User:Kbaker22/reflection

I am a Wikipedian! There is a sentence I never thought I would say! As someone who is not necessarily engaged in the online community world as much as other college students (I really just stick to Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat), I learned a lot throughout this course and through my contributions to Wikipedia. In fact, before this course, I thought only well-known CEO’s, professors, and highly educated people could contribute to Wikipedia. Clearly I was very wrong. I wrote an article on Unico Nutrition, a company that focuses on women’s natural workout and nutrition supplements. I think this is what makes Wikipedia so unique: anyone can write about anything they want with very few limitations. However, with that comes responsibility. Although it is an open site, there are very few instances of trolls and vandals on the site because it is so well regulated. Next, there are definitely some rules for newcomers that they are expected to be aware of and know when creating their first Wikipedia article/ editing other articles. The last thing I noticed throughout my Wikipedia journey is that a lot of us newcomers do not stick around for very long.

When thinking about a completely open online community or site, where literally anyone can publish their work, it is hard to think of many platforms other than Wikipedia that have as little vandalism and troll action. This is because there are standards and moderators that prevent this from occurring. The moderators are users who are capable of numerous things that keep Wikipedia “clean” from vandalism. It is said that moderators that are also users, as they are on Wikipedia, are most beneficial. Moderators who, “…are impartial, and who have limited or rotating power is perceived as more legitimate and thus is more effective”. This is definitely something that I noticed while creating my article on Unico Nutrition, and a large reason, in my opinion, that Wikipedia is so successful. I was on Wikipedia every week, usually several times per week, not only creating my own article, but reading others, reviewing my peer’s pages, and linking to/ referring to other articles in my own. To be honest, during the course of the entire semester, I did not see one instance of vandalism or trolling. This is due to Wikipedia’s level of moderation, which is very necessary on a site like this as, “It only takes a few determined trolls or spammers to bring a conversation to a screeching halt. Spammers and trolls still abound on the Internet, but they have not yet managed to ruin it for everyone”. Moderators on sites like Wikipedia prevent trolls from overthrowing the effective aspects of the site. I think it also says a lot about the people who edit and write on Wikipedia. They really have high expectations for the information on the site. For example when I was writing the lead on my page, I was stopped a couple different times by readers/ moderators who thought my wording sounded like I was slightly biased about the product or when others thought I needed more detail in specific areas. I think this is a very unique type of moderation. Not only does Wikipedia have standards regarding inappropriate language, or false information, but they also expect all articles to be unbiased and come from people who are working on sharing information with no further agenda. Additionally, I had received advice that lead me to change simple punctuation tendencies that are normally a little different on a site like Wikipedia. I changed my references and punctuation around. Meaning, all punctuation ended up coming before my references at the end of a sentence. Those who moderate this, “can promote posts or hide them, honor posters or shame them, recruit users or ban them. Their decisions influence what is seen, what is valued, what is said. When they do their job right, they create the conditions under which cooperation is possible”. Lastly, in terms of moderation, Wikipedia is great in that I can see every person who edited my article, or requested that I fix something in my article, in my notifications, and sandbox. I thought this was really special and helpful considering I could converse with anyone in my class, Professor Reagle, or just a general user on Wikipedia about the changes they expected: “…The power-laden relationship is the balance of expectation (and associated effort) between extent members and newcomers”. Wikipedia even has Administrators, who have the ability to completely delete an entire article if it is completely against Wikipedia’s guidelines. Overall, I think Wikipedia is the most impressive, “open to everyone,” site out there today, and I experienced the levels of moderation and expectation first hand. As a first time user, it quickly became clear that there is a level of respect that every good Wikipedian has towards other users and pages.

RTFM or “Read the Fucking Manual.” This is a way of ensuring that all newcomers are on the same page and that there are not any questions from a Newbie that waste time or are repetitive: “Publicly displaying examples of appropriate behavior on the site show members what is expected and increases their adherence to those expectations”. It also creates a little bit more work for newcomers, and helps current users carry on with their business without any interruptions. “…Existing members can specify what is worth knowing, how to learn it, and the stature and treatment of knowers,” through FAQ’s and RTFM’s. Although Wikipedia does not necessarily have a set rule for newcomers to research all new user information before contributing, it is more of a norm to ensure that you know what you are doing before you do it, on the site. For example, Wikipedia has several pages that you can research in order to find answers to any question, as a did for a few different things. I did not know how to complete my references, so there was a page for that, such as Help:Referencing for beginners. This allows me to make it more clear when I had one specific site, like the Unico Nutrition website, being used for many different citations repetitively. Or when I did not know how to add pictures to my page, I looked here: Picture tutorial. This is how I added all of my photos of the products described, as well as the photo of the Unico logo and Instagram Instagram handle. And finally when I was confused as to why my page was considered an "orphan”/ Orphan for a while, and how to change that. When my page was first considered an orphan, I knew that I had to change something about the current state of my page. I researched on the Wikipedia site, realized I needed to add other links to different pages within Wikipedia, like this. It was not until then that I knew I met all the necessary criteria in order to no longer be considered an orphan page, and that I could remove this tag. This information is all in place in order to prevent newcomers from asking redundant and extremely typical questions of the more seasoned Wikipedians. This actually adds a slight level of intimidation to questioning someone who has been on the site a lot longer than you. This is definitely how I felt with a few of my questions that I needed clarified even after looking at the explanation pages. Nobody ever wants to me scoffed at. However, I must say, the explanations all over Wikipedia that tell users how to do pretty much every basic, intermediate, or expert level task, is definitely very efficient and smart on Wikipedia’s part. Intimidating for sure at times for not so “techy” people like myself, but an awesome resource for newcomers also like myself as well. I used these explanations and FAQ’s all the time while creating my Unico Nutrition page, and while conversing with classmates and other Wikipedia users.

Something we discussed in class that really stuck with me is the fact that the very large amount of Wikipedia articles are actually written by a very small population of people. This has a lot to do with newcomers sticking around after their initial post and edits. There are a lot of Wikipedians who write one article and never write another one again. In 2009, Business Insider did a study that concluded 1400 people are the main editors on the site. Similarly, in a 2012 BBC article and study, it was said that of the 22 million articles on Wikipedia, a little more than 80,000 people are those who write the articles. This makes it quite clear that a lot of new users are not coming back to write or edit again. After writing my own article for the first time, I can see why this happens. First of all, as previously mentioned, it is definitely intimidating. It may be an open site to all, but there are true experts and what appear to be, what I would call, professional Wikipedians who really run the site and almost all of its articles. This is definitely an aspect of the site that would make me ask myself if I really wanted to come back again or not, as there is a level of pressure for newer users to not mess up a page. Additionally, there is not that much of an incentive to stick around. Some people just really love sharing their knowledge which is great! We need those people in order for Wikipedia to work. Especially considering you do not get paid or anything at all really, for creating an article. That is why Barnstars are used to incentivize things a little more, which is clear when you visit the link to the page and read about each star. But those are just little stickers and names you can refer to yourself as on the site. Some moderators are at the level where they have the ability to delete articles completely if they need moderation; these people are called administrators. For a lot of people, myself included, I am not sure this is how I would want to spend a lot of my time at this point in my life. There is not much of an incentive in terms of anything given to contributors. It is known that giving something to someone for participating and contributing definitely helps get more users, “Paying to take actions in the community with currency accumulated through normal participation reduces the ability for trolls and manipulators to act”. However, on Wikipedia, this is far from the case; not even Administrators are paid. I would definitely need some kind of incentive for myself, personally, to continue creating pages and edits on a site like this. After completing my own page, and spending a semester on the site, these are definitely aspects of Wikipedia that make it clear why more newcomers do not always stay around on the site, and why there is not necessarily the best retention rate on the site in terms of these newbies.

Throughout the semester, I have become very proud of my Wikipedia article. I am passionate about working out and nutrition so I am happy about my topic of choice. The one challenge I did encounter was trying not to sound biased about any product that I have tried before. But, a plus was that I had each product in my apartment already to photograph and add to my Wikipedia article which adds a lot to it in my opinion. The fact that the pages on Wikipedia are so monitored allowed for more frequent users, as well as other newcomers (like my classmates), to edit and discuss parts of my article throughout the past semester. The several informational pages that explain to newcomers like myself, how to go about doing something are very useful. Wikipedia definitely tries to limit the number of questions a newcomer has to ask with all of their links to explanations. This was definitely relevant in my case and the making of my article. Lastly, after writing my own piece on the site, I can see the issue that Wikipedia has in terms of bringing newcomers back. I personally do not feel as though there is enough of an incentive to come back and write more articles at this point in my life. However, I learned so much about the online community through my Unico Nutrition article, and definitely have a new level of respect for Wikipedia and the way it functions.