User:Adriel824/report

Overall working in Wikipedia throughout this project, I got to see it in a whole different way and not just a source of information that I took for granted such as Wikipedia. Because of this, I now see most social media apps as a community and I often find myself analyzing what is going on in depth rather than just being an average user. This Wikipedia experience was very enlightening because I have never had a class function this way. At first, it was a little confusing because there was so much information being thrown at me at once, from being instructed in section to the endless training modules. Nevertheless, after working in class, it did not take long to get the hang of it. I really appreciated the fact that Wikipedia provides a list of article stubs and has them very well organized, it made the process of finding an article so much easier and was actually a little fun. I explored two different subjects when looking through stubs, I explored sports and fashion, after boiling down to my top 4 choices, I decided to expand the Nike Blazers article due to my affinity for Nike and fashion overall. After deciding on topics to write about it was an easy cruise because it enabled me to explore a subject that I am very intrigued by.

First off, I learned how Wikipedia works as a contributor and how to effectively use the tools provided. I was somewhat shocked by how engaged the community users are and how genuine their intentions are. My shock is mostly due to the fact that I see how chaotic and even toxic internet users can be, especially towards each other. The other portion of my shock was the fact that people are motivated enough to contribute that they will take time out of their days in order to do so and after working in the community for about a month, I would say a lot of people's motivations to be engaged and active are intrinsic because they get a sense of fulfillment from sharing knowledge with the world.

Despite having a good amount of quality users, Wikimedia might want to look into ways to extrinsically motivate users as it would result in a boost of contributions. Personally, extrinsic rewards would motivate me to continue contributing because it is interesting and not difficult to do at all. The reason I'm extrinsically motivated is due to the fact that I am a college student, therefore my free time is very limited so if I'm spending my time writing articles I am going to want more than fulfillment in return. I know other college students feel the same way so I would suggest rewarding coupon codes or some sort of monetary incentive for articles written but the reward shall only be given after the article has been approved in terms of quality and Wikipedia's policies. I understand giving every contributor a monetary incentive would be very costly for Wikimedia, therefore as a solution I would say to take a page out of Twitch's book and use a similar system of allowing their users to become a "Wikipedia Partner" or "Wikipedia Contributor" but the only way to reach this status is to continuously contribute to Wikipedia by writing quality articles. The reason I suggest targeting college students is because they are educated so they can write well and are also very well in tune with the modern world therefore articles will maintain a fresh, modern but also neutral perspective. The fact that there is monetary incentive will be especially intriguing as college students, are for the most part, in need of every dollar they can get and if the monetary incentive doesn't intrigue them, then the fact that the can have something like "Wikipedia Contributor" on their resume would be very intriguing by college students who are pursuing a degree in journalism or any other similar major.

Another piece of advice would be to find a way around the copyright or somehow purchase the ability to use more images. It would make articles not only more visibly appealing but takes the information in the article to another level because it allows the reader to get visuals of what is being read. Personally, this would have been especially useful for me because it would have taken my article to a whole other level. I could have added in pictures of how the sneaker has evolved and also how the sneaker colorways differ from each other in accordance to the collaborator. I believe visuals play a big role in our modern world due to the insane amounts of content that we absorb each day, therefore you want your community to be eye-catching so the consumer becomes a contributor. In terms of visuals I would also say to make the "Talk" button bigger because it is so easy to miss that many users are probably unaware that you can engage with other users through conversation on a particular subject.