User:Senceia/reflection

I had a very interesting experience when I composed and edited the article “Small-town swot” on Wikipedia. After the initial submission, it was moved from the sandbox to the main space, then moved to the draft again.After several versions of revising and many discussions with a Wikipedian, my article, along with my understanding of the Wikipedia norms, developed into a relatively mature state. I will argue that in order to survive/thrive in the online community of Wikipedia, a newcomer must understand the importance of the core policies of Wikipedia collaboration, namely “Neutral Point Of View” (NPOV), “No Original Research,” and “Verifiability.” He/she will also have to find ways to defend himself/herself when he/she is challenged by these principles while maintaining good faith and seeking support from mediators. In terms of community governance, the contribution of people from other cultures may require greater patience and support from the community.

“Neutral Point Of View” (NPOV), “No Original Research,” and “Verifiability” are the “holy trinity” in Wikipedia policy. The NPOV principle requires an article to reflect all the significant views on a topic fairly and proportionately without editorial bias. Wikipedia defines original research as using the material with no reliable published sources exist. Verifiability requires the accessibility of reliable sources to all Wikipedia users. Every article on Wikipedia must follow the three principles or they would be left out of Wikipedia.

My article was moved to the draft because an editor believed it was original research. I am responsible for the misunderstanding because I did not pay enough attention to citations when I submitted the first several drafts. As a WikiInfant, I only treated Wikipedia as an online encyclopedia and did not know well about Wikipedia guidelines in the past. My primary guideline was my experience in academic writing, and I may have treated the article as a “secondary research” article when I wrote it. To me, the first paragraph should be the introduction/conclusion in a regular academic paper, which summarizes the findings of the article. The contents introduce the background of the term from different aspects. Therefore, I only referenced articles in the “body” sections, especially when they involve data and paraphrases of published articles. I did not include citations for hit numbers or the order of occurrence of events because I felt they fall into the category of common knowledge. My misunderstanding may have made the editor felt the first paragraph, namely, the definition of “small-town swot”, is my own words and include my own judgment.

However, this is only my understanding of why I violated WP:OR. According to the editor who moved my article to the draft, “almost none of the sources mention the term” and except “one article is excellent, but outside of that, not enough sourcing”. Moreover, he believed “WeChat is not a reliable source” thus cannot be used. After reading his messages on the talk page, I immediately knew the issue was beyond a citation problem.

Cultural barriers and translation issues caused the firm beliefs of the editor that my article did not follow the “three trinities”. First, because the term describes a new trend in China, only two English articles discussed it. But the editor only saw the Economist article and missed the article published in China Daily, the English version of an important national newspaper. Moreover, the editor did not know WeChat is not only a messaging software but also a social media platform. WeChat can be seen as the Chinese counterpart of Facebook, which is also a platform for people to publish articles. However, he may feel WeChat is just messenger, a texting software.In the end, I ended up adding citations for all the sentences that I wrote. I felt it is the ultimate measure to conform to the principles of “No Original Research,” and “Verifiability”. In the final article, every sentence is linked to a reliable source that says similar things.

Regarding the language barrier, the editor used Google translate to read the Chinese articles that I cited, but since the term is so context-based, it is very difficult for Google to accurately translate it. Therefore, he always felt my sources are irrelevant to the term. After adding citations for all sentences, he still felt one article did not mention the term. Following the norms of “be nice” and “good faith”, I sent long messages to him to explain the situation. I “assumed the assumption of good faith” of him and believed all he did was trying to make my article conform to Wikipedia policies. I cited the incorrect translations from Google translate and explained how and why they were wrong. I did not hear from the editor ever since the clarification, but I truly felt his challenges made my article more suitable for publishing on Wikipedia.

In the experience, the issue that bothered me the most was the trust issue and probably the impatience of the editor. I was very annoyed when I saw him said “almost none of the sources mention the term” because except for the articles that explain the education inequalities, all of the sources mentioned the term. There are two articles that discussed the term in English but he only saw one. I found his suggestion “you need in-depth searching about the term” invalid since he did not even read all of the articles that I sourced. In his messages, he assumed the worse of me that believed I manipulated the content and provided biased information. This contradicts the “assume the best about people” guideline of Wikipedia. As a matter of fact, as a newcomer, I was excited to find a term that is not defined and tried my best to research about it both in English and in Chinese. As Reagle noted, trust not only affects the expectations of an interaction, but also the construal of it afterwards. I think the firm beliefs of the Wikipedian about my lack of valid sources even after I explained the situation showed his lack of trust in me.

Moderation from the instructor was a great support to me as a newcomer because I felt encouraged, understood and trusted. When I submitted the first draft, I got a response from the instructor that it was an “excellent start” and he helped me to refine the introduction for concision and gave me suggestions on citations and organization. These kind acts follow the “please do not bite the newcomers” guideline of Wikipedia as it treated a newcomer with kindness and patience. The instructor also asked the Wikipedian about the reason for the move and supported me when I defended myself on the necessity of using the article first published on the WeChat Official Account Platform. During the moderation, the accountability, patience, and neutrality of the instructor showed a strong sense of equality, which encouraged me to enter into participative planning with mutual trust and respect.

“Wikipedia is free content that anyone can use, edit, and distribute" is one of the five pillars of Wikipedia, and the dissemination of knowledge should transcend cultural and language barriers .Wikipedia also celebrates openness, allowing more members to make the community more productive . Therefore, to welcome newcomers and persuade people to contribute, I recommend Wikipedia act with greater patience when dealing with foreign contributors and content about a foreign culture. As a part of the collaborative culture, the users, editors, and moderators of Wikipedia should be informed that the content may be about a foreign culture and that the sources may be in other languages. The reviewers should actively translate the sources and communicate with the contributor about their content. There should be bilingual and multilingual editors/moderators who can assist with the process so that no content would be deleted due to misunderstandings on cultural issues or languages. Nevertheless, despite these governance measures, I believe the norm of “good faith” in communication plays a more important role in welcoming contributors from other cultures. I strongly agree with Wales’ comment that despite the difficulties in community governance, good editorial judgment and the negotiation of reasonable people committed to quality is the best solution that humans have figured out so far.

To conclude, the article reflected my experience of creating an article on Wikipedia. As a newcomer, I did not pay enough attention to referencing, which led to a misunderstanding about the originality and verifiability of my article. The negotiation process with the editor further reveals the underlying cultural and language barriers, which were worsened by a lack of trust and good faith. Thanks to the instructor’s help, I was able to refine the article with good faith and explained the situation to the editor. The experience pinned the principles of NPOV, No Original Research, and Verifiability in my mind. It also taught me always be nice, in good faith, and open to cultural differences in online communities.