User:Terose92

5th year Communications Major at NU

Online Communities Wikipedia Reflection

Wikipedia is an enormous online community, with over 23 million members collectively making, on average, ten edits per second. Before taking this class, I never understood the scope of work and level of accomplishment that Wikipedia achieves on a daily basis. It wasn't until I became a member myself that I was able to see other Wikipedians in action, contributing to one of the world’s largest online encyclopedias. Although I am proud to have been a part of such a project, I am partially disappointed with that lack of personal interactions I have experienced while on the site. Wikipedia’s large community size led me to believe that I would be contacted by multiple users throughout the semester. I was looking forward to the seeing first hand Wikipedia’s cultural practices and processes at work. Unfortunately, during my 3 month existence on the site, I have never been contacted by a fellow Wikipedian outside of our class. Any page edits or messages I received were sent, disappointingly, by bots. While the Wikipedia community is vast, I believe that its size does not dictate the type of experience newcomers will have upon joining. As such, I believe there are a few processes that Wikipedia could implement to create a more personal and welcoming newcomer experience. By reflecting upon my personal experiences with Wikipedia and our assigned class readings, I will make three critiques pertaining to Wikipedia newcomer protocol while also offering three corresponding solutions to these issues. The goal of these critiques and suggestions is to encourage stronger new user commitment and participation within the Wikipedia community.

Kraut and Resnick list five main issues that online communities should address when dealing with newcomers: recruitment, selection, retention, socialization and protection. Out of those five concerns, socialization is the most applicable issue to my Wikipedia newcomer experiences and difficulties. Kraut and Resnick define socialization as the ways in which a community teaches its newcomers to behave in methods appropriate to the group. When initially joining the Wikipedia community, I felt that the lack of an official welcome and introduction to the site hindered my ability to socialize and assimilate. Professor Reagle and Amanda taught us the rules of Wikipedia within the classroom but external training and application was virtually non-existent. At the beginning of the semester we completed a short online tutorial that provided vital information on how to get started with our article creation. It was up to us individually to find and learn any further instruction pertaining to Wikipedia processes.

As a newcomer, I believe it would have been helpful to receive an email or UserPage message with a welcome letter and resource guide. A resource guide specifically, would have helped and encouraged me to contribute more to the site and do so at a faster rate. Its implementation would work to dispel much of the newcomer anxiety that Kraut and Resnick mention, such as offending other group members or undercutting the smooth functioning of the group. Although Wikipedia does have a “Welcoming Committee,” myself and other members of the class were not greeted by such a group. Kraut and Resnick describe Wikipedia’s Welcoming Committee as a group that reaches out to newcomers and sends helpful suggestions and words of encouragement. In my opinion, an initial greeting from such a committee would be even more effective and personal than a simple message and resource guide. But the committee’s lack of consistency and ability to contact every newcomer is a disappointing flaw. Since “assigning the responsibilities of having friendly interactions with newcomers to particular community members increases the frequency of these interactions,” I suggest that Wikipedia works to increase the size of its Welcoming Committee. With a larger number of editors working to greet newcomers, I believe that easier and faster newcomer assimilation would result.

Taking my Wikipedia “Welcoming Committee” suggestion further, I reason Wikipedia mentors could serve as an additional solution to newcomer socialization within the community. Pairing Wikipedia newcomers with a mentor would provide them a friendly online companionship that would work to keep the newcomer in the community longer and encourage them to contribute more. Mentors could answer complex questions that newcomers might have pertaining to some of Wikipedia’s more lengthy processes and protocols. For example, while working on the Travelers Aid Society of Boston’s page I wanted to include a picture from the organization found in the Northeastern University archives. Since the postcard was over 25 years old and loose with no copyright information, a bot correspondingly removed it from the page. After looking into the process of appealing the deletion, I concluded that attempting the process would be too overwhelming to do on my own and in a short amount of time. Both Professor Reagle and Amanda offered to support me through the process but I felt that I was too inexperienced to complete such a task. A personal mentor could have helped me feel more confident and comfortable since their main goal would be to help me specifically. I could’ve directed my questions to a mentor able to dedicate time to helping me through the appeal process.

Personally, I would have greatly enjoyed having a fellow Wikipedian show me the ropes. I received excellent support from Professor Reagle and Amanda but having a mentor specific to the Wikipedia community and exclusively from my Northeastern classroom community, would have allowed me to feel more invested in the Wikipedia experience. Instead of turning to Professor Reagle and Amanda to answer my questions, I could ask my mentor for suggestions. Although these are my own personal sentiments, I know that there are many Wikipedian’s that may not agree with my suggestion of newcomer mentorship. Wikipedia’s “Don’t Bite the Newcomer” policy seems to be closely followed within the community. But, there is some validity to the RTFM saying that is prevalent among many other online communities. A mentorship program could be helpful for newcomers to get their initial footing, but there would need to be a system in place to avoid mooching and excessive neediness.

While the above critiques and suggestions focus on removing communication barriers for newcomers, my last suggestion focuses on actually implementing entry barriers for newcomers. During the beginning stages of article creation, I realized that I did not know how to use many of Wikipedia’s functions or how to access its informational resources. The tutorial videos and initial required online class work provided basic Wikipedia skills training that proved essential while gaining initial footing. But it was rather generalized and fell short of equipping newcomers with every needed skill. For example, I personally had a hard time understanding citation formatting within my page. I had to do a lot of extra reading to figure out how to cite sources correctly and (to be blunt) I know that if this page was not a class assignment I would not have had the motivation to do the extra research. Therefore, I suggest that Wikipedia implements entry barriers that are mandatory to complete before new users are allowed to make edits. These barriers would be educational, requiring newcomers to complete a series of tasks related to editing and page creation within the site. They would start out easy and progress in difficulty of skill, teaching users anything from info boxes to Wikimedia Commons. Not only would these barriers educate newcomers in an interactive way, but entry barriers may also cause those who join to be more committed to the group and contribute more to it.

In conclusion, Wikipedia has the ability to increase newcomer socialization and participation through the implementation of Kraut and Resnick’s various design criteria. While Wikipedia has a vast amount of educational tools, their availability and visibility to newcomers is somewhat lacking. Through welcome committees, mentorship programs and educational entry barriers, newcomers could gain a better understanding of Wikipedia’s practices and could contribute more to the encyclopedia at a faster rate. Features like these would also help newcomers stay involved with the community and feel a sense of connection to their work and the work of other editors. Overall, I have enjoyed becoming a new member of another online community and am proud to say that I have contributed to one of the largest online projects in the world.