User:Cyrrona/report

After pushing a new article through the listing process, I'm pleased to say I authored a small part of the monumental initiative we call Wikipedia. I'm a staunch supporter of Wikipedia's drive to document human knowledge, so simply seeing something I composed sitting comfortably in the main site is gratifying for me. Other new editors, however, might not share my sentiments. I'd like to reflect on my experiences here and in my associated course (Building Successful Online Communities at UW) in hopes of supplying Wikipedia with design alternatives that might improve first impressions for these users.

Creating my Man in Tree article for Wikipedia was relatively straightforward. After moving through various tutorials on policy and procedure, I drafted my piece in my sandbox, outfitted it with citations, and moved it onto the live site. Ample news coverage established notability, allowing the article to stand.

Once my post was up, various Wikipedians began adding, augmenting, and improving the groundwork I’d laid. Brianhe categorized the article and ensured formatting and syntax adhered to Wikipedia’s style guides, while SounderBruce included GPS coordinates and photographs of the event. Thanks to Wikipedia’s stored revision history, their updates deepened my understanding of Wikipedia’s standards. I was able to incorporate some of the stylistic lessons I learned from those revisions into the peer reviews I conducted for classmates. Bots also highlighted areas of potential improvement with tags (e.g., “This page is an orphan”), which allowed me to correct issues myself.

The community didn’t interact much with me directly—members instead seemed to focus on my article, treating it as another discrete entry they could collectively edit and improve for the site. This relatively impersonal form of collaboration, while perfectly fine with (and, truthfully, preferred by) me, did seem to detach the individual from the group.

Wikipedia does many things well. It provides clear (albeit lengthy) instructions for new users. It outlines the site's purpose. It encourages users to welcome newcomers and assume their edits are well-intentioned. It provides a sandbox for learning the basics of markup and a social outlet for forging connections. It has even experimented with a gamified tutorial. All of these are grounded in sound design principles from Building Successful Online Communities, a compilation of research on community designs and their impact on user groups (Design Claims 5.18 and 5.19). That said, actual community operation is often more imposing than these guides suggest, and that disconnect could explain some of the contributor drop-off Wikipedia is experiencing.

Wikipedia has a reputation for unintentionally intimidating newcomers with its imposing body of rules and its users’ quick reversion/modification of suboptimal contributions. Wikipedia also seems to be aware of this perception, as evidenced by its “Don’t bite the newcomers” mantra, an approach Kraut and Resnick flag as important (Design Claim 5.21). I believe this philosophy could be extended even further, though. Removing overt hostility is different from adding overt warmth. When the site, by nature and design, encourages rewriting others’ work—a somewhat invasive act that can leave newcomers feeling tread upon—the neutrality adopted across the site might not offer enough to emotionally compensate for the friction. Given the established link between community engagement and community contribution, addressing the former should further Wikipedia’s aim (Design Claim 2.32).

Weaving small acts of good-natured inclusiveness into the user-onboarding process could chip away at this impersonal wall. Tweaking the welcome messages Wikipedians leave new contributors in response to initial edits is a sensible starting point. Instruct users to more consistently engage in friendly dialogue with newcomers while they give feedback and offer projects that align with newcomers' interests; both have been shown to improve contributor retention (Design Claims 2.3 and 2.16). Furthermore, framing such messages with collective pronouns (e.g., “we,” “our”) and even a tasteful emoticon or two helps establish an amiable, accessible atmosphere (Design Claim 5.18).

Typical Wikipedia feedback on newcomers’ edits, while informative and fair, can still leave users feeling as though they’ve made an unwelcome misstep. To make sure these users feel valued and inspired to continue editing, I recommend pairing those critiques with some form of aesthetic award for initial contributions. Small rewards can both validate effort and incentivize future editing—a principle exemplified in the research Kraut and Resnick reviewed (Design Claim 2.23). Anything from an introductory barnstar to a simple pixelated contribution cookie could fill this role. Regardless of the particular icon used, acknowledging new users’ efforts in this manner sends a clear message: Wikipedia values their changes, celebrates their editorial participation, and welcomes more involvement.

Wikipedia has done well in identifying its problems with contributor retention. Adding the aforementioned suggestions on top of current efforts, however, should heighten their effectiveness by instilling the culture with a bit more humanity—the real heart of every community.