User:Aylakad/Reflections

In my experience using Wikipedia as a contributor for the first time, I could start by saying it was a generally positive experience. There was no PTSD involved (so far), and I learned a lot about the mechanics of the community that would allow me to use it more proficiently in the future. While I was driven by intrinsic motivation in my editing and writing exploits, I still did not find myself to be deeply committed to the community, and was a little repelled by the expected norms and blandness of the writing.

Wikipedia, in my opinion, makes editing a simple enough task that I would do it. Since it only takes a minute to fix a little typo or slight inaccuracy—and you don’t even have to sign up—the benefit for me is higher than the cost. As a perfectionist, I definitely see myself doing so in the future, especially if it is an article I am interested in or passionate about (but not necessarily in the case of typos). At the same time, I feel like had I not taken the class and been required to sign up and go through the Wikipedia training so that I know my way around the site, I would probably assume its too much work or too inconvenient to make even the simplest of edits. I guess what I went through in this class was a transitional process of using Wikipedia and being driven by the extrinsic motivation of getting a good grade (and obviously passing the class) to being driven by the intrinsic motivation it offered when contributions were made. This included the simple fact that I felt a great sense of satisfaction knowing how much of an impact I could make on the most widely and frequently used encyclopedia (not to mention, the 7th most popular website. I looked that up on Wikipedia). Essentially, Wikipedia was successful in persuading me to participate in the community in a way that was fueled by intrinsic motivation primarily.

While I do feel like I have enough incentive and motivation to retain myself as a member of the Wikipedia community, I cannot say I feel particularly committed to it. Yes, I would make the minor edits that I can now say are effortless for me, and occasionally I may create a little article if the subject is of sufficient importance to me; but would I devote more than that amount of time to this community? It is not impossible, but it is unlikely. I have not felt an emotional connection to the group, and I do not feel like I made any solid connections with members of the group. Mostly, I do not feel as though I need to be a regular contributor to Wikipedia, and my level of commitment to it—whether affective, normative, or needs-based—is pretty minimal. I am very much about the human aspect of online communities. In Wikipedia, I felt like the closest thing you could get to that is thanking someone for their edit or having some discussion about a topic. Yes, this is arguably a huge deal considering what purpose Wikipedia is meant to serve and the relative difficulty of communicating with writers/editors from other encyclopedias (i.e. Britannica). Nevertheless, I think that that is a big reason why I am not emotionally involved or committed to Wikipedia.

Another thing that turned me off a little bit is the amount of rules there were in order for you to be a valuable/successful member of the community. Some of them were given to you through the Wikipedia training, which I thought was too intense, while others were unspoken and you just had to figure them out by becoming more of a frequent user. I felt like people who have been Wikipedia members for years and have established their place as veterans were pretty intimidating. I found myself constantly worried that someone was going to come in and tear my article apart because I did not follow the norms.

Another one of the main challenges I faced while writing the actual article was trying to keep my tone neutral. I really enjoy writing, and when I write it’s usually very colorful, creative, and even humorous. For that reason, I feel like I would use a different platform to write about something I’m passionate about or interested in. This is especially since I felt like having to cite every little thing in my article was often not convenient or practical; yes, it makes sense when you’re writing a scientific article, but if I have the choice of writing about a Game of Thrones fan theory somewhere else where I don’t have to ground everything I say, that may be the choice I would make.

I think one thing we never talked about in our lectures is the systematic bias that occurs in the community. Inevitably, frequent contributors to Wikipedia will often write about things that interest them personally, and as a result, there is more focus on such articles. For example, there are many articles that talk about cities, towns, high schools, and neighborhoods from all over the world. Being a Syrian, I have always been saddened by the fact that there was not more content like that on different parts of Syria. Though it may not be a major issue, I think it is still a problem worth considering.

With that being said, I cannot ignore the feeling I experienced when I first googled the title of my article and there it was among the top results of my search. There was and is something incredibly gratifying about that, and I’m sure that sometimes, that is all you need.

Aylakad (talk) 13:09, 19 November 2015 (UTC)