User:Gertjjor/report

Wikipedia Evaluation

The main feature of Wikipedia that is not so great is the fact that anyone can edit it. Anyone can click on the ‘edit’ link and edit an article that they are reading. The issue with having anyone be able to edit, allows for those who have bad intentions, like spammers, trolls, and griefers, to threaten the community. Due to this feature of Wikipedia, I was taught throughout primary school not to use the site for any reliable information. Not only are there people who intentionally disrupt the community, there are those who do so unknowingly because they are just clueless as to edit on Wikipedia. Because Wikipedia is growing to be this Encyclopedia that most people use often, I think there needs to be a standard set to which people need to be informed before they are allowed to edit on Wikipedia. My personal opinion is that everyone should have to complete the Wiki.edu modules before they are allowed to contribute on the site.

The most difficult part of the assignment was finding an article to work on. I had a few ideas of pages that I felt that were topics I had a passion for or a lot of knowledge about, however, these pages were already developed or did not exist at all. Eventually I gave up on the idea that the article I would work on would be something I had not chosen off of the ‘stub’ list, so I searched through the ‘stub’ page in categories that were relevant to my own personal experience. After another classmate gave me the idea to find an article based on my hometown, I searched through the category ‘Spokane.’ I decided to go with the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office because it was a topic that I could find public record on, and I was familiar with the county. The page was truly a ‘stub,’ as it only had an introductory sentence. Overall, I was able to build much more of a structure for the page, adding a more established introduction, current commanding staff, department divisions, rankings, and various programs. A lot of what I used to help guide what additional sub sections I should add to my article based on other cities sheriff office Wikipedia pages.

The best way to describe my experience with Wikipedia through this assignment is that I was a newcomer on the site. Without Wiki.edu to help teach me how to go through the editing process I would have been running for the hill, or maybe to a YouTube tutorial video. The Wiki.edu program provided me with a step by step socialization training on not only how to properly use the editing functions of the site, but also what was appropriate to site, reference, include and not to include. This system is honestly a great way to foster newcomers onto their site, and also to protect their site from being used not properly, which would cause a lot of revisions and reverting by the current editors. As I mentioned previously, I believe a large issue with Wikipedia is that anyone is able to edit articles; all they have to do is hit ‘edit’ and they can change Jeremy Renner into a Velociraptor or accidentally delete the entire Harlem shake Wiki article. My proposal for Wikipedia is to have anyone that wants to edit or contribute on Wikipedia go through the modules on the Wiki.edu site. These were a real difference maker for my learning experience, and my technology challenged friend would also concur that the modules made it much easier for her to become an effective editor on the Wikipedia. Not only was completing the modules helpful for my learning, but it was intrinsically motivating to complete each one, and especially to complete all of the training. The timeline feature of the Wiki.edu also was easy to keep along with and kept the motivation to keep up with it. As a student this was lengthened out over six weeks, as this was for a project, but I think maybe for a new user that is just looking to edit quickly there could be a much faster timeline setting for them to complete it.

The biggest section of material that we covered that applied to the Wikipedia tasks in my opinion was the Norms and Regulation lectures, as well as the Motivation lectures. I believe this helped me understand the types of users that you find on inline communities, and also what motivates them to participate. Before this material, and even this class, I could not get it through my mind why someone would spend their free time, writing and editing for free. After listening to Wikipedians speak, and going through the course material, I understand now the sense of community and the motivation that is attached to that. The most unique thing I observed about Wikipedia was the community of the users. While using the site, viewing the site, or evening listening to the panel of Wikipedians, I never felt that the user’s commitment was based on bonds and feeling close to other editors on the community. There are pages where users can discuss and chat, but I noticed that the main type of commitment that Wikipedia’s users have is identity-based, and they feel a part of a community that they want to help expand.