User:Nbrown16/report

Wikipedia Reflection
I always remember my teachers throughout grade school reminding us to never rely on Wikipedia as a source for research. While that remains true, my recent experience with Wikipedia altered my view that I once had. No, things written on Wikipedia shouldn’t be taken at face value. The obvious drawback is that anyone can edit any article at any time, so research on Wikipedia should be approached with caution. However, drafting an article through the extension “Wikiedu” made me realize how much the site cares about reliable information being posted for everyone to see. Going into it, the process seemed very intimidating. There was no profile I had to create or structured discussion pages to introduce myself, rather I was solely relying on feedback from my instructors and the tutorial sessions provided by Wikiedu. The Wikipedia tutorials however were straightforward, and they made the process of drafting/editing an article less intimidating. Wikipedia has a lot of rules to follow, but Wikiedu made it easy for the user to allow time to experiment with edits, finding reliable sources, and of course, choosing a topic. A big thing I learned from editing and drafting an article is, put simply, how to write like a “Wikipedian.” I was able to get constant feedback from instructors, and one of the things I struggled with most was tone. I chose to edit an existing article that covered an EP album of a band I was familiar with. The problem I was running into however was that I was struggling to find the right words and sources to sum up the “trivia” section of the article. It sounded more like a review than an encyclopedia article. The good thing is, I was able to adjust the article and make improvements based on expert feedback from my instructors, who were expert Wikipedians as well. If I didn’t have their advice at my disposal, the article I published would have likely been heavily moderated and a lot of content removed. In my opinion, this is what Wikipedia needs to improve upon the most.

Like I mentioned before, adding to Wikipedia is not an easy task. The site must have a lot of rules in place and require heavy moderation if it’s going to allow anyone to contribute to an article. In my experience, the article I edited could have been a lot worse if it weren’t for expert feedback from my instructors. That said, Wikipedia should capitalize on this. There are many things Wikipedia can change to provide a better more inviting experience to new users. Primarily, Wikipedia needs to connect its users with each other. The best online communities I’ve studied throughout this quarter have great communication methods to make users feel welcome. Simply getting users to participate and socialize early on in the process can prevent a lot of users from early exits. Since Wikipedia has such a long list of rules, this can lead to numerous questions, especially from inexperienced users. Creating a separate section where users can ask questions, get feedback, and ultimately connect with other editors would be a great way to get users to stay committed to the editing process. I’ve always found that the best communities have a detailed FAQ page for questions and discussions. If a community is going to rely purely on intrinsic motivation to keep itself running, it needs to encourage users rather than discourage, otherwise intrinsic motivation will be lost. A community needs to feel like a community, but Wikipedia’s talk page feature isn’t expansive enough for users to feel at home. While I was relieved to finally publish the article I was working on, I little part of me was worried something would happen to the article when it went through, and the only form of feedback I could get, aside from my instructors, was potentially from someone I didn’t know on my article talk page. Users should feel accomplished about what they publish, rather than worrying about criticism from an anonymous, more experienced user who might even remove information from an article.

Another piece of advice I can recommend to the Wikimedia foundation is letting users create an identity for themselves. I’m sure there are plenty of users on Wikipedia that would love to show off their experience and editing skills, but for new users, staying committed should require an option early on to create a personal profile. Many new users like myself, felt isolated once I created my account. All I had was my Wiki username and my instructors for additional help. But the instructors don’t come with everyone’s profile, so again, I was lucky enough to have some support. This could go hand in hand with a community page like I mentioned above. It would allow users to stay connected with real people which would limit the feeling of Wikipedia isolation. In my experience, Wikiedu had profiles for everyone participating in the course. The only information shared however, was how many edits someone made or how many words or references this user was adding to an article. While this information might be helpful for an instructor, it doesn’t really connect the students with each other. The only way for students to connect were through peer reviews or on the talk page of an article. If Wikipedia allowed for expanded user profiles, with also the possibility of building up a profile based on experience, this could be a way for users of all skill levels to communicate more effectively with each other. Personally, if someone edits the content of my article, I want to know who did it and why. This would  give  some added personality to the Wiki experience and an identity for everyone that contributes.

Overall, I would say my Wikipedia experience has generally been positive. ­­Wikipedia is a community that relies heavily on intrinsic motivation from its contributors. It’s a community that encourages editors to go above and beyond to provide accurate and reliable information with active volunteers that apply heavy moderation. While intimidating, Wikipedia’s main goal is to make sure users contributing content are doing so in a thorough and professional manner, not because they have to, but because they want to. Wikipedia has been around for years unlike other online communities, and I think that’s what makes it unique. It’s a community that has stayed true to itself for more than two decades, but somehow still has enormous room for improvement.