User:Kaileyflohr/Report

Evaluating sources and articles encouraged me to use my critical thinking skills. I have learned that Wikipedia can be a reliable source of information by looking at the article’s quality rating, sources, and recent update date. This assignment has taught me how easy it is to contribute to an online community such as Wikipedia while following its rules and guidelines. Wikipedia is very useful and helps the public get a basic understanding of a specific topic. This is important because Wikipedia is a free and easily accessible encyclopedia for the public.

As I was taught through the training library, I approached critiquing an article by first examining the lead section. I asked myself, is the overview at the start of the article clear and easy to understand? Then, is there clear structure? Meaning, are there several headings and subheadings arranged chronologically or by themes, with the images or diagrams when appropriate? Is there balanced content? Examining if the article covers many aspects of the topic, giving more weight to important viewpoints and less weight to fringe ideas. Is there neutral tone? Is the article written without bias toward a particular point of view, and represents all the different viewpoints that reliable sources have expressed about the topic? Lastly, does the article include good sourcing, reliable sources cited throughout the article and as much as possible. Using these guidelines as how to approach critiquing an article, I found it very useful and encouraged me to use my critical thinking skills throughout this assignment. I decided on what information I needed to add to the article to fulfill a quality article if there was any information missing to answering these questions.

The stub article I chose was Walt Disney: An American Original. My contributions to this article work together to improve the information and details about this topic. The original lead section in this article was very blunt and uninformative as it was only one sentence. I edited the lead section by adding more information about the novel without going into too much detail, keeping the intro clear and to the point. The lead section now includes what the topic is, brief background on what the book is about, including a short background on the author, and what the novel consists of. I contributed to the summary section of the article by adding more detail to the summary with more information. The original summary only consisted of two sentences, which is not enough information to give a summary of a 379-page novel. The summary now consists of a detailed explanation of the book from start to end.

Noticing that the original article did not have balanced content that covers many aspects of the topic, I decided to include a brief background about the author of the book and facts about the novel consisting of basic details about the book such as language, release date, publisher, author, length, and weight. The author section includes a short history about the author, Bob Thomas, and how his career entwined with the publication of the book Walt Disney: An American Original. Overall my contributions to the article included a clear lead section, more detailed and balanced content, and good sourcing.

The peer review process not only taught me how to review someone else’s article, but also gave me a different perspective and technique on how to review my own article. Material that I looked for when reviewing a peer’s article is if the information is relevant to the article topic. If there is anything that distracted me. If the article is neutral or any claims, or frames that appear heavily biased toward a particular position. I contributed advice such as if viewpoints were overrepresented, or underrepresented. I checked the citations and made sure the links worked. Also, I reviewed each fact and if they are supported by a reference that is appropriate and reliable. Lastly, I checked if any information is out of date or if anything is missing in the article that should be added. Most of the reviews of my peers’ articles included adding more information and details about the topic.

I received feedback from other Wikipedia editors. Their positive feedback was that I included quality content, had a good tone and balance, and my information was organized. Some constructive feedback was that I should include some images and edit my lead section to be more concise. I handled this feedback very well and 100% agree with my peers. After considering this, I updated my article with images and reevaluated the lead section to be more precise and to the point. Overall, the peer evaluation greatly benefited the article and was an important learning step for me in this assignment.

Contributing to Wikipedia has taught me how easy it is to contribute to an online community and what to look for in a Wikipedia article to determine if the information is reliable. This assignment gave me the opportunity to research and write an article on an unpopular topic to help others by providing them with detailed, concise information on the subject. I have learned how to apply my critical thinking skills to assess different articles and apply these skills to the article I wrote.

This Wikipedia assignment has a lot in common with other assignments I’ve done in the past, such as writing an article about a topic, peer reviewing other classmates’ articles, researching a topic, and learning new information about that topic. Though, the major difference is that I have learned how to write an article and apply it to the real world in an online community. This aspect, in my opinion, overrides the similarities to assignments I’ve done in the past because it shows me how a task like this can be used to help others and how be involved in an online community. Learning how to apply my critical thinking skills to help others easily access new information through Wikipedia has been the biggest outtake from this assignment.

Concludingly, I suggest that Wikipedia create a minimal guideline to creating articles on a new topic. With this suggestion, users would be required to upload a minimal amount of information about the topic, therefor creating less stub articles. I have learned that it is fairly easy to find information through the internet on any topic, therefor this guideline would not be extensive. Another suggestion for Wikipedia is to request users to create a new specific article or add to a specific article to promote participation. As we learned in lecture, requests may be more effective if they are simple and clear, stress benefits to the community, and include concrete and realistic goals. Requests may be more effective if they come from people who are high status, familiar, and likeable. If the people with high status on Wikipedia requested users to participate with the offering of a reward for completing the request, participation would rise on Wikipedia. This recommendation supports Kraut’s et al’s concept of three ways to motive or incentive participation in online communities. Such as, applying persuasive techniques for increasing participation. Second, make contributing more intrinsically interesting. Lastly, create external rewards or motivators.

I believe these recommendations should be taken more seriously than random advice from one new user because I have gone through all of the Wikipedia tutorials, learned about the online community of Wikipedia in lecture, and have personally contributed to an article within the community. I have more knowledge in the background and personal experience on Wikipedia than an everyday new user. Based on my experience I would add some entertainment to Wikipedia, make participating fun! Such as, exciting animations that come up every time you contribute or add some sort of competition or games with other users, including awards and personal achievements. Wikipedia is a very unique online community as it doesn’t directly have a user to user community. I see it as every user for themselves. Based on research, accommodating a more interactive way for users to connect would inspire more participation, resulting in the growth of the online community, Wikipedia.