Mshuttles

Prior to this class, my only experience with Wikipedia was researching quick facts about random topics, playing the “Wiki Game”, and having it drilled in my mind by primary school teachers to never reference anything from the site. As it turns out, however, there is much more to Wikipedia than initially meets the eye. Aside from a source for news and information, Wikipedia is also a site developed with the deeper purpose of sharing knowledge and discussing insights in an effort to make information free, easily accessible and widespread. As Wikipedia grew along this path, the site evolved from simply an online encyclopedia into a community of like minded information seekers and sharers. In my time in the Online Communities class, I experienced firsthand the processes of induction, socialization and retention of newcomers, moderation of the community, and incentive and motivation tactics to contribute and donate, utilized by the Wikipedia community. Along my introductory path as a “Wikipedian” I was able to determine the strengths and fallbacks of the Wikipedia community, backed by the discoveries of Kraut and Resnick in Building Successful Online Communities (2011). Using what I found, I was able to make my debut Wikipedia contribution, the article Pioneer Goods Co., as well as discover firsthand some areas of improvement for the community.

Wikipedia: The Newcomer Experience

While my involvement with the induction portion of the newcomer experience was minimal—registering for a course requiring interaction with Wikipedia does not leave much room for choice—I experienced and came to understand the socialization and retention tactics of the community. After four months of socializing as a newcomer into the community, to become a more well-versed “Wikipedian”, I am confident in saying Wikipedia has, for the most part, successfully accomplished the following challenges of dealing with newcomers, as described by Kraut and Resnick: screening newcomers, posing entry barriers to increase long-term commitment and, in general, teaching newcomers the ropes .

Upon signing up for our class’ user page on Wikipedia and creating my own account, I was soon welcomed to the community by Adam, of the Wiki Education Foundation. In accordance with Kraut & Resnick’s Design Claim 18, which states, “when newcomers have friendly interactions with existing community members soon after joining a community, they are more likely to stay longer and contribute more,” Adam successfully made me feel welcome into the new space, which I was otherwise relatively unfamiliar with and, hence, unconfident in occupying (p. 208). Assigning the class the tasks of completing the Wikipedia Essentials and Editing Basics tutorials within our first few days of class was both in-the-moment daunting and long-term beneficial. The idea of assigning tutorials ties in with Design Claims 14 and 22, which highlight the benefits of having newcomers complete “diagnostic task screens” and partaking in “formal, sequential, and collective socialization tactics” (p. 202 & 215). The lessons touched upon in the tutorials gave me a good introduction as to what to expect from Wikipedia and the course, as well as gave me more insight as to what Wikipedia’s goals and expectations are all about. Learning these basic concepts within the initial stages of the class allowed me to absorb overarching ideas which would help me achieve the goals of writing the Perfect "Wikipedia" Article down the line. That being said, one area for improvement among the Wikipedia community is the consolidation of information, best practices, and how-tos in an effort to make basic formatting and editing concepts more easy to find, understand and, in turn, effectively practiced. In a later section of my reflection, I will touch upon the difficulties I faced when executing my article, in complying with the “perfect article” guidelines, specifically in regards to formatting—branching out and in, categorizing, and adding images.

Wikipedia: Encountering Moderation Firsthand

Hand-in-hand with Wikipedia’s new member socialization is the importance of highlighting normative behaviors, or the “range of behaviors the managers and most members consider acceptable” early on in a newcomer experience (p. 125) . Moderation—ensuring these normative behaviors are being abided by—is another key aspect in producing and maintaining a successful online community. In writing my article, I had a personal run-in with a Wikipedia editor in a moderation situation. Almost immediately following the posting of my article from my sandbox, it was tagged for “speedy deletion” by an active editor in the community. Deleting my article and leaving a comment on my user page—notifying me of my article’s deletion, giving me advice for how to avoid this down the road, and offering me the option to “contest the deletion”—the Wikipedian effectively abided by Kraut and Resnick’s Design Claim 3. This states, “consistently applied moderation criteria, a chance to argue one’s case, and appeal procedures increase the legitimacy and thus the effectiveness of moderation decisions” (p. 133). By showing me my articles flaws, but also giving me the opportunity to make a counter-argument in my favor, the users’ moderation and critique were more reputable and well-received. As frustrating as the speedy deletion of my freshly posted article was, encountering this setback forced me to take a better look at my article and find areas for improvement. Upon re-posting my article, I was able to find simple fixes to spelling and grammar issues, as well as correct overly “flowery” language to have more of an “encyclopedia tone.” With help from Professor Reagle and Amanda Rust, I was able to edit my article and set it on a path leading towards “perfect article” completion.

Wikipedia: Writing the Perfect Article

Bearing all the lessons learned above in mind, reaching completion of a “perfect article” was somewhat challenging of a task. While I can agree that I have achieved a majority of the checkpoints on the list, I was unable to complete one, even after putting in a decent amount of time and effort. In other cases, I was able to check them off, but only after a seemingly absurd amount of research and work. While the initial tutorials taught me the core policies of Wikipedia, and how to abide by these five guidelines, the remainder of the “Help:XYZ” pages were not so clearly laid out. The Wikipedia Essentials tutorial helped me understand how to achieve a perfect article, in regards overarching concepts of notability, verifiability, written style—specifically neutral point of view—and article and citation structure; however, the remaining qualifications took some digging.

In general, I found my topic hard to work with, for most of the verifiable sources were primary—meaning information in the articles came from direct interviews with the owner of the shop. For this reason, I worry my article has too promotional/colloquial of a tone; however, by framing my article off of articles on similar topics, I think I was effectively able to create a NPOV piece, highlighting a notable topic—a flourishing local shop in a bustling part of the city. The end result is a bit shorter than I was hoping for, but I was effectively able to compile all of the research I gathered in an organized and detailed way. By linking my article to categories such as Interior Design and South End, Boston I was able to alter my article to no longer be an orphan. In addition, within the Entertainment and Retail sub-section of the South End, Boston article, I made mention of the Pioneer Goods Co. shop, further elevating its presence in the Wikipedia community.

Aside from the user who initially deleted my article, few people interacted with it, posing a challenge in my editing process. One classmate was nice enough to make minor adjustments in tagging concepts to other Wikipedia pages, but other than this, not too many changes were made. When I went back to make my own revisions, I kept in mind concepts we had touched upon in class, as well as referenced the “perfect article” guidelines. As a relatively new member of the Wikipedia community, I would have found it beneficial to have more veteran Wikipedians take a look at my article, pose suggestions and make edits. Although our class has the professor, Amanda and Adam as resources, I think having someone outside of our tiny community take a look with a fresh pair of unbiased eyes could have helped improve the quality of my article. In this way, I find the Wikipedia socialization process could be improved.

The biggest struggle I encountered, and still have not been able to overcome, is how to add the company logo to my Info Box. Because the logo is not an original piece of work, it cannot be uploaded to the Wikipedia Commons as could a picture I had taken myself. Referencing my earlier point of a need for more succinct and clear directions, I find the directions for uploading a picture need some cleaning up. By the end of the process of attempting to upload the logo to my page, I had about ten different browser tabs open, all on different pages related to uploading images to Wikipedia. After sifting through a multitude of confusing directions, I finally gave up and chalked my lack of a logo up as a loss. As a relatively new Wikipedian, I found this process to be extremely frustrating and hard to navigate, leaving me under satisfied with my article and disappointed in a newcomer experience I had otherwise been happy with.

Conclusion

Overall, I am satisfied with my newcomer experience to the Wikipedia community, however I have come to realize that there are a few minor rooms for improvement. To start, it would be nice to have had more interaction with my article. I was disappointed that only one classmate read and edited it, even after we re-organized the peer review list so that every student had two reviewers. Classmates aside, I believe Wikipedia could benefit from some sort of newcomer mentorship program. It was nice to have Adam welcome us to the community, but there is more that could have been done. By providing newcomers with guidance in the form of directions to various tutorials and automated review of new content, a newcomer is more likely to succeed and achieve a perfect article. Additionally, when guiding newcomers to said tutorials and “Help:XYZ” sections, it is important directions are clearly laid out. I was frustrated with my experience in trying to figure out various portions of the “perfect article” checklist, specifically in adding a category and uploading an image. Rather than having multiple sub-pages, I think Wikipedia needs to consolidate its directions into one, simplified ‘How To’ page per topic, in order to make the process more streamline.

Due to the time I have already put into my article, and my interest in the company I chose to write about, I hope to add the logo and maybe a picture, and produce an article I would be satisfied with the company seeing. There is something to be said about community member retention, based on my planned continuation in the process, even after finishing the course and graduating college. I look forward to figuring out this final dilemma and, at last, checking off the last requirement of the “perfect article.” Who knows, maybe this won’t be the last Wikipedia sees of User: Mshuttles.

Mshuttles (talk) 16:50, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

Word Count: 1,872

References

Kraut, Robert; Resnick, Paul (2011). Building Successful Online Communities. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press