User:Amytangg/Report

Wikipedia Reflection Essay
In today's digital era, society is relying on various online platforms and technologies to consume reliable information. These online platforms further rely on its online community members to share, regulate, and improve on the platform's provided information. Through these actions, a website such as Wikipedia is able to communicate a vast amount of information and knowledge to the world that is credible, accurate, and accessible to all.

On a platform like Wikipedia, users can view, modify, create, and moderate the information on its pages. In my experience, I had the opportunity to create and edit my own article, as well as view other students' work in progress. Within that brief experience I had with Wikipedia, there were a few challenges I had to overcome. These challenges included following Wikipedia standards in my writing content, navigating through various pages like the sandbox, and lack of feedback from other Wikipedia users.

The first challenge was centered around making sure my writing content was well written, and followed the Wikipedia rules and standards. There are a lot of rules and procedures set in place that need to be followed. Whether these rules are for paraphrasing, using images, or finding credible and appropriate sources. In particular, I had difficulty writing in a neutral tone that was not persuasive or biased. Some of my sources contained bias or had a persuasive purpose. Within these, I only drew out the informative and factual information, which helped me learn how to maintain my neutral tone while following the rules. In addition, I noticed some of my classmate's articles were deleted due to violations of these rules. I learned that mistakes made in this community could result in a very harsh consequence, and that rules need to be followed very seriously. This could also discourage users from further participating in the online community, because their time and efforts seem to be undervalued and erased once their article is deleted. Although Wikipedia provides training and practice tasks through WikiEdu to help inform users of these rules, I recommend improving this through the use of warnings or making a preview page indicating that the article is new and a work in progress. By having other users comment potential policy violations, these "warnings" give new users time to fix this mistake before the article is deleted, which further increases participation from both existing and new users. By engaging in a preview page, existing users would immediately understand that the writing is the work of a new user, and could prevent immediate article deletions.

The second challenge revolved around the interface of the various article development pages. For me, it was confusing trying to understand the difference between the different "talk" links and the "sandbox." The "talk" tab that is next to the "article" tab has a different role than the "talk" tab next to the "sandbox." Furthermore, the phrase "sandbox" doesn't immediately connect with me that it is a space to draft articles before publishing them live. After clicking around and going through the training and tasks, I eventually figured it out. However, as a new user, this was definitely confusing and hard to navigate through. I learned the importance of consistency and differentiation across an interface as complex as Wikipedia. In addition, the visual appearance of Wikipedia looks dull and bland. New technology and applications thrive on aesthetics and appearances. The lack of colors makes the interface look boring and clinical, which could further hinder new user participation. I found that I lacked the motivation and dreaded staring at a dull screen for hours, even if it was required. There are several ways to improve these issues. First, Wikipedia can clearly distinguish and differentiate tab titles if they by their purposes. For example, "talk" (next to article tab) could be changed to "article comments," since this page is directly referring to conversations and commentary regarding your article. In addition, "sandbox" could be revised to "drafts," as the sandbox is the place to revise and draft articles before publishing. Furthermore, color palettes could be used in respect to the sections or purposes of certain links. This could improve the visual appearance and aesthetic, and evoke a sense of excitement in new users who might want to participate.

My third and final challenge focused on receiving feedback from other users. Classmates, such as I, with "less interesting" topics initially had fewer classmates willing to review their articles. This was difficult because if we allowed everyone to choose any two articles they wanted to review, the students with "less interesting" topics wouldn't get feedback. Eventually, everyone received two peer reviewers; however, I learned that the only reasons why this worked out is because we are graded on reviewing the two articles we are assigned, and because it is a requirement. To improve on this, Wikipedia could incorporate an incentive program for users actively participating. Although, it is difficult to prevent gamification if there are incentives involved. To reduce gaming, incentives should be intrinsic. The incentive could be barn stars, increased privileges, or even increased status. All of which could increase user motivations to participate and contribute.