Aaron Halfaker

Aaron Halfaker (/ˈhæfeɪkər/; born December 27, 1983) is a principal applied scientist at Microsoft Research.^[4][7][5] He previously served as a research scientist at the Wikimedia Foundation until 2020.^[8][9][10]

Aaron Halfaker
Halfaker in 2013
Born	(1983-12-27) December 27, 1983 (age 40) Virginia, Minnesota, US[1]
Alma mater	The College of St. Scholastica (BS) University of Minnesota (PhD)[2][3]
Scientific career
Fields	Open production Wikipedia Social Science Human-Computer Interaction Computer-supported cooperative work[4]
Institutions	Microsoft Research Wikimedia Foundation Google[5]
Thesis	Maintaining the efficiency of open production systems at scale: A case study of wikipedia (2013)
Doctoral advisor	John T. Riedl[6]
Website	halfaker.info

Education

Halfaker earned a Bachelor of Science degree in computer science from the College of St. Scholastica in 2006, where he started off as a physical therapy major but switched to computer science after taking a programming class with Diana Johnson.^[11] He subsequently earned a PhD in computer science from the GroupLens Research lab at the University of Minnesota in 2013.^[6]

Career and research

Halfaker is known for his research on Wikipedia^[12][13] and the decrease in the number of active editors of the site.^[14][15][16] He has said in autumn 2013 that Wikipedia began a "decline phase" around 2007 and has continued to decline since then.^[17][18] Halfaker has also studied software agents (bots) on Wikipedia,^[19] and the way they affect new contributors to the site.^[8] While a graduate student he developed a tool for Wikipedia editing called Snuggle with Stuart Geiger. Snuggle tackles vandalism on Wikipedia and highlights constructive contributions by new editors.^[20][21] He has also built an artificial intelligence (AI) service called Objective Revision Evaluation Service (ORES) in 2015, used to identify vandalism on Wikipedia and distinguish it from good faith edits.^[22][23]

References

1. Halfaker, Aaron (31 January 2017). "Twitter status". Twitter.
2. "Wicked Smart: 5 questions with U of M PhD and Wikipedian Aaron Halfaker". TechMN. 11 December 2013. Archived from the original on 17 December 2013. Retrieved 5 January 2015.
3. "Aaron Halfaker Curriculum Vitae".
4. Aaron Halfaker publications indexed by Google Scholar
5. "AARON HALFAKER PHD" (PDF). microsoft.com. Retrieved 5 February 2022.
6. Halfaker, Aaron (2013). Maintaining the efficiency of open production systems at scale: A case study of wikipedia. umn.edu (PhD thesis). University of Minnesota. hdl:11299/162489. OCLC 1194828572. ProQuest 3607902.
7. "Aaron Halfaker at Microsoft Research". Microsoft.
8. Hicks, Jesse (18 February 2014). "This machine kills trolls". The Verge. Retrieved 11 December 2014.
9. Simon, Matt (1 March 2017). "Internet Bots Fight Each Other Because They're All Too Human". Wired. Retrieved 22 March 2017.
10. "Staff and Contractors". Wikimedia Foundation. 12 November 2015. Retrieved June 4, 2017.
11. Clark, Valerie. "Computer science alum making headlines through work at Wikipedia". Retrieved 2017-01-31.
12. Halfaker, Aaron; Kittur, Aniket; Riedl, John (2011). "Don't bite the newbies". Proceedings of the 7th International Symposium on Wikis and Open Collaboration. pp. 163–172. doi:10.1145/2038558.2038585. ISBN 9781450309097. S2CID 2818300.
13. Panciera, Katherine; Halfaker, Aaron; Terveen, Loren (2009). "Wikipedians are born, not made". Proceedings of the 2009 ACM International Conference on Supporting Group Work. pp. 51–60. doi:10.1145/1531674.1531682. ISBN 9781605585000. S2CID 6286454.
14. Nosowitz, Dan (January 28, 2013). "Wikipedia is getting Worse as it gets Better". Popular Science. Retrieved 5 January 2015.
15. Halfaker, A.; Geiger, R. S.; Morgan, J. T.; Riedl, J. (28 December 2012). "The Rise and Decline of an Open Collaboration System: How Wikipedia's Reaction to Popularity Is Causing Its Decline". American Behavioral Scientist. 57 (5): 664–688. doi:10.1177/0002764212469365. S2CID 144208941.
16. LeJacq, Yannick (2 February 2013). "Wikipedia Reaches 3 Billion Monthly Mobile Views Amid Concerns About Contributor Content". International Business Times. Retrieved 11 December 2014.
17. Jacobs, Harrison (22 November 2013). "Wikipedia Could Degenerate If It Can't Fix One Big Problem". Business Insider. Retrieved 11 December 2014.
18. Simonite, Tom (22 October 2013). "The Decline of Wikipedia". technologyreview.com. MIT Technology Review. Archived from the original on 19 June 2015. Retrieved 13 March 2015.
19. Kloc, Joe (25 February 2014). "Wikipedia Is Edited by Bots. That's a Good Thing". newsweek.com. Retrieved 11 December 2014.
20. Baker, Katie (31 October 2013). "Wikipedia's Wobbling (Citation Needed)". newsweek.com. Retrieved 26 December 2014.
21. Matias, J. Natian (8 June 2015). "The Tragedy of the Digital Commons". theatlantic.com. The Atlantic. Retrieved 22 February 2016.
22. Metz, Cade (1 December 2015). "Wikipedia Deploys AI to Expand Its Ranks of Human Editors". Wired. Retrieved 12 January 2016.
23. Simonite, Tom (1 December 2015). "Artificial Intelligence Aims to Make Wikipedia Friendlier and Better". MIT Technology Review. Retrieved 22 February 2016.