User:JenPatt87/report

Wikipedia Reflection

I recently joined the Wikipedia community as a part of UW Comm Lead’s Building Successful Online Communities class. At the core of our class assignment to join Wikipedia was the task of contributing to a short article and improving on it per the Wikipedia guidelines.

Prior to joining this class my only interaction with Wikipedia was as a casual user — usually looking up quick definitions or sometimes skimming through longer articles on historical figures (often motivated from a novel I read or movie I watched). My first introduction to Wikipedia was likely in undergrad when professors would ask us not to reference Wikipedia as a source — if I’d understood Wikipedia better, I would have used it to find other sources.

As a new contributor, joining through the Wikipedia Educational Foundation was a positive experience because it gave me exposure both to the technical side of contributing as well as the social side (norms and regulations). It’s also a great way to get new users to engage because writing an article from a start or stub is pretty intimidating without direction. Through this onboarding process students go through the trainings, it saves them the task of self-learning, and sifting through tutorials on their own.

After going through the experience of a contributor I have a better understanding of the things Wikipedia is doing well to grow its online community and the steps it can take to improve.

Motivation:

Even though it’s common knowledge that ‘anyone can contribute to Wikipedia’ before taking this class I actually didn’t think I should contribute to Wikipedia. I hadn’t taken the time to look more closely into it, but I assumed there were people who were qualified in some way to create and edit Wikipedia articles.

There are steps Wikipedia can take to motivate more users to contribute to Wikipedia, even simply by reminding people that anyone can have an account


 * Encourage people to create a Wikipedia account on the homepage by adding a banner or adding a signup section. The homepage does not currently have a sign up/sign in section link.
 * Add prompts to pages. Currently there is a top box that says what an article needs in terms of review or citation but the site might see a better conversion of people log in to edit if there is a ‘start here’ button. Also, there could be prompts on the article such as “can you spend 5 minutes adding citations to this article?” so that people understand what’s being asked of them.
 * Remind people that the articles only exist because they’re researched and edited by users like them and what it means to contribute. I think at this point people take the fact that Wikipedia exists for granted. In order to keep acquiring new members the community aspect should be advertised on the home page. To that same point because there’s often a request for funds on the front page, it can mislead people to believe that people are paid to write the articles (not just administer the site).
 * It may also be motivating if at the top of each page there was a line indicated who last edited the page and how long ago. For example: JenPatt87 edited this article 12 days ago. It’s both a reminder that the information could need to be updated and a way for people to be featured on a more prominent part of the site than the talk page.

Commitment:

One of the things Wikipedia is doing really in terms of building commitment is the WikiProjects communities. Wikipedia is huge so if someone came to Wikipedia and was unsure of where to start contributing, it would be easy to feel a little lost. The WikiProjects help negate this issue by making smaller communities for people with similar interests. Also, people may be more motivated to contribute to articles in order to reach the group’s goals. It’s also easier for members to feel committed to other users because they’re regularly working in the same space.

However, the WikiProjects are not easy to find. So Wikipedia should make it easier for users to become members of these communities:


 * Feature different WikiProject groups on the homepage so more users are aware that they exist.
 * Make the WikiProject that a particular article is a part of more prominent on the article page.
 * Suggest user’s visit different pages based on WikiProjects connected to a specific article.

Currently, unless people specifically seek out user profile information, specific users are not highlighted on the platform. It might be interesting to highlight different contributors and not just articles. To keep it interesting for all users, people from different levels of engagement could be featured – for example a bronze, silver, and gold contributor featured on the homepage. This also keeps things more interesting for active users because they are featured in a different, potentially more highly coveted category.

Engaging newcomers

Unless someone is joining Wikipedia through a project like the Education Foundation, I think it could be intimidating for someone to begin contributing. As I mentioned earlier, it seems like there’s an invisible barrier between people who are already contributing and those who might want to contribute. In order to welcome new members and keep them engaged I suggest:


 * Assigning new users a Wikipedia guide, similar to those that are assigned in the Education Foundation.
 * Set up a system to ensure that when someone contributes for a first time their work is reviewed or at least acknowledged. Speaking from personal experience when I heard my classmates’ articles had other contributors, I wondered why mine wasn’t sparking engagement in the community. When it eventually did, I was more interested in seeing updates and changes.

Norms and regulation

One of the main things I feel like is missing from the Wikipedia experience in terms of regulation and norms is adding trigger warnings to articles that contain sensitive material. Adding trigger warnings has become a part of normative internet culture for sites that want to be welcoming to all groups. This is a big step that Wikipedia could take to make the platform a safer space. Also, people are more likely to commit to a community where they feel both seen and safe.

Conclusion

In general Wikipedia makes it very easy to contribute to the site and to become a part of a group where others have similar interests. However, they don’t do a good job of letting people know how easy it is. In order to continue to grow their community, Wikipedia should actively encourage users and readers to contribute both by direct messaging and updating the site’s homepage. These changes also align with the changes needed to keep Wikipedia current with internet community norm culture such as including trigger warnings where sensitive content exists.