User:NK560/Report

Becoming a contributor to Wikipedia was something I'd never even considered doing before, and part of the reason why was because I was intimidated. Due to the nature of Wikipedia, the fact that you can't observe what it's like to be a user, how to contribute, or what it likes to be a part of this community was something that made me hesitant to join. I would suggest Wikipedia make it mandatory to go through something like WikiEdu as soon as someone makes their profile. Without the guidance of the class, professors, and modules, it would've been a much more arduous process. In addition, I think that changing the user interface would also make it easier for new users to navigate the site. The site's current user interface is very minimalistic yet overwhelming, with the links being small as well as numerous, and located at the edges of the page. Making the user interface more simplistic and obvious, maybe by making the font bigger, having less links, adding color, etc. would make it less confusing for new users. Because Wikipedia isn't the kind of platform that is centered around communicating and discovering new people, it's important that they focus on making feeling newcomers prepared and excited to join the site.

My experience on the site was relatively easy, but only because of the aid I received through the class. Thanks to the modules and tips from the professors, I was able to be lead through every process of contributing and editing articles. That being said, I still learned a great deal about the Wikipedia community and its values. Through reviewing articles, reading the site's guidelines, and researching and expanding an article on my own, I discovered how serious and dedicated Wikipedia is to being a reliable resource and presenting factual information. I've been told multiple times that Wikipedia is not a reliable source since anyone can edit the articles, so I assumed that the members of Wikipedia were just doing it to serve their own interests and that each article was the result of one individual's effort. I had no idea "talk pages" existed for Wikipedians to communicate with each other and really collaborate on an article, and I didn't expect there to be much of a community at all. Even though it is possible to talk and form relationships with other users on Wikipedia, it's not the main point of the site, unlike Facebook or Reddit. I was surprised at how serious people were about presenting unbiased, factual information despite the lack of any real threat to them. Wikipedians care about making Wikipedia an actual encyclopedia that people can trust. Even though accounts can get blocked or reported, people could easily just make new ones and continue to troll or spam, yet there is a very dedicated community of people willing to correct and control their disruptive behavior.

I think this proves that the majority of devoted users are intrinsically motivated, because aside from barn stars that have no real value, users on Wikipedia don't gain anything by contributing or making a "good" article. I was extrinsically motivated because I'm being required and graded on contributing to Wikipedia, but I could also understand how people would want to contribute for their own intrinsic motivation. I chose to pick a topic that I had some personal attachment or relationship too, which is why I picked Asian Americans in California as my article. Even though it was for a grade, I cared enough about the Asian American community, as an Asian American, to want to make an informative and useful article. People either create articles because they're interested in certain topics and want to inform other people about them, or they simply enjoy researching and creating articles. I think the area Wikipedia is weakest point is attracting new users that are willing to contribute and participate. They do not advertise, they don't have a referral system, and they don't screen new users. The sheer popularity of Wikipedia is advertisement enough for the site, but it doesn't put in an exuberant amount of effort in getting new users to the site. In order to attract users willing to participate, they need to make newcomers feel welcome and knowledgeable about how to do things on the site. Because of the kind of site Wikipedia is, the newcomer experience shouldn't focus on facilitating a healthy group environment, or posting things to get likes or upvotes. Rather, it needs to focus on making it easy for newcomers to learn how to become a contributor. From my personal experience, I know that if I joined Wikipedia independent of a class, I would have been too intimidated and hesitant to make any edits or contributions because I wouldn't have had anything to guide me, and looking up tutorial videos or reading pages and pages of guides would have been too much work.

I think that a big reason why Wikipedia is so prosperous is because of how broad its appeal is; the niche for Wikipedia is essentially the entire world. There are multiple Wikipedias for different languages, with articles ranging from the very specific and obscure to the broad and well-known. Users feel a normative and identity-based commitment towards the site, as evidenced by their collective effort in making sure articles are legitimate and combating the work of trolls, grievers, and spammers. Even though Wikipedia isn't a "social" site like Instagram, it is a place where people with the same interests can collaborate on articles that they are passionate about. Something that Wikipedia could make a little more clear are their norms and regulations, as when you first create a page it isn't made immediately clear what is and is not okay to do on Wikipedia. Many newcomers to the site don't know what the rules are, and they make mistakes when trying to edit or add to articles, and it's because they aren't given specific instructions on what to do or how to act in the community. That being said, Wikipedia does a pretty good job at controlling threats from grifters and spammers. It's because of its devoted community that not every article has some nonsense troll paragraph, or is deleted every 5 seconds. I think it's a unique of Wikipedias popularity and functionality that makes its users so devoted to its rules and regulations.