User:Xiying Huang/Report

Wikipedia Reflection Essay
Wikipedia is a well-known free online encyclopedia that I frequently browse on. Though it was the main channel I abstracted most information from, I did not know I could be a contributor in this community until I started my Wikipedia journey with COM481 about a month ago. During this month, I got to know the norms and rules of Wikipedia, posted my very first comment on the talk page, and published my edited article in the encyclopedia. Based on my holistic experience, I generated three recommendations that could potentially optimize the users’ experience on Wikipedia. My suggestions ripple into increasing the exposure rate of newcomers’ first go-live article, allowing participants to follow each other on the Wikipedia community, and finally enabling members to socialize with other college students who have the same learning objectives on Wiki Education Foundation. I will demonstrate why these changes could be helpful and should be taken into consideration along with the key concepts I’ve grabbed from COM481.

To begin with, exposing new members’ first published article will be an efficient approach to improve their initial experience on Wikipedia. For me, the most exciting part of working on Wikipedia is the interactions with different unknown Wikipedians, being able to discuss and learn from them. It was interesting to hear constructive feedback from some like-minded people who also love reading and editing in the community. The more feedback I received, the more I am willing to contribute and stay engaged in the community; since I would perceive my work as meaningful enough to grab attention from others.

However, as I knew, not all users will receive feedback once they published. In terms of my personal experience, the few amounts responses may discourage Wikipedians’ contributions and lasting commitments to the platform, especially for newcomers. According to the principles of attracting newcomers, it would be a great idea for Wikipedia to artificially control the exposure rate of newcomers’ first work and make them more visible to the old members of the community. This privilege could be seen as part of the newcomers’ supporting system. The more likely their creative pieces would be read, the more likely they would receive meaningful feedback. Those active responses would further stimulate their interactions with other Wikipedians and enrich their comprehensive editing experience on Wikipedia accordingly. Though Wikipedia has delegated people to welcome newcomers and provide extra help, increasing the exposure rate of the first go-live article could be another indirect method to improve newcomers’ experience and thus encourage their participation.

Users retention could be promoted through newcomer support, while it may also be facilitated by the subscription among Wikipedians. According to the bond-based commitment theories, people tend to stay active if they built a close relationship with individual members within the community. If Wikipedians are allowed to follow each other in the community, it could promote their long-term participation. Honestly, I cannot guarantee that I will continue contributing to Wikipedia after the course but I would still love to edit the articles of my classmates who I got to know in this community. I noticed that Wikipedia has already created a watchlist allowing users to subscribe to a certain page and receive email notifications regarding every change on that page. However, inspired by the bond-based commitment concepts, I think the friending and following niche feature could be added to Wikipedia to strengthen long-term commitment. I came up with this idea as I like to interact with Wikipedians who built a connection with me and tried to respond to them. For example, I peer-reviewed all articles from students who had sent greetings to me on my talk page. If I could follow the dynamics of those close friends’ wiki accounts, I will be dragged back to the community and contribute to their workpieces even though I’m no longer actively participating in Wikipedia. I believe it explains how the bond-based commitment works and how the addition of the following system may help strengthen this type of commitment.

As I mentioned above, I am fascinated by the interaction component of the Wikipedia community, and based on that I also have a recommendation for the Wiki Education Foundation. Most of my classmates and I agreed that interaction within the community fosters us to enjoy more and learn more from Wikipedia. Thus, it will be a great idea to create a big learning group that gathers all college students who are taking similar courses and allow them to interact with each other. During this process, all newcomers in this group can exchange their thoughts and explore the new community together, which may deeper their understanding of Wikipedia. In terms of the principles of dealing with newcomers and specifically how to integrate people, what Wiki Education needs to do is no more than notify this option to the group leaders, which are the instructors in this case. If instructors strategically connect all college students taking this course together, it is promoting socialization among new members. Students taking the online community course in different colleges have a lot of common grounds--they are students and they might be all interested in communication-related fields. Therefore, combining these sub-groups into a big community would optimize each participant’s learning experience on Wikipedia at large.

Wikipedia is undoubtedly a popular encyclopedia and a mature online community that successfully accumulated a large pool of users. What it did well is to create a series of clear norms and regulations that educate newcomers on how they should behave in this community, whereas it failed to apply the bond-based commitment concepts to strengthen user-to-user connection like other social media did. One unique thing about Wikipedia is that it has extremely high early-stage value, which means the encyclopedia itself is very informative and valuable for people without any engagements. I believe most people are free-riders in this community; in other words, they take advantage of the resources in the community but never contribute to it. If Wikipedia can add a “call-to-action” button on its page, it will turn a proportion of viewers into contributors.

In conclusion, it was an intriguing experience to publish an article on Wikipedia. Incorporated my personal experience and key concepts from class, I believe Wikipedia can better integrate and support newcomers by systematically increasing the exposure rate of their first article and launching the following system for Wikipedians. Additionally, students on Wiki Education may have a better learning experience and more socialized opportunities if group leaders could merge them with fellow learning sub-groups from other universities.