User:Tatumhartwig/Reflection

Throughout the semester in the Online Communities course, Professor Reagle has repeatedly drawn the class back to Wikipedia. Whether we were discussing the effectiveness of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation or how to recruit newcomers, the conversation often made its way back to Wikipedia. In addition to many lectures touching back on Wikipedia, myself and my peers were also tasked with several Wikipedia-based assignments over the course of the semester. We each did smaller tasks, such as writing on each other's Talk pages, but our largest assignment was crafting our own Wikipedia articles (mine being the November Project page). While the jury is still out on whether or not I will contribute as a Wikipedian at the close of this course, I believe that Wikipedia is doing many things well, has area to improve, and helped to root my capstone education in applicable knowledge on online communities.

Beginning with socialization, I believe that ours as students was much different than most Wikipedia newcomers. Our program and time in the community was linked with Wiki Education Foundation which included tutorials and welcome messages from folks at WikiEd, like Adam. These methods used by WikiEd fall relatively in line with the thoughts of Kraut and Resnick who state in their book Building Online Communities, “By using formal, sequential, and collective socialization tactics, new members are likely to become more committed to the community, learn how to behave in it, and contribute more." The formalized process of moving through several different tutorials and videos was a quick way to show our class how to properly act and engage in Wikipedia. Yet, this is only a method offered to students enrolled in a WikiEd backed course. These tools were essential in growing my understanding of everything from writing an article to communicating with fellow Wikipedians, so I cannot begin to imagine how I would have fared on the site without these resources or Professor Reagle's own insights and instructions. For this reason, I believe that Wikipedia as a whole should adopt a more thorough, but perhaps not overly exhaustive, tutorial and introduction to the site. The addition of these socialization processes could aid in increased contributions, the quality of those contirbutions, as well as crating more mindful communication between Wikipedians.

Once we were up and running on Wikipedia, I often found myself at odds with motivation to complete my assigned Wikipedia tasks. Truthfully, I don't know if I would have been too excited to dive into this confusing community to share the knowledge I'd drummed up about November Project had it not been an assigned project standing between me and my college graduation. Because it was assigned, and I often dread assignments no matter the course or content, I'm unsure if I would have enjoyed the process had I organically found my way to Wikipedia and chose to contribute on my own. I knew instantly that this was beginning to fall into extrinsic motivation, despite how much I enjoyed researching my article's topic. But I think my continued use of Wikipedia could be improved if there was performance and action based feedback given more regularly within Wikipedia and between Wikipedians. As Kraut and Resnick share, “Performance feedback -- whether positive or negative -- can be motivating because of people’s desire for self-improvement." As a competitive person who thrives on improving myself, whether that be through race times or class grades, feedback could have been a major lift in my contributions to the site. If I knew distinguishable ways in which I could improve as well as how I could implement those improvements, I am nearly certain I would be more likely to take it upon myself to seek improvement and educate myself on how to be a better Wikipedian. Admittedly, there were some comments on my article's talk page, but none from anyone outside our class. Knowing that their commentary was all part of an assignment, the illusion was shattered on this being entirely genuine and organic feedback, despite if it was positive or negative. I am not sure how Wikipedia could do it, but by somehow creating a simpler way in which users could leave feedback on articles or Talk pages could instill a stronger sense of motivation with some of the lighter Wikipedia users and encourage them to contribute more to the site.

Overall, my experience within the Wikipedia community was never bad, but it never felt great. The genuine quality of joining an online community on my own was stripped away as soon as these tasks were assigned and I began to look at the site not as a potentially fun place for me to spend time and add my own brand of knowledge, but as the final college credits I needed to push my way through to make it to commencement this May. For now, I think I'll be taking a hiatus from Wikipedia, but I do hope I give it another shot when there's no syllabus tying me to the site and deadlines to hit.