User:Thaoduong98/Win20 COM482 Wiki Report

For my article, I chose to start a brand-new article on “The Beveridge Model.” I was inspired by T.R. Reid’s book “The Healing of America” and the different health care models discussed in the book. To my surprise, none of the health care models talked about in the book has its own Wikipedia article, yet, its fundamental ideas are referenced in multiple Wikipedia articles that discuss health care in different countries. T.R. Reid and his book also has their own Wikipedia articles and it motivated me to start an article on one of the health care models discussed in the book.

Prior to this assignment, I have never made a contribution to Wikipedia. I often use Wikipedia as a source of information when I am looking for a quick and straightforward explanation of something. Google also often push Wikipedia pages as the top results. There is a common misconception that Wikipedia is unreliable due to the few instances where people made troll edits to certain pages. I was also told that Wikipedia is not a dependable source because it can be written and edited by anyone on the internet. Through my experience with Wikipedia, I learned that those assumptions are not entirely true. The fact that Wikipedia allows users to collaborate is a way of ensuring that facts are cross-checked, and have any inappropriate information removed. This Wikipedia-based assignment improved my online research skills, it taught me how to write for a public audience and enhanced my overall digital literacy.

We are living in a digital age where the internet is overloaded with information, it is critical that we learn to distinguish reliable information from unreliable ones. While completing this Wikipedia assignment, I have gained an awareness of what is considered good and what is considered bad source of information. By being more critical about the information that I read on the internet, it allows me to be more conscious about what kind of information I’m taking in and take the necessary steps to confirm the information that I read. I have learned to always double-check my sources in order to ensure that there are no inconsistencies. This skill has helped me to find reliable sources to complete my Wikipedia assignment.

I have never written for a large public audience before and that is one of the most daunting things about this assignment. I had to be mindful of my words and tone because it has to be comprehensible to a wide variety of readers. With my contributions to Wikipedia, I understand that my work is now opened to the general public and is exposed to possible criticism. I do think that it is an important skill to have for my future careers and I’m glad to have practiced it in this assignment.

Wikipedia is not perfect. Accuracy and quality are hard to keep consistent across such a large digital platform where everyone is allowed to create and edit. Wikipedia’s policies outline hundreds of rules and guidelines that tell users how an article should be written. For newcomers like myself, it would have been almost impossible to do everything correctly without the help of WikiEdu and my instructors. Because of Wikipedia’s detailed policies and confusing editing techniques, Wikipedia can drive a lot of motivated newcomers away. At the same time, I understand that Wikipedia has to enforce strict guidelines to ensure quality and consistency throughout the platform. One suggestion for this issue is to create a system where new users who click “Edit” for the first time will get prompted to a series of short and interactive tutorials that show them the different editing features and how to use them. Wikipedia can also include links to training lessons such as the ones on WikiEdu if users need further assistance. This will ensure that each new user is at least informed of the basic fundamental aspects of Wikipedia and the threat of norm disruption is reduced. The drawback would be that some new users would be turned away at the Tutorials stage. As discussed in class, this could be a good thing because the Tutorials could serve as a “gateway” and only seriously motivated users will go through the training and their commitments may be higher than the users that turned away.

Wikipedia carries millions of user-written articles and they all vary in terms of credibility. A problem that the general public have with Wikipedia is whether or not they can trust certain articles. Many of the articles on Wikipedia are well-written and well-supported by credible sources but there are also exceptions. It is very time-consuming for readers to verify all the sources by themselves in order to determine the verifiability of the article. I would suggest Wikipedia include some kind of verifiability meter at the top of every article and warns readers about pages with questionable sources. This will allow readers to be more confident in using Wikipedia as a source of information.

A concerning issue that I ran across on Wikipedia is the harassment that happens on the “Talk” pages of some Wikipedia articles. Although this did not happen to me personally, I have seen multiple cases of this when I was researching articles on Wikipedia. Wikipedia could possibly build a system that flags inappropriate and argumentative languages on Talk pages and notify moderators to assess it. For users who experience harassment on Talk pages, it could demotivate them and drive them away from the platform overall.

Through this Wikipedia assignment, my perception of Wikipedia has been changed for good. I view it as a way more credible of a source than I did before. I now understand that the information you write on Wikipedia has to be legit, it has to be cited, and the monitoring of information by the users is more prevalent than I thought. I have gained critical skills in research and writing that will help me in my future professional career.