User:Peanutbutterisbad/Reflection

I always thought Wikipedia was for major nerds and old people. No hate to major nerds or old people, I just never thought it would be a place I could feel comfortable in. So, when I saw how much of our class revolves around immersing myself in the Wikipedia community, I was pretty nervous. But I am happy to say I had a good time. Still, my experience as an intimidated newcomer makes sense, as Wikipedia has a lot of barriers for this group. It is making genuine efforts to close that gap, which leads to community integration unlike what I have seen anywhere else because Wikipedia uniquely has vast newcomer initiation resources and is a good faith collaboration-based prosocial community.

At first, I was scared to contribute to Wikipedia. As you may recall from the beginning of the semester, I created my Wikipedia account solely to add myself as a notable alum from my high school. However, I never got around to completing this goal because I could not figure out how to edit the article. In general, I find that Wikipedia is not the easiest website to navigate, especially as a newcomer from Gen Z. Instead of the sleek, icon-based designs of other websites I regularly visit (such as Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram), Wikipedia has a lot of words and source editing, which takes time and effort to learn. If I did not have grades as a motivation, WikiEdu resources, class lectures, and a knowledgeable professor, I believe I would never learned to edit Wikipedia. Now, that is not to say editing on Wikipedia is an incredibly insurmountable task – I am also a lazy person. Still, I believe all the help I received really improved my newcomer experience.

Perhaps the most important educational experience for me was the training modules on WikiEdu. By completing these, I learned about Wikipedia’s policies, how to edit (both in visual and source editor), how to create sandboxes, how to evaluate sources, etc. I learned essentially everything necessary to meaningfully contribute to any Wikipedia article. It was from these modules that I found a stub article about banking lobbies to work on. From there, I began planning and drafting my edits to the article in my sandbox. I found this process quite fun, actually. It was like writing a research paper on a subject I never thought I would voluntarily research, which does not sound fun when described as such, but I promise I enjoyed it. Eventually, I moved my draft over to the mainspace (after for asking for permission on the talk page, of course). While I had successfully made meaningful contributions to Wikipedia, I still felt left out of the Wikipedia community. Although I had helped work towards Wikipedia’s goal of creating free access to high-quality knowledge, I had yet to engage with Wikipedians that were not from our Online Communities class.

At this point, I realized that, as a Wikipedia newcomer, I must actively seek out interaction instead of waiting for it to come to me. This is when I posted on Teahouse, a place for newcomers to seek help from more experienced users, and contacted every editor of my article that was not banned (which, interestingly, was a decent amount of previous editors) seeking feedback on my recent contributions to my article. My efforts are summed up in this table:

As you can see, only four people responded to me. The effort of the feedback varied, but all these interactions made me feel a lot more welcome and integrated into the community. One of the previous contributors replied to my Talk page post saying they would make recommendations but ended up only thanking me for my edits. This simple act of gratitude made me feel a lot more confident in my contributions and encouraged me to continue to edit on Wikipedia — something I will discuss more in-depth later. Other previous contributors gave specific comments on my contributions, even citing explanatory Wikipedia essays for me to refer to. One of them told me that they do not know much about the subject, so they referred me to the finance WikiProject for further feedback. I found the high-quality responses rather surprising. These users worked to encourage me to keep editing by expressing gratitude while connecting me to any resources that could improve me as an editor AND the article overall. I want to briefly mention that I added links to my article (here, here, and here) and requested feedback on existing similar articles, but I do not think these efforts resulted in anything. Oh well! In contrast, all the previous contributors that responded to me had really valuable insights, so I decided to take my feedback requests to the finance Wikiproject (as one of the contributors suggested) to see what would happen.

Although only two people from the finance WikiProject left me written feedback, I noticed several new editors on the article in the days following my request for feedback (their contributions compared to each other can be seen here, here, and here). To me, the fact that these people still chose to read my article, edit it, but not leave any written comments is still a form of feedback. They are saying, “Good job! Only minor edits were needed.” As for the two people who wrote out the changes they wanted to see, they were the nicest people I had interacted with thus far. One of them used their knowledge of US banking and regulation to refer me to other articles that would be useful for my research and the other was just a sweetheart who really encouraged me to continue to contribute to Wikipedia. To further analyze the different types of feedback I received I want to use the distinctions as laid out in “Effects of peer feedback on contribution: A field experiment in Wikipedia”. Researchers tested different feedback types (positive, negative, directive, and social) on Wikipedia. They found that both positive and social feedback generally increases one’s motivation to contribute whereas directive feedback does not affect motivation and negative feedback mostly decreases motivation. The researchers defined each of these terms: "- Positive: Intended to energize people through acknowledging work and providing rewards - Negative: Intended to regulate people through negative messages, warnings, and reprimands - Directive: Intended to direct people through issuing instructions, commands, assigning tasks, setting goals - Social: Intended to maintain close social relationships, support group cohesion, and develop subordinates' self-confidence and skills"

Of the six written responses I received, I would say none were negative, three were directive, three were positive, and two were social. Thus, my feelings match with the findings from “Effects of peer feedback on contribution: A field experiment in Wikipedia”. I feel more motivated after receiving this feedback to continue to contribute, especially because 1/3 of the responses I received expressed that my contributions were valuable & that they hope to see me continue to contribute to Wikipedia. This really built my confidence in my abilities and energized me to continue finding ways to contribute to Wikipedia. I felt really satisfied with the work I had done and I believe I could do it again (and maybe I will, who knows). The specific directions and examples made me feel like they cared about seeing me improve (and seeing the article improve), so I felt some obligation to follow through. However, this obligation was not negative – I did not dread the edits. Rather, it felt a lot easier because the specific resources I might need were already linked, and I knew if I had trouble I had someone to ask. The initial barriers I experienced when I created my account feel a lot smaller now. Through my experiences, I believe that gratitude, positive feedback, or anything that can build a new user’s confidence and comfort will increase intrinsic motivation to contribute, which makes for longer-lasting user commitment.

Importantly, I want to include the entirety of the feedback from User:Ixtal that stuck with me the most because of a few reasons, but most importantly that I believe it encompasses so much of what makes Wikipedia unique:

“Hi! I also took a look at your edits and want to really commend you on the quality of your contributions to that article. I don't have much feedback except to encourage you to find images to add to the article, as they can help improve readability (our brains don't seem to be into reading walls of text without pretty pictures). The article Help:Introduction to images with VisualEditor/1 can help guide you on how to add images to the article.

I hope you stay on Wikipedia after your online community class ends, as we could always use great contributors like you in the finance topic area. Many people don't get much of a financial education in school so helping provide them with free, high quality articles has an outsized impact on many lives ^u^

PS: Nice username”

I believe that Ixtal’s feedback is so unique to Wikipedia because it exemplifies how this site makes it easy to understand how to do essentially everything on the website, especially how to interact with other Wikipedians. There are essays upon essays about social norms, expectations for contributions, and “WikiLove.” By providing these in-depth resources for users of all experience levels, Wikipedia ensures that there is little confusion about how to interact with others. In fact, Wikipedia’s detailed essays adhere to several of Kraut and Resnick's design claims:

-      11. Providing potential new members with an accurate and complete picture of what the members' experience will be once they join increases the fit of those who join. (p. 199)

-      12. Forcing potential new members to pay or wait makes people who value the community more likely to join and weeds out undesirables (p. 200)

-      17. Entry barriers for newcomers may cause those who join to be more committed to the group and contribute more to it. (p. 207)

-      21. Explicitly discouraging hostility toward newcomers who make mistakes can promote friendly initial interactions between newcomers and old-timers. (p. 211)

Wikipedia’s vast resources provide newcomers with a good picture of what to expect throughout their time on the website, which adheres to design claim 11. Concepts such as WikiAge helped me understand the different types of users and also allowed me to reflect on where I am and where I would like to go. Importantly, it takes time to comb through all the different information pages and essays, which is a design choice that adheres to design claims 12 and 17. Although putting in the time to learn the rules of Wikipedia can be a deterrent, it also ensures that those who make it through have increased commitment and higher levels of desire to be there. I mean, it worked on me a few years ago when I wanted to edit Wikipedia for a joke. The effort I had to put in exceeded the amount I was willing to devote to a simple jest.

Importantly, Wikipedia establishes clear social norms such as assuming good faith and, importantly, assuming stupidity, especially for newcomers. Going back to Ixtal’s feedback, she assumed that I did not add images because I did not know how or because I was unaware of the benefits of doing so – she assumed good faith. Actually, all the feedback I received did that. They carefully described where and how I could improve, assuming in good faith that I probably did not know any better. And my interpretation of what these people said to me is also in good faith, as I believe they were all trying to help me and not intended to make me feel stupid or belittle me. In a behavioral guideline page, Wikipedia urges users, especially more experienced ones, to “not bite the newcomers”. This takes good faith one step further to encourage Wikipedians to, among many other things, improve don’t remove, avoid sarcasm and Wikipedia jargon, and listen actively while remaining calm and gracious. This explicitly adheres to design claim 21, as the article even says, “New contributors are prospective 'members' and are therefore our most valuable resource. We must treat newcomers with kindness and patience-nothing scares potentially valuable contributors away faster than hostility or elitism". In my experience, I would say Wikipedians follow this behavioral guideline, as my mistakes were never met with negativity or admonishment– there were treated as opportunities to learn. Not only have these norms made my time on Wikipedia incredibly positive, but they also generally follow a couple of Kraut & Resnick's design claims:

-      18. 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)

-      20. Assigning the responsibilities of having friendly interactions with newcomers to particular community members increases the frequency of these interactions. (p. 210)

While design claim 18 is more specific to WikiEdu students, I wanted to include it because it’s still part of the efforts that Wikipedia makes, even if it is more limited. As you know, when we all joined the class, we received a welcome message from a WikiEdu staff member that included links to training modules, the Teahouse, student FAQ, and other relevant handouts. Now, I don’t think these efforts are particularly useful for keeping students around longer, but it does make it easy for us to learn how to contribute, which, hopefully, leads us to contribute more. More generally speaking, Wikipedia seems to be testing which includes interests to browse, ways to seek help, and, perhaps most importantly, a mentor. This is an experienced user that Wikipedia has assigned to newcomers to help assist them, which adheres to design claims 18 and 20. Because this feature is fully rolled out, I do not know if this mentorship is an extension of Wikipedia’s Welcoming Committee, but that would make a lot of sense. Either way, ensuring that newcomers have these friendly, helpful interactions as soon and as often as possible is something that Wikipedia appears to be improving, which I think is a good thing. As someone who was scared away because I had no one to teach me, I think this is a truly wonderful direction to explore. Still, the number and variety of helpful pages are great, but it can be daunting.

These newcomer materials are a double-edged sword, as the amount of effort it takes to become acquainted with Wikipedia is a strong deterrent. I don’t know many people that would want to read an article on how to write an article. Why go through all this effort of learning how to use the website, create and edit articles, and understand the rules of engagement specific to the platform? I think this is because Wikipedia, unlike most other online communities, is a collaborative, prosocial community. Specifically, Wikipedia encourages good faith collaboration, which is something we’ve discussed at length throughout the semester, but I finally understood it once I immersed myself into the Wikipedia community. It is hard to create the perfect article alone, which I learned after I asked around for feedback. Even after the more experienced Wikipedians made edits and left helpful comments, Andrew from our class was still able to find edits to improve the article. The perfect article requires collaboration, and collaboration is quite difficult if we do not assume good faith. Instead of taking Andrew's feedback as an insult to my abilities or as an implication that he is a better Wikipedian than me, I understood it as a way for the two of us to work together to improve the article - the article that anyone on the web could see. We were both working to improve accessible knowledge. Wikipedia is a prosocial community, which is a huge reason why Wikipedians continue to collaborate on the website.

In The Social Net, the authors define “prosocial” behavior as voluntary actions that results in benefits for others, which is why so many people are highly dedicated to Wikipedia. This common understanding that as a Wikipedian I am working towards something to benefit humanity allows for good faith collaboration unlike what I have seen elsewhere. Let’s briefly return to Ixtal’s feedback. She said:

“I hope you stay on Wikipedia after your online community class ends, as we could always use great contributors like you in the finance topic area. Many people don’t get much of a financial education in school so helping provide them with free, high-quality articles has an outsized impact on many lives.”

Ixtal tried to motivate me to continue editing with this logic, which makes sense as her signature includes the phrase "Non nobis solum", which roughly translates to "not for us, but for everyone". This motto perfectly encapsulates this prosocial value of contributing to the greater good, which is enough to motivate people all the time. It’s the reason why people protest, raise children, etc. I can only assume that many Wikipedians see their volunteerism as some type of altruistic act, as Ixtal rightfully describes, your article could impact many people, especially if it is in a field that typical education does not cover adequately. I truly enjoy this aspect of Wikipedia, and I believe it is why it achieves good faith collaboration on such a large scale. To be a highly dedicated Wikipedian requires a belief that high-quality education should be freely accessible, which I find inspiring.

Ultimately, I found that Wikipedia has a lot of barriers to newcomer integration, but it is actively working to reduce this, and I am hopeful it will succeed because of its unique position as a good faith collaboration-based prosocial community. At first, I was scared to edit on Wikipedia, but through the numerous resources provided and reaching out to more experienced users, I was able to make substantial edits that I am proud of. My overall experience on Wikipedia has been overwhelmingly positive, which I believe is because of how Wikipedia continues to build its design about welcoming newcomers. I hope to see these efforts continue, just as I hope to continue to edit on Wikipedia. However, I will likely be busy with co-op, school, and being lazy. Still, I found an unlikely friend in Wikipedia, and that makes me happy.