User:Brierbach/Report

Bri Erbach

COM 482 Interpersonal Media

Nathan TeBlunthuis

16 February 2021

Wikipedia Reflection
This Wikipedia assignment has brought me more opportunities and knowledge than I ever would have imagined. When choosing my stub article at the beginning of the course, I tried to pick a topic that I could acquire the most accurate resources for, so with my dad being an authenticator for the Beatles and having some minor connections, I chose The Lost Lennon Tapes. I was able to learn a lot from this project, but mostly gained knowledge in interviewing and collecting data, writing in an objective and acceptable way, and how Wikipedia can improve their site.

In my interview process, I met with Stephen Peeples, writer and producer of the show, and Chip Madinger, a Beatles historian and author. Not only were they able to give me reliable sources for my assignment and answer pending questions I had, they also gave me feedback after the process to improve on my interviewing skills. After the original interviews, I was able to develop my writing, and participated in many rounds of feedback, from peer reviews, professor reviews, and these Beatles specialists’ reviews. These are such prevalent skills for me to continue to develop, considering I want to end up in the realms of public relations, advertising, and media. In writing on the website itself, it honestly took me a little while adjusting to the use of sandboxes and accurately paraphrasing information; most of my experience is in writing reports, or other forms of writing where quoting sources is more acceptable.

On top of my skill development, I learned a large amount about the Wikipedia website itself. One of the main problems with the Wikipedia website, in my opinion, is the lack of credibility behind the organization. Wikipedia has been labeled as a community that is so easily edited, that the pages become inaccurate and unreliable for information. In schooling, Wikipedia is never considered a credible source, and usually is avoided by students in fear of losing points on an assignment. I now understand the difficulty and accuracy that is required in developing these articles and double checking to source everything, but most of the population does not have access to a course and opportunity like this to learn Wikipedia’s strict set of normative behaviors or norms. Wikipedia does have administrators to control some of the inaccurate edits, but with how large Wikipedia has grown, they should develop a better moderation system of edits and additions. Some of the suggestions that moderators could do to encourage norms on a website are to better advertise the codes of conduct for those who do not take an introduction course or requiring the course, correcting behavior with consequences to set standards, and continually giving feedback to all users. In addition to making these changes, Wikipedia also needs to advertise their reliability if they ever want to contradict the stereotypes and ideals that are stoned into society.

Another suggestion I have for Wikipedia is to continue the ability to personalize individual pages. While users have pages, making them more detailed or offering more opportunities to develop an individual identity on the site could encourage commitment. Aspects such as profile pictures, miniature “bios”, having the ability to be “friends” or “follow” other users and other small developments could help develop this bonds based commitment idea with having more of an individualistic relationship online. Wikipedia could also pair with other online platforms, if they were able to work it out with the company, where their Wikipedia accomplishments could be highlighted on another community, such as LinkedIn.

The final suggestion I have for Wikipedia is creating some sort of a “teams” page. Although they have the Talk page, there isn’t a place where individuals can work with other colleagues and strangers to develop the articles; editing a whole article can be intimidating, so if they had an option to join a “research” team for a “writing” team, the website might be able to get more involvement and members. Wikipedia editors could focus on what their strongest ability is, whether it is writing, peer reviewing, researching, interpreting sources, or others, while working alongside individuals with similar interests, but different talents. It also could create a bonds based or identity based commitment, if individuals are able to develop relationships with other Wikipedia members or the community in these potential “team” groups. Creating small groups generally creates a closer knit community for users, just like we were able to identify with the Reddit case; the smaller communities with a more specific common interest generally created a bigger commitment from members, such as the World of Warcraft subreddit called  “/r/CasualPizzaCats”. This also contributes to the idea of niches; Wikipedia is in a unique position with having already such a big community, being so well known, and having so many topics that it isn’t as difficult for them to find members. This flexibility enables them to switch from the potentially broad niche that it is now, and develop smaller “teams” to prevent the most common downfall of broad niches: deterring individuals who do not want to go through large amounts of material to find something they’re interested in and people who are interested in the same ideals.

Overall, this assignment is one of my favorite’s I have ever completed in my schooling; it is difficult to continue assignments that feel like “busy work” or inapplicable, and this course continues to relate all content with how it affects the “real world” and online communities that many of us utilize everyday. After I submitted my final link, Stephen Peeples, the producer I originally interviewed, emailed me asking if I was interested in editing some more articles for some of his colleagues; I am now updating three other Wikipedia articles, and start interview processes next week. Some of these individuals are in the specific field I aspire to join one day, public relations and advertisement, so this introduction could go a long way in my future, and it is all thanks to this Wikipedia assignment.