User:Anjsan01/Report

The Wikipedia assignment that I took part in gave me the opportunity to become a contributor to this online community and provide information towards an article on Wikipedia. My experience included challenges that I had to solve in order to gain experience and mastery of the site. While I had used Wikipedia thoroughly in the past, it was solely for reading information that was already provided. The process of becoming a contributor began with familiarizing myself with the site by creating an account and utilizing my class WikiEdu page to gain basic knowledge of the site. Having the WikiEdu site helped immensely throughout this project, and I attribute a lot of my success to the tools and resources that were provided. To pick an article to edit, I browsed through lists of Wikipedia stub articles and found an underdeveloped article on milk frothers. After picking this article, I began contributing to it as a sandbox draft. Having this sandbox version of the article was extremely helpful because editing directly on the original article was daunting and the sandbox allowed me to make mistakes along the way without affecting the original article. As a beginner on the Wikipedia platform, the sandbox was the most profound tool because it served as a protection that allowed me to integrate into the system more easily. While adding information to my sandbox I found that it was difficult to find credible secondary sources, as most of the information on milk frothers were from blog posts. Gaining feedback from my peers helped me to resolve this issue, and I realized the value of an online community when I faced this challenge. I was able to learn more efficient ways of finding sources from my peers and it allowed me to create a more credible article. After receiving feedback from peers and several rounds of editing, I was able to finalize my article and “go live” by transferring the new additions and changes to the original article. While it did take several rounds of revision, I was able to update the original article and my contributions were successfully accepted. Knowing that I was a contributor to a widely used site like Wikipedia was rewarding, and while the process was tedious, it did allow me to understand this online community and the benefits of working with others to create content.

While the contribution process was exciting as a newcomer, there were several critiques that I noted during my time on Wikipedia. While searching for an article I noticed that several of the stub articles had content that did not fit within the parameters of a reliable article. Although stub articles are underdeveloped articles with little or no content, several of them had blatant inconsistencies and incorrect information. This issue brings up a broader consideration of content moderation on Wikipedia. Most moderation is done by contributors who delete and edit information as they see fit. While user moderation is useful on smaller forums, the scale of Wikipedia makes it difficult for user moderation to be effective. Many articles are not being moderated due to the sheer number of articles and content that is going unseen by public moderation. Additionally, trolling is fairly common on Wikipedia and while administrators have the ability to ban or block users who abuse the contribution system, this enforcement can not extend to users who do not have a registered account. To address this issue, I believe that Wikipedia should consider mandating user accounts in order to contribute to the platform. Requiring an account can be beneficial for Wikipedia because it will reduce the number of poor contributions. While it can also deter those who intend to make good contributions, this will not necessarily hurt Wikipedia because it is already a very saturated platform with an exceptionally high volume of contributors.

As touched on previously, as a newcomer to the Wikipedia platform, familiarizing and integrating into the site was difficult. The web design was not easy to follow and as a newcomer, it looked intimidating to contribute. I was able to slowly get integrated into the platform through WikiEdu which operated with step by step instructions and tutorials for adding content to Wikipedia. While I was able to use WikiEdu through this class, many other newcomers are not given the same opportunity. This introduces the issue of newcomer integration, in which Wikipedia does a poor job of matriculating newcomers. In turn, this can severely affect newcomer retention, however, there are several ways that Wikipedia can solve this issue. To begin, Wikipedia can implement programs that foster sequential institutionalized socialization. Socialization is a way of teaching newcomers how to behave on a platform through appropriate and normative forms. Sequential institutionalized socialization is a way to socialize newcomers through clear, sequential steps of instruction that users follow to slowly integrate into the community. For this project, I was able to integrate into this online community through WikiEdu, which provided an outlet for me to learn about the process of contributing to Wikipedia while doing so. The step-by-step instructions and tutorials were the reason why I was able to maintain interest in the challenge of navigating Wikipedia. Wikipedia should implement a program similar to WikiEdu in which newcomers who have an account are provided instructions and guidelines to begin their contributions to articles. In turn, newcomers can get integrated at a much faster rate, contribute better quality content, and retain their interest in contributing.

Having first-hand experience as a newcomer on Wikipedia has afforded me the opportunity to look at the platform from a unique perspective. This perspective is beneficial to Wikipedia because new users enter the platform daily, and retaining this group is imperative to their success. Being a contributor is a very rewarding experience along with the opportunity to join an online community that works towards a common goal. I was lucky to have this experience with Wikipedia, and although I am proud of the product I was able to create, I do think that there are ways to improve the process of becoming a contributor on this online platform. If Wikipedia were to implement any of the previously made suggestions, they would see a rise in their quality of content as well as the retention of their users. Ultimately, these factors are what will ensure Wikipedia's growth as a leading information-based community.