Report Overview edit
The Wikipedia task I worked on in COM 482 (Interpersonal Media: Online Communities) was about making contributions to the Wikipedia community by researching and writing a new Wiki page. Throughout the process, the students can combine conceptual materials taught in the class and practice together to have a better appreciation of how real online communities work out.
To be specific, I read and researched the book called “Don’t make me think” third edition by Steve Krug first, then enriched the original stub page of this book by adding about the author, publication, and contents (with each chapter’s summary) sections. Throughout the process, I played a role as a user of Wikipedia and made my own contributions. This report will talk about how does the experience relates to the materials covered in the class, insights/takeaways from that relation, and my actionable advice for the Wikipedia Foundation and the Wikipedia Community.
Relation and Insights: edit
Motivation: edit
From the class, we learned that most of the Wikipedia pages are considered as “stub” because they are too short to provide a comprehensive introduction of the subject. Lots of designers consider “Don’t Make Me Think” is the bible in the user experience design field, such an important book only has a stub page on Wikipedia that can reflect the there is still a lack of participation in this community. Like the class stated that participation in online communities is lower than people want it to be.
I think most users on Wikipedia have more intrinsic motivations than extrinsic ones. Extrinsic is related to benefits coming from outside the user, like monetary values, reputations, or status. Wikipedia doesn’t provide such benefits to contributors except the user can have different access levels on editing articles based on the user’s account’s age and contributions. However, users can have various intrinsic motivations such as personal interests, beliefs, or generosity on making contributions.
Commitment: edit
According to my experience, two main types of commitment to Wikipedia are affective (identity-based) commitment and normative commitment. To me, I have a background and passion for UX design, so I decided to choose a book in this field and share its main content through Wikipedia. This is identify based. I also had the feeling that “Don’t make me think” is a must-read book for most product developers, so there was an inner obligation for me to make the contribution. For Wikipedia readers (instead of the contributor), their commitment will be needed-based. The sunk cost of leaving the community for them will be high because Wikipedia is the most comprehensive encyclopedia online.
Norms: edit
For each week, we used the Wiki Education Foundation (WikiEdu) to learn how to use the community. The norms WikiEdu introduced to us Five Pillars include self-identification, neutrality, free content, interaction manners, and not having firm rules. Even though Wikipedia claims itself there are no firm rules, but from my experience in writing the article, everything is relative. On the neutrality part, we are not allowed to debate, persuade, and share personal opinions. My first draft contained numbers of copying and pasting from the book, which is definitely not allowed on Wikipedia due to plagiarism and even copyright violation. In terms of Wikipedia’s flexibility (no firm rules), I think it has done well on lowering the cost of users’ mistakes. I accidentally deleted some materials on the first article I chose, but later the system sent me a message that I may do that unintentionally, and it got things recovered.
Newcomers: edit
Without this assignment, I would probably never write any articles on Wikipedia, so recruitment from Wikipedia did not apply to me. The selection process of users is very diverse (basically anyone has access to the internet). Wikipedia does state interaction manners on the Five Pillars and users who have misconduct will be banned. It is good protection for the users. Newcomers can learn how to write articles by reading others or through interaction with other editors. Doing this task made me realize the importance of improving the community, I will definitely dig more areas to work on in the future. At this point, Wikipedia has good retention in gaining my contribution.
Recommendations: edit
Based on my user experience throughout the task, here is the list of recommendations to both the Wikipedia community and the Wikipedia foundation according to my difficulties encountered.
Make the process more fun! edit
Wikipedia should have more compelling and persuasive techniques to motivate people to participate. I felt the process was hardcore, serious, and rigorous. Although it is hard to balance the hardcore and professional vibe with making it personal and interesting, the goal here is to make the process more engaging and interesting, not the results (we all know that each Wiki page should be consistent in style, professional for people to read...etc).
Specific actions can be adding more different levels of status so the users have goals to achieve; rewarding the user if he/she passes the verification of the article without making any mistakes (implementing gaming); implementing interesting ways of communication between users under the same article to facilitate interactions.
Make the need to contribute necessary! edit
Wikipedia’s content is free to the public. However, when it is necessary (or urgent), I recommend Wikipedia set up some bars for people who can read the free content. Things like users who at least contribute one article can have access to all free content for one month or contributing one article that can have access to read the other 10 articles. Some bars like this can create the need to contribute and make it necessary.
Remind me if I am wrong every second! edit
I had a couple of situations when I had to research by myself whether I was doing such a thing correctly, it can be a lot of work and makes me judge. Wikipedia can use its big database to analyze, calculate, and conclude what can be counted as mistakes from users’ behaviors when they write the article. For example, the user will be notified as soon as Wikipedia detects he/she is plagiarizing, and be provided the suggestion on how to fix it. Overall, this system can work like a grammar check embedded on the word doc, by has more dimensions.