User:Jalenrose8/report

Reflective Essay
Writing essays has always been something that has come fairly easy to me. I registered for my COM 481 class with the expectation of studying the nature of online communities and the way in which they continue to exist and, like other communication classes, I expected most of the class to be based on material having to do with online communities with points relying heavily on essays (like these) and discussion posts. We are all apart of online communities- whether that be classes on Canvas, profiles on social media, or sub-reddit users. Because online communities are so integrated into all of our lives, I realized that I had an interest in the subject itself. When the class got going though, I realized that not only was I going to be learning material about online communities and the functionalities of them, but we were going to create an online community of our own where we can take what we learn about in case studies and lecture and directly apply it to the real-world, while also furthering participation in the online community of Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation members and Wikipedia users, I am here today to give you insight on my experience in becoming a student of the Wikipedia world and how exactly I became more familiar with Wikipedia norms. There are steps that must be taken in order to be able to create or modify an existing Wikipedia article that is acceptable by Wikipedian standards, and I am here today to talk you through how the process worked out for me!

My personal experience in creating an acceptable modification to an existing Wikipedia article started in the classroom (or should I say the zoom room.) Our syllabus has everything we need to know about the class- from information about attendance and grading, to day-by-day full instructions for preparation for each class and assignment. I was surprised to see how concise the syllabus was but knew that this resource would be necessary for success in the class. When it came to the lectures themselves, every subject that we came together and talked about was interesting and had real-world application qualities. From learning about motivation and incentives within a given online community, to learning about engagement, regulation, new users, etc. we learned and discussed the ins-and-outs of different specific examples of existing online communities. This helped me to understand how these communities function from not only the user's perspective but also the moderator's perspective. From here, we all joined together to create an online community within WikiEdu. This is where we were assigned training modules that gave specific instruction for doing tasks within Wikipedia. Some examples of these modules include learning how to find and create sources for information used (VERY important), using our sandboxes, contributing media files and images within articles, and even great advice on peer reviewing (which we also did within the WikiEdu platform.) These training modules were more fantastic resources that I relied heavily on to go back to whenever I forgot a step in editing my article. They helped me learn how to navigate through a Wikipedia user interface that I was not very familiar with. I edited someone else's article, so learning how to keep a path of communication with the former editor was very important. I had uploaded my first sandbox draft of my article way earlier than I was supposed to, and my changes were reverted pretty quickly. Through this though, the original author of the article gave me specific reasons why they had reverted my edits and even offered some good resources for learning more about citing my sources. This experience really taught me what exactly I needed to do or not do in order for my article to be acceptable for when it was actually time to upload it.

Although there were many things that went into the process of creating an article for me personally, I think that someone could do it through the training modules on WikiEdu or through uploading an article and receiving feedback alone. The modules in WikiEdu are ultra clear, concise, and detailed and were the resource I went back to for help in creating my article the most. Something I have realized through the lens of our class lectures though was how responsive the Wikipedia online community is. Users care that articles are written, sourced, formatted, and published correctly and are willing to offer their help to new users when needed (even if you are attempting to edit THEIR article!!) I could have just gotten lucky and ran into a user who is much nicer than others and offered to help me but since this user is all I have to base this advice on, I will tell you that Wikipedians are good people and are very accepting of new users looking to publish their first article. So, while learning about the material in-class itself has been a great and interesting experience and fantastic chance to participate in discussions with my peers, I think that creating our articles could have been done entirely separate from the material and we would have seen the same rate of successful articles created. The reasons being for this success, for me personally, were our WikiEdu training modules, Wiki-user feedback, peer reviews, and one-on-one help from Mako or Kaylea. I recommend all of this advice because these are my experiences and perspective, which are things I must continue to trust in. I recommend you take this advice because I have not always been the sharpest tool in the shed but these steps made it an easy, fun, and enjoyable experience altogether. I couldn't thank Mako and Kaylea more for helping me be the author of my first Wikipedia article!