User:Echeverry.catalina/reflection

Introduction

It is astounding to me that in my last semester of my college education I have just begun to scrape the surface of what Wikipedia is and what it can offer. My first run-in with the online platform was in middle school when my teachers told my class that “when finding sources for your work remember that Wikipedia is NOT a valid source”. I was told that Wikipedia was not an accurate source of information because any random person can edit on it, using material that was not usually supported with credible origins. I had no idea what Wikipedia was at the time so I didn’t really care all that much whether I could use it or not, but from that initial introduction I began to associate Wikipedia with the likes of public forums or blogs.

Then I joined the 2019 Online Communities class, where I would soon learn that for my capstone project I would need to create or expand a Wikipedia article. Upon hearing this I immediately began to panic a little. I was not familiar with pretty much anything Wikipedia-related, other than finding random information, I had never really needed it. The anxiety began to worsen once I learned that Wikipedia had its own culture, language, rules, editing tools, etc. Not to mention I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to write about. I was dreading coming up with a topic until, one day, I realized I wasn’t completely lost anymore. Learning about Wikipedia in class and consistently using the platform to write QICs made me feel more comfortable with exploring the website on my own and figuring out how it worked. After feeling so nervous about whether or not this project was over my head or not, I began to feel more comfortable on Wikipedia. Now I find it funny that I was ever nervous at all, to be honest. This class was intimidating at first, but now, as I am approaching its end, I find that it taught me a lot of really interesting concepts, and gave me a newfound respect and admiration for Wikipedia and its Wikipedians.

About the Article

For my Wikipedia project, I chose to expand on an article. The article was about La Alianza Hispana, a social service organization in Roxbury and Dorchester founded around the goal to assist the Latino community in Boston. When starting my plan for how I was going to tackle the expansion of this article, I first spoke with Northeastern librarian, and fellow Wikipedian, Amanda Rust. She informed me that this article was in need of a little love, and that I should start by creating a neutral voice for what already exists and then finding new sources to make the article more credible. The original article that I came across only had two real sources, the Northeastern Archives, and the website for La Alianza Hispana itself.

After rewriting the original article to impart a more neutral voice, I began to research other sources. It was hard to find information on the organization from outside sources so I spoke with Amanda again, and she explained to me that I should include new articles or notable moments in the history of La Alianza Hispana. She directed me to the Historical Newspapers of ProQuest, and my search began. I knew that I needed to find articles that were relevant towards the notability of the organization, so I tried to only use articles that highlighted important foundational information about the organization or instances of direct impacts on the community La Alianza Hispana serves. In the end I found five articles. The first two were about important affiliations and grants that kept the organization afloat, while the last three were about important and unique ways that the programs and events have positively affected the community.

Including new sources led me to a new task to complete: citations. At first when I realized I can only edit citation in source mode, I was a bit wary because source mode can be a little daunting. However, I soon began to understand how the source code language worked, through a lot of help from informational Wikipedia articles such as Help:Referencing for Beginners, Template:Cite News, and Wikipedia:Citing Sources. Soon I was getting the hang of citing news articles, and I was starting to feel like a pro, until I realized my reference list at the bottom of the page was completely out of sorts. As you can see in this version of the article, I just could not get my sources to line up with my notations. I didn’t understand how to fix it so I just started to play around with the article until I figured it out. Instead of just editing the source code on my references, I decided to look at the source code of the page as a whole. When I did that I realized that in order to organize my citations I needed to simply delete some text above the References heading, because that piece of text was messing up the order. After that citations were a breeze.

As a final touch to my article I also trekked out to Roxbury and snapped a picture of the front of La Alianza Hispana building. I also had to use a helpful Wiki page in order to figure out how to incorporate it into my article in an appropriate way. Wikipedia:Uploading images was my guiding light for this step of my Wikipedia journey.

I am pretty proud of how my Wikipedia article turned out, not only because I worked hard on it, because it is proof that an intimidating project can turn into a skill. I was very nervous coming into this class, and now I feel confident in my skills as a Wikipedian, skills that I plan to use again in the future thanks to this class.

Recommendations

Before this semester I honestly had no interest in participating in the Wikipedian community, and I believe that had a lot to do with how it’s perceived by outsiders. As an outsider, I thought being a Wikipedian was a complicated endeavor that required particular skill sets. It seemed like an exclusive club for encyclopedia aficionados. If it weren’t for this class I may still feel that way. That is why I believe that Wikipedia should change the way the reach newcomers.

I believe that if a stronger social systems was set in place, more people would be interested in contributing to the platform. WikiLove is a nice concept but it is not easy to find out what it is unless someone tells you. If the site was more collaborative among users, with live chatrooms for specific topics, or access to help or contact from Wikipedians in real time, then I feel like that would strengthen commitment and collaboration so much. Design Claim 16 states that “Combining contribution with social contact with other contributors causes members to contribute more.” Intrinsic motivation can be strengthened through extrinsic connection. This was a huge driving factor for me. Being able to connect with my peers through the QICs and learning about WikiLove strengthened my ability to connect with this project.

In addition to a stronger social aspect I would recommend a Wiki-Helper. Much like Microsoft's infamous paperclip Office Assistant , I think that the process of creating and editing articles would be so much smoother if there was an interactive digital helper, aiding in the various processes involved in becoming a WikiAdult. Of course there is something to be said about the commitment resulting from the hard work of figuring it all out yourself. As seen in a Stanford University study about differing severity levels of initiation processes, evidence suggests that "subjects who underwent a severe initiation perceived the group as being significantly more attractive than did those who underwent a mild initiation or no initiation. " In other words, a more tedious experience in mastering Wikipedia could lead to a greater commitment towards it. However, considering the growing need for new Wikipedians, I believe it is more important to make the website more accessible to a wider range of online users.

Conclusion

My experience on Wikipedia has taught me a lot about how I can grow not only as an academic, but as a member of different communities online. I enjoy the thought of having my work on a public platform for anyone to see, and I am happy with the topic I chose. I do believe that Wikipedia needs to be better at attracting new members, but overall my experience on the site and with users has been friendly and enjoyable. I'm happy to say that Wikipedia no longer intimidates me and I have a feeling I will be using the edit tool more than I expect in the coming years.

Thank you Professor Reagle for a unique capstone project! :)