User:Iferrrerb/Essay

Wikipedia Reflection

As creator of Wikipedia James Wales once said “The goal is to give people a free encyclopedia to every person in the world, in their own language. Not just in a 'free beer' kind of way, but also in the free speech kind of way”. As I have always been a great fan of Wikipedia because of its enormous database, I had a very hard time in high school with references, because my teacher did not allow us to use Wikipedia for academic work. According to Harvard’s Guide to Using Sources, the Harvard Writing Program states, "when you're doing academic research, you should be extremely cautious about using Wikipedia." As every one knows, Wikipedia is a free-open encyclopedia and the level of expertise of contributors is not taking in consideration at the time of editing any article. So growing up, I had a hard time figuring out if Wikipedia was really a reliable online community that I could trust. It was not until I decided to join a class called Online Communities that I could understand better the role Wikipedia plays on our daily lives. I had the opportunity to become a Wikipedia contributor and editor, even though my contribution is not picture-perfect, I believe it is genuine and I am very proud of it. I decided to contribute to Wikipedia with the creation of the article of Jean Mcguire and with that contribution I learned how collaborating with good faith, following the code of conduct, and working together towards consensus are some of the strategies Wikipedia use to built and maintain a reliable online community.

First, I will talk about collaborating with good faith and the experience I had with some Wikipedia editors on this matter. Secondly, I will explain how Wikipedia relies on a strict code of conduct, which competently guide its members and how sometimes I felt that I violated the code without even realizing it. Lastly, I will explain how my article had multiple issues at the start; it was flagged for revision and even deletion and how Wikipedia led to a consensus after improvements.

In class we learned about good faith collaboration and how Wikipedia editors led to consensus by working together to build an online encyclopedia. During my experience as a Wikipedia contributor, I had several encounters with Wiki editors that just wanted to give me a hand and guide me towards the correct path. Some of those editors are Amanda, and user:Primergrey. At first, I had a lot of trouble with grammar and editing since I was a “newbie” on Wikipedia. After some improvements, my article still had glitches with grammar and style. But after a session of edit-a-thon with Amanda, I understood that root of my problem was the style of my writing. Editors felt my writing was more like a story style rather than an encyclopedic style. So after several edits and changing the style, my article was in much better shape now. Additionally, I had problems with the notability, and one day while I was working on my article, I received a very kind message of Amanda on my talk page with an improving lead. It said:

”I'm glad you took this subject on! Notice that you've gotten a challenge on notability. I think you have some information on her notability in the article itself (she was the first African-American woman on the Boston School Committee, right after Boston busing desegregation), so it would be helpful to show that in the lead section. AmandaRR123 (talk) 22:16”.

That advice helped me enormously and I was very grateful for it, I went to talk to Amanda and acknowledged her in person so she could realize how grateful I was for her help. Another wiki user:Primergrey help me a lot with the references and grammar mistakes of my article. He was an experienced contributor, who had a long time editing articles. He likewise, let me know in a very kind manner, that some of the references I had used in my article were incorrect and that I could find some better ones. I then went to the contributions he made to my article in the history page and pressed the thanks button, but I still felt that wasn’t enough, so I went to his talk page and left him a cupcake for him to understand how grateful I was. Following that event, he wrote me back in my talk page saying thanks for the cupcake. With this interactions, I believe I had understand in depth the concept of good faith in Wikipedia, but still seems a little hard to explain because it is a feeling that comes from within, it is the result of the intrinsic motivation that I got by being part of the community. I wanted to contribute simply because I expected others to do so too and together improve the community. Moreover, when the user corrected me, I could relate it to what Joseph Reagle explains in his chapter "Good faith: the Collaborative culture of Wikipedia", when he talks about contributor guidelines and states how “well-meaning people make mistakes, and you should correct them when they do. You should not act like their mistake was deliberate. Correct, but don’t scold.” The constructive attitude maintained in the Wikipedia guidelines encourages members to be respectful of every contribution made and to aid in mistakes. Consequently creating a collaborative culture where even the most inexpert feel valued. It is important to maintain this culture of collaboration in order to give confidence to the “Newbies” and for them to continue contributing and helping the community become a better place.

According Reagle, collaborative culture refers "to the way of life of a people, the value- laden system of “ meaning making through which a community understands and acts.” The collaborative culture of an online community is part of the code of conduct expected of the members involved to comply in. A code of conduct is defined by a set of rules outlining the responsibilities of, or proper practices for, and individual and the community . As Wikipedia is a very popular site, It is important to have a very strict system of control and punishment in order for all the users to follow the guidelines and maintain an organized environment. While creating an article in Wikipedia, I felt that I violated the code of conduct when I erased a flag that a user had raised to my article because I had already fix it, but forgot to note the changes I had made before erasing the flag. Instantly, that user sent me a private message asking me that next time I made edits I have to document it on the page, so others know that the mistake was taken care of. Even though my behavior was not harmful as trolls behavior can be, I knew I had violated the code of conduct by not reading the guidelines of editing before hand.

As Joseph Reagle explains in his chapter on “The Challenges of Consensus," for many individuals “consensus certainly seems like an appropriate means for decision making in a community with egalitarian values and a culture of good faith. Furthermore, this form of decision-making has been central to online collaboration since the Internet’s start. Yet, while consensus might seem simple enough in theory, it is rarely so in practice.” Complications in a community can arise not only by violating the code of conduct as many intentionally do, but also when there are challenges to reach a consensus. As my article at the beginning had multiple issues, it was flagged for revision and even deletion. I was very stressed and did not know what was going to happen to all the information I had gathered. So after a lot of hard work and hours editing I could finally fix many of the issues I was flagged for. My article had evolved enormously, so I was confused what was going to happed next. I even posted on my talk page I was working on the notability and grammar issues, so users knew I was on it. After many revisions and improvements Wikipedia led to the consensus that my page was notable and did not found any other issues for the article to be deleted, so they decided to keep it. I found interesting how some users voted for my article to be deleted, while others did not feel that it should be deleted, and how Wikipedia collects evidence and do a lot of research, before making a consensus in order to be a fair outcome.

In conclusion, I am very proud of myself that I had the opportunity to contribute to one of the largest and most important online encyclopedia sites. By working on it daily, I realize that it is in fact a reliable and healthy community that promotes teamwork. Through the creation of the article of Jean McGuire, I learned how collaborating with good faith, following the code of conduct, and overcoming challenges towards consensus are successful approaches that Wikipedia editors work with, in order to maintain a successful community. I learned immensely about the editing process behind creating an article in Wikipedia and how easy it may seem but it’s really quite the opposite. By creating an article myself, I could understand how much time and effort Wikipedia editors dedicate to build a complete and efficacious online encyclopedia. I want all of them to know that as well as me; there are a lot of people out there very grateful for their effort.