User:Gallaz63/Report

For my Wikipedia experience, I chose to work on the Wikipedia article “Kendama” because I have been deeply involved in kendama for the past 8 years, and the previous Kendama article was extremely outdated and unreliable due to false information and an extreme lack of citations. I wanted to give kendama justice on this major internet platform so that the public would have an informative look at the details of kendama today and how it developed over time. I worked to achieve this by adding appropriate sections, revising current sections, and enhancing the reliability of the article by fixing the lack of citations. Out of all the edits I made, the most impactful differences I made to the article are the pictures I added. The main photo of the kendama in the previous article was so old that it begged me to lose interest. I changed the outdated photo with a photo of a kendama that is much more current and of higher quality, and also added pictures showcasing how to hold a kendama. I believe these picture additions are beneficial because they cater to today’s society of visually-oriented learners. With my edits, I believe I have improved the reliability of the article and took a step in the direction of making the view of kendama to something current and interesting.

The most valuable takeaway I learned from my experience in Wikipedia is that I have the ability to do anything I put my mind to. I know that sounds corny, but before this project, I never thought of editing Wikipedia ever in my life because it was so daunting to me. Plus, this was the first tech-based project that I put a full month into. Over the past month, seeing my article go from outdated, unreliable, and uninformative to where it is now is surreal to me. I didn’t realize that the tedious process of structuring, organizing, citing, and scouting information for this article was all coming together until the very end, and reflecting on my work gives me a very accomplished and satisfied feeling. On top of this, the expectancy-value of this assignment was high due to the feeling of making unique contributions.

I think Wikipedia could benefit by spreading the message of just how easy it is to edit on their website. Accessible tutorial videos or a navigable tab with encouragement and info on how to edit are just a couple of suggestions that Wikipedia could implement. I’m sure almost everyone knows that anyone can edit on Wikipedia, but I’m convinced that Wikipedia doesn’t get many new committed editors each year. When Mako asked our class if we had ever edited on Wikipedia before, I’m almost positive that no one raised their hand, and that’s probably the same response most people have. This could easily be fixed if people saw exactly how easy it is to edit, and just how much of an impact a newcomer can have. An option to showcase this besides marketing is giving the users a closeable tutorial on how to edit before gaining immediate access to an article.

Another recommendation I have for Wikipedia is similar to my first recommendation, and that is to make the instructions for how/when/why to edit articles extremely clear to the viewers/editors. The user interface of Wikipedia is not at all visually appealing and looks disorganized. With small text all over the screen at all times, it’s hard to figure out where to go when in search of help. Being able to locate where the help is on how to add citations properly, how to copy articles into sandboxes, and how to add images within the rules of copyright are just a few of many examples that users could benefit from. Not only would providing guidance to how-to’s on the site benefit current editors, but it would also encourage new editors as well. This combination would be sure to lead to a significant increase in flawless edits and new editors, which would both help the site’s goal of providing a mass of accurate information and keep newcomers committed.

My recommendations should be taken seriously because although Wikipedia can maintain itself with the users it already has, Wikipedia will never substantially grow if they don’t have a constant flow of committed newcomers. Newcomers can be attracted if they understand how easy Wikipedia is to edit on, and how huge of a positive impact that they can potentially have on the site. These base motivations for newcomers would then pair nicely with intrinsic motivations such as increased social interaction within the community as well as user feedback from the tutorials. The combination of these actions would be a huge step in the right direction in attracting and keeping new users, which would be game-changing since Wikipedia doesn’t provide an attractive incentive to why people should begin contributing in the first place.

For me, the concept that was overarching throughout this entire assignment was the enhancement of motivation. I don’t think my peers and I would have made nearly as many positive contributions to our articles without the motivation we received in quiz sections and the wikiedu. Intrinsic motivations were present in the form of performance feedback in section and via our peer reviews and professor feedback. Plus, as with any class, the extrinsic factor of doing this assignment for a grade motivates the majority of us by default. Structuring requests by providing us with specific challenges & goals every week that helped us progress on our articles also helped motivate us in an organized manner. One thing I would add to my experience is a greater encouragement to reach out to wiki experts. Their feedback is extremely informative, and more students reaching out to them would provide great critiques to their articles as well as save the instructors a significant amount of time.

After this experience, I've noticed that the difference between Wikipedia and any of the other online communities that I’ve been involved in is that everyone has the ability to change the webspace at any given point and time. This factor makes the potential harm to the website equal to the potential of positive contribution. The opportunity to make such a positive and lasting impact as a complete newcomer is something I’ve never experienced before, and is something I continue to find super intriguing.