User:Sasharoach/Report

The Wikipedia Foundation and users of Wikipedia have created a multi-faceted, innovative, and thoroughly successful virtual platform for finding information. Its highly autonomous structure has given users a space to freely contribute their knowledge about niche topics, and also learn about subjects they want more information on. As a user, you can start your own page on a new topic that hasn’t been covered yet, or edit and add to articles already published by other writers. Although it has proven to be a lucrative platform, there are aspects that could use improvement. It lacks a user-friendly structure, making it difficult to become skilled at navigating the site. Additionally,  Wikipedia holds reliability issues, calling the accuracy of its information into question. Through a couple simple improvements, these challenges faced by Wikipedia can be mitigated, only increasing its success as an informative platform.

Based on my own experience editing and publishing a page on Wikipedia, it is a relatively difficult site to navigate. I was consistently confused about where in the site I was, and every step took me a significant amount of time to complete. Granted, I don’t have high Wikipedia proficiency and have only been using the platform for two months. However, I have become accustomed to the other websites studied in class much quicker, which makes me believe it is a usability  issue on Wikipedia’s end. As we talked about in previous weeks, it is important for sites to think about how they look to newcomers and how to attract as many newcomers as possible. This is how sites build and maintain users and ensure longevity and success within their platform. If Wikipedia tweaked their usability to be less intimidating and difficult to navigate, I think people would be more likely to use it for editing purposes, rather than just using it to read information. For me personally, it is unlikely that I would use Wikipedia again, simply because of how confusing and difficult to navigate I found it to be. Additionally, it also feels outdated and reminds me of how websites used to look 10-20 years ago. By adopting a new, more approachable format and improving user-friendliness, even just by a small amount, I think Wikipedia would attract much more people. Ensuring the site is not intimidating and is learn-able for anyone, regardless of previous proficiency, is key for bringing in new users. If users are able to navigate the site quicker, they are more likely to use it long-term and continue making edits and creating articles. I don’t think Wikipedia needs an entirely new look/brand, but updating the visual appeal and the format (adding icons, larger font, less separate pages, etc) would immensely help the site’s success and sustainability.

The other issue I have found with Wikipedia, is how relaxed the site is about information reliability and accuracy. Although the majority of the information found on the site is true, I was shocked at how easy it was for me to write about something and publish it as an official Wikipedia page. While I became educated on my topic during this assignment, I did not have previous knowledge of Bluey the Australian Cattle Dog, and by no means was an expert on the topic. Because of this, I assumed my writing would have to undergo some kind of review or check before going live, however this wasn’t the case. Although it is later thoroughly reviewed and is subject to edits by other users, theoretically, people can initially publish whatever information they want. False information most likely wouldn’t last very long on the internet, but I find it interesting that it is even able to happen from the start on such an established site like Wikipedia. Reliability is another topic we went over in class, and a significant challenge for almost all of the sites we studied. Wikipedia does stand out, because information undergoes much more review than sites like Reddit or Yelp, but it also generally deals with topics that are more formal and/or serious. I would suggest that Wikipedia adds an initial review step when someone publishes an article or makes significant edits to an already existing article. This review step would require a quick glance-over (likely by bots) to make sure there is no blatantly wrong or biased information. The site would be “published”, but not actually live and able to be viewed by the public until it is reviewed. In order for this to be successful, it would have to be a quick process. People don’t like to wait and it could defer them from engaging in edits to articles if they have to wait a long time for their changes to even go live. However, making it quick and efficient would be a worthwhile addition in order to ensure consistency and reliability across all articles.

Overall, Wikipedia is an extremely successful site, and a valuable resource for finding information and contributing knowledge about specific topics, people, and places. It has been around for a long time and I don’t see it decreasing in relevance any time soon. However, I think the improvements talked about earlier would greatly help with ensuring long-term sustainability and success for the site. Using what we have learned in class, and comparing Wikipedia to other platforms, we can continue making improvements to the site and increase user-friendliness and reliability. I have greatly enjoyed working with Wikipedia and have learned a lot about the different functions and tools at our disposal within the platform. By incorporating these improvements, Wikipedia will continue to lead the virtual information industry and maintain long time users.