User:Maria.Au20/Report

Wikipedia has nearly 40,000 registered users, and nearly 130,000 regular contributors. (Wikipedia, 2020) As a new user of this community, I never took into consideration the people and processes through which many of the articles I utilized were created. The norms that the community operates upon and the consequences of a user’s accidental or intentional actions. As a new contributor to the community through the work of improving an article on the site, I noticed the pros and cons of Wikipedia through the perspective of someone who little awareness of the detailed inner functions of the site. Starting from how one begins their journey on the site, creating an account, participating, and the probability of user retention. I will utilize my experience to state what is working for the site, suggestions for improvement, as well as additional factors I would like to look into further.

This site has often been used by nearly everyone at some point when they required further information on a topic. Although it is a regularly used site, I had never thought to create an account and engage with the site or the community further. In my case, a quick Google search would land me on the desired page to retrieve the information needed, but nothing on the site drew my attention that more contributors were needed. To sign up, the process is quite simple. When one looks to contribute and begin participating, is when processes begin to get more complicated. Due to Wikipedia’s strict and adamant rules and norms, it is very intimidating for a new user to understand all the rules at once. Wikipedia’s use of sub-groups which help to focus on a certain topic help me bring people with similar interests together for collaboration. This experience helps users familiarize themselves with the norms under which the community operates. As found by Gabriel Mugar and several researchers, “of user  participation  in online crowd sourced initiatives has been shown to help new users understand  the  norms  of participation.” (Mugar et. al, 2014) Essentially, incorporating new users with the right type of collaboration helps to increase their knowledge of the site as well as gauge their intentions on the site.

In evaluating whether a user will contribute in good faith or solely look to spam or damage pages, Wikipedia does well in requiring users to complete a significant number of tasks or edits before they can gain further privileges. The use of talk pages on articles help to generate discussions and advance the work that has been made. However, not all talk pages are active and not all experienced users are willing to help new contributors understand all the rules associated with the task. This is supported by a research by Narayan and others when they find: “without a more structured introduction to facilitate learning about these policies, many newcomers will never read them.” The result of which leads to tensions, standstills on projects, and a negative cycle for the maintenance of the current bureaucracy on the site. A possible solution to this would be the implementation of a structured orientation process which would help to guide the learning of new users. This can be done, as suggested by Mugar and their colleagues, through the application of “richer practice proxies into the experience of newcomers to help them orient themselves towards the norms of practice.” (Mugar et. al, 2014) An aspect which could be integrated that allows a transparency of what positive behavior is and how it can be rewarded.

The ability for good faith practices to be highlighted further increases the chances for those actions for be mirrored and continued throughout the lifetime of the site. The introduction of newer participants, especially on a site like Wikipedia where the spread of knowledge is highlighted, is critical if looking to increase the number of currently contributing members. The integration of new users may lead to tensions with experienced users as changes to norms and operations may arise. A sentiment shared by Lin and several researchers when they concluded: “they can also interrupt the community with too broad a range of interests, unfamiliarity with community norms, and relatively lower content quality.” (Lin et. al, 2017) This is a factor I would like to look further into as the result of many of these tensions either lead to the inaction of the change of norms and whether users continue using the site in the long run. Looking to see whether the suggestion of the new community can lead to progress or negatively impact the community would be useful to keep in mind looking further into the impacts of new users.

In my experience with Wikipedia, I found much of the funnel taken to reach the end goal of revising, adding, or creating an article to be very complex. Due to this activity being done as a class, guides and explanations were provided for what the norms are and the consequences for not following them. Similar to the concept of a practice proxy, this helped to become familiarized, gain experience, and confidence of our contributions throughout the process. If this were an independent project, I could see myself becoming intimidated of the possibility of making a good faith mistake. While I did not interact frequently with the Wikipedia community, aside from my peers, there is some hesitation in how an experienced user would welcome the contributions of a rookie. As mentioned before, arguments may emerge, hierarchies prevent further advancements, and a reduced user retention rate result.

Ultimately, attributing the low retention rates and interactions to the actions of users overall does not help to address the systems through which the site and the rest of the community operate on. These practices can act to inhibit and prevent a vast pool of valuable users. Implementing processes through which new users are able to be assessed in their intentions and guiding them with the use of practice proxies help to create an environment where new perspectives are valued. While current users of the site may not see an issue, it would be beneficial to begin rewarding efforts of users to help encourage participation from users who aren’t familiar and, as a result, influence other users to mirror that behavior.