User:Npilchen/subpage

Experiential Learning: Wikipedia Contribution Reflection

Introduction

In Episode #68 of No Holds Bard, one of the hosts, Dan Beaulieu off-handedly requested: "I need a spreadsheet made. Of all the words of the week. That also includes what I call the people at the top of the show—what I call all you listeners," to which Kevin Condardo suggested: "We could make a wiki, a No Holds Bard wiki. If someone knew how to do that... I have no idea how you do that." I knew that a wiki could be made, and as the first Design Claim I learned about this semester states: Making the list of needed contributions easily visible increases the likelihood that the community will provide them.

Writing

No Holds Bard was a surprisingly easy article to write. This was partially due to the fact of it being a podcast. I knew it would follow a similar design to TV show season articles, focusing primarily on cataloguing the episodes (as opposed to writing about the podcast, which would increase the odds of committing a writing violation). While it was an easy article to write, in terms of understanding Wikipedia as a community, it was a poor article to choose. It's possible that it was just too small of a podcast to choose, but I never had to interact with actual Wikipedians while writing this article. There was a small issue where a bot flagged my article as an orphan, but I recently rectified that by linking the article through Were the World Mine, a movie where the podcast got their theme music from. Because I did not have to discuss edits with other Wikipedians, at times I felt that I was both missing out on the "full Wikipedia experience," and that my article was going unnoticed. Ironically, this goes against Design Claim 34: People will be more willing to contribute in an online group when they think that they are unique and that others in the group cannot make contributions similar to theirs. Because my contribution was so niche, it almost felt irrelevant. In fact, I was almost surprised that the article was not flagged for notability reasons. That being said, I also strived to produce a very well-thought-out, well-designed article, so I was pleased that (currently) nobody had any problems with the content or format of it.

Reception

When I shared the No Holds Bard article with the hosts of the podcast, they were not only thrilled with it, and shared it on the podcast, but they also rewarded me with a sonnet in my praise:

O how I faint, when I of thee do Skype
The webmaster mistress of our passion.
You live up to, and far exceed the hype,
By simplifying our confusion.*
Your depth and levels crave a subtle wit
As you consistently defy the odds.
Your craft and art forever are tight knit
Whilst few display the coding of the gods.
A humble human, and a sage divine,
Are joined in one, in one, a thousand smarts.
Your multitudinous brain has such a shine,
It lives perpetually in our weak hearts.
O Nppilch, my hands get kind of sticky,
When I think of you, and our kick-ass wiki.**

* PRONUNCIATION/RHYME: "Confusion" pronounced as four-syllables, "con-fu-si-on".
** PUN: A "kicky-wicky" is another name for a lover, used in All's Well That Ends Well.

Because of this reward, I felt, and feel, obliged to maintain the article as new episodes of the podcast come out. This innate obligation nicely illustrates Design Claim 23: Rewards—whether in the form of status, privilege, or material benefits—motivate contributions.

Conclusion

I wonder if it would be beneficial or detrimental to show the number of unique views to a particular Wikipedia article. It might deter people with unique interests from writing articles if they saw they were never read, but I could see it strengthening online bonds between users with said unique interest. No Holds Bard is a small podcast, but it is my hope that as Design Claim 12 suggests: People are more likely to comply with a request when they see that other people have also complied. Hopefully after hearing that there are other active "bardflies" (what the hosts have termed their listeners), the No Holds Bard community will strengthen. Coincidentally, though maybe I should have realized this earlier, my bond with the online community of No Holds Bard grew throughout the semester. I found that one of the overarching ideas in this course was that participating in a community is completely participatory and involves putting in effort and time. If the community is run well, however, that time and effort will be considered well spent.

I am so glad that I was able to take this class. I believe that is the only capstone that really stays true to Northeastern's mission of grounding education in experiential learning. Writing a lengthy paper analyzing the rhetoric devices of JFK's inaugural address is admirable, but it does not contribute to society in the clear way that additions to Wikipedia do.