User:BrazilSean/reflection

Wikipedia Reflection
"Do not use Wikipedia!" This was a phrase frequently used by nearly all of my high school teachers when they were explaining the difference between credible and non-credible sources. However, throughout my time immersed within the Wikipedia community, I have found this to be not entirely accurate. While reflecting back upon my involvement in Wikipedia, I will break up my experiences into six categories: (1)Initiation to Wikipedia, (2) Choosing an Article, (3) Feedback, (4) Images, (5) Links, and (6) Concluding Thoughts

Initiation to Wikipedia
To be honest, when I first signed up for a Wikipedia account I was in way over my head. The only thing I knew about Wikipedia was that it was an online encyclopedia that's free and open to anyone. Unlike most wikipedians, since I was enrolled in an Online Communities class, I was required to complete a 'Student Training'. During this training, besides learning basic edits and wikicitations, I was informed of the core beliefs and goals within Wikipedia as well as the guidelines about how to properly follow the norms of creating articles or communicating with other users so to not be disruptive. Kraut states that for most online communities to be successful there should be a specific area in which rules and guidelines are explicitly stated so to "increase the ability for the community members to know the norms, especially when it is less clear what others think is acceptable" Even though Wikipedia may not have a set of formal 'rules', requiring all users to complete the training could be beneficial to the community, especially with identifying new users who want to contribute because those who don't truly want to be there may not want to go through the training. The more members with identity-based commitment to Wikipedia, the more likely it is for them to contribute to the community.

Choosing An Article
As a fellow wikipedian, one of my first tasks was to create my own article. I had no idea what subject I wanted to write my article on, luckily, Wikipedia offers a list of needed contribution or articles that have been requested by other users all assembled in one place. This was where I was able to find that an article was requested for the Oakland Athletics 1972's Championship team, also known as The Mustache Gang. I began googling and reading everything I could find on the team and how they came to be. With limited success at finding verifiable sources, other than baseball blogs, I decided to post on the Oakland Athletics talk page asking if anyone knew of any sources that might prove helpful in writing my article. I made sure to add the talk page to my watchlist in case anyone responded but didn't mention me in it. Much to my dismay, I never received a response from anyone. Eventually, with the help some help, I was able to track down information allowing me to start my wiki article in my sandbox. I admit, initially I was not looking forward to writing the article, however, once I started, it was rather fun. I say because there are so many options available using wikicode.

Feedback
After publishing the article to the Wikipedia community, I was terrified it was going to be taken down immediately. My initial thoughts were: maybe my sources weren't verified enough, what if The Mustache Gang wasn't noteworthy enough, or even that maybe I didn't maintain a neutral point of view. While all of these thoughts were whirling around in my head, I get a notification about my recently published article saying, "The Mustache Gang was patrolled by Wgolf". Instantly I was terrified. Why would someone patrol my article? What does patrol even mean in Wikipedia? Turns out, all it meant was that another member looked at my page but didn't comment or fix anything, which led to mix feelings because I wasn't sure if that meant he thought my article was good or if he just wasn't interested. In order to hopefully receive some feedback, I (again) posted to the Oakland A's talk page informing anyone who was reading that I recently published an article about one of the organizations championship teams and asked if anyone would be willing to take a look. Although, I did not receive any direct responses on the talk page, people did start to look at my page, make edits and polish up anything I might have over looked. One such example of a mistake that was corrected was the accidental formation of two reference sections instead of one. This is a perfect example of how Wikipedia uses social contact to encourage contributions, even a simple message on a talk page inspired other members of the community to contribute to the article, even if it's something as small as fixing a typo they are still being an active participant in the community.

Images
One of the pieces of feedback I received from a fellow classmate was to upload a picture to the article of one of the famous members of The Mustache Gang. But for the longest time, I could not figure out how to upload an image to wiki media commons. Unfortunately, since this team hasn't been together for over forty years uploading my own content was out of the question. I went on every image search imaginable without any luck. Thankfully, with the help of a classmate, I found a way to filter images who's copyright allowed not only to be reused but allow for modification of the image making it possible for me to find a way around my dilemma. Finally, my article had an image associated with it, even it if wasn't the one I had imagined. Overall, I think finding photographs with copyrights that grant you permission to use, was the most difficult part of creating my article. But in the end, it made the article look much better. Plus, not only did the use of pictures help the overall look of the heading but as well as serving as a creative way to inform consumers which members of The Mustache Gang were inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Links
After being published, I made sure to go through my article to include wikilinks to outside articles so to integrate it in the Wikipedia community. It wasn't until my Professor pointed out my article was becoming a Orphan because even though I had links to other articles, there was not one that linked back to mine. This was actually much harder than I had initially believed, due solely to the fact that The Mustache Gang is not mentioned in any of wikipage. So by default, I was forced to create links to my page over words such as 'mustache and beard' or 'Mustache Day', nearly all of which would typically be used to create links to wikipages about facial hair. I still am not sure if this was the right call since I might be misleading anyone who decides to click on the links. When I made those wikilinks, I made sure to track it so that if it's changed back I know there was some wikinorm I must have violated and to not make the same mistake again. This is also a method of learning about community that's mentioned in Building Successful Online Communities and that is by "Behaving and directly receiving feedback". Even though I would technically not be receiving feedback directly from an individual, it's still a way for me to successfully learn Wikipedia norms.

Concluding Thoughts
Overall, I enjoyed contributing to Wikipedia. I will admit there was more than one occasion I'd become increasingly frustrated whether it was due to not being able to upload a photograph, struggling to position the photograph correctly, or even attempting to manipulate wikicode to best suite my article. However, with all the frustration I endured, I did receive a lot more satisfaction than I expected when I could finally present a Wikipedia article I was proud of. And hopefully, will not be the last.