User:Yeji0210/Reflections

Through the reading, the lectures, and the Wikipedia project, I learned many concepts about online communities and applied those to understand Wikipedia deeply and to develop my Wikipedia article to fulfill the expectation of the class and Wikipedians. By being aware of the motivation, norms and moderation, I was able to complete a successful piece of Wikipedia article without intentionally violating the rules of Wikipedia and getting deleted. In the beginning of the project, I was motivated and thought of many article topics. Since it was the beginning of the quarter, I was especially more eager to do well in class. During our lecture, we learned that when the benefit is bigger than the cost, we are more likely to do and be motivated. In my case, my benefit, good grades, outweighed the cost, my time and effort. Not only that, I was motivated extrinsically and intrinsically. Obviously, the grade and the prayers from other students and the professor were the extrinsic motivation; intrinsic motivation was the fun from researching and writing about someone that I like. Although I started this project to receive a good grade, the intrinsic motivation grew and eventually drove me the most to write an outstanding article that introduces my favorite artist, Hang-Ryul Park to the world. Although I had the incentives to develop an eloquent piece of article, I had to overcome many obstacles to understand the norms and rules of Wikipedia. Every step was difficult and I had to figure out ways by reading articles and feedback. In the beginning, I came up with two topics: Hang-Ryul Park and Korean American Coalition. Before I read the pages of notability, I thought I could write anything. However, that was not possible. There were several rules that the topic has to fulfill to be written. After reading notability for organization and people, I decided that Hang-Ryul Park is more suitable to write about. Since I was not aware of Wikipedia style of writing, instead of writing in my own style, I followed for some Wikipedia articles on different painters. Through reading and copying formats from other Wikipedia article, I learned the Wikipedia norms and styles. After the first draft, the professor gave me a feedback about reference format and the lists of exhibition. Through his directions to specific Wikipedia pages, I understood the problems and fixed them. When I first edited, I was very confused due to its editing program. Visual edit was definitely easier and more accessible. Still, I was not sure how to upload pictures on visual edit. I did receive the painter’s permission to use the pictures of his painting on his website. By following the article specifically on uploading images, I was able to post them via Upload Wizard. Many of my questions were answered by reading specific Wikipedia articles and feedback. Although Wikipedia help pages are long, they are readable and actually explain what and how to do. So most of the time, I learned the norms via reading Wikipedia help articles and asking Wikipedians for specific help. At last, I finalized my article after many moderation. Wikipedians patrolled my article and wrote me a suggestion about linked pages; I took the suggestion and linked some pages to my article. I had to degrade the list of exhibitions and add a sentence about the exhibition in the beginning because of Trivia policy. I was fascinated and liked the fact that any Wikipedian including my classmates and professor can suggest and edit the article. By people revising and providing new materials that I was not aware of, the article improved and developed further. I took the most of the suggestions but not all due to violations and copyrights. Prior to the project, I was told not to trust Wikipedia articles because anyone can write and edit. However, I learned that the articles are trustworthy because the articles went through many people’s hands to be finalized and had to pass the expectations and rules of Wikipedia. Beginners like me will have difficult time learning but they will learn quickly and efficiently by writing an article. Wikipedia may suggest some of the stubs or unfinished articles for newcomers to complete and assign experts on the specific pages to help and advise the newcomers. I will continue to be part of Wikipedia by editing and reading the articles on Wikipedia. Overall, I definitely enjoyed and am pleased with the process and the final work.