Maintaining Values: Navigating Diverse Perspectives in Value-Charged Discussions in Open Source Development

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Communication technologies have significant social impacts, and it is important to consider how designers’ and developers’ values shape their design. Increasingly, these technologies are released as continually evolving platforms and services, so their development involves ongoing discussions and debates about unforeseen problems and future directions. However, there is a gap in research about how designers, developers, and other stakeholders engage with values during later stages of development. We investigate discussions about values in the context of open source software development, focusing on projects related to the Decentralized Web. We conducted a large-scale analysis of GitHub issues among diverse yet ideologically-related projects. We show that the percentage of discussions about values increases later in development, and we identify features and outcomes of conflicts related to open source participants' values. Finally, we propose suggestions to improve upon existing discussion practices by supporting common ground among collaborators with diverse goals, perspectives, and experiences.