User:Cepropst/Report

Wikipedia Evaluation

Wikipedia is an online community centered around neutral and informational to create an online encyclopedia. From personal experience using Wikipedia for the past six weeks, there are a number of improvements that can be made to effectively expand and solidify the online community. In this essay, I will recommend that Wikipedia improves its newcomer experience by streamlining their user interface and building new user commitment. In addition, Wikipedia would benefit from the collective effort model to increase editing on their platform. These changes would assist the platform in improving its community.

Wikipedia can improve its community by making the platform more accessible and less intimidating to new users. Wikipedia already has in place protocols that lend itself to fostering and building newcomer relationships, including a welcoming message from the welcoming committee, and reminders to long-standing members not to “bite the newcomers”. They also reduced the cost of joining the platform by making editing as a newcomer very accessible. As a Wikipedia newcomer, you are guided through the rules and regulations of the platform. Although this is helpful for new users to understand how the platform functions, it may ultimately intimidate and overwhelm new users. Showing all the rules to newcomers may backfire in this way by either intimidating new users or implying that norm violation in the community is common. It has been shown that around sixty percent of registered editors on Wikipedia never make an edit again after their first day of participation (Kraut, 2012). In order to create an environment that encourages new editors to keep contributing to the platform, Wikipedia should work to invoke a sense of commitment in users and streamline the ways new users can contribute effectively to the platform. To start, Wikipedia could work to improve its user interface to be more user-intuitive and engaging for a new user. After exploring Zooniverse, a platform where users can contribute to AI research, I was impressed with their newcomer tutorials which were engaging, concise, and encouraging. Wikipedia can work, through its interface, to create a more engaging and quick tutorial to contribute information to the platform right after registering. Wikipedia can also expand their newcomer commitment by creating a sense of identity commitment by recommending newcomers to edit articles that align with aspects of their identity. This would play upon users' intrinsic motivation to edit articles that are aligned with their interests. Furthermore, Wikipedia may want to work to expand the user's affective commitment, or attachment and closeness to the group, by highlighting and advertising their Wiki Projects more to new users. Wiki Projects would allow users with similar interests to join together, communicate as members, and grow bonds that tie them to other members, which would increase their commitment to the community. In all these ways, Wikipedia can improve to expand the newcomer experience and welcome newcomers to keep contributing to the platform and grow as long-standing members of the community.

Another opportunity for growth in the Wikipedia community may involve increasing interactions with editors who have similar interests. By utilizing a sense of collective effort, Wikipedia can advertise and encourage users with similar interests to edit articles on similar topics. It has been shown that Wikipedia has a high rate of articles edited by many people on the platform, and more than fifty percent of articles have fewer than ten editors. To increase engagement on articles with low contributions, Wikipedia might encourage groups of users or new users to edit other articles in a similar topic once they have finished their first edited article. By pointing out articles with low contribution, users might feel a sense of obligation to increase the information on stub articles that are lacking information. Wikipedia can also maybe connect editors of similar pages to each other so they can talk about their process, sources they’ve used, and questions they have in completing their articles. Connecting users of similar interests might increase the affective commitment of users, and ensure that users feel a sense of commitment and connection to the platform.

Overall, Wikipedia has room to expand based on my personal experience of Wikipedia and the design principles of creating an effective online community. By improving their newcomer experience the platform can increase new user engagement. In addition, they can increase the opportunity for users with similar interests to work together in covering topics with an information gap. If these recommendations are implemented Wikipedia can strengthen its position as an accessible and neutral informational source.

Kraut, Robert E., and Paul Resnick. Building Successful Online Communities: Evidence-Based Social Design. The MIT Press, 2012.