User:Fionacwang/reflection

Fiona Wang Com 482 Wikipedia Reflection Essay

During the quarter, I joined Wikipedia as a newcomer and I have contribute to Wikipedia of an article about “Flying Fish Festival”. After I finished the first version of the article and published it, it got sent back to my sandbox due to the lack of information on the article and it was not in the standard format and style of Wikipedia. Thus, I started to look for other Taiwanese and Chinese festivals as examples in order to have the general outline of what my article should look like. After couple of research, I then revised and edited my article with more detailed information of the Flying Fish Festival, references that I used and establish notability by finding coverage in reliable sources. After I published the second version, there were two of Wikipedia members reviewed my articles and gave me feedbacks.

In terms of my experience in Wikipedia and how explicitly reflect the course materials we learned in class, there are three aspects that I want to cover in this paper, which are newcomers, motivation that Wikipedia uses and commitment. When I first started to be in the community, Wikipedia has design a game in order to assist newcomers like me to understand how the online community works and how can member contribute effectively. The tutorial game is distributed into seven mission and for each mission is like an introduction about the features Wikipedia has. This concept can ties into what we talked about in lecture of newcomers. One of the three principles for integrating newcomers into an online community is socialization, which is teaching newcomers the appropriate ways to behave in the community. When newcomers first join the community, they will have little sense of their role and do not know how to fit in the group. For instance, I was not familiar with the tools and features in Wikipedia, however after the tutorial game, I understand the mission and was more comfortable of using the tools and features to start editing an article.

The second aspect is the motivations that Wikipedia create for their users. Wikipedia uses both extrinsic and intrinsic method to encourage users for engaging more in the community. For the extrinsic method, Wikipedia will give out badges depends on the member’s achievement. There are also barnstars that are use to recognize one’s hard work from others users in the community. If a user thinks that giving a barnstar is appropriate for someone, they will just need to put the image at their talk page and explain the reason. The design is very simple for users to use because Wikipedia wants the users in the community to recognize others often. For the intrinsic method, Wikipedia have created the community as a community that values helping others in order to let the members feel good about demonstrating knowledge to others. Also, on the social aspect, Wikipedia allows users to engage with friends as they can take part in activities viewed by others. Moreover, by contributing to Wikipedia, members can expand and gain more knowledge and work experience that this also lies in the intrinsic method of motivation.

The third aspect is about commitment. Members stay in the community because of two types of commitment, which are identity-based and bond-based. For identity-based, members can find someone who share the same background, interest, occupation or age with them as seeing who writes what kinds of article. For instance, I wrote about Flying Fish Festival because I am associate with the culture. Thus, when others seen my article and if they have the same interest, they can easily find the connection with me. For bond-based, Wikipedia allows users to create their own profile for others to know them better. With the talk page feature, one member can privately have a conversation with other. Thus, members will have a lot chance to bonds with others within the online community and become friends.

I learned a lot about online community and how Wikipedia itself reflect on those concepst we covered in class. However, one thing that I would change about Wikipedia is to link the user account to their e-mail, which for now Wikipedia has it for an optional option. By linking the e-mail, users can get immediate notification about messaging, norm changes or general information. It can also increase the engagement of Wikipedia itself with the users if Wikipedia send out greeting e-mails once in awhile. Overall, my experience in Wikipedia was good and I will keep engaging in the community after the quarter ends.