User:Ella Xu/Report

Wikipedia Project Reflection

With completing the first project about Wikipedia in this class, I was able to learn more about how to build a successful online community and how to improve a Wikipedia article by reedited it. After spend time working project in the Wikipedia community and the Wikimedia foundation, I have some advices for Wikipedia community that they could use for changing and improving the community.

The first advice would be the community could come up and design a sorting system that could go through and select the articles that only have a few contents in the Wikipedia community. The reason why I come up with this advice is because when I stared doing researches on my project, the thing happened a lot is when I open a hyper link to one article and there is only a few of descriptions under that article. I saw many of the articles do not have enough descriptions, images and information to support their titles for people to understand. So, I was thinking maybe Wikipedia community could pay more attention on those articles which haven’t have enough contents and editing. The community could select chosen amount of those articles each week as a task and assign to editors to improve these articles. I think improving these articles could help people who research in minority fields to find the information that they need and also enhance the quality of the Wikipedia community.

The second advice would be the Wikipedia community could create a new level system only for editors. Even though there are professional editors and administrators work for the community, random people who have an account can also edit the articles, so sometimes there are lots of mistakes such as grammar problems, flawed information and wrong format that community could not correct those in time. So, as I learned in the first week of our class, we could design a new level system for editors to improve the quality control of the article editing and people's participation in Wikipedia community. We can reset the level and rewards system according to the quality and quantity of the articles that the editor edited and lower the period of time that it takes to the next level. From the original reward levels, people need to take months to years to step to the next higher, the vanguard editor even take 16 years. It definitely lowers people's motivation and participation than it should be. For higher level editors, the community should give more advantages and privileges in shorter period of time, even status rewards. I think it is an effective for ruling out low quality editors, improving Wikipedia community and increasing high frequency of participation from people.

The reason why I have these advice because I link my experience in Wikipedia to the concepts that I learn in the class material. I remembered in the first week, our assigned reading for class question is about YELP’s Elite system. These reading gives me a deep impression. I use Yelp a lot but I have never known the Yelp community have that system for improving better reviews and I think it is definitely have a positive impact on build successful community. Therefore, I would like to use the same strategies on Wikipedia’s case. According to the textbook, building a successful online community also need to build both intrinsic and extrinsic motives for people. Setting sorting system could motivate people to achieve challenging goals since it enhances self-efficacy. Also, the editors who assigned to complete the task are more likely to finish the tasks instead of assigning task to all the people in the community because the design claim 4 said that compared to broadcasting requirements for contribution to all community members, asking specific people to make contributions increases the likelihood that they will do so. Moreover, goal setting can be used strategically to increase contributions. And setting the level system is also an effective to fulfill people’s extrinsic motives. According to the textbook, performance is the way lead to status rewards, privileges within the community, or more tangible rewards such as money or prizes. For example, building up a public reputation is not the primary motivator for most contributors to open source projects, but it is one of the factors that makes a difference.

The reason why my recommendations would be taken more seriously than just random advice from one new user is that I just complete a project in Wikipedia. I have the most direct and recent experience and feelings towards the Wikipedia community. Therefore, my advice could be more effective than other new users.

I think the unique of Wikipedia is that it allow random people able to edit the articles. Even it might lower the quality of editing, but it increases the amount of contributions towards the Wikipedia, which is different from other online communities.

For my reflection of the project, I found it is interesting and satisfied when I finish editing my article. It is a meaningful project that I could make my own contributions to the community and also provide information for people who have searched the article. I will keep working on the Wikipedia and improving my editing.