Gnwiki

I'm a fourth year Northeastern University student in Professor Reagles Online Communities course. As part of User:Reagle's online community class, I will be contributing to Wikipedia and reflecting on the experience on a user page here.

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Wikipedia Reflection

In my experience, Wikipedia has a reputation of being an unreliable source. Throughout middle and highschool, we were told to stay away from the platform because it was easily edited and information effortlessly altered. As a Wikipedia newcomer, I learned that not only was this incorrect, but that there were actually guidelines and regulations that you were required as a Wikipedia user to follow. I also learned the passion that Wikipedia users have and the effort that it takes to edit on Wikipedia. Initially I was intimidated by these regulations, and I did not want to upset anyone in the community by editing incorrectly. However, throughout the process of editing and contributing on Wikipedia, I was met with a nice surprise. This online space felt very balanced and approachable. I was under the impression that Wikipedia editors were in a constant, back-and-forth editing battle. In reality, I feel like there is an understanding between editors, and a sense of support. Nonetheless, I think this also had to do with my topic: Reforestation in Costa Rica. If I had a more controversial topic, I feel like my experience might have been different. I might have had more backlash or opinionated edits.

My Wikipedia contributions consisted of editing a Wikipedia stub. In other words, ‘Reforestation in Costa Rica’ was an article that was already created but did not have enough information. In this case, the article initially only had one paragraph and a photo. After my contributions, this Wikipedia article now consists of more extensive and organized content including: history, purpose, projects, and related articles. At the start of my editing journey, I was worried about making the original editor of the page angry because I would be ultimately changing the whole article. However, I was intent on following Wikipedia’s collaborative norms and hoping for good faith collaboration, which focuses "dispute resolution, conflict management, and interdependent decision making."

Wikipedia has three central policies: “Neutral Point Of View” (NPOV), “No Original Research,” and “Verifiability”. These policies are highly beneficial to the functionality of Wikipedia, it being an information community that emphasizes social collaborations. Writing in a “Neutral Point Of View” was difficult and took some adjustment because as university students we are taught to always have an argument. The whole basis of academic writing is to use logical argumentation to persuade the audience. In this case, the goal is not to persuade but to inform, unbiasedly. I feel strongly about caring for the environment, and my topic was even more connected to me because it was about the place I grew up. However, because my topic covers geographic and historical content, it provided me with a frame on how to format my writing in NPOV, and to steer clear of writing from emotion. As for “No Original Research” and “Verifiability”, I made sure to only utilize reliable sources to get my information. This came easily because I focused on published sources that thoroughly covered factual information, and refrained from utilizing articles written from a social, subjective perspective. As per “Verifiability”, I incorporated inline citations throughout my text so my points could be associated with the adequate references. This was perceived positively by the community in my opinion, because none of my statements in the article were challenged or questioned by other users. I also was not revised by any user to incorporate more inline citations.

The main collaborator of the original article, “Reforestation in Costa Rica”, was User:Andrew Davidson. On his user page he is tagged as a proposed deletion patroller and newpage patroller. I assume he is a seasoned and skilled Wikipedia user, because he has been using the site for 16 years and has created 886 articles. If you could be a professional Wikipedian, he would be it. I was intimidated by this at first, but was pleasantly surprised that he did not comment anything negative as I edited the article. I did not receive any big edits or revisions on the page. The first revision I received was from User:Crawdad Blue, and it was simply some grammar edits [[1]]. I had written dates as 90’s or 1990’s, and he modified it to correct format- 1990s. This was motivating for me since I was nervous going into editing the page, and that little interaction made me comfortable to continue working and adding onto the article. Since he also did not change anything major, I felt encouraged and that I was doing well on my article. The following revision by User:Arjayay was just moving the dashboard template and included "For placement at the bottom of article talk pages" [[2]]. A Wikipedia bot also fixed a couple of my added links. When adding my links, I highlighted the punctuation as well and the bot simply removed it from the link [[3]]. Later, the User:Bearcat removed the extra spaces between my sections and paragraphs, and thus organized the format of the article [[4]]. Finally, User:Feralcateater00 noted that my article was uncategorized and added Category:Forestry in Costa Rica and [[Category: Reforestation]] to the page [[5]].

All of these edits, although small and simple, made me realize the attention to detail that is required when editing on Wikipedia. After having read over my first submission several times, I did not see any of these little mistakes. Now, I see the value in having other users look over your work, and when contributing through good faith I believe Wikipedia is such a powerful platform. The collaborative culture clearly shows the egalitarian values of Wikipedia. Wikipedia enforces this environment of equality, and factual-focus through many of its norms, one of which I find very important: “facilitators, but no 'leaders'”. Overall, I am content with my Wikipedia contributions. I feel like if I had not taken this class however, I would have had a hard time navigating the platform and understanding its norms. The WikiEdu presentations were also extremely helpful, especially since when in doubt I would go back to the presentation and go over whatever questions I had. Although it is not something I particularly enjoy, or would continue doing for fun, it still feels nice to be able to make something that will be of use to others and where someone can gain knowledge. Since the last revisions, I have added more content to the page, and I hope that users will continue contributing to the article.