User:NatasaEleftheriou/Win20 COM482 Wiki Report

= Wikipedia Reflection Essay = After the first half of winter quarter taking COM 482 and joining the community of Wikipedia, I have gained insight to why as people may want to join and participate in this community. For me, joining the wikipedia community had extrinsic motivation as it was an assignment for this class. I was intrinsically motivated to contribute by editing an article as well as I could for this class and for my grade. After participating in this community and learning the norms and rules, it made think deeply about what really makes people want to contribute to wikipedia and join the community. When thinking about this question I also came across some ways wikipedia could improve as an online community.

Motivation is one of the most important things to think about when getting people to participate in an online initially and being an active participant. In the book Building Online Communities by Robert Kraut and Paul Resnick, we learned much about this concept and others. Motivation to join a community I believe is completely dependent on the kind of online community as that changes the kinds of people they target. For example, I presume wikipedia wants to have the people who are reading the articles turn to be an active participant and editor of their community. To advertise to this demographic, I propose that wikipedia uses ad remarketing or ad tracking, which is an asset used by web advertisers to suggests to people in an advertisement that they return to websites they recently visited after they have left them. This could be an effective tool for wikipedia as they can market towards the demographic of people who read wikipedia articles but don’t necessarily participate but I suggest in only if they follow design claim number 34 from chapter 2 of BSOC. The claim suggests that “people will be more willing to contribute in an online group when they think that they are more unique and that others in the group cannot make the same contributions as them,” (Kraut & Resnick, 64). I believe that this type of advertising and specifically the ad for the consumer should be personal and feel customized. It should make the consumer feel unique and intelligent to want to participate in editing articles. This ad could act almost as an invitation to wiki article readers. I believe this is an extremely effective way of motivating people to participate and bring in newcomers at the same time.

Commitment is also a large problem for online communities, once you get people to come, how do you get them to stay there? Whenever a user joins wikipedia, I recommend that wikipedia reward them once for joining and set up a large list of tasks where only certain phases can be seen at a time so completing phases doesn’t feel too daunting but still challenge users enough (DC31, Ch. 2). If wikipedia made their website structured in a way where there were more suggested tasks and levels of certification and like a game, I believe that more people would want to contribute. In fact, it could motivate me to come back and complete tasks and contribute. A similar idea of this is when in class we discussed verified yelpers and how the Twitch community created levels of certification(DC 23, Ch.2). Another suggestion also would be if wikipedia incorporated a friending another user so you can help each other edit each others articles in sandboxes feature. If wikipedia can successfully create small communities between users, “people will be more likely to participate when the group is smaller rather than large,” (Kraut & Resnick, 63) as design claim 33 suggests in chapter 2 on commitment. This means that people could be editing and working on many articles together and in small communities. It also could be important if wikipedia added tasks with rewards on every occasion, they should be spaced in a way where rewards aren’t too distant but also not too close so that way they feel achievable but also the individual can feel rewarded when they reach the goal. If rewarded too much it can cause users to become less interested in tasks so the task itself will be sufficient in most cases (DC 30 Ch.2, Kraut and Resnick, 60). It also will create a community and therefore cause commitment to go up and can help people find friendships. This refers to ID based commitment, and could lead to bonds based commitment if users bond enough. It also touches on normative and needs based. ID based commitment would be achieved through the personalized advertising towards people who use wikipedia and making them feel special and will create that commitment. For bonds based, if wikipedia adds a task that says “friend 2-4 people working on an article you are interested in and edit it together with them”, this task can create a community and bonds based commitment if they are led though without conflict and roles be assigned randomly with no single group member in charge. The normative based commitment can come through their obligation to this community to help them edit articles and make wikipedia overall a better encyclopedia. Lastly the needs based commitment gets touched on when they feel like they are valued by the wikipedia as well as an individual and feel as if they are helping lots of people learn which the benefits outweigh the cost. Those concepts alone can make the difference of someone being committed or not.

Some other changes that I think could be helpful is updating wikipedia and making the site design more modern. It is very dated and I feel that it makes it almost very boring to edit. Another fun idea I came up with for wikipedia would be that it would be fun to have a little mascot for wikipedia with a cute face that gives you instruction and direction on editing, achieving tasks, cheers you on as you edit, and is a helper if you need help. Something that comes to mind is the paperclip mascot from Microsoft word. Something similar looking to that could be very effective in keeping users engaged and participating.

At the end of the day humans are complex and highly intellectual beings that when combine with something so new like technology, it can be hard to understand why we commit to things and what motivates us to do so. After taking this class and being a communication major, I can confidently say I have a larger understanding of that and can use my knowledge to help companies like Wikipedia improve and a greater understanding of online communities.