User:JessWeiss/reflection

Albert Einstein once said, "Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new". This quote captures my experience as a newcomer to the online community of Wikipedia. As I attempted to undertake the task of restructuring the format of Sharsheret's page, as well as rewriting the majority of its content, I found myself experiencing many of the challenges that Kraut describes in his work, including the retention and socialization of newcomers, and the protection of the community from potential harm. Though I did make mistakes in editing Sharsheret's page, resulting in potential claims of conflicts of interest, I attempted to adhere to the practices and norms of the community. However, despite my efforts, I experienced a negative initial interaction, a lack of reciprocated socialization from experienced members, and complete reversion of my work. These experiences prove that the online community of Wikipedia fails to promote a welcoming environment for newcomers; despite my attempt to abide by the practices of the community and engage in socialization strategies by utilizing my Sandbox and sending WikiLove, my initial negative interaction with Wikipedia and the reversion of my work leads me to conclude that newcomers are not trusted by the majority of this community.

Retention

Negative initial interactions hinder newcomers' orientation to Wikipedia and decrease their likeliness of developing strong ties to the online community. Given that newcomers are not as committed to a community as experienced members are, their first impression is especially important because it contributes significantly to whether new users will remain in the community and become active members in the future. Because "attracting newcomers and incorporating them into an existing community [such as Wikipedia] can be a difficult endeavor",^:179 experienced members should treat newcomers' work differently from the way in which their own work is treated. For example, I accidentally published the draft of my article on Sharsheret directly to the public Wikipedia page. Instead of posting a question on my Talk page, inquiring as to whether my affiliation with Alpha Epsilon Phi sorority would conflict with my contributions to Sharsheret's page, an unidentified user deleted my work, claiming to be "[r]everting to last clean version before WP:COI edits". My negative initial interaction immediately made me less inclined to participate in the community, thus impacting my retention as a potential future participant or leader of Wikipedia. Moreover, though the theory of cognitive dissonance explains why many newcomers become more committed to a community after undergoing a negative recruitment process, this is not always applicable in the case of online communities. "[G]iven the ease with which people can leave an online community...a severe initiation process or entry barrier is likely to drive away potentially valuable contributors at the same time that it increases the commitment of those who endure the initiation or overcome the barrier".^:205 Therefore, if experienced users were to treat newcomers' work with more understanding and appreciation for their inexperience, newcomers would have a more positive first impression that would lead to retention. As exemplified by Design Claim 21, "[e]xplicitly discouraging hostility toward newcomers who make mistakes can promote friendly initial interactions between newcomers and old-timers".^:210 However, negative initial interactions similar to that which I experienced, inhibit newcomers from forming strong ties with other community members, despite any attempt to adhere to group practices through socialization strategies.

Socialization

Newcomers' engagement in socialization strategies exemplifies their effort to educate themselves on community practices. In order to familiarize myself to the community and to initiate socialization with other members, I introduced myself on my user page. Additionally, I gave WikiLove by awarding a Barnstar to the Northeastern University page, which I found had several experienced members actively making contributions. In response to the productive work that I witnessed taking place on this page, I awarded the editors with a cookie. However, my display of WikiLove was left unacknowledged by the many users contributing to the Northeastern University page, which made me less motivated to continue acknowledging the work of other members in the Wikipedia community. Through my attempt at showing WikiLove and the fact that "[o]n average, communities give 43 times more thanks than love" using the WikiThanks feature, my efforts to socialize with other members as a newcomer in the community were evident. While my attempts to utilize socialization strategies were not reciprocated, my eagerness to learn the practices and norms of editing on Wikipedia were shown through the use of my Sandbox. According to Design Claim 24, "[s]andboxes both speed up the learning process for newcomers and reduce the harm to the community that newcomers might otherwise cause".^:219 After having previously made the mistake of publishing my revisions to the official Sharsheret page initially, I utilized my Sandbox for the remainder of this assignment, evidencing my attempt to self-educate myself on the community's practices and to perfect my work before publishing again. Overall, the socialization strategies that I demonstrated as a newcomer in the Wikipedia community were undoubtedly more apparent than those of any experienced member that I encountered. After all, "Wikipedians have explained that it's much easier to click a single link to send Thanks than to choose a picture and write someone a personal message (WikiLove)". Regardless of newcomers' utilization of socialization strategies, experienced members possess an irrational need to protect the Wikipedia community from potential harm.

Protection

The willingness of experienced members to immediately revert others' work in an effort to protect the community, demonstrates an overall distrust of newcomers. Although the work I initially published on the official Sharsheret page needed to be revised, a user chose to revert all changes to an essentially broken page without hesitation. As seen through the article's view history, another user had noticed a reference list duplication and had made necessary changes to revise this error, which I viewed as a helpful contribution and an appropriate display of protection for the community. However, only one day after this constructive edit was made, and exactly two days after my work was originally published as previously mentioned, my work was deleted. This exemplifies the power that experienced members wrongfully exert on newcomers to the Wikipedia community. While there are sound reasons for experienced members to protect their community from potential harm caused unintentionally or purposefully by newcomers, the possible consequence of harm in this circumstance does not justify the reversion of my work. "The question of whether to quickly attempt to integrate newcomers with the existing community depends on several factors, including whether the community produces a group artifact with interdependent parts and the consequences of newcomers' mistakes on themselves and other members".^:218 In the case of Wikipedia, the community produces an online encyclopedia meant to record knowledge of our past and to share this information with anyone on the Internet. Therefore, the first condition described by Kraut is met due to the fact that articles on Wikipedia are interrelated in some way. However, the consequences of newcomers' mistakes in the online community of Wikipedia are in no way permanent, as shown by my aforementioned experiences. "The more likely it is that the presence of newcomers and their inappropriate behavior can damage the current community or its products and the harder it is to repair this damage, the more the community should isolate newcomers until they become more committed and knowledgeable about the community".^:218 Although Kraut's reasoning is applicable in the case of permanent damage caused to a community, the ease with which experienced members can undo newcomers' mistakes on Wikipedia clearly excludes my experience from this rationale. While it is sensible for experienced members to exercise precautions with respect to newcomers in a community, the unnecessary and extreme measures exhibited in my experience prove that newcomers are not trusted by the majority of Wikipedians.

Through Kraut's framework analyzing the challenges a community faces in dealing with newcomers, including the retention and socialization of members and protection of the community, it is evident that Wikipedia does not provide newcomers with a welcoming environment. Newcomers' negative first impressions on Wikipedia significantly contribute to newcomers' unlikeliness to remain active in the community. Additionally, research and analysis conducted by Matias et al. informs my own experiences as a newcomer in the Wikipedia community, specifically, the way in which newcomers' efforts to socialize with experienced members are often not reciprocated. Finally, the irrational action taken to protect the community from harm caused by newcomers, as demonstrated by experienced members on Wikipedia, suggests an overall distrust of newcomers that actually might be detrimental to the platform. Despite mistakes that I made as a newcomer in the Wikipedia community, my experience signifies Einstein's message in that a community's progress is equally a measure of the mistakes made by its members along the way.