User:Chen1649/Report

The articles I critiqued were based on topics that I had prior knowledge because I found that it gives me a holistic idea of whether the article was up to date, contained multiple perspectives and had an unbiased tone. I approached critiquing the article by evaluating its sources, its tone of voice and whether the article leans heavily towards a certain side or opinion. For the peer review section, my peers gave me constructive criticism such as adding the citation and more information on courses.

As for improving an article, I personally gained a lot of knowledge in the topic I wrote about and learned to write sufficient Wikipedia articles with an unbiased and informative language. I decided to improve the Wikipedia from the high school I attended called St Bernard’s academy. It was originally considered a start-class article because it was incomplete and a lot of the information is not up to date. For example, the AP courses listed before were from two years ago and some new courses were added but not reflected in the article. The background section also only contains three brief sentences and does not provide any detailed information. I improved the article by adding the history of the school, an updated course list, academic requirements for students, notable alumni, school awards as well as a list of sports provided. In order to receive a list of courses that are most up to date, I contacted the counselor from the school directly. For the award section, I found the information from a local newsletter. In conclusion, I improved the article by providing more specific information about the school. This is important because when I choose a school to attend, the first thing I look at is the Wikipedia article, and having up to date and holistic information can help future students and parents gain a more complete idea of what the school is like.

I was nervous to put the article live, with the fear that my article may not be good enough for the world to see even after Salt said it was sufficient. So I put in even more work and more information. This leads me to think that other participants also feel this fear of possibly misleading the public by posting something on Wikipedia, and thus do not participate altogether. If I feel this lack of confidence after weeks of researching and proof-reading, others who only know partial information about a Wikipedia article and are only looking to contribute on a minor aspect might steer away from participating at all. However, this fear cannot be eliminated because of the very nature of this system. Its core value is to be a free encyclopedia where everyone has access to its information and everyone can be its editor. When I was working on my article, I found that the webpage was confusing and the layout of the site is hard to figure out. Without the help of Salt and the step by step guide from the WikiEdu class page, I would have been completely lost when using features such as “sandbox” and “talk”. Active participants on Wikipedia might not have trouble with the web design, but new users may find the website too hard to use.

My suggestion is that Wikipedia could make two changes to solve this problem. A) Improve the overall look and usability of the webpage by eliminating “sandbox” and use words that are more commonly used on other sites such as “draft”, merging the features of “alert” and “notices” together, eliminating “new section” on the talk page and instead add a “talk” button at the top of the talk page. There are many ways that Wikipedia can improve the way the website is constructed to make it more direct, appealing and easy to use. B) Have a complete and detailed guide when someone signs up on Wikipedia. The current guide that Wikipedia has only mentioned how to use the “read” and “edit” features, leaving the rest of the features to the participants to figure out on their own. There is a detailed wiki page to show how to edit an article, but having a step by step guide when users first sign up is important because it lowers the costs to participate. According to the utility model of motivation, when benefits overweigh the costs, people will participate. Because Wikipedia does not provide extrinsic or material benefits to participants, lowering the costs is essential. Doing this could also be more persuasive because it explicitly shows concrete guidelines and expectations.

Another way to increase participation from newcomers is to express a greater goal of Wikipedia explicitly. According to Robert E, Kraut, and Paul Resnick, in the book Building Successful Online Communities, making community goals explicit increases identity-based commitment. Because Wikipedia does not offer payment or any special treatment, increasing intrinsic motivation is important. To spark contribution for new users, in every Wikipedia article, there should be an eye-catching section to express the “greater good” of participating in Wikipedia as well as the importance of each individual’s contribution with a call to action tone. For example, it could be a simple phrase “Wikipedia believes that knowledge should be free to everyone. Your contribution can help millions of users to learn,” or “If you see something wrong, fix it. You can help millions of people to have the right information.” Even though has an “edit” button right next to the Wikipedia page, it lacks a call for action statement. Having a word of encouragement to express the importance of contribution next to the edit button will help new users to find intrinsic motivation to work for a greater good.