User:Eunicejl319/Reflection

One of the most important things I learned from almost a month long Wikipedia project was how to write in a neutral point of view. Wikipedia has several explicit norms, and neutrality is one of them. In my own consideration, being neutral was to exclude opinions or something that is not true. However, when I cited quote from the person who was related to my topic, I got a feedback from the professor to paraphrase the quote because it was not neutral. This feedback made me confused because I thought I cited a fact. Then when I read it after his feedback, I found out that some of the words such as concern or damaging could be opinions.

It is essential to display explicit norms like Wikipedia because it “increase the ability for community members to know the norms” (Kiesler et al., pg.148). It was in fact useful since specific guidelines were provided to follow. As a newcomer to Wikipedia on the other hand, it was intimidating by all of the regulated behaviors that were listed on the page. Some of them were difficult to understand so I gave up on reading them which discouraged in writing additional information because I was afraid of article being deleted.

The reason newcomers lack experience, it makes harder for them to participate in online communities when existing members have a strong bond or there are too many rules. Wikipedia, for example, I do not think members are strongly bonded to each other because it is such a huge encyclopedia. I think not knowing how to behave or contribute are the things what make newcomers to leave. Wikipedia has the “Wikipedia Adventure” which is consisted of set of missions to provide basic editing skills for newcomers. I thought it was helpful in learning how to interact with other Wikipedians and to know how to write an encyclopedia. After completing the adventure I had acquired basic rules and skills; using a sandbox, adding heading and sub-headings, and using talk pages. Besides the very basic skills, as more and more codes are generated by other Wikipedians, I felt a little discouraged when I wanted to add tables or combine references from the same source. The codes were too complicated for me to use so I decided not to include although, I could copy from other articles.

One of the positive experiences I had in Wikipedia was the use of talk page which is one way to have interaction with previous members. A positive interaction within community makes newcomers to stick around and to become committed in community. I think it is not only significant for online communities to find an efficient way to socialize and teach norms of behavior, but it is also important for previous members to have frequent interaction with newcomers, but not in a hostile attitude. It would be great if we look for an article that is interesting and attractive, then leave suggestions on talk page other than classmates as a step of become more active Wikipedians. After publishing my article, I felt accomplished even though it was incomplete. My feeling of accomplishment mostly came from my personal connection to the topic that I have chosen. The topic was about a unique garden in my hometown back in Korea which is gaining popularity and I was hoping people from around the world to gain information through my article before their visit. The satisfaction I had from this project gave me a motivation to contribute more and committed to Wikipedia. I am planning to write another article about a news station in Korea that I would like to work in the future. I think it would be challenging to write an article since it is almost newly established news station. Yet, I can write about information that is available and I expect other people will add more into my article as time goes by.

Among the types of commitment, I belong to identity-based commitment of affective commitment. I feel connected to the purpose of Wikipedia; “to benefit readers by acting as an encyclopedia, a comprehensive written compendium that contains information on all branches of knowledge…” (en.m.wikipedia.org). You feel fulfillment by the fact that people use and rely on your article as a reference assuming that it is informative. Also, when you start to have a conversation with Wikipedians who share the interest about the similar topic, it also creates identity-based or bond-based attachment which will increase commitment to a community.

Overall, I had an unusual experience with Wikipedia project related to the course materials. The only thing I would suggest is that it would be better if Wikipedia adopts a system of giving a permission before publishing articles. Letting everyone to edit could lead to inaccurate information for some of the topics that draw very few people’s attention, because there will be less contribution. I do understand it would be hard to manage system since people working for Wikipedia are not experts to all fields. For all that, I did take advantage of publishing an article freely and had a chance to actually contribute in online community for the first time.