User:Wikibicki/subpage

“Please keep in mind, Wikipedia cannot be used as one of your sources.” How many times have students heard this phrase throughout their high school and college careers? Taking a course that largely focused on learning about Wikipedia and actively participating in the community seemed to counter all of the teaching instruction I had previously received. However, over the course of the last few months, I have come to realize that the Wikipedia community is dedicated to ensuring that the information in articles is backed up by legitimate sources. In addition, I have found that Wikipedia is extremely welcoming to newcomers, particularly those who are students enrolled in a Wikipedia course. Lastly, as my enrollment in this course is coming to a close, I find that, despite my initial skepticism, I have developed a normative commitment to the Wikipedia community.

Years of scholarly writing has primed me to know that despite the innate desire to put pen to paper, it is important to first gather the research to formulate accurate claims. Almost all of the professors I’ve had have substantiated their dismissal of Wikipedia as a legitimate source by claiming that anyone can edit Wikipedia. While not factually inaccurate, the statement is misleading in that it implies that those who edit pages with false information go undetected and uncorrected. As a Wikipedia user, I’ve found that the “safest” space for writing an article is in the sandbox, because once an article goes live it’s vulnerable for speedy deletion (at worst) or being marked with templates that highlight the need for sources (such as citation needed, verify source, or unreferenced.) Before writing my own Wikipedia article, I was skeptical about the community’s ability to regulate such a massive collection of data. In a sea of over twenty million users, how long would it take for my article to be noticed? On October 23rd, at 16:40 UTC I moved my article out of the sandbox and into the public space. In just twenty-six minutes, I received my first article contribution. It is important to note that the user (Wgolf) who edited my page was not enrolled in the course, or in any way affiliated with my class. It was a genuine Wikipedia interaction, and despite my initial feelings of insignificance as a single user in such a large community, I was now convinced that article regulation was both very real and faster than I had ever imagined. So how does the Wikipedia community function so efficiently? In “Building Successful Online Communities” Kraut and Resnick (2012) claim that “easy to use tools for finding and tracking work that needs to be done will increase the amount that gets done” (Kindle Locations 616-619). The “New Pages” space for unpatrolled articles gives users clear, direct access to reviewing new articles, a task that Wikipedians like Wgolf are happy to take on.

While Wgolf’s first edit was meaningful to me as a Wikipedia user, it was not the only positive interaction I had as a newcomer in the community. Shortly after creating my username, I received a message on my talk page from Ian, who works with the Wiki Education Foundation, welcoming me to the community and providing me with resources such as how to choose, edit, and cite an article. My increased commitment to becoming a valuable Wikipedia contributor was supported by Kraut and Resnick’s (2012) claim that “when newcomers have friendly interactions with existing community members soon after joining a community, they are more likely to stay longer and contribute more” (Kindle Locations 4290-4294). Positive outreach early on set the tone for how I interacted with the Wikipedia community; I was more inclined to thank a user for their edits because of the initial socialization with Ian. In addition, student training and the sandbox provided me with an introduction to the rules and practices of Wikipedia, as well as a safe space to practice and develop those skills. I was less intimidated participating as a newcomer because I felt that I had received sufficient training and rehearsal to be able to make a valuable contribution. Once I was ready to take my article out of the sandbox, I was pleased to receive positive, constructive edits to my article. I was even lucky enough to have an interaction with somewhat of a Wikipedia “celebrity,” a user widely known for changing “comprised of” phrasing to “consists of” on thousands of pages. Overall, I felt that Wikipedia users abided by their “don’t bite the newcomers” policy in both welcoming me into the community, and improving my article without chastising me for my errors.

Despite my initial, positive Wikipedia interactions, I did not believe that I would ever consider myself a Wikipedian. While I enjoyed learning about how the community functions, I was aware that I was a temporary member, a user whose activity would be limited to the duration of the course. That was, up until a month ago, when I came across a misdirected link while browsing a page that listed companies whose headquarters were located in San Francisco, CA. When I clicked the link for a company called “Jawbone,” I found that it linked to an anatomical page rather than the intended company page. Without hesitation, I quickly googled to see if there was a page for a San Francisco based company called Jawbone and upon finding it, fixed the link. I then returned to scrolling through the original page. I had made the edit so quickly that it took me a minute before I realized what I had done. I had made a Wikipedia contribution that had nothing to do with my requirements as a student; I had simply seen a need and tended to it. It was at this point that I realized that I had developed what Kraut and Resnick (2012) define as a normative commitment: “a feeling that one has obligations to the community, to be loyal and act on its behalf” (Kindle Locations 2073-2074). I attribute my decision to edit to two things: (1) I was grateful for the edits my article had received and (2) I experienced some cognitive dissonance in my belief that Wikipedia is swift to correct errors made on public pages and finding the misdirected link. To resolve the dissonance that I was wrong about the site’s credibility, I corrected the error myself, restoring my faith that all errors are discovered and corrected. I never anticipated that I would have been the one making the correction, but over the course of a month I had really embraced Wikipedia’s ideology.

I would highly recommend any class that requires students to create Wikipedia articles and learn about how and why Wikipedians do what they do. Reading about various online communities and the strategies they employ made me consider a developer’s perspective where I would typically have a user outlook. Understanding what online communities like reddit and World of Warcraft do to promote contributions and commitment made me think of ways in which communities I’m a part of could be improved. While I never saw myself becoming a Wikipedian, I wonder how many platform developers began as students in an online communities course…I’ll look up the answer on Wikipedia.