User:Martinapovolo/Report

Martina Povolo

COM 482

16 February 2021

Wikipedia Reflection Essay

Before this class, all I heard about Wikipedia is that it is not an acceptable source for an academic paper. I never knew why, but I did know to not question the teacher’s judgment. Most of the time, they know best. When I heard this class was centered on Wikipedia, I was taken aback. Logging into that online community made me nervous. It made me feel as if I was crossing an invisible threshold where the other side held misinformation and trolls. Yet, as I entered the world of sandboxes and talk pages, I realized that Wikipedia wasn’t as daunting as I presumed. Getting out of my comfort zone made it clear to me that the outside perspective of an online community doesn’t always match the reality of the situation.

Although I am thankful for the knowledge I gained doing the Wikipedia assignment, I wouldn’t have sought to learn the ins and outs of this platform on my own. I can wholeheartedly say that the only reason I learned how to use Wikipedia was because of the external motivation of completing the assignment and the internal motivation of me wanting to get good grades to make my parents proud. As a newcomer, Wikipedia didn’t inspire me. The main page looks uninviting due to its intense hyperlinking. To me, Wikipedia wasn’t a community, it was an encyclopedia that I infrequently referred to for public information. If Wikipedia wants to seem like more of a community to newcomers, the first page on the website needs to look like it. The talk page and community portal buttons are small and seem insignificant to a newcomer. Having this be more clear on the landing page would help. Furthermore, making Wikipedia’s phone application a space for community chat would help bring people together. Having a profile page similar to Twitter or Instagram where contributors can display each of their contributions would bring another form of external motivation to the picture. When the online community turns into a reflection of a person, the person is more inspired to try it out and stay longer.

Apart from a profile page, there are other external motivators that could potentially help get people to continue using the website. One example would be giving out prizes after a certain amount of contributions. For instance, after a hundred contributions, a user could gain free access to journals that are inaccessible to the general public without payment. This motivates people to use Wikipedia for a longer time whilst keeping the integrity of their message of a free encyclopedia. After this, contributors could use the new journal to update other articles on Wikipedia with higher quality content. This creates a positive feedback loop where contributors’ content increases in quality as they edit more articles. This idea would require partnerships between Wikipedia and different journals. These partnerships could foster more collaborations between the two. One example would be having an option to log into these journals with your Wikipedia account, similar to how Facebook does it. As a newcomer, I immediately respected how Wikipedia is fueled by volunteers. Yet, this comes with a negative externality of no external motivation. I believe this advice could increase the number of regular contributors, which in turn could strengthen the content, leading to a better outsider opinion of Wikipedia.

There were a lot of concepts that didn’t apply to my experience. For instance, creating new online environments isn’t something I plan on doing. I believe that it is more helpful for a business to grow its own online community than it is to create a new one. Online communities come and go, so I think it’s more important to stay up to date with what’s trendy now versus trying to change old ways. My Wikipedia article topic connected to this. The Beverly Hills Cannabis Club was once a prestigious community of wealthy Mary Jane lovers founded by the self-proclaimed “Martha Stewart of Marijuana,” Cheryl Shuman. Yet, due to a lack of a strong online presence (on top of other factors), the club has now gone stale with only a website to capture the moments they once shared (and now an improved Wikipedia page!). Although Shuman believed she found a niche environment once, it is clear now that regular dispensaries and weed delivery services are a better fit for the 90210 zip code. I believe this could be due to the fact that it is easier to grow existing communities than create your own. I am grateful to have learned more about Wikipedia. Going out of my comfort zone and learning about the reality of what this free encyclopedia does has taught me to not judge an online community by its stereotypes. If you take that leap and try something new, you might even find a place for you.