User:Reham321/Report

Reham Hamoui

May 14, 2021

COMMLD 570

Reflection Essay

It's been an exciting experience working through the WikiEdu exercises and modules while simultaneously editing a Wikipedia article. I must admit that I found Wikipedia a touch too intimidating for my liking. From the first assignment, I struggled to identify an article that I felt confident I could add a substantial amount of content to – despite recognizing that thousands upon thousands of articles would benefit from someone's attention. I went through the recommended resources (project pages, academic subjects, etc.), but many felt overwhelming to me, and I didn't know where to start.

Wikipedia also reminds me a bit of YouTube – as soon as I enter the site, it's like I've fallen into a black hole, and the next thing I know, two hours have passed, and I'm learning about a topic I never even knew existed. As a reader and someone who probably would have never entered the site's backend to edit if it weren't for this course, that's likely ideal for Wikipedia. However, if Wikipedia wants to grow the number of edits and grow its online encyclopedia at passionate editors' hands, this is likely not ideal.

Overall, I found the site not very user-friendly as an editor. The processes for sandboxes, visual or code editor, and the talk pages just don't feel intuitive at all. Wikipedia also makes it difficult to transition between any of them. I shouldn't have to open up multiple tabs to make something go live. I understand that there is an opportunity to edit an article directly, but for someone who is just starting out – that does feel intimidating. Rather than working within a sandbox for an article under my user that I have to start somewhere away from the article itself, I think Wikipedia would benefit from having tabs on an article page in the following order: article, talk, sandbox. For the last (sandbox) tab, it would automatically create a sandbox for that article under your username when you clicked on it. Ideally, you'd be able to transition between the two tabs without losing any work (even if you have to save it first).

Secondly, I would love to see more of a standardized and actionable list on a Wikipedia's talk page. This can be anything from low hanging fruit like double checking citations or creating a new subsection. I would congregate all the "easy wins" that can bring an article's quality grade up a class and develop prompts that could help identify detailed gaps or improvements that can be made. As studied earlier in the quarter, motivation can be nurtured by simply asking, as long as it's direct and straightforward.

The benefits of this would be two-fold. This would not only help existing editors with a straightforward way to help. It would also make it as easy as possible for them. Since the number of editors is dwindling, the motivation and commitment are low to identify, fix, and maintain a page. The more barriers we can remove, the better it will be. I found the most challenging part was identifying parts of my article to improve or add to.

Another benefit could be from playing into the intrinsic or extrinsic motivations of the readers themselves. If I were to start receiving prompts on Wikipedia, I would wonder why. I would look to the page to explain the new change. This explanation could also include a call to action, and in this way a reader is entered into the pipeline to become an editor. This could play to motivation for the day-to-day reader is established.

Is there an algorithm created that notates when an article's citation hasn't been checked and confirmed in over a year? For my article, I found that one or two sources led to nowhere. I think this would help make Wikipedia articles more credible in the public and academic sphere. At this point, I'm not sure what's stopping anyone from falsifying information and linking to a dead end. When visiting an article, anyone can help confirm a citation for Wikipedia, especially if it's in line. Again, it could be as easy as a prompt that says, "is this citation accurate?" and have the reader click "yes" or "no."

These questions could be expanded to touch on other things. If little, tiny prompts appeared for the regular user – it could result in more actionable bullet points an editor could easily take care of. These prompts would be quick and not take a lot of effort on the reader's part—may be no more than once per user per page to ensure it's not hindering anyone from consuming the content they searched for. "How would you rate this article for readability?" "Accuracy?" "Content?" "Did you find all the information you were looking for? What was missing?" Then, these responses could be aggregated into a to-do list in a sidebar of the talk page.

Lastly, I would recommend that Wikipedia makes editing articles tremendously more accessible for the average visitor. Although I identified a handful of articles that I could create from scratch, I didn’t feel comfortable since I wasn’t familiar with the norms, flow, and expectations for an article. It was only through my exercise that I became more confident in the platform. As we studied throughout this course and have discussed on numerous occasions during our case studies, I recognize there are very valid reasons that an organization would create certain barriers for newcomers. Particularly when it comes to maintaining the quality of the content submitted and the dynamic of the online community.

However, while going through all the WikiEdu modules and exercises – I realized that I probably would have never learned any of this material outside this course. Yes, I frequent Wikipedia, but I can’t recall considering editing an article. Maybe I did at one point, but I could assure you that if I tried to figure it out – I probably wouldn’t have felt very comfortable in doing so. For someone who isn’t going through the trainings, how are they learning the steps and norms needed? The learning curve is long and wide.

I did enjoy my time editing and contributing to Wikipedia. Will I return? I would love to, but it’s tedious work and not very user friendly. I think if the user interface was updated, more engagement nurtured, and direction provided – my answer would be different. Provide new and old users to choose between the two. Wikipedia is very unique, and despite its numbers of edits decreasing, I would still consider it as a highly successful online community. But every community is at risk of failure at any point in time, and if I were on the Wikipedia team – I’d explore options for slight updates and tweaking to the site infrastructure to keep it relevant and accessible to all.