User:Mntipps/Report

Though the steps to update a Wikipedia article felt tedious, the length of time I spent on each step reinforced the concepts of originality, relevance, and reliability, taught by the WikiEdu course. I had to format my thoughts in a google document, copy and paste them into my sandbox, write a description of what I did, cite it, publish, and then transfer it over to the live page. This process made me consider exactly what it was that I was trying to introduce into the article, whether I had a right to use that information, and if it truly would help the wiki community better understand the topic. Overall, I feel proud of the work I have accomplished and the piece I published for the Wiki Community. However, I am not motivated to contribute ever again. Allow me to explain. Once I hit the dreaded “publish” button, nothing happened. I mean nothing. I wrote in fear of being audited by a Wikipedian, that someone would come along and criticize my work or catch a fatal mistake that would get me banned from the site. As unrealistic as those fears may be, they certainly played a role in how I performed. After weeks of carefully crafting my article, I feel as though I have published it into a void. If not for the associated grade, I would feel like I did my work for nothing. No one has come along to tell me if my article is good. No one has contributed to the talk page and in truth, why would they? The article I improved was a stub with low priority which means I doubt anyone was looking for the page in the first place. Why should I spend my time improving pieces that aren’t useful to the community and that don’t get noticed? I didn’t even receive an automated “Thanks for contributing!” which would have given me a feeling of closure. Additionally, even if I wanted to continue to help grow the website, I wouldn’t know where to start. There is such a missed opportunity here as Wikipedia could notify me of similar articles that I could work on next. Perhaps if Wikipedia could send a message to contributors thanking them for participating and referring them to a higher priority piece to work on next, I would feel more inclined to immerse myself in the Wikipedia community.

Updating a Stub on Wikipedia taught me many skills, but most importantly it taught me patience. Prior to taking this class, my understanding of WIkipedia is that anyone could just create an account and start editing. I thought that there was no structure or oversight and that was why it had a reputation for having unreliable information. As it turns out, there are a lot of steps you must take to become educated on the expectations and policies of Wikipedia before you can begin making helpful contributions. As someone who struggles to operate technology on a daily basis, this turned out to be quite the challenge. Using the Wiki Dashboard, the class Wiki page, canvas, a sandbox, a report page, and the talk pages was a lot to navigate. I began by identifying the stub I wanted to contribute to (with special help from Salt, thanks!) and finding a similar, yet higher class article, to use as a guiding template. I selected the stub for my hometown newspaper, The Bellingham Herald, and used the more developed article for the New York Times as a reference point. Then, I dove into my research. Using only publications made by the Bellingham Herald itself, I spent several hours doing nothing but reading. While I read, I looked for trends. What kind of information did the B’ham Herald like to advertise about themselves? What are they proud of? What are they promoting currently? What historical information is relevant to their business success? I used the data I collected to create subheadings for the content I felt was important to feature. I then went source by source and took all of the relevant information and translated it into my own words. I then sorted that data under whichever subheading it best fit and used basic grammar skills to make the content flow together.

The combined resources from our class have taught me the basics of what it takes to run a successful online community, how to increase engagement, and how to increase the longevity of individual's participation within a community. That information includes Kraut’s three ways to incentivize participation in online communities. One key point Kraut makes is that in order to persuade individuals to contribute, communities must make it easy to find useful things to do. Wikipedia fell short in this category as it is not easy to find useful things to do and there is no reward for helping overall. While there is an extensive list of available stubs on wikipedia, it is categorized by topic rather than relevance and need. While trying to find a topic to work on, I found a stubs for topics such as "female Bollywood actresses from the 1970s" but had trouble finding topics that were in higher demand. If there was an option to organize stubs based on desire and relevance, it would be a lot easier for me to find a task that I feel would help strengthen the community. Furthermore, contributing to an article I know that people need is a reward that would incentivize me to continue contributing. Kraut would acknowledge the feeling that comes from helping fellow Wikipedians as a reward which keeps participation high, and would encourage people to remain involved in the future. However, the way Wikipedia is currently, this is difficult to achieve. That is why I recommend that Wikipedia create an auto-generated thank you message that will appear after users publish their edits. It will help reinforce the gratitude aspect of collaboration and give people the a feeling like someone (even if its a robot) cares. I also recommend that after a project has substantial edits, Wikipedia send a suggested next article to edit that is desired by users. This will help satisfy Kraut's criteria of making it easy to find useful things to do.

Extrinsic motivators is one concept we discussed that doesn't apply to Wikipedia. There is very little community recognition or social status that comes with contributing to Wikipedia articles. The talk pages are separate from the articles and aren't broadcast for praise. This demotes the possibility of 'gaming' Wikipedia and allows for intrinsic motivators to shine through. This allows community members to spend time improving content out of the goodness of their hearts rather than benefitting monetarily. As a result, Wikipedia produces identity-based bonds, where members feel like part of a community and want to help it succeed. Wikipedia also helps to manage the community size by creating unique talk-pages for each article. That limits the interactions to small numbers without putting a definitive cap on any project. Working with smaller groups makes members more willing to contribute because they feel like their efforts make a large, noticeable impact. Most importantly, though, Wikipedia exemplifies Reed's Law which states that the utility of large networks can scale exponentially with the size of the network. Wiki's goal to create a massive online encyclopedia is reached as more content is developed and the data becomes more reliable. More internet surfers and software programs check Wikipedia for information first now that it has grown enough to allow users to assume it will have the answers they need can be found. As the data is more reliable and readily available, the value of Wikipedia grows as well. What makes Wikipedia unique is the inclusivity. The focus is centered on allowing anyone to join and make significant modifications without needing to jump through hoops and earn status.