User:Esthersssjy0120/Report

I have been using Wikipedia quite often since I came to the U.S four years ago. Wikipedia has been my favorite and most convenient way to look up information for something because I can get a lot of information for a certain thing in one page, without going through many websites from Google. I always noticed the “edit” button on the side when I look through Wikipedia, and I somewhat understood that everyone can be an editor on Wikipedia, but I never thought that I would actually have a chance to edit an article on Wikipedia one day.

In my experience, I followed the instruction on WikiEdu and from class to learn some basic introduction of how to participate in editing on Wikipedia. When I looked through the topic list for stub, I choose The Journal of Social Psychology to work on improving it. The original article was quite short, only one paragraph of brief introduction of the journal and an info box of some other basic information of the journal. Some information was also outdated, such as the impact factor of the journal was from 2012, which I found that the impact factor was updated again in 2018. Although I found some useful information for the article, but I was not sure what kind of information should I added into these articles for journals. So I looked through other articles for other journals and used them as my models. I have some problems when I am improving the article such as finding limited information, and don’t know how to do with some of the information in the original article. I consulted with Salt and he told me that this is ok if I don’t make it perfect as long as I am making useful contribution to the article. That is kind of when I understand that I am not just trying to finish my homework to get a good grade, but actually participating in making my contribution to help with this community. When I finished editing, I felt proud for myself. Although I didn’t make the article perfect and meeting the high rating criteria, I made contribution and made the article look better, which could help someone who wanted to look for some information in the fastest way like me. After the project, I do realize that it made me feel responsibility to become a volunteer in this community, be responsible for what you put into the community.

As for my experience, I definitely have some advice and recommendation for Wikipedia as a newcomer. Although I made contribution this time because of the course, when I first know about Wikipedia, I never thought about actually contribute to it. I feel like is complicated, I don’t know what to do, and I am not sure at all if I am knowledgeable enough to make contribution. Maybe Wikipedia can have a section in the article that allows other contributors to list potential contributions, so that it makes it easy for people who are interested in making contribution to know what they can do, just like the motivation technique we talked about in class.

When I saw what I did and compared it with the original article, I was happy, and the feeling made me want to make more contribution to the community. However, I don’t know how long this feeling will last. If I am the developer, I might add some tasks for those are newcomers like me, when they made some contribution, they will earn some sort of reward, and continued to build up. Giving newcomer a sense that they are a part of the community, and by setting up some task they feel like they want to fulfill missions and help the community can create identity-based commitment. Also, making a clear goal or purpose for the community for those newcomers can start to build their normative commitment.

As an unusual newcomer, I got a lot of help from our class, teachers and WikiEdu, yet still have lots of questions when I am editing. I saw my friends sometimes are struggling like me, too. It’s hard for me to imagine if I just do all these by my own. I suggest that maybe Wikipedia can add some sort of tutorial or guidance to certain links that is helpful for editing when someone register an account on Wikipedia. I don’t think it has to be mandatory, but at least make it easier to access and available for all the people. This could be beneficial for newcomers but also good for other contributors when they need to check a certain rule. This could also be beneficial because when newcomers join the community, they are very likely unfamiliar with the rules and might be making contribution that violates the rules. Providing effective guidance can help protect the community from harmful behavior by newcomers.

I think this experience is quite meaningful to me. I realize that it is definitely not easy to build and improve an informative and effective article. Wikipedia has served efficiently for many people. I do want to start recommending my friends to participate in the community and use some of the skills I learn to keep them committed for a long time.