Hallekerickson

Report/reflection essay:

Participating in wikipedia as an editor was a first-time experience for me. Quite honestly, I didn’t even know that “just anyone” could edit and write wikipedia articles. This experience not only taught me how wikipedia is a community of many different types of people and is open for the public to contribute to, but taught me a lot about how online communities work, and certain concepts that allow them to work better-or worse.

During this new time on wikipedia, what stands out to me on where wiki could improve involve their training, their rewards, norm violation, and tracking edits. I felt the training I was required to complete before editing was dense and overwhelming. This unfortunately lowered my motivation to complete the trainings since they were more time consuming (and boring). These trainings also potentially intimidate and turn users away, as it increases the cost of joining and contributing to the community (users have to dedicate more time and energy to the trainings before actually participating). In relevance to the cost of participating in wikipedia, one way they could make participation more appealing to users and increase user benefits would be providing more extrinsic rewards, and potentially pay users who are highly active. Wikipedia would likely attract more users in general but also motivate users to contribute more edits as well as moderate other users’ edits (increasing the quality of wikipedia overall) if they paid highly active users to do so. One thing to note with incorporating this extrinsic reward would be for Wikipedia to set a large enough budget for payment; as once you start paying volunteers to do something-you can’t really ever stop (once you stop paying, the volunteers will be much less motivated to do such actions) due to “crowding out” learned in lecture. Finally, Wikipedia would also strengthen their online community by doing more to catch norm violators, and with that tracking who creates what edits. As we’ve learned, norm violations in a community can have a lot of negative impacts. To name a few examples; norm violators can offend other users, misinform (especially on wikipedia), and cause other users to leave the community altogether. While it can be inevitable for online communities to experience trolls, griefers, spammers or even new users violating norms, there is room for Wikipedia to improve their norm enforcement. To prevent trolls or increase norm following, Wikipedia could make account creation harder to achieve. By Wikipedia surveilling who creates accounts (or limit a number of accounts per device, require further identity features and more) there is a better chance at preventing trolls or spammers from creating accounts, and thus norm violation. Also, Wikipedia stresses to always sign edits with your username so others know who left the specific edit. Instead of making signing a voluntary and manual action, it could be beneficial to create a new feature in which every edit made (or comment added or action carried out) is automatically signed and linked to a certain account. This would prevent norm violations because users would furtherly fear getting caught (for trolling, spamming), and would also allow moderators to better sanction accounts who repeatedly break rules. Furthermore, norm violation could be prevented if each edit has to first be approved by a moderator before it gets published to the public.

Besides improving Wikipedia beyond what it already is, Wikipedia could do a better job at recruiting and advertising. As this course taught me that anyone can edit and write wikipedia articles, this fact is a sign that Wikipedia could directly recruit and advertise more, thus increasing participation and contributions. The WikiEdu program in itself is a great way to recruit new users. Wikipedia could go further beyond this, and promote to more schools, certain fields and the public in general to share that anyone can edit and help make Wikipedia better. I don’t think they do this enough already. Wikipedia could advertise and recruit more by having a celebrity or influencer discuss how they personally help edit and improve Wiki articles. Or perhaps even on Wiki article pages, post a clear sign that states “you too can help make Wikipedia great!” which would likely entice more users to join the backside of wiki.

During my time this quarter as a Wikipedian, what I found as most beneficial and strong include the help resources, the wide range of topics, and how, in my opinion, there really is no “free rider problem” in the community. It was very clear on how to ask for help, and where to go for it. Having a “Wikieducator,” or just other fellow wikipedians as resources, to go to to ask specific questions was very helpful, and provided me with reassurance and encouragement to “be bold.” This aspect allows Wikipedia to ensure quality content as new users make fewer mistakes by learning what is and is not acceptable before they actually try it out. A larger sense of community is created through these easily accessible and approachable resources as well, expanding the attraction of being a Wikipedian. Additionally, by Wikipedia being an online encyclopedia for, really, a limitless amount of topics, there is an article and thus a space for every person. With many people able to be a member of the Wikipedia community, there are many people who participate and edit and improve the various articles. In order to participate in the wikipedia community, one either reads or edits the articles. Because of this, everyone who participates in the community does so in a way that the wikipedia administrators want, and since there is not a very high cost of joining, wikipedia does not run into the problem of “free-riders” (people who use but do not pay for the service). Whether a user is just reading, or a user is editing, the community benefits from that user and receives contributions.