User:Misuki11/Report

= Reflection on Wikipedia = Because of my personal interest, I chose to edit the stub Huju (Shanghai Opera) in Wikipedia. It is a artistic form which reflects Shanghai traditional culture and the life of Shanghai people.

What did I learn？
Wikipedia community is a identity-based community. When I was editing the article, I felt being part of the community and helping to fulfill the mission and letting more people know about a particular culture in the world.

At the beginning, I am afraid to edit articles in wikipedia, especially when there are many norms need to be followed, but soon after following the students training module, I was able to navigate the editing process. As a newcomer to wikipedia, I would like to say the tutorial is useful. It gives people an idea about how to make contributions to wiki and what kind of norms need to be followed within the community.

What's more, the talk page is a good place for people to communicate with each other regarding to the article, although I only got two peer review feedback after I made the article live. I think it is because only a few people (such as researchers or professors who are studying Chinese culture) know about or interest on this. Though I did not get so many peer review, the two reviews I received are helpful. Wikipedia has its neutral-point-of-view norm, which supports the community's goal to write a trustworthy encyclopedia. When I finished writing the current situation of Huju, I did not realize some of my words might break the neutral-point-of-view until someone left a message on the talk page. One paragraph I wrote was a little bit biased. This encouraged me to improve article based on the advice.

Advices
Based on my own experience, I enjoyed writing for Wikipedia and it gave a sense of accomplishment because I support Wikipedia’s core premise, although only a little contribution: Wikipedia is accessible to anybody with an Internet connection, both for reading and editing. It has the potential to reach an extremely broad base of viewers. According to my research and what I learned from the class, with the growth of Wikipedia, old contributors tend to be more mature, and the knowledge-sharing wikipedia society has not been able to better attract a new generation to contribute. The wikipedia community is decreasing. My advices are listed as below: The VisualEditor makes it easy to add text, cite sources and so on, but it is only available for articles. To talk to other people, one has to use WikiCode, which is a complicated system to most people. Furthermore, although there are many tutorials people can choose from, they are not easy to find. It takes time for people to find appropriate norms which they need to follow when they are contributing to the articles. So if newcomers can directly see a link to norms (such as wikipedia: contributing to wikipedia, red link, and wikipedia: lead section) when they are editing articles, this can thus reduce the mistakes newcomers might make so that they are less likely to harm the community. Although people can communicate with each other through talk page, but it is not so effective and it can be seen by everyone. If people meet with some conflicts and want to chat privately, it is difficult for them to do so. Create a direct communication system which can let people send private messages with each other might be helpful. To attract both old-timers' and newcomers' attention and increase their motivation, I would recommend:
 * Improve editing process
 * Make communication system more effective
 * Increase people's motivation

1. Mentor system

In Robert E. Kraut and Paul Resnick's book Building Successful Online Communities, it says, "when old-timers provide newcomers formal mentorship, the newcomers become more committed to the community, learn how to behave in it, and contribute more." This is just like when people come to visit a new country, they feel more comfortable and willing to stay if they have someone who have already live there take them around. I found help desk which help people accommodate to wikipedia, but it only focus on how to use and edit wikipedia. As a new student editor, even though I followed the tutorial, and make edits to the article, it is still uncertain for me to move the article live. I am not sure if my article is correct or not, biased or not. So I think mentor system is necessary and useful to make newcomer more engaged in the community and committed to the community.

2. Highlight the award system

To attract both old-timers and newcomers continue to make contributions, I would recommend wikipedia to highlight the award system, such as demonstrate more explicitly how does the award system work and how to award medals. Furthermore, some awards can be put in a prominent position. Publicly displaying examples of good editors and good articles can make people more committed to the community. This can be used in metro system, too. As I mentioned in the last paragraph, old-timers can receive awards if they offer help to newcomers. They can be interdependent.

The advices I suggest have limitations, since it is my personal advices and it is based on my own experiences on wikipedia. Old-timers may have different advices in terms of their experiences. Whether it is good or not, all of them are to make wikipedia become a better encyclopedia.