User:Mspoon1994/Reflection

Over the course of the quarter, I have learned a lot about Wikipedia and the Wikipedia community as well as other online communities. To be honest I really struggled in the beginning of the course trying to learn about Wikipedia and how it works. In my opinion, I find Wikipedia to be a confusing website. Even after completing the training tutorial, I had a difficult time learning how to maneuver the website. In terms of formatting articles, I thought that the site was difficult to work with. I struggled trying to make text boxes for additional data and facts about the organization. Through talking with other classmates, I learned to go into other published articles and copy and paste the format. Once the format was on the page, I was able to go in and include the information relevant to my article. After a few weeks spending time on Wikipedia I slowly figured out how to create a good article by Wikipedia standards.

Although it sounds like complaining, my Wikipedia experience has been positive. I have really enjoyed creating my article and watching it change. I have never experienced an online community in which others can go in and edit your posts. Granted majority of my online community time is spent on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, where experiences are very different. I have enjoyed the idea of using Wikipedia for class assignments. It’s a nice difference from traditional college courses where you complete assignments on your own. Since attending the University of Washington, I have noticed that peer editing has lost its purpose. I can’t think of a time in college where the professor has required or suggested peer editing other classmate’s work. The peer editing and contributing is one aspect of these tasks I really valued. By looking at other classmates Wikipedia articles, I was able to gain ideas of how to make my article more notable for Wikipedia standards. Another aspect I found to be beneficial in my experience creating an article for Wikipedia was the featured article section. Although my topic, “Athletes for Kids” is a small organization and doesn’t have nearly as much information as many of the featured articles, I was able to look at the structure and formatting of featured articles to better my article. By browsing several featured articles, I created a contents box and made headings for my topic to make it clearer and more aesthetically pleasing.

One concept from the course I resonated with was commitment. According to the text, “commitment is harder to achieve than a flow of visitors, but for most online communities, commitment is crucial.”   Committed members will work harder, say more, do more and stick with the community. I feel like have a bonds-based commitment to Wikipedia. I am more bonded to the class than to the Wikipedia contributors. This is because I’m not alone in the process of becoming a contributor to Wikipedia. I am less intimidated contributing to an established online community such as Wikipedia, because I know that there are many other people around me that are in the same boat. In terms of contribution, the book mentioned that newcomers are more inclined to contribute to a community they are passionate about and support. By enabling us (students) to choose our Wikipedia article I was more inclined to contribute and be committed because it is a topic that I am interested in and participated in. Therefore, I was more excited to create the article on Wikipedia. Another concept that is prevalent in these Wikipedia tasks is being a newcomer. While we were integrating ourselves into Wikipedia, we were taught how to behave in ways that would benefit the online community. Meaning, we had to learn how to make notable articles, understand copyright information, and the correct tone to be coherent with the Wikipedia community. This is important because in order for our articles to stay in Wikipedia we needed to remain consistent with the regulations and norms of the website. The book also mentioned, “to be successful, online communities need the people who participate in them to contribute the resources on which the group’s existence is built.” As a newcomer, we had to support foundation Wikipedia was built on.

Throughout the course of this class, many of the theories we have read about and discussed relate to psychological theories of human needs in online communities. In theories related to motivation, goal setting plays a crucial role. Each week, I treated Wiki tasks as my goal. By taking it in weekly steps, the idea of creating a Wikipedia article seemed less overwhelming and motivated me. Additionally, feedback about my performance was motivating. We learned people desire self-improvement to feel good about themselves and maintain positive self-esteem. Hearing feedback on my article, helped increase my motivation and confidence in my article. I demonstrated intrinsic motivation because it was more personal and involved self-motivation.

Based on my experience on Wikipedia, there is only one thing I would change. If I could do it over again, I might have spent more time searching for a different article topic. Since Athletes for Kids is a smaller organization, there was not that much information on the nonprofit. I think it would have been nice to research a larger topic with more sources and information to make a better Wikipedia article. For example, an article that was more nationwide would allow me to add more charts, tables, or pictures to create a more thorough Wikipedia article.