User:Juliettelm/Report

After completing the Wikipedia Assignment in this course, I reflected on my experience, and applied topics learned in class to a real-world online community, Wikipedia. In this essay, I will reflect on my personal experience using Wikipedia to create an article from scratch and offer suggestions on ways Wikipedia can make it easier for new users to adapt to Wikipedia norms. I will also suggest how Wikipedia as an online community could increase member engagement.

For the Wikipedia assignment, we were prompted to choose an article to either edit or start on Wikipedia as a way to get comfortable immersing ourselves in the norms of Wikipedia. After much contemplation, I decided to create a new article for the clothing brand Skims founded by Kim Kardashian. I was unsure of my decision because starting an article with nothing to work from is daunting. However, after I got started, I realized that it’s not as intimidating as it may seem at first. When starting to put information in my Wikipedia sandbox, I would analyze or summarize a source and apply it to sections in the article. Then, I would look at other clothing brand Wikipedia pages to get ideas of sections I could add (products, collaborations, corporate affairs, awards).

I learned a lot while working on this Wikipedia assignment. First, I learned the prevailing norms of how it works to contribute to Wikipedia. The norms are things like the expectation that you can go and edit the work of others to improve an article (which at first felt uncomfortable- it felt like I was crossing boundaries). Another example of a Wikipedia norm is the expectation that everything put into an article should be completely unbiased (which was also challenging to identify at first). I had to learn to avoid words like “successful” because even though they may not seem biased at first, they are technically based on opinion. I also had to make sure that I was writing in an encyclopedic tone throughout the article. Because I wrote the article on a clothing brand, I had to make sure what I was writing didn’t sound like an advertisement or endorsement of the company. This did take a lot of editing and revisions; however, I think the article turned out well. If it hadn’t been in the encyclopedic tone, it probably would’ve sounded more like a company review than a Wikipedia page. In connecting my experience to concepts we learned in class- my commitment to writing and contributing to this article on Wikipedia is probably needs-based. It would be costly for me not to participate in this assignment (I would get a bad grade in this class). My commitment to Wikipedia is also normative because I feel like I’m contributing to the “greater good” by writing this article. However, It felt pretty rewarding to have published a Wikipedia article that is live and searchable on the web. Although I wasn’t paid or given some form of compensation (apart from my grade in this class), I felt accomplished because of intrinsic motivation (motivation driven by internal reasons: i.e., feeling like I’m contributing to the knowledge of society).

I have a few suggestions on how Wikipedia could improve its online community. One of the reasons for newcomers' hesitation to post on Wikipedia is the fear of copyright infringement or plagiarism. The legal consequences of copyright infringement and plagiarism can be severe. Because Wikipedia doesn't offer extrinsic motivators (like compensation), the costs of contributing to Wikipedia can outweigh the pros and therefore discourage people from contributing. Implementing something like a plagiarism and grammar checker into the Wikipedia sandbox could help make Wikipedians feel less worried that they might unintentionally plagiarize. In addition, I think Wikipedia could implement a status or point system (as a form of extrinsic motivation), where members would get rewarded with increasing status or points as they contribute to more articles. This is similar to how BuzzFeed has "trophies" for community members. Not only is this a form of extrinsic motivation, but it also gamifies the system more, so people feel more motivated to participate. They could also add a forum page to engage members- somewhere, Wikipedians can ask questions to Wikipedia staff members or engage with other active community members less formally than they do on talk pages.

I believe my recommendations on how to improve Wikipedia as an online community should be taken more seriously than advice from new users because I have been using Wikipedia and going through the process of starting a new article from start to finish over the past few weeks. In my participation in Wikipedia, I experienced the good and the bad and this allowed me to critically think about what happens in an effective or non-effective online community based on concepts and ideas we learned in class. However, a new user may not be able to see the good and bad of Wikipedia and may solely look at the website from a surface level point-of-view.

Some theories we went over in class didn't apply to my Wikipedia experience specifically. For example, while working on the article, I didn't experience some things, like trollers and spammers. I think I didn't experience this because I was working on a new Wikipedia page, so there weren't many editors working on it simultaneously (like some more popular articles might have). A few days after making my article live, I went back to check on it, and I saw that the article had been deleted and replaced with a redirect link to Kim Kardashian's article. Because of Wikipedia norms, me and the user who deleted the article used talk pages to discuss why the article was replaced with the redirect link. Hopefully, it isn't a situation where more experienced Wikipedians are gatekeeping access to publishing articles, preventing newcomers from wanting to contribute on the site. I have yet to figure this situation out, but I'm looking forward to continuing to engage on Wikipedia and (hopefully) getting my article live again.