User:Etozzi/Analysis

My Experience With Wikipedia

Wikipedia is one of the largest and powerful online communities. To be a member of Wikipedia means to respect the community's members and its policies as well as to be ready to make edits to the existing articles. This assignment gave me an opportunity to be a newcomer and have a contribution to Wikipedia's community. Every online community establishes specific norms and policies, in order to have a routine and avoid chaos. During my experience of writing a Wikipedia article on Rue La La, I faced some obstacles. While facing issues of not knowing how to do something, I was obligated to learn how to improve the article within Wiki guidelines. As a newcomer, I was welcomed and respectfully notified of the issues that had to be fixed. Although I felt like an outsider, I was happy to see that I was getting help from the community’s professionals. Through this analysis, I will reflect on the norms and policies adopted by Wikipedia as well as how they affected my experience of writing the article.

When I joined Wikipedia’s community, I was obviously a newcomer. Robert Kraut defines newcomers as people who have “a good fit with it on dimensions such as interests, attitudes, and values that they and the group share or the knowledge, skill, and motivations they possess and that the organization desires”. Once I registered on Wikipedia, I was contacted by the Teahouse on my talk page: User talk:Etozzi. The message was welcoming, because they thanked me for joining the community and stated that I can reach out with any questions and get help from experienced editors. It is not easy to be a newcomer to a large online community, but such message made my transition easier than I thought. I was aware that I have a possibility to reach out to Wiki professionals and get support on any facing issue.

One of the primary goals of Wikipedia is to educate and provide academic information to people from different cultures. Wikipedia follows the rule of good faith collaborative culture, which is assuming the best for others, demonstrating patience, civility, and humor. Therefore as a newcomer, I shared the same goal and interest as other existing members on Wikipedia. The goal of my assignment was to write an article, in order to educate others on my topic. I chose to write on Rue La La, which is an e-commerce retail company. Although I was fit to Wikipedia’a community, I was also perceived as an outsider. Kraut stated, “newcomers have a tendency to violate behavioral norms, because they are not familiar with the community’s rules.” Breaking the norms and routine can be frustrating for existing members, because such actions of the newcomers negatively affect online communities. I admit that I potentially broke the community’s norms once I transferred the first draft of my article from the Sandbox to the public page. I will elaborate on how I broke the norms in the next few paragraphs.

Wikipedia is known to have a strong online community whose members are dedicated to making contributions as well as respect its norms and policies. For example, Wikipedia encourages its members to write in a neutral point of view and good faith. Members are asked to do so, in order to establish an informative rather than an advertising tone of the article. Wikipedia aims to avoid advertising companies, brands, and people, in order to avoid political and legality issues. Joseph Reagle, who is an existing and experienced member of Wikipedia, stated “the stance of neutrality implies that contributors should abandon efforts to convince others of what is right or true, and instead focus on a neutral presentation of what is commonly understood about that topic.” Because I did not know the correct way of interpreting information in non-biased way, I was contacted by an existing member, Onel5969, who left a message on my talk page. The message included an introductory sentence where he introduced himself and thanked me for creating an article. It felt comforting and welcoming. Onel5969 notified me of the existing issues that should be addressed and provided examples from the article. His help was essential, because I had a better understanding of what should be deleted or re-stated, in order to change the current tone of my article to neutral. He wrote the following sentence on my talk page: “Rule of thumb, if it sounds like it comes from a sales brochure, leave it out. Hope this helps.” User talk:Etozzi Therefore, it helped me to get more familiarized with the policies of Wikipedia's community. As a newcomer, I was afraid to disrespect Wikipedia’s community, but I was happy that a more experienced member reached out to me in a respectful and informative manner.

In addition, Wikipedia requires its articles to be written on notable topics that can be supported with strong sources. Onel5969 stated that because I included the information that Rue La La has 6 million online subscribers it is most likely notable. Although, he explained that the article could be flagged due to the fact that the sources I used do not fully support that fact. The reason for this issue could be that I cited numerous online articles, which sound biased. Therefore, it shows that as a newcomer, I was not aware of the specific type of sources that should be used for citations. I am glad that I learned an additional policy, which is important to Wikipedia’s community.

In addition, Joseph Reagle was supportive throughout my whole experience of writing an article. Once I transferred my article from the Sandbox to the public page, I received an immediate feedback from him. For example, he helped me to accurately mark headings of the article’s sections (Special:Diff/765846430). Therefore, it helped to improve the article’s structure. In addition, I was struggling with how to correctly cite the used sources. Reagle edited one of the used sources (Special:Diff/765855142), which served as an example for improving the rest of the sources throughout the article. Wikipedia requires all articles to be clear and grammatically correct. I was happy to see that I had my article revised and edited by Reagle and classmates, which helped me to improve the article’s clarity (Special:Diff/765856292).

I admit that one of the reasons why I broke the community’s norms is because I did not fully familiarize myself with all the policies that Wikipedia has. Chris Menning wrote an article on RTFM, which is an acronym for “Read The Fucking Manual.” He discusses the importance of reading the manual beforehand, in order to learn about the community’s policies and functions. Menning states, “RTFM is commonly used in online communities to advise people to try to help themselves before seeking assistance from others.” When I joined Wikipedia, I was required to go through numerous tutorials, in order to familiarize myself with the functions and policies of Wiki community. During tutorials, I did not pay a full attention and skipped through some of the sections. This was because I was lost and wanted to first get my hands on writing the article. I was one of those newbies who did not read all the policies and therefore I broke some of the norms and had numerous questions during the process of writing the article. In my opinion, it is useless and time-consuming to read the whole manual at once, because it is complicated to understand all the concepts at once as a newcomer. I think it is more efficient to start working on the project and ask questions during the process of writing. I chose that specific way and I found it to be helpful, because I did my independent research as well as asked questions during the process. For example, I was not familiar how to make bullet points, upload a logo, and make a chart. Therefore, I did my personal research and asked questions to Joseph Reagle. I learnt and remembered steps of how to do the following things. Therefore, I no longer consider myself as a newbie, because I have knowledge on specific policies and how to write an article on Wikipedia.

In conclusion, I can say that I had a great experience with writing an article for Wikipedia and its collaborative community. Although it was confusing and scary at the beginning, I overcame the obstacles and became a member of a powerful online community. I was sad to see that some of my classmates had a negative experience with Wikipedia, because their articles were attacked by other members in a disrespectful manner. It truly affected their experiences with Wikipedia, and alerted me of the actions that can anger Wikipedia’s members. It showed that some members choose to be disrespectful, which affects experiences of the newcomers. Although, it did not ruin my overall experience with Wikipedia. Therefore, I hope to see growth and ongoing improvements within Wikipedia’s online community.