User:Sabbatessa/subpage

Wikipedia Assignment Reflection

Introduction

My experience as a newcomer contributing to Wikipedia was a lot different from what I initially anticipated, but was ultimately a positive (although at times, frustrating) learning experience. The main takeaway I had was arguably one the majority of Wikipedia newcomers face: although welcoming initially, Wikipedia is a large and somewhat overwhelming community that can be hard for newcomers to properly assimilate into. Although new Wikipedia users are presented with a variety of tutorials when initially joining, they are soon cut off and left to fend for themselves. Not to overlook the numerous articles and tips for use that are present on Wikipedia, but these are often hard to find and even more difficult for a newcomer to navigate correctly. Throughout my experience contributing to Wikipedia I was continuously reminded of this and often felt discouraged. However, as time went on, I eventually became more knowledgeable of the community and ultimately found my experience to be a positive one. While reflecting on my personal experiences, I will argue that Wikipedia needs to better their approach to newcomers so that new members can be more easily be accepted into the community.

Round One: The Trials of a Newbie

Starting as the definition of a Wikipedia newbie, my initial knowledge of the site was limited to what I found when briefly searching for something on Google. I already anticipated a learning curve when I joined the site, but I found the initial Wikipedia Essentials and Editing Basics tutorials to be a helpful start. When I began the Wikipedia assignment I chose to elaborate and improve on an already existing article page, Rover.com. Once I started editing and began to realise the full scope of Wikipedia, I found myself wishing for an additional step-by-step instruction manual for dummies. Following the suggestion of Professor Reagle, I began making my contributions and edits in my user sandbox page as a draft. As scholars Paul Resnick and Robert E. Kraut (2011) explain in Design Claim 24 of their book, Building Successful Online Communities: Evidence-Based Social Design, “Sandboxes both speed up the learning process for newcomers and reduce the harm to the community that newcomers might otherwise cause.” Using my sandbox allowed me to slowly and carefully hone my Wikipedia skills before laying them out in the public mainspace.

After a few weeks of what I thought were careful improvements to the article, I posted my contributions to the public Rover.com article mainspace. A couple of days later I discovered all of my edits and changes to the article were reverted. This was very discouraging to say the least. The contributions I had made to the article were marked as overly promotional and flagged because the content was said to be written as an advertisement. My contributions contained many links to outside sources and numerous to Rover.com's website, something that at the time I thought was a good thing to have in an article. I learned the hard way that having so many links was frowned upon, as it made the article read more like a disguised advertisement and less like an article page.

At this point I was frustrated and conflicted - should I attempt to continue with Rover.com or start fresh with another topic? I did not want to risk having everything reverted again, so I made the decision to change my topic and start from the beginning.

Round Two: New Beginnings

After learning from the harsh reality I met with my first article attempt, I decided I may be more successful choosing a topic not already represented on Wikipedia. After some debate, I decided to make an article for Lokai, a popular company that manufactures and sells silicone bracelets. As before, I began my article in my user sandbox page. I made all of my edits and contributions in this space and used it as a draft so I could finalize everything before making it public. During this stage, one activity that Professor Reagle had us do was spread WikiLove to our fellow users. It successfully helped to strengthen the bonds between myself and other users. I really enjoyed this activity, and it was a welcome distraction from all of the negativity I had been facing from the Wikipedia community.

After getting it to a final place, my article was edited by Sara Perry and Marina Mano. They both made copyedits and changed some repetitive wording, but I found their reviews to be really helpful. They noticed things I did not, such as a missing logo and product image, that helped improve the overall quality of my article. Professor Reagle also made some helpful revisions and edits, ultimately suggesting I move my article over to the mainspace.

Despite having hesitations and fears of deletion, I had my article moved over to the mainspace and was actually pleasantly surprised. As of my writing this, my article is still up and has not been deleted! I took this as a huge success. After my article was active for a day or so, I began getting revisions from the Wikipedia community. I was elated to find that none of these were negative, and most were just simple copyedits and changes to my reference formatting. Hopefully as time passes this state of benevolence towards my article continues.

Discussion

Although I faced some challenges, my overall experience with Wikipedia was positive and I learned a great deal from it. As previously mentioned, my main takeaway is that Wikipedia is a vast, overwhelming community quite difficult for newcomers to easily assimilate into. In The Virtues of Moderation, James Grimmelmann does a great job putting the size of Wikipedia into perspective, "The English-language Wikipedia alone has over four and a half million articles. Twenty-three million registered users and countless anonymous ones have made more than seven hundred million edits." These pure stats, combined with the large amount of Wikipedians who have a hostile and annoyed approach to new members, do not create the best environment for a newcomer trying to enter the community.

The Role of Moderators

Moderators are essential to the success of all online communities. Without them, there would be no policing or governance present. Moderators have a tough role to fill when balancing participation in a community while simultaneously preventing abuse. James Grimmelmann explains a few ways moderators can promote good norms in online communities. First, they should be, "fostering a sense of shared identity that reinforces participants' sense of belonging and their commitment to the good of the community." Second, and most importantly in my opinion, they should be sensitive to, "the initiation of new participants, who must be taught the community's expectations at the same time as they are made to feel welcome."

In hindsight, I understand and agree that my contributions made to Rover.com were overly promotional. However, I do not think the moderator that reverted my contributions approached the situation in the best way. With a quick look at my user page they would have found I was a newcomer to Wikipedia. As a newcomer who had just joined the community, they could have helped me learn what I did wrong before rushing to revert all of my contributions. I readily admit that a lot of my contributions were overly promotional, but certainly not everything that I wrote. At this stage of my experience, I would have been classified according to the Wikipedia article, Seven Ages of Wikipedians, as a “WikiChild.” They describe WikiChildren as, “highly enthusiastic about editing, but still lack an in-depth knowledge of policy. It is important to remember this when dealing with them. Wikipedians at this stage often benefit from adoption by a more experienced user.” Being frank, the user who reverted my contributions could have learned a bit from this article. Maybe they could have taken the time to reach out to me with feedback, or even edited the article accordingly instead of just reverting everything I contributed. This would have obviously taken more effort, but I would have learned more from my mistakes and would have become a better Wikipedia member because of it. According to the findings of Haiyi Zhu et al. (2013) in their field experiment on Wikipedia, "Positive feedback and social messages increase people's general motivation to work [and] these effects are stronger for newcomers" while, "negative feedback reduced motivation." This experiment tested the effects of different feedback types on members' contributions to Wikipedia, and further proved how important it is for newcomers to receive positive feedback from existing members. Although we can be frustrating to deal with, everyone starts off as a newcomer and should be viewed as an growing asset to the community instead of an annoyance.

Dealing with Newcomers

Kraut and Resnick (2011) introduce five basic problems online communities must solve when dealing with newcomers: recruitment, selection, retention, socialization, and protection. Speaking from my personal experience on Wikipedia, I will be focusing on the three present problems of selection, retention, and socialization.

Selection

To begin, I think that selection in itself is a difficult task for online communities to undergo with new members. There is a fine line between being too selective and letting anyone and everyone join a community. This is especially true with Wikipedia, where people are joining from all over the world with varying interests, values, and attitudes. After first joining Wikipedia, newcomers are presented with Wikipedia Essentials and Editing Basics tutorials. These tutorials are informative, but do not do a good enough job in preparing the new user for harsh criticism they may face. I’m sure that Wikipedia does this to not turn off new members from the site, but they should also be letting them know how strictly they regard their policies and the difficulties many newcomers may encounter. This way, newcomers who do not take the cite seriously, are not a good fit, or who simply do not care enough to become a contributing member will be diverted from the community. As best explained by Kraut and Resnick, “ensuring that new recruits match the style and values of an online community will lead them to stay longer and be more satisfied with their membership, and it will lead to more benefits for the group as a whole and for existing members."

Retention

Retention is one of the biggest problems I believe Wikipedia faces when dealing with new members. Research conducted on online communities shows that, “these groups experience a substantial amount of turnover and that turnover is especially high with new members." I found that Wikipedia is no exception. As previously mentioned, Seven Ages of Wikipedians depicts the stages of growth a Wikipedian progresses through. When Wikipedians reach the age of a “WikiTeen” the article  cautions that, “...it is important to treat them fairly; WikiTeens who are punished too harshly may retaliate by running away.” Speaking from my personal experience, after my first attempt at contributing to an article resulted in reversion, I too wanted to run away from the community. I was frustrated that all my hard work was deleted in one swoop and discouraged from taking another try contributing to the community. Wikipedia could benefit by taking a more lenient approach to moderating newcomer contributions, and better explain to newcomers the errors behind their mistakes. This way, they will be more apt to contribute in the future without fear of retaliation. As further explained by Kraut and Resnick (2011) in Design Claim 18, “When newcomers have friendly interactions with existing community members soon after joining a community, they are more likely to stay longer and contribute more."

Socialization

Socialization is another dilemma Wikipedia encounters with newcomers. It is an important interaction faced by newcomers trying to actively join an online community, where “the group needs to socialize the newcomers, teaching them how to behave in ways appropriate to the group." During the socialization period for newcomers, “the central challenge for the community is to keep the newcomer around." It is beneficial for the community as a whole to initiate interactions with newcomers as it acts to encourage their affective commitment to the community. Kraut and Resnick argue, “The person who feels attached to the community as a whole will want to be part of the community and to further its purpose." In order for newcomers to feel attached to the Wikipedia community, they need to have positive social interactions with existing members.

WikiLove

WikiLove is one great way Wikipedia allows users to express gratitude to one another and interact in a positive way. It successfully encourages benevolent conversation among members of the community. Although I benefited from WikiLove as a newcomer, I do not think it is not something that is easily discovered by new members to Wikipedia. Without Professor Reagle pointing it out to me, I probably would not have found it on my own and would not have understood how to use it. I would suggest Wikipedia make it a more pronounced feature during their new member tutorials and initiation to help encourage positive synergy. As Wikipedia says itself, "If we keep this common goal, this love of knowledge, in mind, if we concentrate on achieving a neutral point of view even when it is difficult, and if we try to actually understand what the other side has to say, then we can reach the state of "WikiLove". Additionally, Wikipedia could help promote the spread of Wikilove by having some kind of promotion in place where each time WikiLove was shared to a user a donation of a certain dollar amount would be made to Wikipedia. I'm not sure of all the logistics behind this, or if it is even feasible for Wikipedia to do, but it would extrinsically motivate users to spread WikiLove while also raising donations for the community.

Conclusion

While my experience as a newcomer joining Wikipedia was frustrating and required a great deal of perseverance, overall I would consider myself successfully initiated into the online community. Although their approach to newcomers and moderation is not what I would consider welcoming, I found that most Wikipedians are just dedicated members of the community who truly care about its preservation. After all, there is a reason that "Other than the internet itself, Wikipedia is the preeminent example of successful online collaboration."