User:Rmudg/report

My Wikipedia experience was an overall success. By the end of the assignment, I successfully added my edits to the live article. I believe Wikipedia has features like the sandbox and talk page that were crucial to my success as a newcomer in the community. However, Wikipedia needs to make changes to the newcomer experience by altering how existing members interact with new users by improving existing norms and implementing designated users to welcome newcomers.

After my experience on Wikipedia, I found multiple things that I believe Wikipedia can do in order to improve their community. One of the major changes that I think can be made on Wikipedia is being more open and welcoming to newcomers. While introducing myself on my professor's talk page, I came across an “experienced user” who posted a section saying how many students had broken norms and that there were problems with the course. The user @Wizzito started to list bullet points about how students were making mistakes. When I read this, I was confused as to why the user wouldn’t reach out to the individual students that made the mistake and help them correct it. My point from mentioning this is that Wikipedia needs to do a better job when it comes to systematically supporting good newcomer experiences. I think Wikipedia should designate people to welcome newcomers and to help with their mistakes when they make them. When newcomers have friendly and helpful experiences with existing community members soon after joining the community, they are more likely to stay longer and contribute more. Another point that would support this claim is early on, I was faced with Wikipedia’s norms when I accidentally edited a live article using improper tones and sources. I was met with a deletion of the edits and a message on my talk page. The Kraut and Resnick textbook, explains that norm violations can cause members to leave a community. At the time that I committed this norm violation, I didn’t have the option to leave the community but I became intimidated by the community because I had made a mistake and they let me know. I believe if there were experienced users designated to welcome newcomers then the process would be a lot less intimidating and might help new users stick around for longer. Everyone doesn’t have a college professor guiding them step by step like me and my classmates so I believe this is a very important change that can be made.

Wikipedia communities are declining and a big reason for that seems to be because the newcomers that are showing up, are getting rejected. From our lectures in class, we learned that increased newcomer rejection leads to decreased newcomer retention. One of the suggestions I have for improving this after experiencing being a newcomer is to improve their norms against unfriendly interactions between Wikipedia users. In class, we learned that there are users on Wikipedia that like to be mean to newcomers even though they know they aren’t being nice. Wikipedia already has norms in place to fight these unfriendly actions but I believe they can do better. During my time on Wikipedia, I ran into numerous accounts on different articles revision history that weren’t being friendly and were clearly violating these norms. Wikipedia should allow other experienced members to review these unfriendly comments and take away specific awards and badges from the offender's accounts. If Wikipedia shows that there are serious consequences for being harmful to newcomers, they will see higher retention of new users. Wikipedia is already intimidating enough to jump into, especially without any guidance. They should do their utmost to ensure that new users have a good experience the first few days in the community because new user retention is crucial to the continued success of Wikipedia.

Although there are changes to be made in the community of Wikipedia, I believe there are certain aspects of the website that really help with newcomer engagement and allow newcomers to grow into Wikipedia norms into becoming regular users. One of the most important things I learned from the editing process was how to protect communities from harmful behavior by newcomers (like myself). One of the design claims in the Kraut and Resnick textbook explains that the use of sandboxes creates spaces for safe learning and experimentation while reducing the potential for harm through compartmentalization. Wikipedia’s sandbox feature does just that and was the most useful tool for me as a newcomer. It allowed me to learn all of the editing features while also learning how to utilize features like talk pages and revision history. This gave me a safe space to edit and learn without having to worry about making mistakes that could violate the community norms. This sandbox feature is very unique when it comes to online communities. I have been a part of many online communities ranging from many different platforms and not one has had a sandbox feature. I think this feature of Wikipedia sets it apart from most online communities and is a great feature that should be implemented in more places.

My Wikipedia experience was an overall great learning experience. Wikipedia’s features like the sandbox and talk page were crucial to my success as a newcomer in the community. However, Wikipedia needs to improve the newcomer experience by altering how existing members interact with new users by revamping existing norms and implementing designated users to welcome newcomers. I believe my recommendations should be taken seriously because I have just gone through the newcomer experience and now know the process well and now feel like I am more of an experienced Wikipedian. My recommendations fill in the gaps when it comes to newcomer experience and I think they would be very useful for future newcomers.