User:DovC123/reflection

My tumultuous capstone journey began long before I stepped foot in Joseph Reagle’s Online Communities classroom in September of 2022. Months before, I grappled with the decision of which of the many capstone courses I was going to pursue. To be completely honest, I wasn’t immediately drawn to Online Communities until I skimmed through the syllabus and noticed the work with Wikipedia. You see, my first love was writing, and I’m constantly challenging myself to write technically and creatively. When I read that the semester-long project had to do with making a significant contribution to Wikipedia, I started to get excited about the idea of practicing a new form of writing. 14 weeks later, and I’ve made minor contributions to multiple Wikipedia pages, completely tore down and rebuilt a page, and attempted to interact with fellow Wikipedians. Supplemented by the class readings and discussions on online communities, my familiarity and general understanding of Wikipedia has completely evolved in that time. This evolution did not happen overnight; over the course of this reflection, I will chart my expedition through Wikipedia’s interface, my various failed interactions, and finally offer a suggestion towards how the platform can increase visibility for pages that lack popularity and traffic.

In 2001 the world was introduced to a free, open sourced internet-based encyclopedia known as Wikipedia. The platform, however, was not the first of its kind; several online knowledge-sharing domains that preceded Wikipedia. The most notable of these softwares were Encarta, Britannia Online, and Nupemedia, all of which essentially acted as multimedia encyclopedias. Arguably the most important of these three, Nupedia – founded by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger – was the true predecessor to Wikipedia. According to Wales, Nupedia was inspired by the free software movement, evident through its access, cost, and collaborative design components. Many of these elements have now become synonymous with Wikipedia. Over 20 years later, Wikipedia has become an ever-present resource for sourced, unbiased information on just about anything.

Prior to this class, I had a myopic understanding of what was happening behind Wikipedia’s proverbial curtain. I was under the impression that anyone could go on any page and make as many edits as they fit. Moreover, I assumed most Wikipedia pages were in a constant state of flux, as purists attempted to undo the vandalism caused by the reckless. This misunderstanding, coupled with the constant chirping by teachers that Wikipedia isn’t a reliable source, gave me a wildly inaccurate perception. After a month of semi-consistently using the platform, I believe Wikipedia should not be underestimated as an online community, who’s rules, norms, and moderation systems closely mimic those of more traditional online communities.

As scary as Wikipedia is when you are first introduced, the platform takes many precautions to help newcomers get a sense of their bearings. Anyone who sets up a Wikipedia account earns the title: Wikipedian. According to Kraut et. al's 3rd design, "Providing a collection of individuals with a name or other indicator that they are members of a common group increases their identity-based commitment to the community." From the day I created my account, I started calling myself a Wikipedian, partially because I like the way it sounded, but also because I felt proud to have joined the community.

For any newcomers aspiring to join Wikipedia's ranks, the interface can be quite intimidating at first glance. And for those like myself, who are technologically challenged and lack coding experience, the intimidation is magnified. I can imagine this fact turns away many individuals who are unwilling to spend the time and effort to accustom themselves with the interface; I personally think I would have been scared off if not for the fact that I had to push on. The initial feeling of being overwhelmed, however, quickly subsided when the Wikipedia tutorial kicked in. These tutorials – which are prompted as soon as an account is created – are designed to guide users through exercises which progressively familiarizes them with Wikipedia’s layout. Moreover, tutorials aid in helping users become familiar with basic Wiki norms, as well as best practices when it comes to editing and creating pages. One of the websites most effective features is the fact that the open-source layout keeps a record of every edit that is made on a given page. This feature would have been approved by Kraut et al., who's third design claim states, "Providing easy-to-use tools for finding and tracking work that needs to be done increases the amount that gets done". Moreover, Reagle (2010) explains that documentation is helpful for the preservation and evolution of the interface. Constant documentation compliments the open-source layout because it holds users accountable for their edits, and helps better visualize how a given page arrived at it's current point.

Through the initiating tutorial exercises, I gained experience copy-editing, sourcing, and reverting text. With the help of WikiEdu, I learned about, and importantly where to find, the Sandbox and User Page. Many of these design features were crucial in Wikipedia fostering such a strong, loyal community. The user page mirrors Kraut’s 18th design claim, “Providing user profile pages and flexibility in personalizing them increases self-disclosure and interpersonal liking and thus bonds-based commitment”. While I didn’t go over the top with designing my user page, I went over other users’ pages to identify those whose interests aligned with the topic of my article.

The truth is that Wikipedia took me, and I'm sure many of my peers, a lot of time to get the hang of. Is this a bad thing though? Aronson and Mills (1955) found that newcomers who undergo more sever initiations are more likely to make consistent contributions in the future. Naturally we adjust our views to more closely align with our actions, a phenomenon known as cognitive dissonance. After completing the initiation, I was very enthusiastic about putting myself out there, and while I didn't make many edits, I spent a lot of time going over talk pages of articles I found interesting.

With a seemingly infinite number of Wikipedia pages, I decided to work on the Wally’s Cafe page. A browse of Boston-related wiki pages that needed work led me to the Jazz club. Located only a couple dozen meters from my residence, I was surprised to find Wally’s Cafe was historically relevant to not only Boston, but the greater New England region. I was encouraged to work on this page because the previous one was barren at best. I quickly got to work assembling a list of sources that had been neglected by the previous editors of the page. With the help of NU librarian Brooke Williams, I accessed Northeastern's impressive collection of digital archives. I read through just about every one of Northeastern's sources that mentioned Wally’s Cafe or its previous name, Wally’s Paradise. Next, I dumped all the information that was not mentioned in the existing Wally's page into one google doc, and began to categorize it. A few categories naturally emerged from this info dump; these categories would help me draft the structure of the layout of the new page. I parlayed this with a review of other major Jazz wiki pages to get a better sense of how to structure Wally’s page. After putting everything together, and making the appropriate edits suggested by Professor Reagle, I started to move it over to the live page bit by bit.

I excitedly waited in anticipation for the Wikipedian piranhas to tear my page apart. Zu et al. (2013) found that receiving peer feedback has a positive impact on user motivation, increasing the likelihood that the user continues to make edits, especially when they are a newbie to the platform. The world of wiki Jazz is unfortunately not as ripe with collaboration and feedback as I would have liked. I regularly visited the talk pages of prominent Jazz articles, however the lack of discussion and activity left a lot to be desired. This fact led me to believe I would struggle to find Wikipedians who would be willing to review my article. My initial fear going into the project was that my content would be instantly removed. Now, ironically, I wish it had been; it would have provided a great learning opportunity, a chance to interact with fellow Wikipedians and discuss the reasons for the contents removal. I started by leaving a note on Wally's Cafe talk page calling for experienced Wikipedians to offer feedback. Next, I went to the main Jazz talk page for constructive criticism; about a month later, and I’ve still yet to get a response. I don’t think this was because of my newbie status as a Wikipedian. Instead, I think this lack of interaction garnered from my numerous pleas for feedback had to do with the subject of my article. Because of Wikipedia’s ever growing encyclopedic portfolio, some topics and even particular pages will naturally receive less traffic than others.

Despite consistent feelings of frustration, anxiety, and confusion, my experience with Wikipedia this semester was highly memorable. I was told early in the process to not necessarily pick a topic I liked, but rather one that was relevant. Reflecting back on my experience using and contributing to Wikipedia, I now have some reservations about this comment. While it's important for Wikipedians to make meaningful edits to the pages that need them most, I believe this may be coming at the expense of other, less visible pages. Over the course of this project, I keep asking myself why I have not received as much feedback and general interaction as I would like? I don't think it's because of my newbie status, many of my peers' pages got a lot of attention. Is it my topic? Do people just not like jazz? How do we quantify relevance? A few classmates wrote on significantly more niche topics than me, yet their talk pages were more active.

As the project comes to a close, the question remains unanswered. Despite me not entirely knowing what is causing the issue I've faced, I have a possible solution. The initiation phase is Wikipedia's most important tool when it comes to molding its newcomers into perfect, rule abiding soldiers; it is where habits are formed and norms are absorbed. Perhaps we can introduce a mechanism that comes after initiation that drives more traffic to unpopular yet relevant pages like Wally's Cafe. This mechanism would suggest articles to edit that are directly related to the interests newcomers display on their user pages. Wikipedia is closer to a social media platform than I could have ever imagined, why not steal some of Instagram or Reddits structures that would direct more traffic to under-edited pages? Maybe a 'for you' type page would help newcomers identify underdeveloped topics that they are interested in enough to come back.

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