User:Melancosmic/Report

For developers and members of online communities, it is important to understand how to facilitate growth while managing issues. In the case of Wikipedia, although it can be considered a successful online community, there is always a chance for the community to learn from the experiences of its members and improve based on their feedback. As a new member of Wikipedia, I found myself recognizing the strengths of this community as well as areas that may benefit from a few refinements. From my experience, I would advise the Wikipedia community to consider allowing profile pictures with signatures, providing more diverse ways of presenting community guidelines, and redesigning the talk page layout.

One aspect of maintaining an online community is making sure newcomers feel connected to other members. Bonds-based commitment can be a powerful way to enforce users’ desire to stay with a community, which is a type of commitment that relies on users developing connections to individual members of a group. According to authors Kraut and Resnick, an effective tactic that encourages bonds-based commitment is the use of profile pictures: “Seeing pictures of other people or even their avatars increases attraction, especially when people are just getting to know each other” (Kraut & Resnick, 2012, p. 90). Wikipedia might benefit from this because while members can display their signatures, images are not allowed.

From my experience as a newcomer on Wikipedia, I felt disconnected from the other members because of how depersonalized the profiles appeared as there were not many differentiating features between users. It was difficult for me to keep track of members since many of the signatures look the same on Wikipedia. I interacted with one member who customized his signature with blue and green coloring, but colors do not necessarily equate to the “attraction” of an image or avatar because of how repetitive colored signatures can be. Allowing users to display profile pictures next to their signatures might be an effective way to personalize newcomers’ experiences and make it easier for them to connect with individuals in the Wikipedia community.

Another part of maintaining an online community is ensuring that newcomers want to stay. Injunctive norms, or behaviors that people approve or disapprove of, can play a role in how newcomers decide if they want to stay in a community or not, particularly when it comes to community guidelines. Kraut and Resnick note that while having explicit rules for community members to follow is effective at reducing norm violations, there is also the risk that “prominently displayed rules and guidelines can convey a negative impression” (Kraut & Resnick, 2012, p. 149). These negative impressions can include feeling a loss of autonomy, fear of violating policies, and thinking that norm violations are a consistent problem in the community. Wikipedia has two extensive lists of guidelines and policies, and both link to more information with each subsection, which could lead to the negative impressions mentioned.

From my experience as a newcomer, the stress of learning the Wikipedia guidelines and policies was greatly reduced due to the Wiki Education’s video explanations, tutorials, and quizzes. If I did not have these resources, I would have felt discouraged from contributing due to the overwhelming amount of information Wikipedia presents. In the case of newcomers grappling with understanding Wikipedia’s rules, I would suggest that Wikipedia keep its guidelines and policies lists for those who learn by reading, and then also develop similar pages dedicated to visual learning, such as informative videos, and interactive learning, such as tutorials and quizzes. By providing newcomers with alternative presentations of Wikipedia’s lengthy and complex list of community norms, they may feel less intimidated by the amount of information and more inclined to stay.

A final aspect to note in terms of maintaining an online community is having a design that effectively organizes information within the community. Content, people, and activities should be displayed in such a way that is easy for newcomers to navigate. Kraut and Resnick explain that a majority of online communities offer a variety of ways for users to participate, sometimes operating off of the pull model, where users visit a community to check on what is new, and the push model, where users are notified when something new has occurred in the community (Kraut & Resnick, 2012, p. 233). Wikipedia is interesting in this regard because of its talk page feature. While talk pages are helpful in providing spaces for members to have discussions, the Wikipedia community should consider redesigning the talk page layout to be more organized, especially for the benefit of newcomers. In particular, talk pages should display the most recent information at the top of the talk page so that users can easily see the latest discussions and not have to scroll through outdated ones. Regarding the push and pull models, a redesign of Wikipedia’s talk page layout might be useful because users would be able to immediately see current posts at the top, whether they were recently pinged in a talk page discussion, or if they monitor a talk page regularly.

There may be a feature I am unaware of that lets users set the talk page to display the most recent posts first, but as a newcomer, I would suggest this as the default Wikipedia talk page design. I would often check the talk pages of articles related to mine and would start reading from the top only to realize afterwards that I had read a post from 2006 or 2007, which became frustrating. With a redesign of the talk page layout that would make it easier and more intuitive to navigate, users could have a more enjoyable experience, especially newcomers getting used to participating in talk pages.

In conclusion, I would suggest Wikipedia allow profile pictures with signatures to encourage bonds-based commitment, offer diverse ways of presenting community rules to avoid negative impressions from prominent injunctive norms and guidelines, and redesign the talk page layout based on the push and pull models and the benefits of an organized design.

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References

Kraut, R. E., & Resnick, P. (2012). Building successful online communities : Evidence-based social design. MIT Press.