User:Musicluvrr/wikipedia-reflection

With an 81% increase in online community engagement since the COVID-19 pandemic, online communities have been recognized as increasingly important for human connection. Although online communities have a wide range of focuses and benefits, their ability to facilitate relationships has been continually praised. I argue that, although Wikipedia is one of the largest online communities, their focus on user collaboration instead of interpersonal relationship building has contributed to a collaborative culture that is highly impersonal. I further argue that this aspect of the Wikipedia community makes it difficult for many outsiders and newcomers to understand and participate in it. I will focus on how the platform’s guiding principles, social norms, and treatment of newcomers are tied to each other, Wikipedia’s collaborative culture, and outsider impressions. Providing examples of these concepts in relation to my own experience on the platform will offer a solid understanding of both internal and external perceptions of the Wikipedia community.

As a free encyclopedia that virtually anyone can edit, outsiders are often perplexed by Wikipedia’s apparent lack of vandalism. Although there are certainly ill-intentioned people on the platform, editing trolls are in the minority of users. Wikipedia’s successful management of vandals is due in part to exceptional regulation strategies but is also linked to the community’s emphasis on collaborative culture.

Collaborative culture refers to a set of assumptions, values, meanings, and actions pertaining to working together within a community. It is a lot like “participatory culture”, which occurs when consumer-only fans become creators within their respective fandom community. Similarly, information communities are defined as “constituencies united by a common interest in building and increasing access to a set of dynamic, linked, and varying information resources". Information communities also tend to emphasize collaboration amongst a diverse set of information providers . By these definitions, Wikipedia can be viewed as an information community with a collaborative culture.

Wikipedia promotes collaborative culture by placing more value on collaborative contributions than on individual contributions. This idea is highlighted in the “Collaboration First” Essay which states “a productive contributor who cannot collaborate is not a productive contributor.” Collaborative culture is further promoted to Wikipedians through two guiding principles: 1. Maintain a neutral point of view and 2. Assume good faith of fellow contributors.

The principle of neutrality encourages Wikipedians to put aside their own biases in favor of the platform’s key purpose: sharing knowledge. To properly share knowledge, editors must maintain a neutral tone that is supported by credible research. No original research is acceptable, and Wikipedians are expected to remain neutral even when their contributions are challenged. This is because contributions are not seen as personal achievements, but rather collaborative processes. While achieving neutrality is easier said than done, the notion of eliminating personal bias and illegitimate research encourages diverse individuals to work together on their shared goal of distributing knowledge.

The principle of assuming good faith asks Wikipedians to always assume good intentions of fellow editors. This pushes users to work together in a respectful manner, but also encourages them to remove their personal feelings from the platform. This can be problematic when a user is being aggressive or offensive and Wikipedians still treat them as having good intentions. In these cases, individuals on the receiving end of these aggressive actions may end up with hurt feelings when they see their aggressor face little to no backlash. Ultimately, this exemplifies Wikipedia’s collaborative culture because it implies that working together is more important than individual feelings.

A benefit to this neutral, good-faithed approach is that it helps regulate vandals. By enforcing neutrality and good faith, users create an environment in which productive contributions are given more weight than attention seeking behaviors. When faced with trolls, these principles encourage users to not give them the attention, recognition, or reactions that they crave.

On the negative side, the principles of neutrality and good faith can contribute to an isolating, somewhat asocial environment. Since personal feelings, relationships, and opinions are not given much value, individuals coming to Wikipedia for human connection might not find it. For this reason, outsiders who conceive of online communities as being primarily relationship focused may have a hard time understanding Wikipedians.

When I first began editing, I struggled to conceive Wikipedia as an online community due to the impersonal nature of all my interactions. In fact, I didn’t really have any interactions at all, and the only editing that my article received was via a citation bot. Even without interaction though, I found myself trying to adhere to the principles of neutrality and good faith by taking on a professionalized, robotic-feeling persona.

By this I mean, when I posted edits or asked for feedback on talk pages, I forced myself to appear neutral and well-intentioned. In many ways, this meant removing aspects of my personality from my contributions as well as being fearful of sharing potentially “biased” information. On my first talk page post for example, I proposed adding a new section and kept the post as brief and as bland as possible. For me, this was counterintuitive to do in an online community, because my initial definitions of online communities all revolved around relationship building and personal expression.

Ultimately, on a platform where collaboration is valued more than individual contributions, certain forms of personal expression put users at risk of violating community guidelines. As an outsider who enjoys active socialization in online communities, the collaborative nature of Wikipedia made the community appear cold and isolating to me. For this reason, outsiders who conceive of online communities in a limited way may have trouble understanding the Wikipedia community.

Wikipedians’ efforts to uphold the guiding principles of neutrality and good faith have given rise to unique community norms. For example, to uphold the principle of neutrality, Wikipedians frequently attack contributors that use potentially biased research or claims. Even if Wikipedians are aggressive in their pursuit of neutrality, many community members will defend them for upholding guiding principles. Additionally, attacked contributors are expected to assume good faith because neutrality is ultimately more important to Wikipedia’s mission than their own personal feelings or contributions.

Although edit wars are not explicitly encouraged, community guidelines have made them a norm that many Wikipedians expect to encounter. By striving to uphold community guidelines, Wikipedians frequently rationalize aggressive or passive aggressive editing behaviors. Ultimately an “ends justify the means” mentality towards editing arises, which contributes to the normalization of edit wars.

The possibility of edit wars occurring can make Wikipedians hesitant to make edits without providing reasoning. Furthermore, there is a large norm on Wikipedia surrounding informing others of edits or proposing edits before making them. In fact, anytime you make an edit on Wikipedia, a text box prompts you to document your changes before making them public.

While I don’t have personal experience with edit wars, I have certainly felt pressure to inform the community of my edits and additions before I published them. When I first started my article, I asked for community feedback and feared that users would turn aggressive if I just randomly added a section. When no one responded after a few days, I felt comfortable posting the section anyways, and added yet another section to the talk page asking what people thought of it. No one responded. Over the next couple of weeks, I posted on the WikiProject Journalism talk page, but was met with more silence.

The one-sided nature of my interactions helped me unearth a unique norm: Wikipedians value informing others, even in the absence of responses or validation. In other words, it is expected that users make note of, propose, or look for community advice on changes, but it is not expected that other users will respond. Interestingly, no response can even mean that you’re doing something right, as it implies that Wikipedians haven’t found issues with your contributions.

The norms and guidelines on Wikipedia can greatly impact newcomers’ experiences with and perceptions of the platform. The impersonal, complex structure of the community can be very isolating for more socially inclined newcomers. Additionally, with little resources and support given to new users, jumping into the community can be daunting.This norm reflects the idea that collaboration is highly valued on Wikipedia, but not in a way that builds interpersonal relationships. At large, users inform others of changes not to seek attention, praise, or recognition, but to provide reasoning for altering shared material. Yet again, collaboration on Wikipedia is valued more than individual interests.

Although Wikipedia advises users not to "bite the newcomer”, they don't necessarily encourage newcomer participation to the best of their abilities. Research has found that positive feedback and social messages increase people’s general motivation to work, and the effects are strongest among newcomers. This could be integrated into the Wikipedia community in a variety of ways such as providing newbies with a mentor, placing newbies in a group chat, or having an open chat area with more experienced editors.

Currently, Wikipedia doesn’t do much to provide this to newcomers. In my experience, Wikipedia sent a few encouraging messages, but they ended around the two-week mark and were very obviously automated. Regardless of how many “be bold” or “keep going” messages I saw, I knew I wasn’t getting any actual human support, aside from our Wikiedu member. Furthermore, without the help of Wikiedu, I would have been significantly less confident in my abilities and less motivated to edit. This is due in part to Wikipedia’s lack of positive support and feedback for newcomers, which is in direct contrast with what research recommends.

The widespread physical isolation resulting from a global pandemic has made online relationships and communities increasingly important. Although Wikipedia is one of the largest online communities, the platform’s guidelines, norms, and treatment of newcomers do not prioritize friendship and relationship building. While this has helped Wikipedia function as a collaborative information community, encouraging more positive feedback and interpersonal communication could attract outside attention and make newcomers more comfortable. To combat hostile edit wars, user isolation, and outsider misperceptions, Wikipedians should reconsider the implications of their guiding principles and the norms that arise from them.