User talk:Estradanats

Your submission at Articles for creation: Boston Guild for the Hard of Hearing (September 19)
 Your recent article submission to Articles for Creation has been reviewed! Unfortunately, it has not been accepted at this time. Please check the submission for any additional comments left by the reviewer. You are encouraged to edit the submission to address the issues raised and resubmit when they have been resolved.


 * If you would like to continue working on the submission, go to Draft:Boston Guild for the Hard of Hearing and click on the "Edit" tab at the top of the window.
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Revent talk 21:28, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Your contributed article, The Boston Guild for The Hard of Hearing


Hello, I noticed that you recently created a new page, The Boston Guild for The Hard of Hearing. First, thank you for your contribution; Wikipedia relies solely on the efforts of volunteers such as you. Unfortunately, the page you created covers a topic on which we already have a page – Boston Guild for the Hard of Hearing. Because of the duplication, your article has been tagged for speedy deletion. Please note that this is not a comment on you personally and we hope you will continue helping to improve Wikipedia. If the topic of the article you created is one that interests you, then perhaps you would like to help out at Boston Guild for the Hard of Hearing – you might like to discuss new information at the article's talk page.

If you think the article you created should remain separate, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Click here to contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be removed without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. If the page is deleted, and you wish to retrieve the deleted material for future reference or improvement, then please contact the deleting administrator, or if you have already done so, you can place a request here. Additionally if you would like to have someone review articles you create before they go live so they are not nominated for deletion shortly after you post them, allow me to suggest the article creation process and using our search feature to find related information we already have in the encyclopedia. Try not to be discouraged. Wikipedia looks forward to your future contributions. Gbawden (talk) 09:59, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

November 2014
Hello, I'm Rrburke. I noticed that you recently removed some content from Boston Guild for the Hard of Hearing with this edit, without explaining why. In the future, it would be helpful to others if you described your changes to Wikipedia with an edit summary. If this was a mistake, don't worry, the removed content has been restored. If you think I made a mistake, or if you have any questions, you can leave me a message on my talk page. Thanks. -- Rrburke (talk) 16:42, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia Reflection
Throughout high school my teachers would prohibit me from using Wikipedia because they regarded it as an unreliable source. I never understood why Wikipedia had a negative reputation since it was always the first website I would consult when I needed quick and concise information. According to Harvard’s Guide to Using Sources, the Harvard Writing Program states how "when you're doing academic research, you should be extremely cautious about using Wikipedia." As its own disclaimer states, "information on Wikipedia is contributed by anyone who wants to post material, and the expertise of the posters is not taken into consideration.” Who knew that by the time I was a college student I would become a Wikipedia contributor? I did not think it was even possible for a college student to be given such responsibility. However, now that I have had experience contributing to Wikipedia, and understand the editing process, I believe my contribution is legitimate even if it is not perfect. Through my contribution of the article the Boston Guild for the Hard of Hearing, I learned how collaborating with good faith, respecting the code of conduct and overcoming challenges of consensus, Wikipedians work together to successfully build a reliable online encyclopedia.

First I will explain how my encounter with User:Rrburke, a Wikipedian, who demonstrated how experienced contributors engage in good faith collaboration to encourage new members. Secondly, I will explain how Wikipedia and other online communities, mentioned in the Ada Initiative article, have codes of conduct that work effectively to guide its members. I will relate these ideas to my accidental violation of Wikipedia’s article editing guidelines. Lastly I will describe how the duplication of my article resulted in an ambiguity of consensus over the direction and focus of the content.

In class we learned about good faith collaboration in our discussion pertaining to the way Wikipedians create consensus working together to build the online encyclopedia. During my experience as a Wikipedia contributor, I had a particular encounter with a Wikipedian who was willing to lend me a helping hand since he clearly understood I was struggling because of my “noob” level of experience. Through this encounter I came to understand how good faith collaboration and code of conduct worked effectively within a community that depended on the interactions of its members. During the editing stages of my Wikipedia article, I decided I wanted to change the wording of some of the content because of grammar issues. I copy-pasted the entire article into a Word document and worked on the phrasing, and when I was satisfied with it I copied it back into the edit page and saved it. To my surprise a couple seconds later I got a notification saying that my work had been retracted, along with the following message from Rrburke.

"“Hello, I’m Rrburke. I noticed that you recently removed some content from the Boston Guild for the Hard of Hearing with this edit, without explaining why. In the future, it would be helpful to others if you described your changes to Wikipedia with an edit summary. If you think I made a mistake, or if you have any questions, you can leave me a message on my talk page. Thanks.”" Since this was my first article contribution to Wikipedia I carelessly forgot to explain the changes I made in the space provided before the save button submission. Rrburke retracted what I had edited, however; he was kind enough to write back to point out why he had done so, as well as offer his help in order for me to continue my work. Reagle explains in his “Goodfaith Collaboration” chapter how the Wikipedia creates a collaborative culture, he cites the Wikipedia article about contributor guidelines that states how “well-meaning people make mistakes, and you should correct them when they do. You should not act like their mistake was deliberate. Correct, but don’t scold. There will be people on Wikipedia with whom you disagree. Even if they’re wrong, that doesn’t mean they’re trying to wreck the project.” The positive attitude perpetuated in the Wikipeida guidelines encourages members to be respectful of every contribution made and to assist in corrections. Therefore creating a collaborative culture where even the most inexperienced feel valued. It is important to maintain this culture in order to give confidence to the “noob” members, who are new to the community, because if they are not easily accepted it is less likely they will continue to contribute and will lose interest in Wikipedia. My encounter with Rrburke demonstrates how Wikipedians do endorse collaborative culture.

The collaborative culture of an online community is part of the code of conduct expected of the members involved. A code of conduct is defined by a set of rules outlining the responsibilities of, or proper practices for, and individual and the community. The Ada Initiative article, outlines how online communities, such as Django and Rust, consider three fundamentals things when creating a code of conduct: “Who adopts and enforces your community code of conduct?” “What are the consequences for violating your code of conduct? “Who decides what actually violates the code of conduct?” In regards to my experience with Wikipedia I felt that I violated the code of conduct when I forgot to note the changes I made. Even though my mistake was not serious, I did not follow through with the steps required for editing. I was especially aware of my mistake when there was a message in my talk page explaining “if this is the first article that you have created you may want to read the guide to writing your first article.” Here, Wikipedia wanted to make additional information available so that I could become more aware of the guidelines expected of me. The Ada Initiative article explains how “having a code of conduct is often an indicator that a project has a sizable number of contributors and is growing.” Wikipedia is an extremely popular; this year it was rank 5th globally among all websites by *The New York Times*. Evidently it is an online community that has garnered experience instructing its new members hence facilitating their integration into the community. The codes of conduct and the user guidelines have been strategically incorporated into the website to assist users through the article creation process -- as it was demonstrated to me through Wikipedias suggested links and information.

Problems arise not only when the code of conduct is violated, but also when there are challenges of consensus. In my experience, working on the Boston Guild for the Hard of Hearing article, I had to deal with a case of disambiguation when I found that another Wikipedian was working on an article with the same name. The article was at its beginning stages and only contained an introductory paragraph and two references. The most challenging part of having a duplicate article was trying to figure out whether the Wikipedian, who had worked on it previously, wanted to focus on the organization, “The Boston Guild for the Hard of Hearing,” or on the Northeastern Initiative that had carried through after the organization closed down. Reagle explains in his chapter on “The Challenges of Consensus” how Wikipedia continues a trend that “avoids any formal organizational scheme and lets people simply name articles as seemed fitting.” Given that I was unsure of the direction the Wikipedian wanted to take, I found the title of the article misleading and vague. I decided to research on both the original organization and the Northeastern Initiative in order to include information on the two.

In conclusion, through my experience contributing to the article “The Boston Guild for the Hard of Hearing,” I learned how collaborating with good faith, respecting the code of conduct and overcoming challenges of consensus are effective strategies Wikipedians use to work interpedently. This assignment has helped me get an in depth understanding of how online communities function, particularly in terms of the collaborative culture they perpetuate to encourage new member’s integration into the community. I am happy I got the opportunity to learn about Wikipedias online community because now I highly appreciate the work, time and effort Wikipedians put into creating the website.