User:GamerBoi425/report

When I first started, it took me a bit to get acquainted with the platform. I had mainly used Wikipedia in a very basic sense, only using it to quickly find answers, never engaging with the platform. As a new editor, the whole process was very confusing. If I didn’t have the tutorials to help guide me along, I don’t think that I could have done everything effectively. Initially the layout was confusing, you have to pay attention to where you are posting and changing things. Since all the pages have the same format, it was easy to accidentally go to someone’s Wikipedia page versus their user page. To help with this, Wikipedia should create a distinction between the layout of the different type of pages. A user page could be a layout where there is a profile picture in the upper middle and there are different sections below it.

They could also add an easier tracking system to Wikipedia that is similar to WikiEdu, adding articles to your “watchlist” and using that as a directory to keep tabs on articles that you maintain or intend to edit. This could be implemented in the user page, for example, add a tracking tab next to the talk tab that has your directory.

I felt that I didn’t do much with Wikipedia, I only edited one article and didn’t check back on it that much. However, I learned a lot about the platform, even though my experience was limited. I learned that the community is extremely active. Whenever I made a change anywhere, within minutes someone either thanked me or corrected what I did. This was helpful because I not only knew that I was posting in the right place, but that I was doing things that were productive for the community as a whole.

The course concept of the user funnel is appropriate to my experience. Wikipedia wants to convert as many viewers to editors as they can, the more people contributing, the larger the pool of information gets. My recommendation increases the likelihood of users moving down the funnel. Creating an easier to use platform enables more people to contribute and join the community. English Wikipedia already has a good base of users as I stated above, however, Wikipedia should consider my recommendation for the other languages that struggle to get a dedicated base of users. I see that Wikipedia already has a beta section, this change would be easy to implement with the English version as a beta, where it could be perfected and pushed to the other languages.

The WikiEdu also acted as a good recruitment tool in a way. It helped to “screen” new users and help mold them into productive members of the community. I was bummed to see that they did not promote that course at all within Wikipedia. Since I relied on it so heavily, I think that all new users should have access to that material.

Something that is unique to Wikipedia in my opinion is the posting anxiety. No other platform that I have posted on has given me more anxiety than Wikipedia. Through all of my schooling, I thought about what it would be like to contribute to Wikipedia and it stressed me out. Adding information that people will use on homework or something and the possibility of being wrong. However, when you actually do the work and gain references like Wikipedia requires, I wasn’t stressed at all about the accuracy of my information. Wikipedia has plenty of users that can correct my mistakes. For this reason, the site should promote contributing more and explain the safeguards to relieve the post anxiety.