Snuggle: Designing for efficient socialization and ideological critique

Wikipedia, the encyclopedia "anyone can edit", has become increasingly less so. Recent academic research and popular discourse illustrates the often aggressive ways newcomers are treated by veteran Wikipedians. These are complex sociotechnical issues, bound up in infrastructures based on problematic ideologies. In response, we worked with a coalition of Wikipedians to design, develop, and deploy Snuggle, a new user interface that served two critical functions: Making the work of newcomer socialization more effective, and bringing visibility to instances in which Wikipedians current practice of gatekeeping socialization breaks down. Snuggle supports positive socialization by helping mentors quickly find newcomers whose good-faith mistakes were reverted as damage. Snuggle also supports ideological critique and reflection by bringing visibility to the consequences of viewing newcomers through a lens of suspiciousness.