User:11boba/Report

The Wikipedia community and Wikimedia Foundation should consider implementing dialog boxes that offer reminders about norms so that newcomers are less likely to violate norms. This references Design Claim 20 which suggests that community designers do this in order to deter norm violation. The Wikipedia community has an extensive number of norms and even with the help of the training modules, it was difficult to keep track of all norms and have confidence that I was executing them properly in my own application. This is because I am not as well versed as other Wikipedia contributors and what I think follows norms may not actually align with Wikipedia’s standards. Of course, the community of fellow editors is meant to help others adhere to these guidelines and produce Wikipedia quality work, but when a newcomer’s first application of norms is on a published article, that learning curve will inevitably show through the form of mistakes. Along the idea of the extensive norms, though the WikiEdu training was always accessible, the page navigation made it harder to find information than if it were to be organized by infinite scrolling. Because the information within training modules were separated by various pages, finding this information and being able to scan it quickly was disrupted by the division of information into pages that require clicking to advance. Wikipedia and Wikimedia should consider having a menu on articles in edit view or in talk pages which offer the same information from the training modules for newcomers until they reach a number of successful or normative Wikipedia edits. This would make that training information more accessible and findable for newcomers as their recollection of norms may not match the wording that Wikipedia uses in their modules. I have also found that when looking through certain guidelines for Wikipedia such as their section about headings and similar items, it was difficult to understand what the information was saying. I think adding in visuals or links to training modules which include pictures on those pages would be helpful to newcomers who are unfamiliar with the terminology Wikipedia uses such as “external links” and “see also” sections. Something that I encountered during the final stages of making my article live was when I forgot to include the phrase “copied from User:11boba/Golf Wang” in my edit summary. At that point I had made close to 6 edits. I successfully undid one edit, but the process was more complicated when I tried to undo older edits I had made. Design Claim 5 mentions that the availability of reversion features can limit damages made by disrupters. I undid my mistake by reverting to the original form of the article, but if I had the ability to undo my edits instead of having to manually edit after one undo, that would have been more user friendly to a newcomer like me. It also would have been helpful and preventative to have a dialog box appear and ask if I had completed the steps such as the information required in the edit summary.

I found that looking for articles I had confidence in editing was very difficult. It took me a long time to find an article to focus on for my project. We had learned that in open-source code projects that editors collaborate more efficiently when they know what there is to fix. Some Wikipedia talk pages are blank or inactive which meant that I had no idea where to start. Implementing a system or section on the talk page outlining work that has yet to be done, especially tasks conducive to the level of a newcomer, like copyediting specific sections, would instill confidence in newcomers to make edits and become more active in contributing. This may impact the deterrence of contributions which stem from the overwhelming code of conduct and long list of Wikipedia’s norms. By only looking at articles I felt I had enough knowledge in contributing to, I was met with contentious talk pages and articles that felt impossible to contribute to. By implementing this change, I feel that even if I am not knowledgeable, I can contribute to more articles because I would know what my abilities could offer. This idea is reflected in Design Claim 1 and 2 which essentially say that a visible list of tasks or contributions needed and providing tools that allow for users to find and track work increases contributions overall.

Wikipedia and the Wikimedia foundation should consider making these changes as they suffer from low user retention. Coming in as a newcomer involuntarily joining the Wikipedia community, I feel that my position helps me to better understand the conditions under which I would have been likely to remain as an active contributor in Wikipedia. I do not plan on contributing to Wikipedia further due to the issues previously mentioned causing me to fail to establish an identity-based commitment.

In Wikipedia, my goal was to edit an article and raise its quality by one class. I have had positive interpersonal experiences with Wikipedia users, whether that be between classmates or other users. I learned about the process of editing on Wikipedia and its expectations of its users. I learned from lecture, but especially during this project, that norms truly vary by community and should do so. Wikipedia and its members are very dedicated to the upholding of quality work. This is very different from my personal experiences in online communities where the purpose is to support a celebrity as opposed to gathering for a collaborative production. The lax norms I am used to would not be appropriate for the quality of work required by Wikipedia. My experience in online communities is largely from loosely regulated social media but having to adhere to strict normative behaviors in Wikipedia that I was not used to had me witness things we studied such as the effect of code of conducts on newcomers and how different communities require different norms.