ito, Remy Cross, Karthik Dinakar, and Candice Odgers, 59–84. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. [Book Homepage] [Preprint/Draft (MIT Press WIP)] [Preprint (Arxiv)]
• Dasgupta, Sayamindu, Benjamin Mako Hill, and Andrés Monroy-Hernández. 2020. “Engaging Learners in Constructing Constructionist Environments.” In Designing Constructionist Futures: The Art, Theory, and Practice of Learning Designs, edited by Nathan Holbert, Matthew Berland, and Yasmin Kafai. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. [Preprint/Draft] [Book Homepage]
• Hill, Benjamin Mako, and Aaron Shaw. 2020. “The Most Important Laboratory for Social Scientific and Computing Research in History.” In Wikipedia @ 20: Stories of an Incomplete Revolution, edited by Joseph M. Jr. Reagle and Jackie L. Koerner, 159–74. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. [Book Homepage] [Preprint HTML] [Draft (MIT Press)]
• Hill, Benjamin Mako, and Aaron Shaw. 2020. “Studying Populations of Online Communities.” In The Oxford Handbook of Networked Communication, edited by Brooke Foucault Welles and Sandra González-Bailón, 174–93. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190460518.013.8. [Official Link $] [Preprint/Draft PDF]
• Foote, Jeremy D., Aaron Shaw, and Benjamin Mako Hill. 2017. “Computational Insights Into Computational Social Science of Social Media.” In SAGE Handbook of Social Media. London, UK: SAGE Publications. [Preprint/Draft PDF] [Dataset and Software] (Press: Boing Boing)
• Hill, Benjamin Mako, Dharma Dailey, Richard T. Guy, Ben Lewis, Mika Matsuzaki, and Jonathan T. Morgan. 2017. “Democratizing Data Science: The Community Data Science Workshops and Classes.” In Big Data Factories: Collaborative Approaches, 115–35. Computational Social Sciences. Berlin, Germany: Springer Nature. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-59186-5_9. [Official Link ] [Preprint/Draft PDF]
• Benkler, Yochai, Aaron Shaw, and Benjamin Mako Hill. 2015. “Peer Production: A Form of Collective Intelligence.” In Handbook of Collective Intelligence, edited by Thomas Malone and Michael Bernstein, 175–204. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. [Preprint PDF] [Book Homepage]
• Buechley, Leah, Jennifer Jacobs, and Benjamin Mako Hill. 2013. “Lilypad in the Wild: Technology DIY, E-Textiles, and Gender.” In Textile Messages: Dispatches From the World of E-Textiles and Education, edited by Leah Buechley, Kylie Peppler, Michael Eisenberg, and Yasmin Kafai, 147–57. New York, New York: Peter Lang Publishing. (Based, in part, on the 2010 article.) [PDF (Scans)]
• Hill, Benjamin Mako. 2014. “Freedom for Users, Not for Software.” In The Wealth of the Commons: A World Beyond Market and State, edited by David Bollier and Silke Helfrich, 305–8. Amherst, Massachusetts: Levellers Press. (Book published in German as Commons: Für eine neue Politik Jenseits von Markt und Staat.) [ Official Link ] [Preprint HTML]
• Hill, Benjamin Mako. 2010. “Revealing Errors.” In Error: Glitch, Noise, and Jam in New Media Cultures, edited by Mark Nunes, 27–41. New York, New York: Bloomsbury Academic. (An expanded version of the 2007 journal article.) [Book Homepage] [PDF (Scans)]
• Coleman, E. Gabriella, and Benjamin Mako Hill. 2004. “The Social Production of Ethics in Debian and Free Software Communities: Anthropological Lessons for Vocational Ethics.” In Free/Open Source Software Development, edited by Stefan Koch, 273–95. Hershey, Pennsylvania: Idea Group Inc. (IGI). [Book Homepage] [PDF (Scans)]

Working Papers

These papers are in various stages of preparation, review, and revision. Please do not cite or quote these papers without my permission. Contact me for copies of any papers that are listed here but are not linked directly from this page.

• Hill, Benjamin Mako. 2013. “Almost Wikipedia: What Eight Early Online Collaborative Encyclopedia Projects Reveal about the Mechanisms of Collective Action.” In Essays on Volunteer Mobilization in Peer Production. Ph.D. dissertation, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. [Draft PDF] [Abstract & Video] (Press: Neiman Journalism Lab, Washington Post)

Other Scholarly Publications

• [Poster and Extended Abstract] Kiene, Charles, and Benjamin Mako Hill. 2020. “Who Uses Bots? A Statistical Analysis of Bot Usage in Moderation Teams.” In Extended Abstracts of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA ’20), 1–8. New York, New York: ACM Press. https://doi.org/10.1145/3334480.3382960. [Official Link (Extended Abstract) ] [Extended Abstract PDF]
• [Poster and Extended Abstract] TeBlunthuis, Nathan, Aaron Shaw, and Benjamin Mako Hill. 2017. “Density Dependence Without Resource Partitioning: Population Ecology on Change.Org.” In Companion of the 2017 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW ’17 Companion), 323–326. New York, New York: ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/3022198.3026358. [Official Link (Extended Abstract) ]
  [Extended Abstract PDF]
• [Poster and Extended Abstract] Dasgupta, Sayamindu, and Benjamin Mako Hill. 2017. “Measuring Learning of Code Patterns in Informal Learning Environments.” In Proceedings of the 2017 ACM SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE ’17), 706–706. New York, New York: ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/3017680.3022437. [Official Link ] [Poster PDF]
• [Workshop Position Paper] Dasgupta, Sayamindu, and Benjamin Mako Hill. 2016. “Learning With Data: Designing for Community Introspection and Exploration.” In Workshop on Human-Centered Data Science. Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW '16). San Francisco, California. [PDF]
• [Section Introduction; Section Co-Editor] Hill, Benjamin Mako, and Seth Schoen. 2016. “Free Culture: Introduction.” In The Boy Who Could Change the World: The Writings of Aaron Swartz, 7–9. New York, New York: The New Press. [HTML ] (Press: Truthout)
• [Invited Article] Shaw, Aaron, Haoqi Zhang, Andrés Monroy-Hernández, Sean Munson, Benjamin Mako Hill, Elizabeth Gerber, Peter Kinnaird, and Patrick Minder. 2014. “Computer Supported Collective Action.” Interactions 21 (2): 74–77. https://doi.org/10.1145/2576875. [Official Link ] [Preprint PDF]
• [Panel and Extended Abstract] Bernstein, Michael, Michael Conover, Benjamin Mako Hill, Andres Monroy-Hernandez, Brian Keegan, Aaron Shaw, Sarita Yardi, R. Stuart Geiger, and Amy Bruckman. 2012. “Fail Whaling: Designing from Deviance and Failures in Social Computing.” In CHI ’12 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA ’12), 1127–1130. New York, New York: ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/2212776.2212403. [Official Link ]
• [Interactive Poster] Monroy-Hernández, Andrés, and Benjamin Mako Hill. 2010. “Cooperation and Attribution in an Online Community of Young Creators.” Interactive Poster presented at the Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW ’10), Savannah, Georgia. [Abstract PDF ]
• [Panel and Extended Abstract] Morell, Mayo Fuster, and Benjamin Mako Hill. 2010. “Reviewing and Challenging Socio-Political Approaches in the Analysis of Open Collaboration and Collective Action Online.” In Proceedings of the 6th International Symposium on Wikis and Open Collaboration (WikiSym ’10), 1–2. New York, New York: ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/1832772.1832808. [Official Link ]
• [Book review] Hill, Benjamin Mako. 2008. “Samir Chopra, Scott D. Dexter, Decoding Liberation: The Promise of Free and Open Source Software.” Minds and Machines 18 (2): 297–99. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11023-008-9101-y. [Official Link $] [Preprint PDF]
• [Review] Hill, Benjamin Mako. 2005. “Reflections on Free Software Past and Future.” First Monday 10 (10). https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v0i0.1468. [Official Link ]

Datasets and Code

• Gan, Emilia F., Tyler Menezes, and Benjamin Mako Hill. 2022. “Replication Code and Supplemental Material for How Gender, Ethnicity, and Public Presentation Shape Coding Perseverance after Hackathons.” Harvard Dataverse. https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/ORNV88. [Archival Copy and Documentation]
• Tran, Chau, Kaylea Champion, Benjamin Mako Hill, and Rachel Greenstadt. 2022. “Replication data for: The Risks, Benefits, and Consequences of Prepublication Moderation: Evidence from 17 Wikipedia Language Editions.” Harvard Dataverse. https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/G1YFLE. [Archival Copy and Documentation]
• Champion, Kaylea, and Benjamin Mako Hill. 2021. “Replication Data and Online Supplement for: Underproduction: An Approach for Measuring Risk in Open Source Software.” Harvard Dataverse. https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/PUCD2P. [Archival Copy and Documentation]
• Champion, Kaylea, Sejal Khatri, and Benjamin Mako Hill. 2021. “Replication Data for: Qualities of Quality: A Tertiary Review of Software Quality Measurement Research.” Harvard Dataverse. https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/XPOUO4. [Archival Copy and Documentation]
• TeBlunthuis, Nathan, Benjamin Mako Hill, and Aaron Halfaker. 2021. “Replication Data for: Effects of Algorithmic Flagging on Fairness: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from Wikipedia.” Harvard Dataverse. https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/E0RYJ4. [Archival Copy and Documentation]
• Hill, Benjamin Mako, and Aaron Shaw. 2020. “Replication Data and Online Supplement for: The Hidden Costs of Requiring Accounts: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from Peer Production.” Harvard Dataverse. https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/CLSFKX. [Archival Copy and Documentation]
• TeBlunthuis, Nathan, Aaron Shaw, and Benjamin Mako Hill. 2018. “Replication Data for Revisiting `The Rise and Decline’ in a Population of Peer Production Projects.” Harvard Dataverse. https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/SG3LP1. [Archival Copy and Documentation]
• Foote, Jeremy D., Aaron Shaw, and Benjamin Mako Hill. 2018. “Replication Data for: A Computational Analysis of Social Media Scholarship.” Harvard Dataverse. https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/W31PH5. [Dataset and Software] [Archival Copy]
• Narayan, Sneha, Jake Orlowitz, Jonathan T. Morgan, Aaron Shaw, and Benjamin Mako Hill. 2017. “Replication Data for: The Wikipedia Adventure: Field Evaluation of an Interactive Tutorial for New Users.” Harvard Dataverse. https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/6HPRIG. [Archival Copy]
• Hill, Benjamin Mako and Andrés Monroy-Hernández. 2016. “Archival Dataset: A Longitudinal Dataset of Five Years of Public Activity in the Scratch Online Community.” Harvard Dataverse. https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/KFT8EZ. [Dataset Descriptor] [Archival Copy]
• Hill, Benjamin Mako and Aaron Shaw. 2016. “Archival Data for Page Protection: Another Missing Dimension of Wikipedia Research.” Harvard Dataverse. https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/P1VECE. [Dataset and Software] [Archival Copy]
• Hill, Benjamin Mako and Aaron Shaw. 2016. “Archival Data for Consider the Redirect: A Missing Dimension of Wikipedia Research.“ Harvard Dataverse. https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/NQSHQD. [Dataset and Software] [Archival Copy]

Theses

• [Ph.D. Dissertation] Hill, Benjamin Mako. 2013. “Essays on Volunteer Mobilization in Peer Production.” Ph.D. Dissertation, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Advised by Eric von Hippel, Yochai Benkler, Tom Malone and Mitch Resnick. Published as papers: (1) "Almost Wikipedia"; (2) "The Remixing Dilemma"; "Laboratories of Oligarchy" all available on this page. (Recipient of Dordick Award for Best Dissertation from the Communication and Technology Division of the International Communication Association.)
• [S.M. Thesis] Hill, Benjamin Mako 2007. “Cooperation in Parallel: A Tool for Supporting Collaborative Writing in Diverged Documents.” Masters Thesis, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program in Media Arts and Sciences. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/41740. Advised by Walter Bender, Chris Csikszentmihályi, and Gabriella Coleman. [PDF ]
• [B.A. Thesis] Hill, Benjamin Mako. 2003. “Literary Collaboration and Control: A Socio-Historic, Technological and Legal Analysis.” Bachelors Thesis, Amherst, Massachusetts: Hampshire College. Advised by James Miller, James Wald, and David Bollier. [Link ]

Refereed Paper Presentations (Non-Archival)

Presenters are marked with a “*” in the list below

• TeBlunthuis Nathan^*, Benjamin Mako Hill, and Aaron Halfaker. “Algorithmic flags and Identity-Based Signals in Online Community Moderation.” Session on Social Media 2. International Conference on Computational Social Science (IC2S2 2020), July 19, 2020.
• TeBlunthuis Nathan^*, Aaron Shaw, Benjamin Mako Hill. “The Population Ecology of Online Collective Action.” Session on Culture and Fairness. International Conference on Computational Social Science (IC2S2 2020), July 19, 2020.
• TeBlunthuis Nathan^*, Aaron Shaw, and Benjamin Mako Hill. “The Population Ecology of Online Collective Action.” Session on Collective Action, ACM Conference on Collective Intelligence (CI 2020), June 18, 2020.
• Champion, Kaylea^*, and Benjamin Mako Hill. “Writing What They Don’t Read? Production Misalignment in Wikipedia.” Session on Digital Traces and Online Communities. Join Session with Computational Methods and Communication and Technology. International Communication Association Annual Meeting (ICA 2020), May 20-26, 2020.
• Narayan, Sneha, Nathan E. TeBlunthuis^*, Wm Salt Hale, Benjamin Mako Hill, and Aaron Shaw. “More Connected But Not More Productive: Analyzing Support for Interpersonal Communication in Wikis.” Session on Computational Approaches to Health Communication. Computational Methods, International Communication Association Annual Meeting (ICA 2019), Washington, DC, May 27, 2019.
• Foote, Jeremy D^*, Benjamin Mako Hill, and Nathan TeBlunthuis. “An agent-based model of online community joining.” Organizational Communication Mini-Conference (OCMC). New Brunswick, NJ, October 5, 2018.
• Dasgupta, Sayamindu and Benjamin Mako Hill^*. “How `Wide Walls' Can Increase Engagement: Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Scratch.” Session on Online Platforms and Experiments. International Conference on Computational Social Science (IC2S2 2018), Evanston, Illinois, July 15, 2018.
• Foote, Jeremy D.^*, Benjamin Mako Hill, and Nathan TeBlunthuis. “An Agent-Based Model of Online Community Joining.” Session on Collective Behavior. International Conference on Computational Social Science (IC2S2 2018), Evanston, Illinois, July 14, 2018.
• Shaw, Aaron and Benjamin Mako Hill^*. “Theory Building Beyond Communities: Population-Level Research.” Session on Communication in the Networked Age: A Discussion of Theory Building through Data-Driven Research. Computational Methods, International Communication Association Annual Meeting (ICA 2018), Prague, Czechia, May 28, 2018.
• Foote, Jeremy D.^* and Benjamin Mako Hill. “An Agent-Based Model of Online Community Joining.” Session on Agent-based Modeling for Communication Research. Computational Methods, International Communication Association Annual Meeting (ICA 2018), Prague, Czechia, May 25, 2018.
• TeBlunthuis, Nathan^*, Aaron Shaw, and Benjamin Mako Hill. “Revisiting ‘The Rise and Decline’ in a Population of Peer Production Projects.” Information Systems, International Communication Association Annual Meeting (ICA 2018), Prague, Czechia, May 25, 2018.
• Gan, Emilia F.^*, Sayamindu Dasgupta and Benjamin Mako Hill. “Gender Differences in Patterns of Project Sharing on the Scratch Online Programming Community.” Session on Cultivating Computational Thinking: Developing Computational Identities Through Scratch and Apps. Digital Media and Learning (DML 2017), University of California, Irvine, October 6, 2017.
• TeBlunthuis, Nathan^∗, Benjamin Mako Hill and Aaron Shaw. “Density Dependence Without Resource Partitioning: A Population Ecology of Change.org.” Session on Computational Methods for Studying Political Communication, Computational Methods, International Communication Association Annual Meeting (ICA 2017), San Diego, California, May 29, 2017.
• Hill, Benjamin Mako and Aaron Shaw^∗. “The Hidden Costs of Requiring Accounts Online: Quasiexperimental Evidence From Peer Production.” Session on Semantics and Structure of Online Communication, Computational Methods, International Communication Association Annual Meeting (ICA 2017), San Diego, California, May 27, 2017.
• Dasgupta, Sayamindu and Benjamin Mako Hill^∗. “Learning to Code in Localized Programming Languages.” Session on Technology and Learning, Instructional & Developmental Communication, International Communication Association Annual Meeting (ICA 2017), San Diego, California, May 26, 2017.
• TeBlunthuis, Nathan^*, Benjamin Mako Hill and Aaron Shaw. “Resource Partitioning and Density Dependence on a Digital Mobilization Platform.” Internet, Politics, and Policy Conference (IPP 2016), Oxford University, Oxford, UK, September 23, 2016.
• TeBlunthuis, Nathan^*, Benjamin Mako Hill and Aaron Shaw. “Resource Partitioning and Density Dependence on a Digital Mobilization Platform.” Section on Communication, Information Technology, and Media Sociology, American Sociological Association Annual Meeting (ASA 2016), Seattle, Washington, August 23, 2016.
• Foote, Jeremy D.^*, Aaron Shaw and Benjamin Mako Hill. “Wikis and Work Groups: A Social Network Approach to Predicting Community Growth.” Section on Organizations, Occupations, and Work, American Sociological Association Annual Meeting (ASA 2016), Seattle, Washington, August 22, 2016.
• Narayan, Sneha^*, Jake Orlowitz, Jonathan Morgan, Benjamin Mako Hill and Aaron Shaw. “The Wikipedia Adventure: A Field Experiment Evaluating an Interactive Tutorial for Newcomers.” Session on Exploring Online Communities, Communication and Technology, International Communication Association Annual Meeting (ICA 2016), Fukuoka, Japan, June 13, 2016.
• Shorey, Samantha^*, Samuel Woolley and Benjamin Mako Hill. “From Hanging Out to Geeking Out: Socializing as a Pathway to Computational Thinking.” Session on Learning and Thinking Through/With/By Media, Children, Adolescents and the Media, International Communication Association Annual Meeting (ICA 2016), Fukuoka, Japan, June 11, 2016.
• Foote, Jeremy D.^*, Aaron Shaw and Benjamin Mako Hill. “Wikis and Work Groups: A Social Network Approach to Predicting Community Growth.” Session on B.E.S.T.: Social and Collaborative Technologies in Organizational Communication, Organizational Communication, International Communication Association Annual Meeting (ICA 2016), Fukuoka, Japan, June 10, 2016.
• Shaw, Aaron^* and Benjamin Mako Hill. “Learning from Populations of Online Organizations.” Communication Science in the Digital Age Pre-Conference Workshop, International Communication Association Annual Meeting (ICA 2015), San Juan, Puerto Rico, June 7, 2015.
• Shaw, Aaron^* and Benjamin Mako Hill. “Learning from Populations of Online Organizations.” Computational Approaches to Advance Communication Research Pre-Conference Workshop, International Communication Association Annual Meeting (ICA 2015), San Juan, Puerto Rico, June 6, 2015.
• Foote, Jeremy D.^*, Aaron Shaw and Benjamin Mako Hill. “Social structures of productive online volunteer communities.” International Network for Social Network Analysis Conference (“Sunbelt”), Newport Beach, CA, April 9, 2016.
• Shaw, Aaron^* and Benjamin Mako Hill. “Learning from Populations of Online Organizations.” Computational Social Science Summit (CSSS), Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, May, 2015.
• Hill, Benjamin Mako^* and Aaron Shaw^*. “Laboratories Of Oligarchy? How the Iron Law Extends to Peer Production.” Collective Intelligence Conference (CI 2014), MIT, Cambridge, date: invalid date ‘Massachusetts, June 1, 2014.
• Zhang, Haoqi^*, Andrés Monroy-Hernández, Aaron Shaw, Sean A. Munson, Elizabeth Gerber, Peter Kinnaird, Shelly D. Farnham, and Patrick Minder. “WeDo: End-To-End Computer Supported Collective Action.” Collective Intelligence Conference (CI 2014), MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts, June , 2014.
• Hill, Benjamin Mako^* and Aaron Shaw^*. “Laboratories Of Oligarchy? How the Iron Law Extends to Peer Production.” Online Collective Action Working Group, ECPR, Mainz, Germany, March 13, 2013.
• Shaw, Aaron^* and Benjamin Mako Hill. “Laboratories of Oligarchy? How the Iron Law Extends to Peer Production.” Annual Midwest Political Science Association Conference (MPSA 2014), Chicago, Illinois, April, 2014.
• Hill, Benjamin Mako^*. “Almost Wikipedia: What Eight Early Online Collaborative Encyclopedia Projects Reveal About the Mechanisms Of Collective Action.” Open and User Innovation Workshop (OUI 2014), Harvard Business School, Cambridge, Massachusetts, July 31, 2012.
• Hill, Benjamin Mako^*, Aaron Shaw^*, and Yochai Benkler.“Status, Social Signaling and Collective Action in a Peer Production Community.” American Sociological Association Annual Meeting (ASA 2012), Denver, Colorado, August 17, 2012.
• Hill, Benjamin Mako^*, Aaron Shaw, and Yochai Benkler. “Status, Social Signaling and Collective Action in a Peer Production Community.” Open and User Innovation Workshop (OUI 2011), Vienna, Austria, June 5, 2011.
• Hill, Benjamin Mako^*. “Causal Effects of a Reputation-Based Incentive in a Peer Production Community.” Open and User Innovation Workshop (OUI 2010), MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts, October 2, 2010.

Grants

• National Science Foundation Grant (IIS-2045055) for “CAREER: New Approaches to Managing Lifecycles of Digital Knowledge Commons.” 2021-04-01 through 2026-03-31 (expected). (Total Amount: $549,959) [Official Link] [Project Description (PDF)]
• Protocol Labs grant for “Digital observatory for socially produced online COVID-19 information.” Collaborative Proposal led by Aaron Shaw. (Total Amount: \$20,000; UW: None) [Award Announcement]
• National Science Foundation Grant (IIS-1908850) for “Modeling the Ecological Dynamics of Online Organizations” Collaborative Proposal with Aaron Shaw. 2019-08-15 through 2022-07-31 (expected). (Total Amount: $497,724; UW: $279,966) [Official Link] [Award to Collaborating Institution (Northwestern University)] [Project Description (PDF)]
• Alfred P. Sloan Foundation (with Ford Foundation) grant for “Modeling Underproduction in Peer-Produced Digital Infrastructure.” Serving as PI for project led by Kaylea Champion with Aaron Shaw, and Morten Warncke-Wang. 2019-01-01 through 2020-12-31 (expected). ($139,994) [Announcement]
• National Science Foundation Grant (CNS-1703049) for “Measuring the Value of Anonymous Online Participation” Collaborative Proposal with Rachel Greenstadt and Andrea Forte. 2017-07-01 through 2021-06-30 (expected). (Total Amount: $1,113,143; UW: $293,000) [Official Link] [Award to Collaborating Institution (Drexel University)]
• National Science Foundation Grant (IIS-1617129) for “Pathways to Community Success: Advancing a Comparative Science of Online Collaborative Organization” Collaborative Proposal with Aaron Shaw. 2016-09-01 through 2019-08-31 (expected). (Total Amount: $499,684; UW: $305,359) [Official Link] [Award to Collaborating Institution (Northwestern University)] [Project Description (PDF)]
• National Science Foundation Grant (DRL-1417663) for “New Pathways into Data Science: Extending the Scratch Programming Language to Enable Youth to Analyze and Visualize Their Own Learning.” Collaborative Proposal with Mitch Resnick and Natalie Rusk. 2014-09-01 through 2017-08-31. (Total: $433,262; UW: $124,374) [Official Link] [Award to Collaborating Institution (MIT)] [Project Description (PDF)]
• “Educational Research Grant” Award from Amazon. ($7,500) 2010–2011.
• “Digital Incubator” grant from Cisco and MTV for work on election technology. ($25,000; 1 of 2 semi-finalists for $100,000) [Link to funded project: Selectricity]

Other

• Interdepartmental Degree Proposal (PDF): At MIT, I'm enrolled in an interdepartmental PhD program that involves faculty from both the MIT Sloan School of Management and the MIT Media Lab. The proposal lists the faculty and requirements of my program and lays out the justification, very broadly, of what my degree is about. I wrote this proposal with members of the MIT faculty and had it approved by both departments and the Dean of Graduate Students. The program is overseen by Professors Eric von Hippel, Tom Malone, and Mitch Resnick.
• General Exams: As part of my PhD program, I had to organize and take a series of examinations that tested my knowledge in three academic areas: (1) technological innovation, entrepreneurship, and strategy with an added emphasis on the study of open and user innovation, (2) organizational and economic sociology and (3) technology design for cooperation, community, and creativity. I created a page for these that includes the proposal, reading list, link to notes, and links to the exam questions and my answers. The generals committee included Eric von Hippel, Jason Davis, and Mitch Resnick
• Open and User Innovation Conference: I coordinated the program, handled communication, and acted as master of ceremonies for, both the 8th Annual Open and User Innovation conference held at MIT Sloan School of Management on August 2-4, 2010 and the 10th Annual conference held at Harvard Business School. Each conference had 150+ talks and 7 parallel tracks with presentations from researchers from North America, Asia, and Europe.
• AcaWiki: AcaWiki is a wiki that hosts summaries of academic articles and books. I have written several hundred summaries of scholarly articles and books which I've shared on the site. When time permits, I try to continue summaries of articles that I read in my course of my research.
• If you like the layout of my curriculum vitæ, thanks go to Kieran Healy for the typographical inspiration. If you'd like to use it yourself, you can help yourself to the LaTeX source code.

I am an Associate Professor at the University of Washington in the Department of Communication.

In addition to this page, my Google Scholar profile automatically collects information about my publications and allows you to sign up for announcements about new papers whenever Google finds about them. I always blog and tweet about new publications so you can follow my blog or or Twitter.

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Curriculum Vitæ

This webpage does not comprehensively list things like service I've done or awards I've received. If your interested in those things, you can download the latest version of my curriculum vitæ (TeX).

Teaching

Please visit my teaching page for details on my courses, guest lectures, mentorship, and other teaching activities.

Non-Academic Work

This page contains links to my academic writing and presentations. My non-scholarly articles, including magazine articles, are listed on my my writing page. My non-academic talks and presentations can be found on my my talk page.

Frequently Asked Questions

I've put together answers to questions I am often asked about:

• Joining me in UW Communication's M.A./PhD program
• Letters of recommendations for undergraduates

Job Market Material

I was on job market 2012-2013 before I landed an awesome job on the faculty of the Department of Communication at the University of Washington.

Archived job market material is online for those that are interested (with LaTeX source if you want to borrow the formatting):

• Research Statement (TeX)
• Teaching Statement (TeX)
• Diversity Statement (TeX)

Feel free to use the style. Thanks to Michael Bernstein for typographic inspiration.

Applying to CASBS

A highlight of my academic career was the the year that I spent at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Studies in 2018–2019. Because a number of people have asked, I've posted the project statement I included in my application. The proposal bears some resemblance to how I spent the year—but not much! Of course, the latest instructions for CASBS applicants is always on the CASBS website.

Notes