User:Lizzethmancilla/Report

When I first learned about the Wikipedia assignment we had to complete, I felt overwhelmed. I had used Wikipedia hundreds of times, but actually contributing to an article people could reference felt daunting. However, in the end, I felt Wikiedu was essential to my understanding and made me feel more comfortable with the process. The stub I decided to add to was Family disruption. Throughout the process of editing this article, I definitely felt a lot of intrinsic reward. I was highly interested in my topic so I enjoyed doing research and adding to the article. I liked the feeling that came with knowing my contributions could be useful for future users who look it up.

Wikiedu was extremely useful in providing explanations along with directions. The level of detail in the instructions and explanations provided enough information to easily follow along and also practice in my own sandbox. The training along with the exercise modules were also helpful because they made sure we understood the process and reasoning behind making these edits. The quizzes in the training were important because they confirmed my understanding. I specifically found the pictures and videos embedded in the tutorials to be helpful. I believe that this process would have been a lot more difficult if I didn’t have Wikiedu tutorials to go off of. For example, from these tutorials I learned Wikipedia’s rules and policies, how to make edits in an article, and how to evaluate an article. Since these instructions and rules are essential to Wikipedia, I think it is important to provide them to every new user since it is a large community with a distinct style. Having said this, I think the opportunity to go through WikiEdu should be available for everyone who wants to contribute to Wikipedia.

One piece of advice I would offer is to add tutorials on how to polish articles once they are written. For example, our TA Salt provided us with a variety of information on how to add infoboxes, categories, “see also” sections, how to wrap text around the table of content, and use different templates. Although these weren’t required additions/changes, it was valuable information. I had wondered about how to incorporate a lot of these additions, so it would be great if this information could be included in WikiEdu in the future. In addition, also providing screenshots and video tutorials for some of the additions would be helpful. Since a lot of these changes occur in “source editing,” it can easily get confusing for us as newcomers or those who have limited experience contributing to Wikipedia. On top of it being hard to incorporate these additions, it is difficult to not only find this information, but also know what changes are possible. I think having one clear section on the Wikipedia sidebar of pages where these suggestions are listed and explained, would help people improve articles to the best of their abilities. It would be informative, but also help advantageous to both sides. Users would learn the extent of additions Wikipedia provides and Wikipedia would have users utilizing the tools they provide.

One concept we learned in class that I believe is important in this case is dealing with newcomers. In one of the readings we read for class it says that it is important to provide newcomers “with an accurate and complete picture of what the members’ experience will be if they join” (Kraut et al 199). I think the WikiEdu training did a great job of doing this in terms of what it means to provide essential training and information on what it takes to succeed in this community. The modules were clear in expectations, the process of contributing, talking with members in the talk sections, how to deal with your contributions being deleted, etc. This also fits in with the idea of “protection.” In this case, the tutorials and sandboxes helped create safe spaces for learned and experimentation (Lecture 2/10). However, as I mentioned earlier, I think it would be helpful to have WikiEdu training on how to polish our articles (wrapping text, extent of templates available, adding categories, etc. as mentioned above). It would give an even more “complete explanation” of what their experience could be. I also think this is important for socialization, another concept that we learned about in class. We learned that it is vital because newcomers have poor performance, little commitment, and a high turnover. Adding this information would only add to the institutionalized socialization of WikiEdu such as collective socialization, where newcomers share a common set of experiences as a group (Lecture 2/10). This was really important throughout our class course and I believe it could be really beneficial to generalize with the whole Wikipedia community. I think it will help people feel more informed and possibly more invested.

There were some ways I thought retention could be improved. In class we learned that systematically supporting good newcomer experiences (Lecture 2/10) would help improve commitment. Although I’m sure thousands of people may contribute to Wikipedia for the first time every day, I think having designated users who have been contributing to Wikipedia for years comment on new user’s pages could help them feel more motivated to stay. It would help them feel like their work and time is valued. Or even having an automatic message sent to first time contributors from the founder or high ranking officers from Wikipedia may help these users feel recognized. Another way I think newcomers could be supported is by providing awards. Designated Wikipedia users could again be in charge and give barnstars to first time contributors or Wikipedia could automatically give out barnstars for reaching a “milestone” such as a certain amount of characters added, number of articles contributed to, commenting on an article’s talk page with questions and suggestions, etc.

Overall, I really enjoyed learning about Wikipedia and getting to contribute to such a successful and impactful online community. It felt amazing to learn how to contribute with the help of WikiEdu.