User:Levine401/analysis

Greg Levine

11/28/16

The start of my Wikipedia project could be described as a barrier to newcomers. As a first time Wikipedia editor, I was unfamiliar with the intensity of the moderation and rules that governed the site's editorial scene. The first roadblock that I encountered was with the “moving” of my article. The original name of the article was titled “Cavoodle,” which was the name for the cross-breed of dog in Australia. I tried to move the page to “Cavapoo,” but was met with an error screen that told me that the page I was trying to move was “locked”. I was unsure of why the page would be locked. After more confusion and some help from Professor Reagle and the library assistants, I was able to figure out how to petition for the page to be moved. I did this by submitting two key arguments to the editors so that they would agree with me that the page should be renamed “Cavapoo”. The first piece of information that I submitted was that the name “Cavapoo” was the official breed name according to most kennel clubs. The second piece of information I submitted was a comparison of google search results, which showed that the search term “cavapoo” yielded significantly more search results than the search term “cavoodle”, and thus seemed to be a more popular name. The editors seemed to agree with my reasoning because the page became unlocked and the move was granted. I was now able to begin editing the page under the proper name. Kraut describes these actions in design claim three of chapter four. The notions of “consistently applied moderation criteria” and “a chance to argue one’s case” allowed me to complete the page unlock and article move (Kraut & Resnick, 2011, p. 133).

However, these initial barriers to editing may well have prevented someone who was not receiving proper assistance with Wikipedia community governance from continuing to try to move the page. I suspect that if I had not had to do this for a class I would have given up trying once I saw that the page was “locked,” and not pressed into the issue any further. This initial difficulty could be viewed as an entry barrier as described by Kraut. Kraut et al. (2011) claims that “in general, barriers and initiation rituals that cause newcomers to suffer a little before joining a group should increase their eventual commitment” (Kraut & Resnick, 2011, p.205). My commitment to the group was increased after the initial "suffering" because the success of moving the page made me feel as if I made a positive contribution the community.

The first edits that I made were edits that added link sources and additional text. I also cleaned up some of the old_version article which was not written particularly well. Some of the issues with the writing was that the previous editor was likely Australian, so simple fixes such as “get on well” were changed to “get along well”. The new version with my_edits reflects these changes. Professor Reagle also added some_edits to the page regarding the “tone” of the article which I also fixed. The issue here was that the tone needed to be encyclopedic and proper, but instead it was casual and informal. Also, in order to get the article to be notable, I hyperlinked as much of the article that I could so that the article looks complete and is interconnected with the rest of Wikipedia. I did much of this editing using the visual editor, because I found it easier to make changes when I could see how it looked on the actual page. The source editing option was more useful when editing links.

James Grimmelmann (2015) states that Wikipedia's openness is the source of its success. Without Wikipedia being open to newcomers to edit the pages, the Cavapoo page may very well have remained named "Cavoodle," complete with its improper tone, poor writing, and inadequate links. Grimmelmann (2011) says that "the best Wikipedia articles are synthesized from thousands of authors, and the hyperlinks between articles are a beautiful use of annotation" (p. 81). Since my article was only synthesized by two or three authors, it is unlikely to make it into the top rankings of best Wikipedia articles. The collaborative nature of Wikipedia means that a large group effort is required to make an article great (Grimmelmann, 2011). I did try to hyperlink as much as I could within the article so that my article would be well connected to the rest of Wikipedia. I figured that the best way for the article to be improved is by having it be well connected to the site at large, where other editors can make changes to the page. The "large scale participation" needed to make an article great is met with initial challenges. In my case, that initial challenge was petitioning to have the page unlocked and moved. Upon further examination, I'm wondering if one barrier to the article not having more editors is the fact that it was originally locked. Perhaps there were other users before me who tried to move the page to edit it under the proper name, but simply gave up when they saw that the page was locked. In this sense, my contribution consists not only of improving the content of the page but also unlocking the page and moving it to a name that will get more recognition and attention from users who wish to edit it. It will be interesting to see whether other users decide to edit the page after this class project.

According to Kraut et al., (2011), "sixty percent of registered editors in Wikipedia never make another edit after their first twenty-four hours participating" (Kraut et al., 2011, p.205). Having made more than one edit after this twenty-four hour period, I was in the forty-percent minority of newcomers who continued to make edits. I think that Wikipedia is somewhat challenging for newcomers due to the strict regulations and rules associated with proper editing format. I was unique in that I did not receive any comments from other users (aside from Professor Reagle) regarding the quality of my article. I think that my experience would have been much different if I had received comments that were heavily constructive or critical of my work. I suspect that I would be less likely to continue to edit Wikipedia in the future if I saw that my contributions and work was simply being reverted. The page I was editing was also unique in that it was originally locked, so maybe the reason for the lack of comments from other users had to due with the fact that many users thought the page was no longer able to be edited. The changes that I made to the page did improve the quality of the article substantially, so it will be interesting to see what comments or changes are proposed by other users in the future. As a user who is watching the page closely, I will be able to interact with editors who are making changes to the page and decide whether these changes are positive or not.

The last change I made to the page was to upload a picture. I was unsure of how to do this, so I consulted the "Editing Wikipedia" handout given to us at the beginning of class. This handout made it easy to figure out what was an acceptable picture source to use as well as how to upload the picture. In addition to using a picture that satisfied the copyright requirements, I tried my best to find a picture that was similar to other dog breed pictures on Wikipedia. Most other pictures featuring a dog were set outside on grass, so I made sure my picture was also set outside on grass. I wanted to also make sure my picture had an encyclopedic quality to it, so I found one that was void of toys or other personal items. My picture is now uploaded into Wikipedia Commons, where I have granted other users the right to use it freely.

Works Cited

Kraut, R. E., Resnick, P., & Kiesler, S. (2011). Building successful online communities: Evidence-based social design. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Grimmelmann, J. (2015). The Virtues of Moderation. The Yale Journal of Law and Technology, 17, 42-109. Retrieved from http://yjolt.org/sites/default/files/Grimmelmann_The-Virtues-of-                                                Moderation.pdf