User:Serrekunda62/Report
Sukai Gaye
COMMLD 570 Building Successful Online Communities
May 17th 2021
As I sit down to write this reflection, I am seven weeks into my CommLd 570 Building Successful Online Communities class. I know this reflection is supposed to be based on my experience on using Wikipedia but before I delve into sharing my experiences with Wikipedia, I want to just say, “what a challenging class this quarter”. It has been hard to keep up with the many different learning platforms. I understand the intention of the different platforms is to create familiarity with Wikipedia and the final project, but the different platforms and their expectations were too overwhelming. Before I share my experience on creating a Wikipedia account, editing an article, and using the Wikipedia community in general, I would also like to talk about using the Wikiedu dashboard. Like many portals, I must use the platform at least several times before I remember how to navigate. And the Wikiedu dashboard proved that I needed more time to understand what was expected of me. Although I did not find it hard to find the Wikipedia training material for each week, I found it hard to know how to choose a Wikipedia article and edit. I wished there was a video tutorial on how to use the Wikiedu dashboard. Also, the due dates for the assignments say a different date from when the class is being offered. It seems like the Wikiedu dashboard was carried from the fall quarter with the same due date from that quarter.
This class introduced me to creating a Wikipedia account and editing on Wikipedia. Creating the Wikipedia account was clear cut. It was easy to go and create an account by completing the form and creating a username and password. What I found confusing was having to open a different account for the Wikiedu dashboard as well. I thought they were both the same account. Seven weeks into the quarter, I can say that I am somewhat comfortable navigating around Wikipedia, writing and editing. Before this class, I had a basic understanding of Wikipedia. I understand that it is a community encyclopedia that allows people to go in and write and edit articles. However, as described by Wikipedia itself, it is more than just going in and editing, “it is a free multilingual online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteer contributors through a model of open collaboration, using a wiki-based editing system.” Through CommLd 570, I can contribute to Wikipedia by first understanding the norms, rules, and processes of contributing to Wikipedia. These policies gave me a precise understanding about Wikipedia and what is expected of me as a contributor through the five pillars of Wikipedia. I appreciate the understanding made known about Wikipedia being a place where we can find a good summary of what is already known. This demonstrates that the site has a shared knowledge of a lot of things known by anyone in this world.
Information on the site is there to keep visitors informed and not convinced. Information on Wikipedia is impartial and encourages contributors to share information that is from a credible and unbiased source. I understand why Wikipedia makes sure that Wikipedia contributors get their sources from reliable sources such as educational materials or publications and not opinionated publications. However, not all information found on Wikipedia or information intended to be shared on Wikipedia can be sourced back to educational materials. For example, I have so many things I want to share about The Gambia (my home country) that I know based on my experience living in The Gambia, but I am unable to source my information back to an educational material because there isn't any educational material available to back my claims. Some of this information is based on personal experience but these personal experiences would be seen as just opinions on Wikipedia which makes it hard to share on Wikipedia. Does this mean that I must publish a well-researched and educational material about that information and source it as a reference for my article? There is a lot of information that people can share on Wikipedia that is solely based on opinions and experience. I think Wikipedia should have a category that says information is derived from opinions and personal experience.
The content is free and available for anyone to use, change and share. Wikipedia has no incentives for its contributors. Perhaps the closest benefit one gets from being a contributor is personally driven incentives and for me, they include
- Having the opportunity to be a Wikipedia contributor has made me want to write more about the Gambia because I noticed there are not a lot of things about The Gambia on Wikipedia.
- I was also proud and felt a sense of accomplishment for improving the article, Gambian Americans. It was joyful to know that someone can find that article informative about that ethnicity.
Contributing on Wikipedia takes a lot of research and proper referencing. Also, there is a high possibility of receiving criticism and negative feedback. I think Wikipedia can work on providing some form of recognition for the contributors that are doing so much positive work in improving the site. Granted, the site is free for everyone to use but motivation really does help in getting the best out of humans and not a lot of people can self-motivate. These motivations can come in the form of recognition, placing an award badge next to the name of the contributor with the most improved article or an article about that person and their work on the platform.
When someone finds motivation in doing something, then they are inclined to wanting to keep doing it. In the last paragraphs, I only talked about incentives as a form of motivation but to get someone committed, motivating them might have to go beyond incentives. Another form of motivation is convenience, easy to use. Part of my experience about using Wikipedia included finding it difficult to navigate the site and editing an article. My experience has resulted in thoughts of just finishing my schoolwork and not ever going back to improve any more articles on the site. It looks like the site requires one to spend a lot of time on the site to create familiarity. For someone with a busy lifestyle and unable to invest a lot of time on Wikipedia coupled with a not so user-friendly platform, it may discourage the person from wanting to contribute on the site. This could lead to lack of commitment to the platform.
After I finished editing my chosen article, Gambian American, I ran into issues moving the article from my sandbox to the main Wiki space. I followed the training manual on WikiEdu but what the training entails is to edit the article while on the main Wiki space and not on the sandbox. Another thing the training showed is how to create a whole new article and later move the article to the main Wiki space. What the training forgot to address is how to move an edited article from your sandbox back to the main Wiki space. It would have been very helpful if the training manual showed how to move improved articles from sandbox back to the main Wiki space.
The WikiEdu is helpful and some of the trainings also have video tutorials to follow but I hope they extend the video tutorials to all the other trainings so kinesthetic learners like myself would be able to watch the video, understand the training and be able to apply the knowledge learned on the training.