User talk:Mcmillenjudge

Welcome!

Hello, Mcmillenjudge, and welcome to Wikipedia! My name is Shalor and I work with the Wiki Education Foundation; I help support students who are editing as part of a class assignment.

I hope you enjoy editing here. If you haven't already done so, please check out the student training library, which introduces you to editing and Wikipedia's core principles. You may also want to check out the Teahouse, a community of Wikipedia editors dedicated to helping new users. Below are some resources to help you get started editing.

Handouts
Choosing an article to edit Editing an article • Add images to articles Citing sources on Wikipedia
Additional Resources
You can find answers to many student questions on our Q&A site, ask.wikiedu.org

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me on my talk page. Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:54, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

Reflection

In the dawn of my Wikipedia endeavors, the intimidation level was more on the low side. In sixth grade, I edited the Wikipedia page for Mount Fuji - but what I had remembered about editing Wikipedia was not what stood in front of me during this feat. As a newcomer to the site, in a rigid academic setting, I grew scared - mostly because of the coding and wiki-jargon thrown around at the onset of this assignment. Creating, or rather adding to the lack of a page for Illesteva, proved to be a challenge to someone not familiar with coding, the Wiki platform or the strict rules and moderation policies of Wikipedia. Writing was no issue, but formatting and working within the Wiki platform was as close to a no-go as one could make it while still creating a page. Google Docs ended up being my real and more utilized sandbox - it felt more organized and more coherent when I could see it all there and comb through my edits. I assumed that this would be a hassle-free, seamless process of putting in information and letting the computational side of Wikipedia work its magic. My assumptions were met with confusing templates, citations, formatting codes, other codes and many other aspects far more precise and exact that stressed me out whenever I logged onto Wikipedia. Other users, their achievements and dedication to Wikipedia lurked like a dark cloud over me - like captains of a sports team that tell you that you are not doing anything correctly. I went in as a WikiInfant and barely came out a WikiChild. All in all, even with the wealth of information out there, Wikipedia is not welcoming to newcomers because of both the existing members and the interface itself. Although one of Wikipedia’s five pillars is civility (and wiki-etiquette), and they have many pages with citations and template possibilities, Wikipedia is not the most welcoming environment.

By contributing to Wikipedia, I knew I was doing something good. The idea of contributing to Wikipedia was exciting, but the onboarding process was not enjoyable and I did not enjoy working on it ninety-nine percent of the time. While working on Wikipedia I did not like it, but it felt rewarding each time I logged off (perhaps because it was a to-do list item being crossed off), but when I drafted the Illesteva article on Google Docs, I felt as if I were betraying Wikipedia - a mental block I could not get over. Cognitive Dissonance tells us that you go through some level of mental agitation when you have fierce convictions that are tampered with when dealing with two or more conflicting ideas. In The Effect of Severity of Initiation on Liking for a Group, Elliot Aronson and Judson Mills , found that those that went through a tougher initiation process into a community, the more appealing being a part of the community was to them. I on the other hand, found that the arduous onboarding process was enough to make me never want to come back. Yes, being the most active Wikipedia editor would be a major honor - but for someone who is not me. At times while editing on Google Docs, I felt like I should have just grinned and beared it and moved over to my Wiki sandbox. Getting my work done on either platform was had intrinsic value, but there was little to no extrinsic value when it came to editing Wikipedia. At times I wondered how people had so much time on their hands to devote to the bettering of the behemoth digital encyclopedia. There was no monetary reward or Wikipedia welcoming parade, so any extrinsic values did not exist. Between Google Docs and Wikipedia the cognitive dissonance I felt brought me agitation, guilt, spite and appreciation.

The ability to edit other’s Wikipedia page is helpful, but I cannot help but think there lies some slight backhanded-ness in the revision of articles - maybe just newcomers’ articles, but that should not matter. A few revisions my drafted article received from one specific user made me feel like they looked at my article and knew I was a WikiInfant right away. This user edited my draft eight different times, all with revisions to my citations. One of Wikipedia’s [guidelines] is [your sources] - which I thought I had done to the best of my ability as a newcomer. In Special:Diff/826402625, you will see the difference between my first draft and his final edit. In 3 different places, this user gives me a shorter, easier citation to use for something that has already been cited in my article. With no comments or feedback left and the rather quick succession of his/her edits, I imagine this was an eye-rolling, sigh-of-annoyance moment for this user, reading and editing my draft. Revision is the beauty of Wikipedia if we are being honest, which proves Robert Kraut and Paul Resnick’s design claim for online communities when it comes to newcomers: revision tools help to minimize the damage done by vandals or newcomers . With the diff linked previously, you can see that Wikipedia has a tool where you can see all the revisions - all the mistakes made and edits to fix them. I see the diffs associated with my article to be sort of like a wall of shame - my mistakes and how I should have done them. As a newcomer, I wish there was something notifying the reviewer or editor that it was my first article, and then invite them to give direct feedback rather than coding and citing-only edits. At the same time, to get me in the swing of things, Wikipedia could implement Kraut and Resnick’s eighth claim that activity quotas allow activity, but not spam like activity. If I am new to the platform, they could have more instruction on where to go for what, and how to do certain things - allowing practice runs before anything actually goes live or is published. This way, I am less prone to receive back-handed help from other users and be more of a pro when it comes to the absolute basics of Wikipedia.

My fear and loathing of Wikipedia can be seen in the dates I edited my Illesteva draft. I kept it to Google Docs for so long because I did not even want people to berate me or rearrange what I thought was already perfectly fine. On February sixteenth, I copied and pasted my Google Doc to Wikipedia and published changes, creating Special:Permalink/826015910. After a few user comments, I took to Google Docs to fix what was wrong and set out to remedy it. These remedies were not posted until yesterday, creating my final draft Special:Permalink/834505117. My first version was full of consistency mistakes, citation errors and unnecessary formatting - like not always capitalizing the company’s name or having links that only Northeastern University students can get into. My final draft included updated and corrected citations, consistent capitalization and re-formatting the collaborations section of my Wikipedia page. As soon as I submitted it for review, a Wikipedia user had removed my submit for review template. Again, this reconfirmed my hesitation with Wikipedia. The interface of actually creating an article is confusing and does not set you up for success. Then, you get someone who does not even want your page up for review, so they remove the template without question or comment. The long, winding road of getting an initial draft published is no easy task - and the more devoted Wikipedians seem like they like to make it harder. With the interface and fellow users working against me, I took to Wikipedia very few times to actually edit in my sandbox or draft. Because of this, I even wrote this reflection on Google Docs.

My Wikipedia experience does not come with any grand stories or newly found hobbies. Rather, it comes with the ability to say that I tried and now appreciate the people who make Wikipedia what it is. Even though these same people made me feel slighted in their revisions and willingness to help, I cannot say their work goes unnoticed. Since I was a newcomer, I probably should have RTFM so that I was able to draft my page so it was more aligned with Wikipedia’s content guidelines. But this shouldn’t mean that because of my newcomer status, I am prone to blunt revisions that basically allude to that fact that I am a WikiInfant. For moderation of my page, I wish that people knew it was my first draft so that they could help me grow and succeed - which would make for a community full of helpful people and less spiteful ones. There was no step-by-step guide on how to make a page look good and sound good - and no tips as I went along. If they put me on a trial period to see my skill level increase, then I think I would be more apt to discover more about Wikipedia. If Wikipedia had initial step-by-step help, I would be less apt to use Google Docs as my sandbox. This initial step-by-step help would assist me in knowing the ropes of Wikipedia and not be subjected to the backhanded revisions of other users. In addition, I would not feel the guilt of using Google Docs when I was supposed to be using Wikipedia, and I would not feel the agitation of using WIkipedia when I would have rather been on Google Docs. Both the existing members of Wikipedia and the interface of the website itself are and were enough to drive me away - both are not welcoming to those with no prior experience to a community like this. Turns out the neutral point of view comes across as a negative point of view.