User:LycheeJelly1/Report

For new users, the Wikipedia interface is simple to learn and easy to understand. The main issue that Wikipedia faces is getting people to learn how to edit and how to source references responsibly. Though there is much detail in the help sections on Wikipedia, the Wiki Education Dashboard had a more easily digestible learning format. Whereas the main Wikipedia help articles and tutorials simply give instructions in the format of a Wikipedia article, the Wiki Education Dashboard allows for staggered content and instructions on more pinpoints and specific details, such as uploading to Wikipedia Commons, how to add references, what a Talk Page is. Though larger articles such as the "Help:Editing" article have some sub articles surrounding sub topics, new and inexperienced users may have trouble navigating the various links and guidance.

I edited and added to an article on Anderson [Memorial] Park, also known as Redmond City Park for my Wikipedia assignment. I added details on the history of the park as well as image media taken at the park. In completing this process one detail which stood out were the notations of relevant or historical information. Seeing as the park was a stub article, I knew that it was already deemed relevant enough to have an article by the wider Wikipedia community which had been focusing on Washington and Seattle area parks. With this in mind, I figured there would be much more information on the location, noting that it was listed as a historical site. Upon further research it seems that the site was given a historical marker due to its overall age and not necessarily of a single event or series of events taken at the park. This showcased how broad definitions of relevancy can be and also that within a crowdsourced framework of information there may be over specificity on topics of interest to an editor. Keeping this in mind, it is relevant to note that individual interest does not necessarily reflect bias positive or negative as certain topics do not have a charge or controversy to their discussion. The bias of over specificity is much more easily identifiable than a positive or negative slant to the coverage.

The main topic with which you can connect Wikipedia and these learning experiences would be that of norms and regulation. Though Wikipedia has in the past garnered a reputation as an illegitimate encyclopedia, over the years the decentralized regulation has proven to be beneficial. As the site can be edited by anyone who signs up and makes an account, some unprotected and lesser-known articles can be subject to malicious edits and defacement. Though this was responsible for Wikipedia’s early reputation of inaccuracy, the growth of the site and community support from users has allowed for articles to be more easily rolled back to accurate versions, and even allows for protected status on controversial articles or articles prone to common defacement and trolling. This collective enforcement of Wikipedia norms and revisions by the community allows for motivated and invested community members to self police and maintain the quality of their work. The minimal effort to restore content minimizes the incentives of malicious actors in lessening the quality of Wikipedia, and this is further enforced by the ban policies of the site. Rather than having a centralized team of moderators, Wikipedia allows for community editors to impose community bans on malicious or improper editors. This further democratized process of norm enforcement allows for the committed user base to handle their own disputes internally as well as limiting the amount of intervention by Wikipedia itself. With all these benefits being taken into account, I would highly recommend that other Wiki sites and crowd sourced data forums implement similar policy if not already in use, as this allows for a less intrusive, moderation policy and a community enforced culture of norms and rules. As someone who has now been a Wikipedia editor I can personally attest to the efficiency of these policies as they helped me to examine not only the norms and values of the site, but these features also allowed me to better understand the past edits and content of my article.

One unique characteristic of Wikipedia is how it has been able to attract such a gargantuan and monopolistic umbrella of content as an encyclopedia, but also maintain distinct subjects and topics as individual communities within the site. Given that it is a database that tries to provide neutral facts, it has done well in categorizing and forming different topic based sub-communities through the usage of linking related articles and creating article series. This formation of communities despite neutral posture displays that Wikipedia serves as a home not only for fans and consumers of content, but as an overarching crowdsourced research center and library. When one describes the communities of Wikipedia, the increasing quality and scope on topics available is not only increased by community involvement but based entirely upon it. As a contrast, Wikipedia can be contrasted with YouTube. Though Wikipedia is primarily a text-based website, and YouTube a video-based website, both rely on user uploaded content as the basis for community building. The main characteristic that interested me in differentiating user experience, is not necessarily the delivery method of each website, but the moderation policy levels of toxicity on each platform. From my experiences on Wikipedia, there was no motivation of hostility or trolling, and this is much different in the various communities on sites such as YouTube. Seeing as the moderation policy is much more centralized for YouTube, there is not an engrained culture of community made resolutions to conflicts or the removal of trolls, but an often error filled and automated system of moderation. The efficiency of Wikipedia allows for mistakes in algorithms to be absent from monitoring the site, an issue which has often unintentionally hindered specific communities on YouTube, such as those discussing politics and social issues, who have had instances of automated restrictions emerging from controversial keywords.

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