Wikipedia Reflection
After I created my Wikipedia account, I received an automated message inviting me to the Teahouse. This was a space available for newcomers to visit, ask questions, and learn more about being a part of the Wikipedia community. Because it was clearly an automated message, I didn’t visit the Teahouse until after we discussed it in class. I then explored the page and found it to be a generally friendly and welcoming group. Because of this initial experience, I expected Wikipedia to be a very interactive, collaborative, and friendly community. Then my classmates began to report negative experiences with other Wikipedians. This made me fear moving my article from my sandbox to the mainspace, and I automatically assumed that I would receive similar hostile messages on my page. What I didn’t expect was a neutral or passive response. When I finally moved my article on the Syncopated Ladies to Wikipedia’s mainspace, I braced myself for threats of deletion like my classmates had received. However, I received little to no feedback during this whole experience. I believe that Wikipedia in theory attempts to be welcoming to newcomers but that in reality, newcomers are either ignored or reprimanded. If you follow the rules, you will fly under the radar and not be noticed. But if you happen to make common mistakes like many of us in the class did, you risk being deleted immediately. My overall experience within the Wikipedia community taught me that the focus is to create an unbiased online encyclopedia, not to worry about whether the new members feel valued.
The Wikimedia Foundation has this mission statement; “Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment” [1]. I truly believe that Wikipedia has this at the center of everything they do, and that this core value affects the community. However, because this focuses on providing others with information, it doesn’t touch much on the community that is actually providing and writing the content. In short, the focus is on the consumers of Wikipedia much more than the collaborators. This allows those within the community to act as they see fit. Many of my classmates experienced negative interactions with more established Wikipedians. Quite a few of the articles were tagged as promotional or not noteworthy, and many were flagged for possible deletion. When we addressed this in class and Professor Reagle reached out to these collaborators, they lashed out against him personally. This was very surprising to me, and I delayed moving my article from my sandbox to the mainspace after hearing about these difficulties.
When I finally got up the courage to move my article into Wikipedia’s mainspace on March 3, I braced myself for an onslaught of edits and threats to delete my content. However, I received nothing of the sort. The only edits I received from those not within the class were from two helpful users. One user removed invisible unicode characters and tagged my article as uncategorized (diff), and the other user added my page to categories (diff) to assist with the organization of Wikipedia and to allow my page to be found in related searches. Neither user left comments on my talk page but simply made easy edits to my article in order to make Wikipedia better. I don’t think that my article was better than my classmates’ articles by any means, but I think I was fortunate to learn from their interactions with Wikipedians so I could avoid their initial mistakes. Thanks to this, I believe I was able to have a fairly uneventful experience with the Wikipedia community. I did not feel unwanted or unwelcome, but I also did not feel especially welcomed by any established Wikipedia users.
In Building Successful Online Communities, Kraut and Resnick discuss ways in which an online community can welcome newcomers into the community’s culture and norms. The tips for assimilating newcomers as outlined by Kraut and Resnick include recruiting, selection of users that fit the community, retention, socialization of newcomers with experienced users, and protecting the community from mistakes that the newcomer may make[2]. I believe that Wikipedia makes an attempt to socialize newcomers through the Teahouse, but it is clearly not the priority. What I have found is that Wikipedians are proud to be a part of the community, and are not concerned with recruiting new members, retaining those who aren’t committed, or making sure that the new members feel included. If anything, the users of Wikipedia would be most interested in protecting the community from possible mistakes newcomers make. While this may result in strong articles throughout the online encyclopedia, it does not welcome new members or encourage newcomers to contribute.
Despite the lack of warmth, it is clear that some Wikipedia users worry about the community vibe. Because of this, Wikipedia has guides for user conduct such as Be Nice, Assume Good Faith, and Please Do Not Bite the Newcomers.[3] I think this is definitely a step in the right direction and shows that some users care about newcomers and how users interact with one another. Another step Wikipedia has taken to increase positive interactions between members is Wikilove. This is a way in which users can show appreciation to others on Wikipedia. Members can post Barnstars or other stickers to another user’s page. Wikilove can express appreciation, kindness, or can be used as a type of reward. Overall, I think Wikipedia is making an effort to become a more welcoming community through efforts such as Wikilove and user conduct guides. However, without much supervision, many users will continue to edit and comment as they see fit. The class clearly experienced those users who have become jaded through their experiences with Wikipedia and therefore have little patience when it comes to newcomers. These members are also more likely to be against Wikilove and similar changes because they want to focus on creating strong content for Wikipedia, not to turn it into a social media type platform focused on community.
Over this past semester, I have learned a lot about Wikipedia and its community. My expectations changed greatly over time; first believing everyone would be welcoming and patient, then I began worrying that my article would be deleted if my tone wasn’t to an experienced user’s liking. My actual experience however, was quite uneventful. A couple users made small beneficial changes to my article, but had no direct interactions with me. It seems to me that Wikipedia is a content focused community, where experience is king. No matter what initiatives take place, I think that newcomers will continue to struggle at first in this community. However, once they get the hang of it, they may find themselves in a collaborative, intelligent, and committed online community thanks to Wikipedia and its users.
- ^ "Vision - Wikimedia Foundation". wikimediafoundation.org. Retrieved 2017-04-07.
- ^ Kraut, Robert; Resnick, Paul (2011). Building Successful Online Communities. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. pp. 140–185.
- ^ ""Be Nice": Wikipedia Norms for Supportive Communication". reagle.org. Retrieved 2017-04-07.