User:Ortiz.da/WP Contribution

Until I started exploring Wikipedia for this class, I had never realized how complex and deeply social it is. From basic rules and editing styles, to arbitration committees and barnstars, there is so much that goes on behind the scenes of this online community that the average Wikipedia visitor will never see. It is a well established, active online community filled with individuals who are deeply passionate about what they do. However, I found my time on Wikipedia somewhat difficult and unwelcoming. Wikipedia faces a difficult challenge of upholding its high standards for quality, while remaining open to new editors. I believe that the newbie Wikipedian experience could be improved in several ways, namely by creating a more streamlined “getting started” guide and by encouraging veterans to welcome newcomers with a positive attitude that extends beyond impersonal civility and politeness.

One of my first concerns with contributing to Wikipedia was that I felt like I had to match the “Wikipedia” writing style. To me, I was just one small newbie editor trying to blend in with the monolith that is Wikipedia. This was a daunting task, and I didn’t want to make any mistakes that would draw unwanted attention to my edits. Thankfully, the Wikipedia sandbox exists to help alleviate these issues. This space gave me an opportunity to play around with things and get a feel for basic syntax editing, making “edits” without any real consequence. My experience directly lines up with the design claim from Kraut et al. that, “Sandboxes both speed up the learning process for newcomers and reduce the harm to the community that newcomers might otherwise cause” (p. 219). My sandbox was a great place to get started in. It felt safe from criticism and I didn’t have to worry about things like describing my edits. Compared to the hustle and bustle of the Wikipedia mainspace, this was a hidden corner for me to gain my footing in.

While I had the help of our class’ Wiki Education Dashboard tutorials, as well as guidance from our professor, many new editors may struggle to find a good place to start learning the do’s and don'ts of Wikipedia editing. This is why I believe it would be helpful to create a more robust getting started program for new Wikipedians. This brief training would be required for newcomers and would run through a series of basic first steps, introducing users to things like their sandbox, user page, and basic editing policies. Kraut et al. argue that, “By using formal, sequential, and collective socialization tactics, new members are likely to become more committed to the community, learn how to behave in it, and contribute more” (p. 215). As I learned while writing my article, Wikipedia holds its writers to high standards including topic notability, neutral point of view, and good citations. A basic tutorial like the one I am proposing would be useful in conveying the importance of these requirements.

In such a program, Wikipedia could also take advantage of the design claim from Kraut et al. that states, “publicly displaying examples of appropriate behavior on the site shows members what is expected and increases their adherence to those expectations” (p. 143). Without the knowledge of how to properly write for and edit Wikipedia, many good-intentioned newcomers (including myself) might mistakenly break a rule without meaning to. By providing newcomers with concrete examples of good editing practices, Wikipedia could help them write more quality content while avoiding common editing pitfalls.

Throughout its years of operation, Wikipedia has amassed quite a large collection of rules and guidelines, meaning there are many possible editing pitfalls for new users. In my experience, it seems like Wikipedians are more than happy to point out when you break one of these rules, but less willing to make them easy to know in the first place. For example, in this edit to the Daylio article, I was told not to include links in an article text, and was pointed to the appropriate rule page. While I appreciated this edit, it seems like teaching newcomers by waiting for them to break the rules is not a very welcoming way to form a community. Being told to look at the crypticly named “Wiki:EL” page also seems like a minor FAQ slap. In my opinion, it would be best to teach little things like this to new users before they even start editing the mainspace. This would prevent new users from getting discouraged by minor mistakes like this.

While editing on Wikipedia, I felt like I had to be very careful not to make a mistake or else somebody would swoop in and point it out. I generally felt like my contribution wasn’t very appreciated, and there was more focus on what was wrong than what was right. For instance, this comment on the article’s talk page as well as the accompanying edits seemed like a “hit and run”. To me, this interaction communicates that the user wasn’t very interested in helping me to become a better editor. While definitely not toxic, this behavior was slightly unwelcoming.

In general, I experienced very few “friendly” interactions with other Wikipedians. It seemed like everyone was polite and to the point, but nobody made much of an effort to reach out and welcome me in a personal way. I did receive two messages on my talk page, one from a bot inviting me to the Teahouse, and one from a Wiki Education worker that seemed pretty impersonal. Kraut et al make the very accurate design claim that, “When newcomers have friendly interactions with existing community members soon after joining a community, they are more likely to stay longer and contribute more” (p. 208). One thing that makes me feel more comfortable in a community is when somebody reaches out personally to me. In a game setting, this might mean grouping up and playing a few matches together. Unfortunately, I didn’t have an equivalent experience on Wikipedia, where most of my interactions with the community felt very businesslike.

As my article received more attention, I got to witness the collaborative and iterative editing that takes place on Wikipedia. One user came by and added in external links (some of which were later removed as they were considered promotional). While it was nice to see my article be improved, it was also a bit disheartening to see it slowly get chipped away at. I got pretty worried when one user said they were close to nominating my article for deletion since it seemed like an advertisement with some problematic sources. However, after they made some changes, it seemed like the article was fine to them.

Strangely enough, the article was just recently nominated for speedy deletion, before being quickly “un-nominated” by another user. The fact that my work could have been taken down so suddenly is pretty discouraging. However, it was nice to see another user stand up for the page, and their words were one of the more encouraging parts of my Wikipedia experience. It was also reassuring to see that they were a long time Wikipedia user, and even had worked at the Wikimedia Foundation for a period of time. While brief and to the point, this “standing up for” my article was nice to see for once. It focused on what was good about the article rather than what was wrong.

As I reflect on my experience with Wikipedia, I’m realizing more and more that even though I created the page, and made the initial contribution of content, the “Daylio (app)” Wikipedia article is not “mine”. In fact, it doesn’t belong to anyone, including the more experienced users. This realization stems, in part, from recalling the ArbCom comments that were directed towards WikiProject Military History during the conflicts that arose with Ksenia Coffman .Regardless of authority, experience level, or passion for a subject, nobody “owns” a Wikipedia article. I think that keeping this in mind could help me to become less distressed whenever I see the page edited, or even nominated for deletion. In the end, the goal is to document a particular topic so that more people can know about it.

Two difficulties I experienced as a Wikipedia newcomer were learning to navigate the website’s features and the firmly polite (though slightly discouraging) criticism that I was often met with. I believe that these issues could be remedied through the use of a stronger getting started guide for newcomers, and a conscious community effort to encourage newcomers by emphasizing the strengths, rather than the weaknesses, of new editors. I’m glad I was able to get a chance to participate in the Wikipedia community. I learned a lot about what it means to write a good article, and how much work actually goes into the articles that I often just take for granted. While I don’t think I’ll be making any major edits soon, I can confidently say I have a greater appreciation for the work that gets done by this hardworking community.