User:Cat Phou/Reflections

First and foremost, my feelings about Wikipedia have always been impartial, until I started this assignment. I only used Wiki in a certain way and that was to get information from it. I never knew how people became contributors or what kinds of people became contributors.

Since I had no idea that I could become a contributor before, I believe that Wiki lacks the active recruiting of newcomers concept exponentially (Design Claim 1: Compared to laissez-faire approaches, in which prospective members seek out or stumble upon a community, active recruiting leads to the community having access to larger pool of prospective members). Without this class, I would have never considered becoming a contributor for two reasons, (1) because I only use Wiki in one certain way and didn’t think to, and (2) Wiki never “advertised” the need for contributors, which made me believe that they had enough contributors to maintain the encyclopedia. After seeing the graph on the decline of contributors, I wonder why Wiki has never made a public statement on the need for them, or if they did I was never aware. Although, advertising is a good way to entice newcomers, I believe that Wiki should have a specific way of doing it to reach the right audience. If everyone knew they could become a contributor on Wiki that may lead to spreading awareness to the wrong type of contributors. We also discussed the ways on how to attract the right people and one of those ways was through selection (Design Claim 11: Providing potential new member with an accurate and complete picture of what the members; experience will be once they join increases the fit of those who join). I don’t believe that Wiki as a whole does a good job at setting expectations for their newcomers because even with this class as a resource on how to be a good contributor, I didn’t know what to expect at all. Wiki has no introduction on how the community is like.

During my time as a contributor, I felt uncertain about my work because I didn’t have any type of guidance on how to construct a good article. The Wikipedia Adventure game was a nice touch on how to make edits and the formatting basics, but the process of what to put in an article and how to write one was lost on me. Without the help of the weekly tasks and resources from our class, I would have even more less of an idea on how to get started, which floats into the concept of how to encourage contribution to online communities (Design Claim 2: Providing easy-to-use tools for finding and tracking work that needs to be done increases the amount that gets done). We discussed ways to motivate participation and one of those ways was through a persuasive technique by making it easy to find useful things to do. If I were to become a Wiki contributor without the class, I would have no reference on where to start because there is no a direct introduction or easy to find place to let people know what articles to make. Since, we had the requested articles and stub lists provided to us, I wouldn’t have known that existed as a newcomer because it is not clearly stated or visible. I believe this concept is a big setback for Wiki because if people aren’t told what needs to be worked on or what they can do besides the ambiguous “just edit” then they really have no motivation to contribute. Most people are not going to go out of their way to find work and find the resources they need to know how to make a proper Wiki article. Simply put “ask and ye shall receive,” is a true phrase that Wiki should work on in order to expand and build the encyclopedia. I feel that if Wiki wants more contributors and good ones at that, they need to build an application that combines both the essence on how to construct a good article and direct people where to start.

After becoming a contributor and making an article, my perspective of Wiki has changed completely. Being a Wiki “consumer,” I only knew it for its very simple function of providing information. Aside from the basic steps it takes to make an article, I learned that in order for Wiki to be successful, there are many parts that go with it such as the rules and policies they have to the groups within it. I never would have thought as a “consumer” that Wiki had that much depth.