User:JLR02/Report

I found the experience of editing Wikipedia pretty overwhelming and confusing at first, but once I figured out what I was doing it ended up being a very rewarding project. For me, choosing the article was probably the most difficult part! I found the actual research and editing pretty fun, and I also enjoyed the peer review process and getting to check out the wide variety of topics my classmates were working on. Throughout this project, I learned not only some of the rules and norms of editing Wikipedia, but also how to join a new online community. Obviously, I have joined many online communities, but I generally have not thought about it critically as I joined! It was interesting to be able to directly parallel some of what we were learning in class in a hands-on project like this.

Personal Reflection
Once I got past the initial confusion stage, I found the process of editing my article satisfying and even fun. Obviously, there was some extrinsic motivation at play here - I want to get a good grade in this course, and the ability to see my classmates' sandboxes provided extrinsic motivation to "keep up". However, I also found myself intrinsically motivated to work on the assignment. In this case, my intrinsic motivation was rooted in the fact that I found it rewarding to update information about my hometown so that it was represented accurately on Wikipedia. I'm also the kind of person who finds it very satisfying to see the progress I've made, so being able to see the article updated, the longer resource list, etc was a motivation for me to do well in adding to my article.

While I am still a new Wikipedia user, I believe my suggestions are solid because they are backed in communication and online-community theories. Also, since I have recently gone through the newcomer-socialization process, I can report on things that would've made the process easier for me without relying on theoreticals.

Create "most recently edited" feature on WikiProjects pages
I think one way to encourage contribution and ensure that those contributions are quality would be to create a listing of most recently edited articles. I don't think this would be as effective on the scale of all of Wikipedia, simply because the volume of edits would mean contributions would be featured for only a very short time, so I suggest that it be maintained within WikiProjects for articles within their scope. This feature could help by incentivizing contributions and allowing for community moderation.

Incentivizing newcomers' participation
A "leaderboard"-type graphic highlighting recently edited articles within WikiProjects would likely encourage new users to get involved. Firstly, it would invoke the social proof heuristic, or the idea that people are more likely to undertake an action when they believe that others support the action or are performing it themselves. When newcomers see that the project is active, they are more likely to be motivated to join in and contribute than if they are unsure if the community is "alive" at all. At the same time, the social recognition of appearing on this widget of edited articles would in itself motivate newcomers to edit articles. If a user is passionate enough about a topic to seek out its WikiProject, having their work highlighted to other users passionate about the same topic would be a good incentive for that user to contribute! However, a simple system such as "new contributions are featured" can actually incentivize lower-quality contributions that either do not add value to or actively harm the community. To encourage only high-quality contributions, WikiProjects could create standards for edits considered substantial enough to be featured as "recent contributions". That way, minor edits or edits made onlyfor attention would not receive recognition intended for quality contributions.

Facilitating distributed moderation
Although a different platform than Wikipedia, analysis of communities like Slashdot has suggested that distributed moderation, or review of community content by community members, is generally effective in ensuring quality contributions are seen more than less helpful ones. This concept would apply if recently-edited articles appeared on a WikiProject's front page. More experienced users (or ambitious newcomers) could easily review information on "live" articles to make sure it is accurate and helpful. On the other hand, inaccurate edits could quickly be corrected or reverted. This community moderation would be likely to encourage stronger identity-based commitment, leading users to remain in the group and contribute to its ongoing activities. This commitment would form as users work together towards a common goal of the group (WikiProject): editing and creating articles within their scope of interest. .

Make it easier to find articles by (sub-)topic
Another change that I think would benefit Wikipedia would be to introduce more searchable categories within WikiProjects or larger topics in general. As it currently stands, contributing to an online community (say, editing Wikipedia) has a fairly high entry cost of both time and energy ; if the cost of finding an article to edit outweighs the perceived benefit of contributing to Wikipedia, a newcomer is likely to be discouraged and not join the community. In some ways, this filter system already exists: articles within a project are sorted into classes and types, and many projects have an "articles in need of attention" section. However, community-specific filters would improve accessibility and encourage participation by lowering the cost to join. For instance, sports-based projects could have a way to filter so that users see only, say, stub-class articles about athletes in that sport, and leave out articles about stadiums, specific seasons, or elements of the sport. In some ways, sub-projects function in a similar way by allowing users interested in, say, Washington State to view more specific projects about Seattle or the Mariners. However, creating multiple sub-projects increases the likelihood that a small project will appear empty or "dead", driving potential newcomers away, so being able to search articles by category within a larger project/topic will benefit the newcomer by reducing time and energy costs as well as the community at large by making it more attractive to potential new contributors.