User:Emma Carleton/analysis

Wikipedia Reflection

“I wouldn’t have made it this far without Wikipedia.” This is a sentence that I (and most other students) have uttered at one point or another in their academic career.  As long as I have been using the Internet, Wikipedia has been my one stop shop for everything from looking up definitions before an exam to setting a bet with my brother about whether or not Kevin Bacon appeared in a certain 80s comedy. It is our number one Google search result and one of the most frequently used sites out there. Despite all of that, though, I never once thought about contributing to the site. I never considered Wikipedia to be a social environment in which a community could be built like I had experienced on sites like Tumblr or Instagram. Since I viewed Wikipedia as a source of information, I never saw myself as qualified enough to write or edit an article. I, like most people, just consumed the information without ever contributing anything in return.

That mindset definitely played into the hesitancy that I experienced when first starting out on Wikipedia in September. Originally, I struggled to find a topic because most subjects that I felt confident enough to write about already existed. When I checked the list of wanted topics provided to us, I did not feel confident that I could write about any of the listed subjects well enough to meet Wikipedia's standards. Eventually, as it got closer to the date that we needed to have our articles posted, I decided to follow the path of “being bold” and create my article on the coffeehouse I was sitting in. I knew it was a popular chain in Boston, so I figured it fit the guidelines of notability and, seeing as my workload and my caffeine dependency caused me to visit their locations frequently, I felt as though I could write confidently about the business.

As a newcomer, getting over the learning curve of the Wiki syntax was one of the most substantial hurdles that I had to get over. In terms of tutorials and how-to pages, I felt as though Wikipedia did not offer enough straightforward options for those who were totally unfamiliar with the platform. For the basics, the Wiki Edu videos and tutorials were helpful, but when it came to the more complicated formatting tasks (like adding in info boxes) the how-to pages and template options were jargon filled and hard to sort through, so it took me awhile time to get it right.  Eventually, I opted for asking classmates for help because sifting through template and instruction pages was not helpful for someone like me, who learns best through seeing the process done in front of them. I found that Wikipedia works best for those who follow written instruction best. Therefore, it was harder for a visual learner like myself to get up to speed with how to do certain tasks in the “Edit Source” space.

As challenging as this process was for me, I believe that Wikipedia puts this difficulty level in place for a reason. As Kraut and Resnick would put it, it aids in their new member process of “self-selection.” Those who did not feel adequate enough right off the bat, or those with little motivation to learn, would eventually get bored or frustrated and leave the community. The formatting and instructional roadblocks I experienced are an example of a less formal version of Kraut and Resnick’s new member design claim 13, “Forcing potential members to undertake separating tasks will encourage those who are a good fit to the community to join while weeding out undesirables.” Because I was participating in the Wikipedia community for a grade, I put forth more effort to succeed than I would have otherwise. Realistically, if I had approached this task on my own and struggled as much as I did initially, I most likely would have just abandoned the task altogether. There are so many other online communities out there that would be a better fit to me that I would not have seen abandoning the task as much of a personal loss. 

Wikipedia does, however, make starting out a little bit easier by offering the “Edit” tab, with a more Microsoft-Word-like set up. I was able to get the bulk of my Wikipedia tasks done through that and it eased my anxieties surrounding Wiki syntax, as the edit option was in a format that was significantly more familiar to me. I believe that this edit option opens up the Wikipedia community to a larger pool of candidates than if the “Edit Source” section was the only open editing option. It makes the process of going into an article and making smaller changes a much simpler and less daunting process.

As nice as the user-friendly edit option is, it does run the risk of causing the Wikipedia community to be more susceptible to vandalism and trolls. If it is easier for anonymous contributors and trolls to edit articles, they will most likely do so, and do so frequently. To battle that, Wikipedians employ the “don’t feed the trolls” mentality; they simply delete those contributions, do not make a fuss, and move forward. If the trolls don’t get the rise they want from people, they will most likely lose their motivation and abandon the attempt. Additionally, to fight trolls’ ability to create multiple pseudonyms to continue to vandalize the website, even if their original pseudonym has been banned, Wikipedia employs the use of Kraut and Resnick’s design claim 29 of “Imposing costs for or preventing pseudonym switching.” If one was to create multiple accounts to edit the site, the Wikipedia admins would be able to trace the accounts back to your IP address and you would be harshly punished or banned from the site. This helps to keep the content as relevant as possible and the community as civil as possible. Additionally, to keep civility within the community, the rules and expectations are explicitly written out and it is made clear that, if a member engages in unfriendly conversation or consistently gets into unproductive conflict (i.e. an edit war) there would be consequences to pay.  Mirroring the idea of Kraut and Resnick’s design claim 18, knowing that rules like these were in place made me significantly more cautious when making my contributions to the site and I actively sought to only make contributions I felt fell safely within the guidelines and that I felt I could defend in a civil way if someone were to challenge them. Seeing the rules laid out for me made understanding what was expected of me a lot easier to understand and adapt to, especially coming from a background of online communities with less rigid structures.

As I continued on in my Wikipedia journey over the course of the semester, I began feeling increasingly more confident in my skills and began feeling more comfortable having personal interactions on the site. I began making edits on pages where I saw writing that could be more concise and offered my classmates advice on how to clean up their own articles. I also received similar advice from my classmates in return. I even received edits from contributors who weren’t a part of our class. One qualm I did have from that, though, is that when edits were made, explanations weren’t always given as to why. I found it hard to accept and learn from mistakes that were not made clear to me. In this example here, Noah had made an edit on my behalf, but another user deleted it without giving a full explanation. Because of this, confidently moving forward was difficult because I didn’t know whether or not my contribution would yield the same “delete-worthy” results. In the same vein, I submitted my article for review and it was originally given a C-class rating, but did not go into detail about why. Therefore, I struggled with figuring out exactly what needed to be improved upon and the interaction felt slightly cold because the criticism had no reasoning. In some ways, I felt as though old members were more critical than helpful, which was discouraging. An improvement that Wikipedia could make is finding a way to make significant feedback on edits a requirement to prevent confusion. However, I did just think back to the guidelines and assume good faith and moved along to improve my article to the best of my ability. Here is the original version, and here is my finished product!

Overall, my experience entering the Wikipedia community was a good one. It came with its own unique set of challenges and setbacks, but, ultimately, I came out of it feeling as though the process was rewarding. Becoming a Wikipedian over the course of the semester has shown me that there are more online communities out there than the ones that we usually think of, and that I should be less afraid of testing them out. There’s no harm in exploring, just as long as you assume good faith!