User:Ohart3

Wikipedia Reflection - Wikipedia Article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquilinos_Boricuas_en_Acci%C3%B3n

Introduction

There are many extremely different types of Online Communities today, with some being simple, and easy to understand while others are difficult and require a certain learning curve. The easiest to learn would be chat rooms, where you are simply logging in, typing to somebody, and pressing enter on your keyboard. It gets much harder when you are dealing with writing in code, and many different pages and guidelines to deal with. That is where Wikipedia came in for me, which was a well designed website, that is extremely helpful to the users of the site, but maybe not the members or people who are actually putting the hard work in to make the site what it is.

Small Groups

The first assignment that pertained to Wikipedia was to sign up for a username, and add yourself to the class course through Wikipedia. This is one way that Wikipedia does a good job, and makes things easier for the users. Kraut and Resnick in their book, "Building Successful Online Communities" explain, " Creating named groups inside of a larger online community increases members' commitment to the community as a whole..." In my circumstance, this held true to Wikipedia because of the fact that I could easily go into the course page, and see what the other members of class were doing, or had done already. It also served as a very easy way to get help by seeing how it was done by other members of the community, who are in the same situation as me which are class members. Smaller groups inside of online communities such as Wikipedia definitely help the overall feel of being one small person in a huge community.

Guidelines & Rules

Wikipedia also has great use of guidelines and rules that are crucial to any online community. Since it is a place where many people including myself do quick research about topics to get a hint about them, each post needs to have correct information, in the right format. Wikipedia's way of making sure this is the case is very efficient. "Moderation systems that prescreen, degrade, label, move, or remove inappropriate messages limit the damage those messages cause." They use their own members, and guidelines on how to write a Wikipedia article including citations on all facts, in order to keep all information correct and easy to read. This is a very important step that Wikipedia takes, because of the fact that there are so many trolls on the Internet these days. They need to be kept in check, and many online communities do not have a way of doing so. In that way, Wikipedia does a great job making sure that the information posted on their website is correct and usable by people who read it, whether they are members of the community or not.

Sandbox

The most crucial part of Wikipedia during my time as a Wikipedian would have to be the use of the Sandbox. This is very important for people who do not have a background in writing in code, or just a background in writing in the format of a Wikipedia article. By being able to place anything in the sandbox without having it go out on the real page yet, I was able to work on my learning curve and figure out the rights and wrongs behind the scenes. Other members of any online community do not want to see new members messing around, and figuring out their problems in real time, it is much safer to have them do it in a place where they can delete or retry and then let it be seen by the community once it is fully ready. Kraut and Resnick say, "Sandboxes both speed up the learning process for newcomers and reduce the harm to the community that newcomers might otherwise cause." This statement holds true for myself because if I was not able to use the sandbox when I first started Wikipedia, my article would have been a mess, and out for the public to see until another member would have to take it down.

Feedback

When it comes to getting feedback in online communities, it can go either way. Twitter for example, where tweets usually garner negative feedback, is the opposite of how Wikipedia has their feedback. It was very simple to leave feedback on a talk page of somebody else's article, and to read the feedback you have received by people. It helped a great amount to be able to have other members of the community actually go on your page and help you by actually changing things, rather than just telling you what you should do. It shows the initiative that they actually mean their feedback, Wikipedia gives you a timeline of changes that have been made and by who, and you are still allowed to switch it back to what you originally had. It is a great idea for an online community, as long as the freedom of feedback does not make people go overboard with changing other's work. "Goals have greatest effects when people receive frequent feedback about their performance with respect to the goals." This quote is true about my time at Wikipedia, in the sense that I felt people cared about my work and wanted to see it come to fruition when I received frequent feedback. When you are on another online community, it is hard to be motivated if you are not getting any feedback from other members, therefore it is very important to keep people around.

Coding Problems

Finally, there is one overall part of Wikipedia that I can not get past, and could not figure out no matter how hard I tried, and that is all of the coding. They try to make it easier for users that do not know, or are very new to writing in code by allowing them to type in beta mode. This is helpful for newcomers, but does not fix everything you need to do to create a successful Wikipedia page. We also received help in the class from Professor Reagle and Amanda who helped in class when we needed it, or were available over email. However with so many different codes, even the beginner tutorial does not do the site justice in allowing you to be ready to start in your sandbox once you are signed up. Throughout my time in Wikipedia I was constantly searching third party sources and throughout Wikipedia's help pages in order to just complete the most simple tasks, such as trying to add a picture and cite it correctly. I understand that it takes time to learn how to write in code and to be able to follow all of the guidelines, but Wikipedia should do a better job at getting you ready before you are off on your own.

Conclusion

Overall, there are many parts of Wikipedia that make it a great community for members and non-members who need to find information about almost anything. The feedback, the sandbox, and the small groups are only a few of the positives that Wikipedia offers. There are also however, parts that need to be worked on or that could be changed in order to make it an easier experience for new users. The members are the real reason that Wikipedia is still going strong, and with all the work they do for the site, and now that I have learned how truly difficult it is to get that information out there, they do not receive enough credit.