User:Swbamboo/Report

Wikipedia Report
During my experience contributing to Wikipedia as an article editor as part of my university’s online communities class, I attempted to edit two articles, and ultimately published my second article, which is now live, under the title “Father and Son (Bourgeois).” As I write about my experience, I will talk about some of the things I liked and disliked about contributing, and how my experience can be paired with concepts learned in my class, in order to recommend future actions for the Wikipedia community to increase participation in their own online community.

While getting started on Wikipedia as a part of my class, I had access to the Wiki Education Dashboard, which had guidelines and timelines to help me through the process of completing my article and finding sources. The timeline was helpful, with weekly tasks split into relatively simple tasks to complete in order to familiarize myself with Wikipedia norms. Some important sections I learned about included how to access and use talk pages, the basics of how to draft using the source editor, and how to best phrase my wording in order to avoid plagiarism according to Wikipedia standards. With full disclosure however, I did not complete all of the Wiki Tasks, and so I may not be as familiar with topics such as how to add media to articles.

While these tasks were helpful, once I got the basics down of how to draft an article, I became less interested in completing the remainder of the tasks. I know that if I were a casual Wikipedia reader, interested in editing, but the tasks were all required to be completed in order to edit, I would definitely not do so. Luckily, my instructors were very supportive of helping me complete my article and answering questions and giving feedback, which encouraged me to publish a higher quality article than I would have otherwise.

Based on these initial observations, I would recommend that Wikipedia offer a version of these tasks to users interested in editing an article, in order to get them started, without overloading them with information. When Wikipedia was created, it was successful largely in part because of a low barrier to entry, which made it relatively easy for users to contribute (Hill). Today however, with so many articles written, and stricter rules and standards for articles, it can be difficult for new users to even know where to start.

On top of this, a large reason for the current dropoff in the number of Wikipedia editors is due to senior members of Wikipedia not being as open to newcomers as they could be (Butler et al.). While I had the support of my instructors and classmates in completing my article, many others who are new to Wikipedia would not have this support. '''My second recommendation to Wikipedia would then be to welcome newcomers. I believe the best way to do this would be via senior members being encouraged to directly reach out to newcomers, and thank them for any contributions made, while offering direct support to answer questions newcomers may have.''' This sense of community support would address the issue of an online community “oligarchy” (Butler et al.) rejecting newcomers and lowering community retention.

As I began my work on my first article, I wasn’t sure what to pick as my topic. It was difficult for me to even know where to search for an article. Eventually, with the help of my instructors, I located the “find article” button on the Wiki Education Dashboard, and used it to find an article that needed work. '''A third recommendation I would have is to make this find article button on the top of any Wikipedia page that’s read, to encourage others to search topics they’re interested in contributing to. Additionally, I would recommend a way to suggest articles to people to edit based on what they’re interested in and past articles they’ve read and written.''' In this way, it becomes clear what needs to be contributed to the site, and you can ask people to help. Additionally, by choosing interesting articles to edit, people will be intrinsically motivated to continue editing, since it’s more fun to edit an interesting article than one you’re bored by. Both directly asking and making contributing fun are proven ways to encourage participation (Kraut et al.).

Due to the huge time commitment and difficulty of finding sources for my first article, I decided to switch topics to a topic that would be easier to find sources for. Writing this second article was much faster and easier than my initial one, since there wasn’t much written about it in the first place, as I found using the find article button and typing in “Seattle sculptures,” and looking at the completeness scale. When I finally completed my second article, I felt a lot more confident in publishing my work with the help of my instructors, than I would have felt otherwise. My earlier recommendation about senior members reaching out to newcomers would address this potential issue for other newcomers anxious about publishing their work.

After publishing my article, I did feel happy that I completed it, but I ultimately don’t think I would do it again. Although seeing my article on Google was cool, it didn’t feel like a good enough benefit. Even with the assistance of the Wiki Dashboard and help from my instructors, it was a huge time commitment to publish this article with all the trial and error needed to become familiar with the site. In this sense, I had little motivation because my time cost vastly outweighed my benefit from seeing my article live. I personally did not feel intrinsically motivated, largely because I couldn’t find an article I was truly interested in, although I do believe my earlier recommendation of suggested articles and prioritizing the “find article” button to new users would help with this.

My final recommendation would be to create additional extrinsic motivation, in the form of a Wikipedia editor certificate, or other extrinsic motivation, in order to further encourage people to edit, especially when their own intrinsic reasons for contributing aren’t enough (Kraut et al.).