User:Elizabethrivelli/reflection

Over the last four months, my experience contributing to Wikipedia invoked many feelings - some confusion, a lot of frustration, but in the end, a sense of relief and a new found respect for users who devote their lives to building and maintaining this online community. Having taken Professor Reagle’s courses before, I was very fortunate to have already known the basic ins and outs of wikipedia going into this class, yet I was unknowingly about to take on a set of skills that would haunt me for an entire semester. Although “haunt” might be a slight exaggeration, I feel comfortable admitting that every time I logged onto Wikipedia, I felt a rather immediate sense of anxiety. As an avid user of wikipedia, I find it very easy to navigate, however when writing my own article, I struggled to understand the difference between the ‘Talk’ page and the ‘History’ tab. Slowly but surely, I began to differentiate one page from another, and picking up the Wiki lingo along the way.

As our class was sent off on our own to create our wikipedia articles, I never expected to have many in-depth interactions with other wiki users. I assumed that because there are millions of pages on the database, that experienced contributors would be more focused on tracking down pages where false information was given, something was not properly cited, or possibly articles containing controversial facts. When I first checked my notifications and found many changes created on my page by wiki user Postcard Cathy, I started to panic. To begin my project, I gathered information to copy and paste onto my page so that I could have everything accessible in one space as I wrote, but I did not realize that it was visible to other users and could have been interpreted as plagiarism, despite the article living in my sandbox. The first major problem that Postcard Cathy addressed was that my page already existed in the Wiki sphere, although it had not been contributed to in some time. To most contributors, this means that your page can be flagged for speedy deletion, ultimately losing all of your hard work and research. Fortunately for me, she was able to merge my sandbox with the active Gay Community News page, allowing me to keep my article and avoid any serious consequences from the community. I should also mention that Wiki user Paul Barlow also helped contribute to my page my helping to clean up section headers and making my page a bit more streamlined. Besides that one red flag, I did not have too many interactions with other users besides several of my classmates adjusting some spelling and sentence structures, as well as a bot who added several templates to my page.

In the chapter regarding contribution, Kraut and Resnick argue that "Combining contribution with social contact with other contributors causes members to contribute more" (43). However, my experience with Wikipedia was not supported by this design claim. Although I did have some interaction with other wikipedia users, it did not necessarily motivate me to continue contributing to the website. In hindsight, it actually made me want to contribute less, because I felt very intimidated by their presence on my page. I realized that while they are obligated to help fix errors on my page, I often felt like I continuously made mistakes, making me want to give up on the project. On the other hand, Kraut and Resnick state that "People will be more willing to contribute in an online group when the group is small rather than large" (63). I did find this design claim to be true to my experience with Wikipedia. Although I was often frustrated by the structure of the website, or extreme technicalities, I appreciated being a part of a group of sixteen other students who were facing similar problems. Contributing to Wikipedia through a class made me feel sheltered and protected in a way, such that I would be "forgiven" by more experienced Wikipedia users if something on my page was clearly incorrect. I also viewed my classmates articles for examples and guidance when I felt completely lost. Overall, I was very fortunate that there were users, both anonymous and known to me, that wanted to see my page become successful at the end of this project, and took it upon themselves to read and evaluate my writing. One of the things that makes Wikipedia very special is that it is truly a tight knit online community, although it is so massive in physical scale. On multiple occasions Professor Reagle mentioned Wiki users he knew personally from being a contributor, as well. I am also still so interested to learn about how the community is regulated through committees and elected positions. Today, Wikipedia is at our fingertips almost all the time whether we access it through our computers or smartphones, but we often fail to think about how intricate and complex the site really is, especially in regards to what goes on behind the scenes.

This project challenged me in ways that I never thought were imaginable, both in good ways and bad. As a fourth year college student, I recognize that my biggest strength is writing, both technical and creatively. Although I had my doubts going into this project, I figured that I would be able to escape any major difficulties because the content that I created would be on a higher level. However, I was faced with numerous obstacles that I was forced to overcome - things that strong writing skills would not be able to make up for. For example, when at first I was unsure how to navigate my account page for fear of deleting something, I re-watched the new user, this time paying close attention to what the moderator was explaining. It took a bit of playing around with the different tabs, and a great deal of trial and error, that I know feel comfortable explaining what the ‘Talk’ page is used for, how to send another user ‘Wiki Love’, and most recently, how to create a subpage.

This leads me to my next piece of insight. Although after a long four months of experimenting with Wikipedia I now have a better grasp on the interface, I do not think that I will be returning as a contributor after this semester ends. When all is said and done, I commend my classmates and myself for working hard to contribute to such as vast network of knowledge and information, especially considering that many of us did not even have wikipedia accounts before September. As I stated previously, I thank and applaud the members of this community for actively working to make Wikipedia a safe, effective, and transformative online space for people to use as they see fit. Now when I search specific Wikipedia pages, I often check the edit history or talk page to see how the article has progressed, if any interesting conversations have been had between users, etc. I have also learned to read the reference list if I am searching Wikipedia for information in regards to a school project or paper, when citing Wikipedia might not be academically appropriate.

This experience has been very unique and rewarding, and I am thankful to have had the opportunity to learn from first hand Wikipedia Pros, Professor Reagle and Amanda Rust, as well as from my classmates who experienced many of the same trials and errors that I did. Together we successfully published 16 new pages to the Wikipedia database that others will use in the future, maybe even when creating their own articles.