User:Ppatel2020/Report

Wikipedia Report

Wikipedia has provided an ample amount of information for students and researchers alike. While Wikipedia has been a strength to the community, one thing the company should think about changing is the ability for anyone to edit the information. Students like us are able to go inside Wikipedia and learn and make edits to important causes. However, it has been shown across media and across various Facebook pages that people make "funny" edits. This in turn is basically a way for others to troll Wikipedia pages and make harmful edits. While the company does help strike down people who make fake posts or edits quickly, it is still harmful for the community.

My experience with Wikipedia has been a very important growth in my career. At first, I wasn't sure what I wanted to work on and edit within the community. The movie If I Were a Spy stood out to me and began what would be my Wikipedia edit portion. I was not previously aware of sandbox pages, the ability to edit and cite, how to insert or how to make any changes in Wikipedia. More importantly, each weekly module helped me grow my own knowledge within Wikipedia and how to make changes to better adhere to what I learned in my article. For example, in If I Were a Spy, I added a plot section as well as a character within the article. Before starting this class, I would have no idea on how to approach making changes and what I can do to make better edits. Learning about how to add citations and being able to distinguish what makes a good Wikipedia article was one of the most important things I learned in this class. One principle that really stood out to me when working on Wikipedia and learning about online communities in general was the Motivation and Commitment principles we learned in BSOC. Online communities have made strides since the start of the internet, whether this is meme pages or important research organizations. Motivation is an important part of how communities incentive participation. In online gaming communities, being able to talk to people about a similar interest brings people together. In Wikipedia, more people work towards increasing awareness of items or subjects, or that they want to participate in. For commitments, in online gaming communities, being able to forge friendships and quests together helps build and keep relationships. In Wikipedia, being able to work together with your friends, hold parties to make contributions to Wikipedia, or being able to give gifts or stars to people who you believe are giving a strong contribution is the start of a great friendship and commitment. My recommendation to avoid having troll accounts and people messing up the quality of others work just for fun is to have a stricter rule on what can be done. Keeping the motivation factor and having experienced editors contact new editors is a great way to build community and start a great information sharing atmosphere. My recommendation should be taken into consideration due to what I was able to learn through the BSOC and from class. It's really important to the instill these values, both in motivation and commitment in order to keep up a community and the work that is being done.

One thing I won't take for granted is how much work it is to edit Wikipedia and to upload it. As someone who made edits, and went through all the modules, each week I learned something new about changing Wikipedia that I did not before. I loved seeing what was taught in class to be applied to our daily in class discussions, and moreover, being able to apply them to my work. Learning from the BSOC really taught me a lot and helped me understand how online communities really work. Being able to critique articles allowed me to follow the information we were given and be able to understand whether or not my peer had hit all the important points for a Wikipedia article to be well written. This could include sources, the title, art, and whether or not they provided a good summary. The article evaluation gave me a great start on how to get started as well as how to understand what needs to be done for my own Wikipedia article.

When working on my own article, I originally had a different article that I submitted. My new and final article was the movie If I Were a Spy. When I was working on my original article, all the changes that I had installed and put into place did not carry through for some reason. When I looked at my final page, I did not see my edits come through if any. If I Were a Spy really caught my attention and I wanted to focus my new improved article on that. The original article did not have much information if any. I originally found a source that gave a full proper summary of the article, but unfortunately could not find it the second time around. This led me to dive more into the information available and add a plot subheading as well as add a character within the movie. Adding more information to the plot and adding a character made the page more full and adhering to the information in the actual movie. I believe the article is somewhere online that I had originally found, so my new plan is to find that and make even more changes to the plot. I believe my edits were valuable additions because I was able to add more information to the plot and characters involved.

Being able to peer review was an important aspect in the class. This helped me understand what was needed in making a good Wikipedia article. I learned a lot about Wikipedia and how to apply it to my life and I look forward to making more edits soon.