I decided to look up squash on Wikipedia. This is a sport that is played all over the world, however is perceived differently across various cultures. For example, in the US, generally you have to go to a private school and belong to a private club to play- aka, you have to have a bit of money. In Canada, Egypt, and Pakistan, where some of the best squash in the world is played, this is far from true. India is similar but more extreme than the US, only the elite play. In addition, the style of play is different, scoring varies, and the size of the court can change depending on where you are and whether your playing hardball, softball, or doubles. Because the game and it's reputation varies so widely across these cultures, I was interested to see how it was portrayed on Wikipedia.
There were over 500 edits. Of those, 9 were from users that contributed over 10 times. AsBryant, Forte and Bruckman stated "As their participation becomes more central and frequent, participants in Wikipedia adopt new goals, new roles, and use different tools although they are doing so in the same “place.” Their perceptions of Wikipedia change." These individuals continue to contribute to the site because they have adopted a view of Wikipedia that motivates them to provide and share their knowledge on squash.
I found the history site quite confusing considering the rest of the website is so user-friendly and organized. From the history page, you could see the "user name" of the editor, the time they edited, how many times they edited, and what exactly they had changed.
I would include more information on the editor. When I clicked on the username of the contributor, over half of the users "did not exist". I think users should have an informative profile that includes their educational background, interests, and hobbies. This profile would also have the users activity history and possibly some sort of reputation system. Something as simple as a gold star given by Wikipedia in the corner of their profile to indicate that this person is a regular contributor that we trust.
Question marks could exist if "questionable" activity was noticed. This would minimize the amount of phony postings.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
Arguably, one of Wikipedia's most appealing features if that users don't have to be registered in order to contribute. The lack of required commitment encourages a wider knowledge base, which is great for Wikipedia, but I agree that it also detracts from the validity.
ReplyDeleteI am curious, do you think having a "user profile" would actually contribute to Wikipedia's validity? People can make up info about themselves easily, since it does not have the network validation system that Facebook has, but rather the Myspace-like free-for-all account. Ratings could be important but would that discourage new editors from contributing?
You bring up a good point dealing with awareness and editing Wikipedia articles. If people who don't have accounts edit Wikipedia, there is no way of knowing who they are, unless you want to do some digging around with researching their IP address. You mentioned a cool idea, making the Wikipedia community become a social network as well. You also established something that Wikipedia is missing -- a reputation system. It would be interesting to see how people would react to Wikipedia becoming a social network in terms of competing with Facebook and MySpace.
ReplyDelete