User:VikkiX/Report
During the past five weeks of learning and trying to edit Wikipedia, I learned and realized the norm and code of conduct play an important role in the community. From the beginning of the editing week, we do training in WikiEdu every week to learn the rules as a Wikipedia editor. For instance, as an editor should be responsible for every fact that I wrote and said so that there should have a citation for each fact to support. Not as a citation in the paper, the citation in Wikipedia should be the sentence that paraphrases by ourselves after we fully understand what the original author's idea and thought. Otherwise, any copy-paste or similar structured sentences and arguments would be counted as plagiarizing. This rule expands my horizon about what should be counted as plagiarizing and let me become a more qualified member of the Wikipedia community. Moreover, excepting actively learning the community's norms, passively learning, and be taught by the community regulators also make me feel the importance of how the community conducts these norms in the real case. For example, as students upload pictures that have issues related to copyright or free licenses, the pictured would be removed by administrators. It alerts me that violating the rules of the community might not only receive the reminders, more seriously, but the community's regulator will also do action and remove the content directly. Therefore, it is necessary to be cautious and careful about the norms and rules of the community.
From my point of view, I suggest the Wikipedia foundation adds a new feature that adding friends. There is no doubt that in the whole Wikipedia community, which is community-based, every individual shared the same identity and making meaningful efforts to the Wikipedia community. This is already an important type of affective commitment for Wikipedia. However, if Wikipedia could add a feature that allowing each Wikipedia user and editor could follow or add friends with others, it will enhance the bond between individuals and improve the intrinsic motivation of members. Even though Wikipedia has a similar feature that "view history" to see others working processes and content, it is better to connect people in the community by adding a feature that helps people to find and "mark" own friends conveniently. This is to create a bonds-based commitment, which enhancing the interpersonal relationship and feels close to the individual member within a community. People could add friends with people who have a common interest in specific topics and follow people who always dedicate useful and refined articles in Wikipedia. Then, they could chat with each other about ideas for the common theme and ask them to review the articles. It is true that for now, everyone could review other articles. However, not every article could draw people's attention to be reviewed or revised. If people have a relation bond, the bond could ensure at least an individual's friends would review for them so that the individual could get advice to make improvements in their project. Moreover, with the feature, people could know and see the update about what their friends are editing or what topic that the person they admired to is working on, then, they will feel more motivated to contribute to the same topic, which the final goal is to benefit Wikipedia as a whole. In other words, this friend's system also creates people's intrinsic interest, which is one of the techniques to improve participants' motivation. For example, while I am editing my project, each week after finishing the polishing of my article, I would like to check my friends' sandbox, by searching my friend's name on WikiEdu and then clicking on username and find sandbox, which is a time-consuming process, to know their progress and to ensure that I am not left behind. If they work more and better than me, I would work harder and edit more information on my project. Therefore, if Wikipedia could make a friend system, not only convenient for people to find own friends to build a relational bond, but also create an immersive social environment, which with the feedback from determinant oneself or the comparison of official evaluation in one's project talk page with others' levels.
The reason that my recommendations might more seriously than just random advice from one new user is that I have more experience of making editing in a group with closely bond and know the positive effects of bond-based community. For our class assignment and teaching, students will use WikiEdu as a course teaching technique to bond students into a small community. For a new user, the common characteristic and goal for us indeed is to dedicate and make editing for Wikipedia. Still, a new user might just work on their self without having chances to work and study how to edit in a small group. Therefore, for me, who has experienced the condition that works alone and works with others, I could give a better recommendation by comparing these two conditions.
The concept of the commitment that dynamics related to group size might not be moderate and change a little. The concept states that people will be more willing to contribute to an online group when the group is small rather than large. I think the theory is true when the online community is still in the preliminary phase, that the duty, responsibility, and reputation for the whole community is not that heavy and large. A small size group is enough to move and operate the community. However, as the community become popular and valued by larger masses, the tasks and responsibility would be increased a lot so that demanding proportionally larger group size to support the development. For now, in Wikipedia, more and more new terms have been created, and still, lots of terms are in the stub or C- status. Therefore, the larger group size would be needed and might benefit more from Wikipedia than smaller group sizes. Also, to maximize the number of participants in Wikipedia, what Wikipedia does, which not complying the principles for dealing with newcomers, is to attract newcomers without recruitments and selection. Instead, every voluntary individual could join the community is the editor.
All in all, the experience trying to be an editor and contributor for Wikipedia let me learn lots of new skills and make me feel more tangible and closer to the community. Also, I could apply and connect the knowledge and concepts that we learn in the class into Wikipedia and real life.