User:Bellamrome/Report

Since the early 2000s, Wikipedia has stood and succeeded as the new encyclopedia. With changes throughout the years, Wikipedia has adjusted their platform for users to create an engaging and appealing platform, but no platform is perfect. For new users, experiences are drastically different in terms of who these changes are useful for. While Wikipedia can be insightful and useful for information, aspects of the community could be improved. Article restrictions, accessibility and legibility, and engagement lack clarity for outside unfamiliar users. Providing screening practices, legible guidance, and an increase in interactive engagements by Wikipedia can appeal to unfamiliar users who want to be a part of the community, creating a welcoming environment for all types of users.

Wikipedia is the new digital encyclopedia where users are able to fix and edit errors, however, rules and regulations in doing so are, at times, difficult for users. Getting familiar with the Wikipedia community is vital for effective contribution among users, but something that the community could improve is getting norms and rules across to users in a way that is easier. More often than not, Wikipedia’s “how-to” pages were filled with an overabundance of information, making it harder for newcomers to find specific information they are looking for to follow the norms of the community. For example, adding images into an article or sandbox draft was extremely difficult for myself as a new user, who could not find any images that were under the right license for the articles, from archives or provided by the Wikipedia community. I think making a sub-community dedicated to screening wanted images off the web- or getting appropriate permission/licenses for useful images- into the community, could be a useful idea going forward for Wikipedia and for continued engagement from newcomers. In general, this could limit bad behavior from new users- and even image and plagiarism spammers- to keep the environment of Wikipedia engaged, leading to an open and free community with more committed members. In addition to images, during my revision of an article, creating and inserting pie chart templates were incredibly difficult as there were no specific “yes” or “no” answers to what I needed on the “how-to” pages. External design websites were instead explained to be acceptable for adding pie charts, but nonetheless, called for the creation of an account and downloaded applications. From the templates provided by Wikipedia to make an article worthwhile, did not have efficient parameters to do so. For this, the Wikipedia community can adjust or change their article processes in order for committed individuals to insert information that is beneficial for the article. As a new user, I would be more compelled to have a stronger normative-based commitment to Wikipedia if it were to adjust ways for me and others to contribute to a greater good for the public. In other words, similar to Twitter and Instagram, users are able to create templates and insert wanted images quickly. Wikipedia, while a different platform, can allow users this same freedom in information gathering to allow for maximum commitment.

While Wikipedia provides detailed and helpful pages, the general usability of the community by users seem to lack confidence. For newcomers wanting to be part of the community, accessibility of pages are difficult for users to get around the community. Whether that comes with familiarity, it might be useful for Wikipedia to implement tutorials and easily accessible guides that are legible to an average reader. The extension of Wiki Education was a beneficial program provided to help others, however, finding the same Wikipedia pages given through Wiki Education were difficult to find outside of the Wiki Education tutorials. With that said, for the average reader and user, the implementation of useful pages tab or summary of said pages may be helpful to add for continued affective-based commitment of new users. There is not a clear sense of where to find these pages, unless prompted by another member within the community. Teaching these norms to new members sequentially can help them navigate their way into the new atmosphere, including tutorials/guides as well as routine barriers and support from already established users. Similar to Zooniverse, adding in this information as "projects" or so far as social media pages can be helpful for accessibility. Because Wikipedia aims for informational and non-biased information, making sure the accessibility of helpful and live pages are comprehensible to a wide range of users is also beneficial for the whole community as newcomers, and even so far as to make non-engaging members feel welcomed and included. This can then lead to more appropriate interactions between members in the community. With this adjustment of usability, creating these accessible tabs to act as social media pages can invite others to feel familiar with the norms or guidelines of the platform, thus feeling empowered to increase contribution and interaction with familiarity.

As a community that has been around for a few decades, it has been successful as it still stands today with numerous contributions. However, I think because it takes a lot of work and attention to fix articles within Wikipedia, it can cause some people to turn away from the free platform. I did find fixing an article enjoyable, but it did make it difficult for me to continue contributing to Wikipedia because of the lack of engagement from Wikipedia to continue. Users do not get recognition from editing articles unless there is substantial editing and fixing that goes into the articles, which can then take a lot of time and effort. Many students, prior to coming to the university, were told not to use Wikipedia as a reliable source because of the freedom to edit. While I know there are moderators who are in charge of doing such, I think it’s important to adjust the engagement between the platforms and users to prevent this from being a topic of conversation, for example, gamification or honor roll recognition. While editing an article, I made sure facts were checked and accurate through sources, but there was nothing aside from Wiki Education that was engaging enough for me to continue to edit articles or want to. It's a norm to contribute, but something that I think can help the platform is highlighting injunctive norms. Wikipedia is a site based on contribution, not necessarily engagement or interactive. The community of Wikipedia can incorporate a sort of listing that highlights good behavior and contributions publicly, rather than on the profile pages of individuals. It can also be important to add some sort of game-like style recognition process where users- new and existing- can recognize individuals' contributions. Giving the power to the public in a way that could attract more users through familiar norms can increase commitment from the beginning through special standing or featured articles, rather than after. Users would then be able to be featured for highlighting good behavior to the community, alongside newcomers who could then learn to contribute in an appropriate way through this style of engagement, aiming to also be featured. In doing so, Wikipedia can resolve the lack of engagement if there are steps put in place to keep and bring people to the platform that are familiar to most users.

Overall, Wikipedia provides an open and manageable platform for users to become a part of a community that is informational making it a unique platform. However, because of the uniqueness to it, it can be difficult for users to get familiar with the platform due to the revision restrictions of articles, useability and accessibility, as well as engagement between Wikipedia and users. With sub-communities devoted to screening information and receiving appropriate licenses to use for articles, legible tutorials and guidelines, and gamification engagement for new and unfamiliar users can generate maximum contribution and commitment from others for Wikipedia as a long-term platform.