User:Pisces Unicorn/COM 482 A Report Wiki Assignment Task No 7

Pisces Unicorn

COM 482 A

17 February 2020

Prof. User:Benjamin_Mako_Hill = Wikipedia Report = Becoming a Wikipedian felt lonely, frustrating, and confusing. Even while participating in the wikiedu.org course and having access to knowledgeable, experienced Wikipedians, I found myself extremely frustrated. I watched as my classmates gave up on navigating Wikipedia and opted to use hyperlinks in wikiedu.org to locate sub-pages in their namespace because the UI of Wikipedia was too alien or outdated to them. Additionally, I found it challenging to engage in the community on Wikipedia. A random user left a friendly message on my talk page. Still, they had no userspace pages to engage with, and every talk page I contributed to had no other responses during the month of the Wikipedia Assignments in which I participated. After reflecting on the lessons from Building Successful Online Communities: Evidence-Based Social Design, I have generated the following feedback.

This report recommends fostering spaces for bonds between Wikipedians to form, adding new incentives for meaningful contributions, and freshening up the appearance of the site for a new generation of editors who bring knowledge from other popular UI mechanics.

Although Wikipedia has a low barrier to entry, the barrier to understanding Wikipedia and becoming a recognizable participant is high. A new user will find that their userspace doesn't exist, and they have to manually create the page and start from scratch in describing themselves. While this allows for creative use of the sandbox, it can feel off-putting to new users who expect to find a "profile" mechanic that tracks their contributions, their data, and their social interactions through visual indicators. Wikipedians with hundreds of edits and contributions may not have a namespace at all -- so, contacting them (to maybe encourage them to join a wiki project that would seem relevant to them based on their past contributions) may become a hurdle. At the same time, new editors may not know about the concepts of namespaces, wikiprojects, or barnstars because there is an invisible wall separating articles from special pages. The missing "profile" mechanic is a microcosm of a bigger problem, the confusing nature of the site.

Many links on Wikipedia have the disorienting effect of leading users to pages that do not exist or pages that do not represent what they had hoped to find by interacting with the hypertext. Wikipedia's UI is dated, out-of-style, and a new generation of internet users that have become familiarized with almost-universal website mechanics like the "user profile" will perceive a "create a page" message as almost equivalent to a "404 Error". As a result, casual users will find it difficult to carry over their understanding of UI on other popular sites to navigate Wikipedia successfully.

= Actionable Advice = Encourage users to invest in an online presence in the community by notifying them to login to their account when editing anonymously. As they accumulate contributions under their username, they can feel a sense of ownership of their account, which will lead to their attribution of sentimental value to their time on Wikipedia and function as an intrinsic motivator to continue contributing. Additionally, participating under a username will allow other Wikipedians to identify editors who may take an interest in a Wikiproject and help foster bonds between users. Bonds-based commitments can strongly motivate users to continue participating in an online community.

Currently, searching Wikipedia in the main search bar for an editor's username will result in articles and not user spaces unless you access the advanced settings of the internal search engine, discouraging Wikipedians from finding each other again on the site and fostering community. Furthermore, giving new users a walkthrough of how to create a namespace page will give other community members an idea of who new users are (their interests, their talents, and their potential contributions), and encourage friendly interactions between newcomers and experienced Wikipedians.

Use the namespace tutorial as an opportunity to teach users about templates, identify which WikiProjects they may want to join, and introduce them to editing in a sandbox. During the tutorial, sponsor active WikiProjects as suggested sub-communities that editors can join and streamline the process of adding interest boxes to their namespace. Create an automatic template that can show users how many contributions they have made and how many of those contributions have been reverted so they can get a sense of how well they are following community norms. Invite new users to try wikiedu.org before editing articles and reward users who complete tutorials on Wikiedu.org with barnstars for perfect scores on their tutorial check-point quizzes. Considering the theory of cognitive dissonance, if users spend time creating a Wikipedian identity by utilizing their namespace, they're more likely to think of themselves as a Wikipedian and continue contributing.

There are trade-offs for all of these suggestions, of course. Creating a walkthrough of setting up an account will likely raise the barrier to entry slightly, and alienate experienced users who have custom namespaces that serve them well. Userspaces that have had obvious time-commitment behind their design may be larger targets for vandalism, especially by other editors who take issue with the contributions of a particular Wikipedian. Additionally, new users who have many of their changes reverted may feel alienated and give up or engage in edit wars if they feel reversions have been unjust. Making certain WikiProjects easier to join may lead to an overwhelming number of newcomers to that sub-community and alienate the established members; but, may also give fresh perspectives and more helping hands to the project. Finally, rewarding users with low-value rewards may encourage unwanted behavior, but tutorial barnstars are unlikely to lead to much disruptive behavior because they wouldn't be valuable outside Wikipedia.

Creating automatic notifications for reaching certain milestones is a step in the right direction, I know I appreciated seeing a notification that I had made my 100th edit. Other notifications, such as reaching milestones on the number of articles edited and randomized greeting messages upon login, may also encourage people to use their accounts more consistently.