User:Heytherefriend/reflection

Experiential Learning through Wikipedia Contribution
I have been a member of the Wikipedia community for almost four months. Within this timeframe, I have experienced being a newcomer in an online community, observed and recognized the social etiquette and norms that are expected of each individual, as well as the importance of being a new member within an online platform. I have attempted to fully integrate myself into the Wikipedia community by creating my very first Wikipedia page titled, “Route 66 Film Festival.” Though my experiences of creating a Wikipedia webpage, I have collaborated with other community members and followed the expected rules and regulations of Wikipedia. By analyzing my time spent on Wikipedia, I can now address the norms and social breeches of Wikipedia, the importance of the independent contributor, the motivation surrounding an online community, how to stay committed, and my overall thoughts and opinions about being a newcomer within the online community.

According to Joseph Reagle, etiquette is very important when becoming immersed into an online community. It is important to take note of the community norms and social breeches. To clarify, the Wikipedia community consists of “a history of events, set of norms, constellation of values, and common lingo” (Reagle, 2010). These norms and values are implemented on a daily basis. It is extremely noticeable when these rules, norms and values are broken. Important norms that I discovered within the Wikipedia community consist of engaging other members of the community in a respectful manner, trusting other members, and being sincere and truthful in the work that you contribute to the community. I was surprised to find out the extent of which the Wikipedia community is able to monitor newcomers and their activity in an extremely functional manner. Sometime during my first week of joining the Wikipedia community, a senior member left a welcome note on my Talk page. This welcome note continued to inform me of the rules and regulations within the Wikipedia community. I was advised to check out the student-training library, which introduces new members to Wikipedia’s core principles. I was also advised to check out the Teahouse, a community of Wikipedia editors that are dedicated to helping new student users. According to Kraut and Resnick, this act of newcomer identification, helps to enforce member retention through the use of integrating new members into the community, helping them feel welcomed and accepted.

Initially, I went through a small initiation before being accepted as a member into the Wikipedia community. Being a student editor, I had to be informed of the Wikipedia codes of conduct as well as overall expectations of becoming a Wikipedia member. I watched various YouTube tutorials on how to properly code Wikipedia pages, in order to maintain the original and proper way to format and write a Wikipedia article. Furthermore, for class assignments, I was prompted to engage Wikipedia members, provide recognition and appreciation to existing members through their online profiles, and learn the social norms of engaging in an online community. My professor explained how entry barriers promote member retention through positive interactions and time commitment. After spending multiple hours learning about the community and creating my own Wikipedia page, I was able to pick up the norms and coding fairly fast and I now feel confident in my skills as an editor and Wikipedia contributor.

“Building Successful Online Communities” analyzes the ideas and thoughts of Robert Kraut and Paul Resnick. Together, they describe the difference between affective, normative and need-based commitment. These commitment variations depict the reasons why an individual becomes committed to a specific community. “According to this perspective, a committed person has one or more of three subjective experiences in the group: wanting to continue as a member of the group (affective commitment), feeling he or she ought to continue (normative commitment), and feeling that he or she must continue – or at least is better off in the group than out of it (needs-based commitment)” (Kraut & Resnick, 2011, p. 78). I personally believe that I currently identify within the Wikipedia community as an affective commitment. I want to remain engaged within the community because my classmates engage in communication with each other on their Talk pages, which acts as another way to build relationships within a community both online and offline. After I graduate from Northeastern University, I think that my commitment will shift to become more of a normative commitment. I will not need to remain within the online community because of course requirements and assignments. I will no longer have class obligations to engage with the Wikipedia community and my fellow classmates will not be nearly as active within the community as they are now. I do feel a sense of security knowing that I will continue to have an account within Wikipedia but I do believe that within the coming months, I will no longer be an active member of the community as I am now.

Throughout the time that I spent learning about the Wikipedia community as well as other various online communities, I was most surprised after understanding the importance of the independent contributor. I didn’t realize that one community member can make such an impact on a community and online environment in both a positive and negative way. This thought touches upon the ideas of trolls and online trolling. It is possible for one community member, who wants to harass others, to make a negative experience for another member, thus influencing the victim's decision to continue to remain involved in the community. Trolls tend to have more of an impact on a community as opposed to encouraging members because the positive member's behavior is considered normal. The trolls are going out of their way to make someone’s experience within a community negative, and all it takes is one person to create a negative environment. I have further come to appreciate the Wikipedia community for its trusting and accepting environment, free of trolling.

Apart from trolling, I have found various ways that negatively affect online communities through personal analysis and research. It is important to not integrate too many negative aspects into an online community because the member retention will decrease as well as the number of newcomers joining the community. In regards to Wikipedia, I find their community to avoid the negative aspects of most online communities. Wikipedia prevents trolling by maintaining a community that limits bad behavior. Members of the community act as moderators, deciding what content is considered to be harmful and distasteful. Furthermore, Wikipedia tries to remain neutral, as to not to favor one member over another. In order to enforce this, Wikipedia has tools that “show differences between any two versions of a document and to revert a document instantly to a previous form” (Kraut & Resnick, 2011, p. 134). Due to community engagement and editing tools, Wikipedia successfully limits the negative aspects that plague online communities.

Kraut and Resnick believe that motivation and commitment within an online community are important factors that maintain the overall success of the community in regards to member retention. Commitment is described as “representing members’ feelings of attachment or connection to the group, organization, or community. [It] underlies members’ willingness to stay in the community and contribute to it” (Kraut & Resnick, 2011, p. 4). I personally find it difficult to remain motivated within an online community if I am not inspired to contribute to any online content. A reason for this might be due to my lack of individual effort, which influences my performance, outcome, and utility, resulting in a lack of individual motivation. A potential way that this issue can be avoided is to actively engage and edit Wikipedia pages other than my own. After multiple class discussions, I have learned various ways to encourage commitment in an online community. The ways to encourage online commitment that have personally stimulated my online commitment, is having a sense of connection with community members. I actively try to remain engaged with fellow students and class members within Wikipedia by sending cookies or other friendly gestures to their Talk pages. Kraut and Resnick provide additional suggestions for both newcomers and preexisting members, to engage in discussion with each other by becoming involved in conversations that examine passionate topics and take advantage of what the community has to offer.

My overall thoughts about being a newcomer within the Wikipedia community have been very positive. I understand that Wikipedia is a collaborative culture, which consists of a community with shared values, assumptions and meanings, resulting in a community effort to maintain a social environment. I received welcome messages on my Talk page, collaborative suggestions regarding my Wikipedia page, and I have a newfound understanding and sense of assurance within the community. I have learned the difference between affective, normative, and needs-based commitment and I have evaluated and projected these terms within my own life. I have enjoyed contributing my time, effort, and knowledge into a community that I personally support and I never felt belittled by a preexisting member or told to RTFM. Because of this, I will promote activity within the Wikipedia community and continue to immerse myself within various online communities.

References:

Kraut, R. E., Resnick, P., & Kiesler, S. (2011). Building successful online communities: 	Evidence-based social design. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Reagle, J. (n.d.). Chapter 1§1Nazis and Norms. Retrieved April 11, 2016, from 	http://reagle.org/joseph/2010/gfc/chapter-1.html