User:Wnini89/Report

Personal Experience and Learning
As a newcomer and a student of the Wikipedia community, the first thing I tough about was to read the norm and rules of Wikipedia. It was very important and helpful that we were assigned to finish the online instruction of Wikipedia as well as the Wikipedia Adventure. I spent half an hour working on the instruction and got everything write. Turned out the result was not close to my expectation. I still have no idea how to change contents, make citations, or write articles on Wikipedia. The Wikipedia Adventure on the other hand make things much more entertaining and useful, with actually working on the real tasks instead of answer multiple choice question. Moreover, the badge rewarding system of Wikipedia Adventure motivated newcomers’ learning experience.

After registered as a newcomer of Wikipedia page, Adam who work with the Wiki education foundation left a welcome message on my Talk page immediately. I find that actually has someone with experience to connect you and willing to help you was really touching. I am not sure only resisted students get the welcome message or all the newcomers will have someone connect them as a mentor. I also received a message from a Carnegie Mellon University human center design PHD student, who is also from China and working on his Wikipedia project. He invited me join a discussion session organized and joined by students who are also working on their Wikipedia projects. This movement actually change my identification as a newcomer to bond based.

Start editing an article, I find the sandbox function was a life saver. For newcomers, we can edit in the sandbox as many times as we can until satisfied. Without the sandbox function, I may never be brave enough to do any change on the pages. Moreover, people can read other people’s code and just copy them was helpful for me to know as a newcomer as well. I find it was not difficult to understand others’ code, but it’s hard to figure out all the citation styles, the notation meanings by myself.

Recommendations for Wikipedia Community
Based on my own Wikipedia experience, I found several areas Wikipedia should think about changing. For a none profit user generated content community like Wikipedia, contributors, also named as editors, might have identification with the content they write. The article editor writes totally depended on their own personal interest. A study says, Wikipedia topical coverage aims at gathering all human knowledge in an encyclopedic way, but it is also the sum of all editors’ interest. This is reflected in an 80% of content related to social sciences and culture, from history events to pop celebrities. One the other hand, things editors are interesting in writing not necessary match reader’s interests. In order to improve the gap, here are several concepts Wikipedia organization can try. Wikipedia may attract the right people by asking newcomers to do the identify verification task. First, assign them task topics based on their interest. Second, Wikipedia can introduce them a mentor based on their interest, and ask the mentor to guide topics they choose. Third, Wikipedia can set up competitions every year ask editors to choose from the popular topic to write. As a result, the top articles with the most view within a month will be awarded with money and community reputation. This process will not only help newcomers to expand their topics but also not against their own interest. In the meanwhile, the movement will help Wikipedia generated topics popular among readers.

Wikipedia was founded on March, 2000, and its user base has been growing for 17 years. It become more and more difficult for newcomers to join the community. With all the rules, if I was not registered as a student, I wouldn’t know where to find Wikipedia Adventure for studying. I wouldn’t know the exist of sandbox function. I wouldn’t know it’s ok to copy other’s code. Also, I connected an experience member of Wikipedia by mistake to ask him help to review my article. The feedback he provided made me feel disappointed, and lost of confidence. It is important for the health of the Wikipedia community to show acceptance towards newcomers and to strive to incorporate them into the community. Newcomers are sources of new content and new ideas, and their contributions can enrich the existing content in new ways. Wikipedia can provide extra protection for newcomers, by create spaces for safe learning and experimentation. Wikipedia can sign the newcomers into different study sections, and provide them easy going and responsible teachers to make them feel welcomed and needed by the community. At the same time, training newcomers and ask them to spend more time before they actually start writing will help to covert newcomers to serious editors.

I has used Wikipedia a lot, but I has never though about actually generate content if it was not because of the class. Hence, I am an extrinsic motivated user. For users like me, it is important to show them all the persuasive technologies. Wikipedia’s welcoming message is “the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit”, and it should really add “at any time”. In the previous paragraph, I mentioned an invitation from Carnegie Mellon University student, and I actually was not being able to join the section. Because I only check Wikipedia when I need to, at the time I saw the invitation the section has already finished even if I was really wanted to join. It was important for Wikipedia as an online communication to proved its user the ability to talk in real-time, just like Facebook and Twitter. My suggestion will be upgrade the notification system base on users’ preference, and notify them immediate even users are not on their Wikipedia page. The new notification bar should be simple and clear; it can show at the right hand corner when the user is browsing any website.