User talk:Beardoin-AS

Jump to search I'll be using this to record class contributions Beardoin-AS (discuss • contribs) 12:16, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise 1: How visible am I online?
Thinking of the platforms I use, Facebook for friends and University connections, Twitter for my Music and motorsport links and Flickr for my photography. Each has its own level of information being made available.

When I look at Facebook I have chosen to limit this to a private portfolio that only friends may view the personal information, and even then this is limited to just name, Date of birth and University information, details such as email, mobile number and my employer are not shared, and these are done from the view that not everybody on this platform need know all this information.

Twitter is an odd one for me, as this is a public platform my name is fully on display as my profile name, although I do not share an image of myself like I do on Facebook and the only other info I supply relates to University & society details with a weblink to my Music recording site, which has my contact details hidden behind a contact page. I feel with twitter that while I am okay with my name being displayed, I can keep several key areas private based upon its public nature, since I do not want my profile locked down. The final platform I would consider is Flickr, the photo sharing social media site. I’ve had a presence on there for many years and my profile is under my name, but as I have used the site for media work in the past, it does list my email address as a form of contact. Now the reasoning behind the email address being shared on Flickr and not on the other platforms may seem unusual, but I do this out of the reasoning that by offering a point of contact, it means the photos will have a contactable link back to me and media companies will know they must contact me rather then just helping themselves without permission and only name crediting in hindsight.

Thinking about the use of smartphones for taking photo’s and then using it to share said photo into all the above media platforms where you can "share these moments with specific audiences". Which does make me think, I we don’t have the privacy settings set correctly then these images are free or all to see, and from the settings within Facebook and Flickr, images can be locked down or publicly shared on an individual bases while the danger with twitter, is the photo will inherit the privacy status of the account itself, so if it remains public, the photo will be public also, and vice versa with private enabled.

Data privacy is one of those key areas where companies that hold information such as this must confirm to GDPR or they will be in breach of EU rulings. Now do I know I this really, I the case, or if the companies are sharing this information without my knowledge. I guess I don’t know for sure, and that I must go on faith that they adhere to the governing rules of the nations they work in regarding data security and the sharing of information. :Beardoin-AS (discuss • contribs) 02:15, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

Comments

 * I like the fact that you use each platform for a specific purpose. And I agree that not everybody on Facebook needs to know so much about you. People should only disclose as much as they feel comfortable with, and not be pressured by some platforms which always ask that we provide more details.
 * Some people might not disclose too much information because they don't want the world and other people to know everything about them. For others, the decision will be more related to the objection of disclosing too much data to big corporations. Another group of people sees many advantages in being targeted and making information publicly available.
 * I feel that being privacy conscious and to object to the collection of data completely became very difficult in our interconnected world. Companies find many ways to collect even more data (when you install the app for example). The only way seems to not use these services at all. Some alternative services that protect one’s privacy are already being offered by a few organisations: Qwant and DuckDuckGo as alternatives to Google for example. As you’ve said it, governments tackle the issue of data privacy as well and put some legislation in place, which is important, but in my opinion it remains a grey area in many instances and there is a lot more that could be done. Most data is owned by a few large businesses which have a significant power of influence.


 * When you say that you adjust the privacy settings of certain areas on twitter, do you keep them fully private (so that only twitter itself has the information), or does “private” mean that it is just not fully public but still visible to a close group of friends?

'':Twitter is very On or off regarding privacy settings. You have the option of having your account public so everyone can see your posts or private so only your followers (of which they must be approved by yourself before they will be added) can see what is posted. But the limitation of twitter comes down to that you cannot select what tweets you wish to keep public and which ones you keep private for your group of followers.'' :Beardoin-AS (discuss • contribs) 12:38, 5 March 2019 (UTC)


 * The idea of providing your contact details on Flickr is a good one, considering the fact that the work shared there is potentially visible to the entire world. I’d be interested in knowing the exact rules and legislation regarding intellectual property and copyright. I’d like to suppose that if you upload an image onto a platform, it still belongs to you and it prevents people from using the work without the artist’s permission. But is this really the case? Do these platforms maybe state in their terms and conditions that you give way to some of your rights? And does someone who wants to use a picture really has to ask for permission? I guess that Flickr is different than other platforms in this instance as the artist makes the photos available under a license.
 * Eric.berd (discuss • contribs) 13:36, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

Instructor Feedback on Wiki Exercise #1
Posts and comments on other people’s work, of this standard, roughly corresponds to the following grade descriptor. Depending on where your actual mark is in relation to the making criteria as outlined in the relevant documentation, it should give you an idea of strengths and weaknesses within the achieved grade band overall:


 * Good. Among other things, good entries will make a clear point in a clear way. They will relate concepts to original examples in a straightforward fashion. They will make effective use of the possibilities of the form (including links, as well as perhaps copyright-free videos and images, linked to from Wiki Commons). They may also demonstrate a broader understanding of the module's themes and concerns, and are likely to show evidence of reading and thinking about the subject material. The wiki markup formatting will be very clear.


 * This work is at the upper end of this grade band, so a little improvement will go a long way to attaining a higher mark. I think in order to engage with the wiki exercises a bit more, it might be useful for you to look at the Grade Descriptors and criteria in the module handbook to get more of an idea of how to hit those targets. Less instrumentally, and more in relation to this particular post, making more use of the wiki functionality and markup would have gone a long way to improving fluidity and functionality of posts. I suspect that, if you become more familiar and proficient with the platform, that this would have made a considerable difference.


 * Re: responses to other people’s posts – these are good. I like that you have engaged in discussion in an open and critical way (that is to say, you've responded to what other people are saying and are contributing meaningfully to discussion - arguably the civic element of wiki that you ought to be thinking about, which you clearly are). Keep this up!

GregXenon01 (discuss • contribs) 11:51, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

=Wiki Exercise 2: To what extent my online and offline identities aligned?=

My Social Media Outlets
When I think about social media and how I use the platforms that I am involved in, these mainly being Facebook and Twitter, I must consider how I post an are they a reflection of who I am or just the digital self that I wish others to see. How I view Facebook, is to consider it the face of who I am towards friends, family and my University friends, all who know me in different ways. When I review my usage of Facebook over the past one month, I have found that I have made a total of eleven posts, most of which are sharing of news stories relating to the Oscars that I’ve shared with University friends while the others are photos from a trip to Edinburgh where I found a Formula 1 car on display. These are two areas and aspects of myself which are genuine as I do have strong connections in both areas as the first relates to my studies and the second, which is a very big part of my identity. But as my Facebook profile is very much locked down so no external visitors can see my posts, I genuinely feel safe in what I post there, even if it is quite limited.



Zizi Papcharissi talks about Twitter and how it differs to facebook, in relation to the latter requiring mutual agreement to interact, while Twitter you are free to follow who you want, without the other party agreeing to this. I find this very interesting, due to its vast openness, being aware of what you post and who you post to is a big and important part of how you show your identity. As I have mentioned, a major part of my identity revolves around Formula 1 and I have on a number of occasions held conversations with Sky F1 show hosts so keeping a very good and clean level of activity on this platform is important, since as it’s an open platform, you are left open to abuse if not careful, so treating others with respect as you would like to be treated yourself is always key. My digital self on this platform is me at my best, not causing trouble, and enjoying the moments together with these people, since you never know what the future can hold, communicating with those in the media sector of something you love, could one day be an outlet after finishing my studies.



Ibrahim describes a study that took place in relation to Facebook, where its two main uses are monitoring their contacts and friends, but rather interestingly, the second is about self-presentation. How you appear to others. Back in the early days of Facebook I would post randomly anything and regularly with no real relevance to anything, while twitter was the opposite, I wouldn’t post anything at all, just follow other users and watch their posts. While over time I have found that my Facebook use has become a more restrained experience, where I pick and choose what I will share with those that know me. While Twitter has become the more expressive digital self as I communicate with those in my field of study and my interest areas. So, based upon what Ibrahim lists as a self-presentation, I do feel that Twitter has become that digital self of me putting my best image forward, while Facebook has become a sort of monitoring zone, where I watch others more then anything else.

Comments
Hey, your work seems to include the appropriate amount of characters required for this exercise and you have also included, as I can see, two images from wiki commons which is very positive. Regarding the content of your essay I feel that you partly managed to answer the questions of this exercise. Your answer is mostly related on the first part of this exercise on how your offline identity is connected to you online identity. I believe that if you had provided a little more information of your offline self on how you interact with people and compared this with your online interactions you would have provided a little more insight on this topic. Of course you have clearly demonstrated that parts of your every day life can also be seen in the life that you have created on social platforms, such as your interest for Formula 1 and your Uni life. You have briefly mentioned that the online identities are constructed by other people online but I believe that you could have included more information on this part and further academic reading would have been beneficial. Unfortunately you did not mention whether there are fixed or multiple identities which comes back to my argument that you mostly concentrated on the first part of the assignment. Finally I think that the last part of your essay is a little out of context since you compare the two different identities that you have created on Facebook and Twitter, which does not bear any benefit for this exercise. But in the end this is just the opinion of another student and does not mean that it totally reflects the quality of your work. AlwaysCarryingBagpack (discuss • contribs) 21:06, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

Hi, I like the way in which you’ve given a direct contrast, not only between your use of Facebook and your use of Twitter, but also the difference between how you have used these platforms in different periods of your life. The personal detail of adding how you show your interests evidences the way in which each platform may be useful to what you want to share – such as using Facebook to simply share your interests (like the Oscars) with your friends and course mates, whereas you said you use twitter to express yourself more and interact with a broader range of people who share your interests. I also like the fact you mention that becoming a twitter user was a gradual process, as that is the case for myself and many people I have spoken to. We do tend to collectively observe the behaviours of those on twitter; how they tweet, what they tweet about, who is funny and therefore who to follow – all before we start to truly engage with twitter ourselves.

We use these social media platforms in a very similar way, as I too regulate what I post on Facebook and very much keep myself locked down, whereas I use Twitter as a way of expressing myself and venting about the things stressing me out, such as Uni work (sorry Greg!). We also both use twitter to share our passions such as music taste, albeit they are very different tastes (I’m more into metal than folk… but I’d recommend my favourite folk metal band Eluveitie), so there’s a certain commonality in the way people use these platforms – perhaps a commonality between students?

I found your discussion on the open nature of twitter very interesting, and I wonder your thoughts on whether or not an open platform (with what is essentially a follower free-for-all), would alter the way in which other people present themselves on twitter. While we upload more personal topics, I wonder about the people who hide behind twitter (keyboard warriors and such), and I wonder how true to themselves they are online. LucyMW99 (discuss • contribs) 04:52, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

Overall this is a well-written and exceptionally well-researched essay. The essay completes all technical aspects required for the essay, such as the character count, references, and images from Wiki Commons, but, more importantly, the content of the essay is rich. The personal touch is interesting and is used well, particularly the comparison between social platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. Furthermore, the way in which you use both personal relation to these platforms and academic references to build your essay is incredibly effective. Msweeney00 (discuss • contribs) 11:27, 18 March 2019 (UTC)Msweeney00

=Wiki Exercise 3: Annotated Bibliography Exercise=

Fuchs, C. 2014. Social Media a Critical Introduction, London, Sage Publications Within this source, Fuchs defines what Social Media is and how it relates to the power dynamic between how we as the user make use of Social Media. This is looked upon from different concepts by Durkheim, Weber, Marx and Tonnies sociality concepts and how they apply towards Social Media, as well as looking at the Power and the Political Economy of Social Media and where each platform has their limits in how to capitalise in these areas.

The focus of this reading aims to show the conceptual values of how Social Media works and then translates that into the modern platforms that are in use today and what they bring to the table. The reading could be potentially useful to myself regarding researching Social Media platforms that have risen and died, as Fuchs analyses the platforms strengths and weaknesses as well as forecasts a potential future for Social Media. A limit from within the text us the lack of coverage of a former major power in Social Media, in relation to Myspace, which will mean I will require additional sources to cover this platform. This source could potentially form part of my research as its relevancy into platform growth is relatable towards my topic covering The growth and demise of Social Media platforms. Beardoin-AS (discuss • contribs) 06:27, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

=Wiki Exercise 4: Collaborative Essay Critical Evaluation=

What ARE Wikis?
What is a Wiki? Well Greg Mayers defines them as “a tool for collaborative editing of a web page” and originally developed in 1995 by Ward Cunningham “in a site called WikiWikiWeb.” The essence is that a Wiki is a user edited online encyclopaedic type source which anyone can edit and contribute to. And Clay Shirkey details this in more detail by saying that they “can be used for many kinds of writing, the early users were guided by the rhetorical models of existing encyclopaedias” which in turn has shaped the model of what we see today on Wikipedia.

As part of the collaborative essay as part of the wikibooks project that I was recently a part of, we can look at how it can help facilitate collaborative research. For this I was part of a group of 9 members where we could use the discussion section on the Wikibook page. What I noticed from the project was all of the members coming together posting their ideas and thoughts over the directions we would like to take the book, and being able to use the wiki formatting tools so we could highlight and reply to individual members as well as being able to share resources that could potentially be used in the main book. While I know it is possible for a large-scale project with these many members to become uncontrollable, what I found was, a group of people all with the same goal, to make the best wikibooks project that we could together. Where no one member would overrule another without first discussing the view and agreeing as a consensus if this is the route we wish to go. When looking at how a Wiki fosters a community, then one place I have been examining is the Dragon Age Wiki hosted on fandom.com relating to the videogame of the same name. As this page exists due to the nature of the game having a very large following which has allowed users to contribute information learnt from the games, novels and comics that exist for the franchise. Another area within the site links back to the discussion page on the WIkibook exercise, where discussion pages exists for the users to interact and talk about areas of the franchise that they may wish to highlight as a new topic piece or options for editing. This being handled in such a way, in that they would rather talk about changes first before just going into the talk section and making the edits.

The idea of online emancipation, where the end user is considered free from control, essentially a free for all on freedom of speech sounds like a good notion. And this is something that is seen to a large extent on blogging sites and on Twitter, as these are mainly platforms that do not require citations of work to back up, although there is a caveat that on twitter people have found themselves becoming foul of the law for a careless comment, as Owen Bowcott of The Guardian wrote about the dangers of tweeting prejudicial comments that can force legal trials to be abandoned, leading to the person tweeting to be charged with contempt of court. But with the wiki platform the idea of full freedom of speech, the online emancipation is something I cannot see being there. Since to add a post there is a general acceptance that these details must have a citation from a source that can back up what is written about, meaning it is not possible to just post any comment on any wiki page and claim freedom of speech, as the wiki model allows other users to just remove these comments or demand for a citation to be added.

INSTRUCTOR FEEDBACK: ENGAGEMENT ON DISCUSSION PAGES & CONTRIBS
Grade descriptors for Engagement: Engagement on discussion pages, and contribs of this standard attain the following grade descriptor. Whereas not all of the elements here will be directly relevant to your particular response to the brief, this descriptor will give you a clearer idea of how the grade you have been given relates to the standards and quality expected of work at this level:
 * Good. Among other things, good contributions will make a clear point in a clear way. They will relate concepts to original examples in a straightforward fashion. They will make effective use of the possibilities of the form (including formatting, links, as well as perhaps copyright-free videos and images, linked to from Wiki Commons). They may also demonstrate a broader understanding of the module's themes and concerns, and are likely to show evidence of reading and thinking about the subject material, discussing this in a transparent way with fellow researchers on the Discussion Pages. The wiki markup formatting will be very clear.

As instructed in the labs, and outlined in the assessment brief documentation, students should be engaging at least once a day, for the duration of the project. The following points illustrate how this engagement is evaluated.

Evidence from contribs to both editing and discussion of content (i.e. volume and breadth of editorial activity as evidenced through ‘contribs’). These are primarily considered for quality rather than quantity, but as a broad guideline:
 * Each item on a contribs list that are 3000+ characters are deemed “considerable”
 * Each item on a contribs list that are 2000+ characters are deemed “significant”
 * Each item on a contribs list that are 1000+ characters are deemed “substantial”
 * Items on a contribs list that are <1000 characters are important, and are considered in the round when evaluating contribs as a whole because of their aggregate value

Overall:
 * a large number of consistent, small contribs throughout the period, as well as one or two classed as substantial

Engagement with and learning from the community on Discussion Pages
 * Evidence of peer-assisted learning and collaboration
 * Good
 * Evidence of reading, sharing, and application of research to the essay
 * Outstanding
 * Evidence of peer-review of others’ work
 * Excellent

Reflexive, creative and well-managed use of Discussion Pages
 * Clear delegation of tasks
 * Excellent
 * Clearly labelled sections and subsections
 * Good
 * Contributions are all signed
 * Good

Civility. Your conduct is a key component of any collaboration, especially in the context of an online knowledge-building community. Please respect others, as well as observe the rules for civility on wiki projects. All contribs are moderated.
 * Good

GregXenon01 (discuss • contribs) 15:21, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

Instructor Feedback on Wiki Exercise Portfolio
Posts and comments on other people’s work, of this standard, roughly correspond to the following grade descriptor. Depending on where your actual mark is in relation to the making criteria as outlined in the relevant documentation, it should give you an idea of strengths and weaknesses within the achieved grade band overall:


 * Good. Among other things, good entries will make a clear point in a clear way. They will relate concepts to original examples in a straightforward fashion. They will make effective use of the possibilities of the form (including links, as well as perhaps copyright-free videos and images, linked to from Wiki Commons). They may also demonstrate a broader understanding of the module's themes and concerns, and are likely to show evidence of reading and thinking about the subject material. The wiki markup formatting will be very clear.


 * This work is of a good quality generally, where the arguments make sense and are supported through secondary research where necessary. That said, there’s room for improvement here, particularly in relation to making more use of the wiki functionality and markup. Have you worked a little more on improving this, it would have gone some way to improving fluidity and functionality of your posts. I suspect that, if you become more familiar and proficient with the platform, that this would make a fairly substantial difference.


 * Re: responses to other people’s posts – these are fairly good, and on time. Remember that the comments are "worth" as much as posts themselves. The reason for this is not only to help encourage discussion (a key element of wiki collaboration!) but also to get you to reflect upon your own work. This can all, of course be used to fuel ideas that might form part of your project work. I like that you are beginning to discuss in an open and critical way (that is to say, you've responded to what other people are saying and are contributing meaningfully to discussion - arguably the civic element of wiki that you ought to be thinking about, which you clearly are).

General:
 * Reading and research: evidence of critical engagement with set materials; evidence of independent reading of appropriate academic and peer-reviewed material – all good.


 * Argument and analysis: well-articulated and well-supported argument; evidence of critical thinking (through taking a position in relation to key ideas from the module, and supporting this position); evidence of relational thinking (through making connections between key ideas from the module and wider literature, and supporting these connections); evidence of independent critical ability – all good.


 * Presentation: good use of wiki markup and organisational skills, with room for improvement..

GregXenon01 (discuss • contribs) 16:20, 1 May 2019 (UTC)