User:Njpierce16/Report

Wikipedia Reflection Essay
My experience running through the Wiki Training and eventually going live with my expanded article made me realize how easy it is to contribute to Wikipedia. Up until this point, engaging with the website and the thought of making contributions was a mysterious prospect. I can understand why such a small percentage of users become “Wikipedians”, and I believe that Wikipedia could improve their methods of attracting and maintaining committed contributors.

Considering that Wikipedia is legitimately everywhere on the internet, I’m surprised that I haven’t encountered any kind of promotional material regarding becoming an editor. The first chapter in Kraut/Reznick book talks explicitly about asking for help from [potential] community members, and stresses the importance of doing so. One way in which Wikipedia could tackle this problem is to apply normative motivators to widespread advertising. Ads could be scattered across different sites on the internet with messaging such as “Team up with the ___ users on Wikipedia and contribute your knowledge on [insert subject]” or “Did you know you could change the way people understand [insert subject]?”

Of course, those examples are wordy, but the point I’m trying to make is that contributing to Wikipedia can provide users a chance to spread the word about something they’re passionate about. Obviously the articles they’re writing have to be encyclopedic and neutral, but there is a thrill in knowing that the research you’ve applied to a subject might have a greater ripple effect than you could anticipate. To provide a concrete example from my experience, I made sure to include the research I’d done on a local hospital in the lead section of my article on Woodland Park, CO. The reason I did this was so that anyone researching Woodland Park, either as a place to live or visit, would know right off the bat where the hospital was located and what services were offered. Thinking of the small possibility that this assists someone in case of an emergency felt really special. The same normative “reward” applied to any new factual information I added. I believe that if Wikipedia framed their recruitment efforts in terms of the real world implications that an effective, encyclopedic article could have, they would incentivize more casual users to contribute.

A second form of recruitment should demystify the process of contributing. The air of mystique can’t be an intentional design choice. To remedy this, Wikipedia could utilize web ads that quickly delineate the ease of contributing. Perhaps a 10-20 second YouTube ad that goes through steps A-Z of contributing to an article. Granted, this may not have an immediate impact since the majority of people might just tune the ad out, but as the fifth chapter of the Kraut/Reznick book discusses, the more you put something in front of people the more the heuristic processing of familiarity influences them to try that thing. I think that this form of advertising coupled with the motivational form mentioned above would increase a user’s willingness to contribute.

Another issue I encountered during the article evaluation stage was the surprising lack of proper citation. Many articles have walls of text with incredibly specific, convincing material that lack any kind of citation. I propose that Wikipedia implement a new system similar to sandboxes or the talk page where any sections missing citation are automatically transferred to a different location by automated moderators (and the author is notified) for review. They could call it the “cutting room” or possibly something more friendly. This would allow people to click through different tabs if they were curious to see what uncited information was present knowing full well that they shouldn't trust that information. This process would give editors a chance to fix their citations without the whole paragraph being removed entirely. The fourth chapter of the Kraut/Reznick book discusses redirecting “inappropriate” posts to other places. While I don’t think uncitated work is intentionally “inappropriate” (although it could be), it can be damaging to an article’s credibility, but this solution would offer a less demoralizing outcome for contributors.

The final point of constructive criticism I would like to make is influenced by the “Tea and Sympathy...” peer-reviewed paper by Jonathan T. Morgan, et al. I revisited my article page after reading the paper and was somewhat dismayed to find that my page had already been flagged for review. The first sentence above my article read, “This article has multiple issues.” Wikipedia needs to do a better job interfacing with it’s contributors before throwing up blatant caution tape. I understand the contradiction Wikipedia faces in this situation. From the outside looking in, if I read the flag about an article having “multiple issues” and I was a researcher, I would appreciate Wikipedia saving me the time. Furthermore, if I was a Wikipedian looking for an article to improve and I saw the flag, I might even be inspired to “correct the wrong” by helping to improve it. However, to someone who devotes a significant portion of time to improving an article and feels that satisfaction of going live for the first time, pulling up the article and seeing the flag is a slap to the face. I propose that Wikipedia adopt a more dynamic UI that responds with different “flag” messages depending on who is viewing the page. If an article’s contributor is logged in and viewing the page, the message should be supportive and constructive instead of cold and uncompromising. Of course, this is only a bandaid to the larger concern that the “Tea…” paper examines.

While I do think the ease of contribution is a major draw for Wikipedia, there are some inherent contradictions surrounding the website that create difficulties for new users. Remedying the tension between credibility and community support is going to be the biggest challenge the website faces going forward. Hopefully my critiques provide food for thought in addressing that challenge.

--Njpierce16 (talk) 23:18, 13 February 2022 (UTC)