User:Emsandell/reflection

Jessie J is an artist and a topic I am extremely well versed on. She is a musical performer I have looked up to throughout my music and entertainment career. Not only is she one of the most talented vocalists in the mainstream music world in general, but she is also highly underrated. It seems that there is a bit of a shadow that can often follow pop artists when they don't have immediate success, and Jessie J has been placed in that category. She has also addressed this strange purgatory pop musicians can get caught in. Regardless of joining Queen on tour and at the 2012 Summer Olympics in place of Freddie Mercury, closing the Olympic games and selling out stadiums and arena's globally outside the U.S, she still hasn't become a household name.

That's why I chose to create a page for her single off her third studio album, Sweetalker. To see half of this album without individual song pages was disappointing. Even though the album may have not been an iconic #1, it is still a labor of love that involves many people, their time and creativity. I believe they should be acknowledged for that when people want to learn more about the project or a specific song on the album. In this weird Jessie J underatedness-esq fashion, my article ultimately got pulled off the website in mere minutes. With a consensus that I did not agree with or find justified, I left this Wikipedia endeavor feeling exhausted and annoyed to have all my work be pulled so quickly.

Overall, I was not entirely pleased with my experience and it was not something I will continue pursuing. I think because I also have this academic association, I am less likely to pursue this on my own time. On the other end of this, it was interesting to see how Wikipedia runs from the inside out, as it's a website I have been using forever. I am now more aware of where my information comes from and not to trust everything that I read on Wikipedia.

The newcomer process on any online community is part of the reason I am not associated with an online community in my spare time. I am not a lover of rule following or having people tell me what to do based off a set of requirements, so it was a rather irritating process to understand and read through all of these specific regulations and policies. Kraut and Resnick explain the foundation for the importance of these codes communities must follow: "Communities like open source software (OSS) development projects may have strict standards for members, but other communities may want almost any warm body who shows up. But even these seemingly open communities would like to reject spammers, trolls, or others whose primary goal is to disrupt the community.” These websites operate based off these regulations so they can control who is coming in and out.

While most people are unsuspecting normal folk who just want to engage on an online platform, there is an equal amount of people who use the internet as a shield to pervade destructive messages and behaviors. A lot of the concern of joining a new community in general comes from insecurity about acceptance and knowing the rules of the game. "Accordingly, college freshmen, new to the Internet, were seen as an 'influx of clueless newbies who, lacking any sense of netiquette, made a general nuisance of themselves' (Raymond, 2003)." That perspective as mentioned in the Reagle argument was extremely relatable. I saw myself as clueless and the only way to find myself navigating the site in any correct way with Wikipedia etiquette was through the FAQ's and policies provided.

The process that these online communities have built are there for a reason, but are not universally appealing. A lot of the time, these rules are put forth to increase the commitment within individuals. Within Wikipedia, these rules are really the foundation that holds the website together and shows them who really wants to be there and contribute. It is also how they regulate new members and socialize them into the community in a way that is beneficial for them and the other users on the platform: “In general, barriers and initiation rituals that cause newcomers to suffer a little before joining a group should increase their eventual commitment. ”

As well as that, one of the other glaring components of the Wikipedia experience was the commitment a user needs to have or has. In class, we saw extreme examples of people who were deeply dedicated to the Wikipedia experience and the cause. Many people really identify in this community, and creating that experience comes from not only the user's personal investment, but the website's ability to attract people and keep them engaged. When people drop off of a community, the whole concept tends to collapse in on itself. Especially on an online community this is so interesting because of the fact that no one has direct control. Essentially the platform is created and the regulations are there to direct and encourage users on the platform. As we move into this tech-based world, understanding this kind of identity and motivation would be a wonderful psychological experiment. This is the first time we can really understand human motivation to engage in these spaces.

Part of this comes from the rules that are imparted onto new users that increases their engagement, but there needs to be an intrinsic motivation on the users part as well. Affective commitment, or wanting to stay in the community is one of the most difficult parts of building something like Wikipedia. For myself personally, I did not feel this Affective Commitment to the cause. The Theory of Group Cohesiveness is a concept I felt led to my decision of how strongly I was going to interact on Wikipedia. “through the attractiveness of the group or through the attractiveness of individual group members. Commitment because of the attractiveness of the group as a whole became the focus of social identity theory” With the single member that chose to engage with my page, they made drastic decisions without consulting me and had what I felt, no real justification to take the entire page down. I did not want to engage further at that point because that one individual soiled my engagement to stay within the community. If other people can just pull down my hard work based off personal bias and fine print rules on a relevance page, the effort to contribute to the community is not worth it to me. That specific interaction made it feel like a lot of time and energy that went nowhere, and I was disappointed to see the page go as I got to contribute a little bit of something to a persons who's career and brand I admire.

This leads me into Identity based commitment, which I believe after this experience is a main driving force for many Wikipedia users. As I stated before, there needs to be that deep seeded desire that the user has with an identification within the community. "Design Claim 1 Instilling identity-based attachment leads people to continue their participation in the group in the face of membership turnover." Whether it becomes an emotional outlet for some, a strict pastime for others, or they feel included in this educational community whereas in real life this type of commitment could be seen as odd. All of these are forms of identity that allow Wikipedia to flourish and engage users. While this experience made me appreciative of the people who do spend their time doing this, I couldn't seem myself identifying with the communities. I'm the kind of person who would much rather put my energy into an in-person community and very much keep to myself on the internet. I don't have a Twitter, didn't engage on Tumblr when it was popular, ect. My only identity investment to engage with people on social media is if it's with friends, family or networking purposes.

All in all, this Wikipedia project opened my eyes to a lot of things I wasn't familiar with. I think what I got out of this most was understanding the complexities of an online community like Wikipedia and how they regulate themselves. I didn't even know it was possible to just go onto Wikipedia and make an account before this class, so it shows the level of newness I had in this interaction with the community. Without having my teacher and Shalor directing me, I have no idea how people would figure out how to use this platform on their own. Because of this newness, I was upset that a user so easily just stripped down my work, but maybe it was because I was so new and Wikipedian's have a chip on their shoulder about that. I may never find out and don't have the affective commitment to. I think there needs to be a more streamlined process for newcomers and their initial Wikipedia experience because it wouldn't feel so tedious. If Wikipedia tried to be more open and positively engaging with newcomers, I think there would be less drama and conflict between users on this website. Regardless of any negative feelings I accrued for this website during this project, I still think this was a really interesting and in-depth way of understanding online communities. Wikipedia opened by eyes to psychological phenomenons that occur with internet use that I would have never thought about otherwise. I think it's really important to have this understanding in our ever changing technologically-social driven world.