User:Vanishadans/subpage

The quality and quantity of users determines the value of a community. Wikipedians are beginning to understand the value of retaining contributions from newcomers, however, they need to sustain their efforts in emphasizing them amongst existing users to encourage them to enforce them in their interactions with newcomers. Wikipedia has yet to enforce effective strategies to successfully retain new users, this is evident since the number of users on the community are 30,641,544, whereas, the number of active users on the site is only 139,716. The community could benefit from sustaining input and contributions from a large number of users from varying genders, ages, and social classes to expand the potential and coverage of article topics on the site, strengthening its identity as an online encyclopedia.

I started my journey as a Wikipedian by creating a page about ‘Analytical Thinking.’ After moving my page from the sandbox to mainspace, I was told by a moderator that my page seemed incomplete since the topic was too broad. I agreed to the moderator’s judgement and decided to start writing another article. This time I chose an e-commerce website with operations around Asia called Zalora Group. I was surprised that the site did not already have a Wikipedia article as it has been around for many years and it is quite successful. Although I faced my fair share of obstacles over the course of the semester, I am glad I got my feet wet and learnt how to use a new online platform and check the "diff" for example, the diff between the previous and current version of my 'Analytical Thinking' page was 766061608.

Being an active user on Wikipedia in the past semester has enabled me to expand my knowledge on the community, giving me first hand experience of being a newcomer on the site. As a first-time user, I was immediately invited by the community to join the “tea-house” which is an initiative for Wikipedians to welcome new users and initiate interaction. Since all or most of my classmates got this message, it felt impersonal, more like an automated welcome message rather than a personalized, hand-picked one. The symbolic value of the invitation dropped, and I did not participate in the tea-house initiative. This relates to Kraut and Resnick’s design claim 18 from ‘Building Successful Online Communities: Evidence-Based Social’ 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.” I agree with Kraut and Resnick’s theory to a slight extent, however, I feel that the interaction should be more personal, rather than a mass invitation sent to every newcomer.

Kraut and Resnick highlighted five main problems that communities must solve when dealing with newcomers. ‘Selection’ applies to our experience as more experienced Wikipedians tended to select articles and users which blended in well with the community. By correcting our work, they engaged in ‘socialization,’ teaching us how to behave in ways appropriate to the group. Wikipedians ruled out articles that they considered to be promotional, incomplete or false information with the intention of ‘protecting’ the community from potentially damaging actions that may jeopardize the reputation of the community from people who have little knowledge of group behavior or “little motivation to follow community norms.” (p.180) We, as a class were not actively ‘recruited’ by Wikipedia - being the first basic problem online communities must solve when dealing with newcomers - we were required to join it for our ‘Online Communities’ class. However, Wikipedia’s lack of initiation rituals encourages the recruitment of new members, which is important for “replenishment and growth” of the community. (p.180)

Upon entering Wikipedia, we were required to watch an introductory video before contributing. This acted as an initiation ritual, which made us more familiar with the inner workings of the community by introducing community norms and potentially increasing our commitment to the platform. I found this to be slightly overwhelming, as a lot of information was dumped upon us at once. Being a kinesthetic learner, I find it easier to learn as I utilize the site, rather than reading rules or being told the rules, especially if the site uses technical language that is exclusive to itself, much like Wikipedia does. The video, however, did a great job of introducing concepts to us, although it was in too much detail to digest at once. The lack of barriers to entry to Wikipedia made me value membership in the site less. This also probably explains the small number of active users in comparison to the overall number of users on the site. I felt as though I did not have a strong bond with the site or its users since I did not face any difficulty in order to gain the title of a Wikipedian.

Wikipedia has a strong group of moderators - these are individuals that “facilitate communication” in an “active community of mostly productive editors” according to James Grimmelann’s ‘The Virtues of Moderation.’ In my opinion, these moderators, who probably consist of middle aged, educated males have carried out their roles efficiently. Within two days of moving my article into mainspace, my article was marked as “incomplete” by a Wikipedia moderator. The pace at which they moderate articles is impressive and healthy for the site in terms of cutting out irrelevant content. Although their approach may seem harsh it is understandable that their intention is to protect the reputation of the online community, given the fact that people often question the reliability of Wikipedia articles since they can be edited by practically anyone.

Overall, being a newcomer on Wikipedia has been a bitter-sweet experience. Despite the fact that my article was not deleted, the sort of criticism I received prompted me to change the topic of my article so that I could successfully deliver a complete article. The experience enabled me to learn to interact with users, facilitate communication, negotiate and collaborate with other users. It was also brought to my attention that showing appreciation through sending Wikilove can bring harmony to a community, since users work so hard to moderate and govern Wikipedia, this is one way we as fellow Wikipedians can keep the community alive and encourage the generation of more content and the governance of existing content.