User talk:Clarabiswiki

Hello I am Clarabiswiki, I am using this as part of an educational class project and this space will be used to help me with it

Wiki exercise #1 What makes a good wiki?
Exercice 1

Online collaboration is used to define websites like Wikipedia because their main existence is due to a collaboration of different people on the same subject. Like any website or new technologies, this can have both positive and negative consequences. Personally, I have never written or edited a Wikipedia article, however, I do use it sometimes. Wikipedia can never be used as a trustworthy source because it is written by several different people who could have different agendas. Some could genuinely mean to add an interesting fact about a certain subject while others could simply use this website as a joke. Others could even get information wrong even if they have good intentions. I have always been taught to never go on any websites that allow people to contribute to the information displayed so I don't have a lot of experiences with using various social platforms to help me with some of my work.

In my opinion, the main difference between wiki engagement and social media engagement are the intentions of the users. In social media, the intention of the users is not to share their knowledge or help someone on their work. It is to share parts of their personal lives and engage socially with their friends and relatives. Wiki engagement is more about sharing ideas and opinions. It is an official website that hosts articles written by anyone which makes it an unreliable source. However, many people still see Wikipedia as a trustworthy site because as Lanier explained it ‘The reason the collective can be valuable is precisely that its peaks of intelligence and stupidity are not the same as the ones usually displayed by individuals.' Intelligence and stupidity are not measured the same way if they are individual or collective.

'Accuracy in a text is not enough. A desirable text is more than a collection of accurate references. It is also an expression of personality.' (Lanier, 2006, Digital Maoism). A qualitative difference between wiki engagement and social media engagement is personality. Social medias are built on the personality of their users, the main reason people use it is to flaunt their personality. The anonymous content of Wikipedia articles does not express any personality.

Clarabiswiki (discuss • contribs) 19:32, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Marker’s 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 Understanding and Engagement elements, it should give you an idea of strengths and weaknesses within the achieved grade band overall.


 * Satisfactory. Among other things, satisfactory entries may try to relate an idea from the module to an original example, but might not be very convincing. They may waste space on synopsis or description, rather than making a point. They may have spelling or grammatical errors and typos. They might not demonstrate more than a single quick pass at the assignment, informed only by lecture and/or cursory reading. They may suggest reading but not thinking (or indeed the reverse). The wiki markup formatting will need some work.


 * This post 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 (especially for this, perhaps, the Understanding) 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, you point to a contradiction through your statements describing wiki platforms as unreliable, and yet do not comment on the relative reliability of social media feeds. I think that rethinking "reliability" as a concept might opens things up considerably for you with regards to this.


 * Re: responses to other people’s posts - a fair attempt made here, if a little brief in both comments. The idea of variant platforms "completing" a whole picture for the consumer is a fascinating one, and something you ought to build on.

GregXenon01 (discuss • contribs) 10:13, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

Comments on Wiki Ex#1
There are many interesting points you made in your text and the fact that you included some academic references to justify them makes your arguments worth discussing. I agree that Wikipedia should not be treated as reliable source of information due to the fact that it can be edited by people with different agendas. And obviously, the passion about certain topic and eagerness to write is not enough to be part of creators of encyclopedia. And Wikipedia is considered as such. However, I would argue that accuracy of the text, in case of Wikipedia, lies not only in the lack of personality but especially in the lack of context. There were many influential scholars who wrote their pieces anonymously, for instance medieval monks. I agree with your view on main difference between social media platforms and Wikipedia – lack of personality.

Pola 2607 (discuss • contribs) 19:22, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

I would definitely agree that Wikipedia cannot always be considered a reliable source. As you mentioned, there are those who may not have intentions to be factual, while other contributors may make mistakes. There are times when I have visited a Wikipedia page that has a piece of information that is clearly a joke or false in some way. When considering Lanier's comment about intelligence and stupidity on a collective level, do you think Wikipedia has to accept that it must deal with the 'stupitity' of the collective in order to benefit from the knowledge of the collective? I would argue that it has to make this sacrifice in order to keep enough people contributing to the site. Your comment about the difference in user intentions between social media and Wikipedia is interesting because it makes the qualitative aspect of these platforms more difficult to compare since they are fundamentally used for different purposes. GailZWiki (discuss • contribs) 19:46, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

I find the idea that Wikipedia is both official and untrustworthy interesting, simply because I think most would expect something official to be trustworthy. I agree with your statement about intentions, everyone has a different goal and the fact that users can edit your work on Wikipedia does cast a shadow on the work itself, not knowing the intentions behind the words and I agree that this can make it difficult to trust Wikipedia. However, Philosopher, John Stuart Mills believed that suppressing ideas could cause more harm than good, that the best way to correct errors would be through discussions and arguments. I think Wikipedia embodies this; taking the thoughts and ideas of many and debating until, hopefully, the right conclusion can be found. I think this links with the idea of collective and individual intelligence being measured differently; the contributions of many must be valued more and surely they eliminate more errors.

KGilbert (discuss • contribs) 09:30, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise #2: Online visibility and data trails
When it comes to social media, I am quite visible online. I have a Facebook account and also a Snapchat, Instagram and Tumblr account. I am also quite active on all those accounts, some of them like Facebook and Instagram are even linked together. In order to join those different networks, I had to give out a certain number of personal information, such as my email address, my gender or even my age. In a way, I understand why this information are needed to join those sites as they are necessary information to be studied by the owners of these sites to learn more about who's using it and to what purpose. However, giving out those information means giving some of your power and identity away to a faceless authority. We can never truly know who has access to our data and what they use it for. The question of online surveillance is one that came up quite recently in the last few years with the Snowden file and the idea of 'mass surveillance'. It is a subject that comes up a lot, even in popular culture with the example of the Netflix TV show, Black Mirror. The show talks about the dark side of technology, and the episodes address both our obsession with social media but also their control over our identities. It shows that when we allow networks to have so many information on us they can then use to have a certain control over our lives.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDiYGjp5iFg

We are all visible in a way on the internet as some of these networks have become sometimes essential for us to connect and meet people. For example having a Facebook account can be necessary for university students as we need to do group projects or if we need information about course work.

These websites are also misleading as they make us feel like we have control over the information we share when they do. Facebook has upgraded several times its privacy settings to make people's account more private. You can decide as soon as you post a picture if you only want your friends to see it or even just select certain to view the photos.

This can also relate to online identity and the perception we have on others through their social media accounts. Obviously, people mostly decide to show their good side on these networks and often show a 'perfect' life with pictures of trips, expensive presents or fun times with friends. It is not an accurate reflection of anyone's life, the identities we assume online never reflect our actual personalities. We simply show a version of ourselves that we want others to see and behave in the way that we think they want us to behave. However, this 'pretending' we do does not limit itself to the online community.

Clarabiswiki (discuss • contribs) 19:07, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

Hi Clara, I agree with what you said about understanding the need for some sites needing access to our information for the owners to see who’s using it and for what purpose. I also find your follow up point on ‘giving some of our power and identity away to a faceless authority’ very interesting as I have myself had this thought process when signing up to certain sites wondering who and where would be able to see my information etc.

I like the example of ‘black mirror’ you used, I haven’t seen the show myself but after watching the link you uploaded I can see why you think it would appeal to this topic. In my own post I used the example of a horror film ‘’Unfriended’’ as it is based around social media and the effects it can have on people, particularly young people. I think the use of examples helps us understand this topic area particularly ‘visibility’ a lot better, I was wondering could you think of any other examples?

I talked about very similar points you have made in my own post regarding social media platforms with reference to privacy and In conclusion I feel I can relate to your post well and understand every point you have made, and I enjoyed reading your post. Thanks! ArianneStirling (discuss • contribs) 22:40, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

GailZWiki (discuss • contribs) 16:50, 16 February 2017 (UTC) Hi Clara, your point that it can sometimes be essential to be visible online is true and quite scary in the sense that we are almost forced into appearing online. When I was 17 I deleted my Facebook profile because I wasn’t always comfortable with having so much of my identity online, and I also didn’t like the aspect of people trying to show their ‘best side’, as you mentioned. However, after a year of not being on Facebook, I felt that I had to sign up again. I felt completely out of the loop with my friends but was also missing important academic information as my school had started to share information on Facebook. Your link to the Black Mirror trailer definitely connects with this subject. I won't spoil it, but in the first episode almost every aspect of people’s lives including buying a home and getting a job are controlled by their online presence. Without it they become an outcast or shunned in some way. This draws parallels with the idea that sometimes we are pushed into being more visible online than we wish to be. GailZWiki (discuss • contribs) 16:50, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

Wiki exercise #3: Information Overload
There is no denying the fact that with the rise of the internet and social medias we are now overwhelmed with information. We are living in a world where it is so easy to be connected in a second and have instant access to any kind of information on any kind of subject. We have grown accostumed to the fact that if we have a question about something we could type it on Google and immediatly find the answer in fact some people never bother to look on the second page of Google because there is already so much information only on the first page. Nowadays it's not just google or any kind of social media like Facebook or Instagram that deals with informations. Important newspapers like The New York Times or news channels like the BBC have apps on phone that if you download you can allow them to send you informations directly to your phone in the form similar of a text so you can have it instantaneously. Those medias understand that now with this overload of information and the fact that we are constantly attached to our phones, they need to make the news more available but also immediate. They know that people need to know about certain events as soon as they happen. We are in a society that consumes tons of informations veyr quickly so we can then have other information. That can lead to an overload of informations, some less interesting than other but nowadays everything has to be documented.

Personally, I do suscribe to those apps like BBC News because it is important to stay informed but I have realised that sometimes I can get up to five or six alerts a day sometimes correcting previous alerts because they were send too quickly and were therefore false or misinformed. It is easy to be distracted by this incredibly massive flow of information. Howevere, I do think we need to be positive and see it as a change that can help a generation to be more involved in social, political or economical issues simply because they have access to that information so quickly. I do not think it is distracting to haave so much information available so quickly and easily, it is an incredible advantage to have so much knowledge at our fingertips. While there are some downside, some media have started things such as 'clickbaiting' on facebook, where news media would write the introduction to an article that would seem interesting and previously unheard of so a person would click on it and be confronted with old news. However, I think that we all know how to deal with this massive loead of information because people do appreciate the fact that is easy to access information that is important to know about in this society. It is important to know the difference between an actual news website and any other website that is just looking to have a certain amount of visitors and who would publish anything in order to do that. I always make sure to check that the adress of the website is correct and that this website is known for being a good source.

The workflow for this wikibook project is for me unprecedented compared to the work I was asked to do for certain classes where it was just essays. It is a more intense project in the fact that we constantly have to do research on it. For the group project, we do find it easier as we simply split the tasks between us to work more efficiently so we can then have a discussion about all the different information we gathered and engage with it in a different way to make the work more interesting to read. It is important to control the informations in order not to get confused, mix-up information or even forget certain parts of said information.

Clarabiswiki (discuss • contribs) 11:01, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

Comment: Hi Clara, I found your post really interesting. I particularly liked where you talk about how quickly we can get news via apps, and how you would get sent the same news because there had been errors previously made in the original post, since they then amended the mistakes. News that is broadcasted on TV is usually comprised of events that happened throughout the day or previous days and is edited so it is suitable to air. However, the advantage with access to news on the Internet is if something groundbreaking happens, it can be shared on the internet immediately, rather than waiting for the news to come on TV. It makes us a more informed society with vast information at our fingertips.

The point you made about click bait titles caught my attention. I find this an issue as some titles can imply one thing, whereas the article itself, like you said, contains old news. This can be contrary to the title and not really reflect what is happening in the world. I remember seeing a particular title a couple of months ago that said ‘Britain Hits Florida with Nuclear Missile’. This is of course particularly misleading, as the nuclear missile was a dummy, which hit near the coast of Florida not the actual city. This can cause people to propagate false news if they don’t actually read the article and just base their opinion on the click bait title. The problem with information on the Internet is that it has to be checked to make sure it is reliable.

In regards to the workflow I agree that this module is a different dynamic compared to regular essays but I found that it has got better over time. This is due to the lectures and especially the labs and the groups we have been assigned. We can communicate with our peers if we need help and the discussion pages are especially useful in this regard. JayeRaiyatMedia (discuss • contribs) 00:31, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise #4: Wikibook Project Reflective Account.
In order to realise this wiki book project, we had to work as a team to create a complete and precise study of our subject, technology as an extension of self. The collaboration was necessary and very helpful as it is an extensive subject and we needed to make sure to cover every important fact about it. We started with a discussion plan with just members of our computer lab group but also included the other group that treated this topic so that we could collaborate as a team and not miss anything or repeat ourselves. While we discussed our plan on our wiki book discussion page we also engaged in a Facebook group discussions, as well as meetings in the study zone to speak about the subject face to face. It was very important to do so in order to share the different ideas we had on what to write and how to proceed with the project. It was essential during our discussions that whenever someone came up with a new idea, theory or writer that we had to make sure it would fit within the topic and match with what we wanted to write about. For a collaboration, it is important to maintain a discussion so that everyone can be involved, have their voices heard but also so we can get feedback from our peers.

This was one of the most interesting sides of this project as a whole, in my opinion, to be able to receive feedback from other students. This use of the peer-review system was rewarding, as I find it interesting to know what other students would think of my work or what they would have done differently. This can lead to some discussions and debates which are always valuable and makes it more interactive. These discussions allowed to think more in depth about the topics we were presented with and the debates allowed me to see more than just one side to every reading. It was a bit strange to write on this Wikibook project knowing that my work would not be anonymous and that not only people could read it and comment it they would know that I wrote it. This forced me to think more carefully about my words and my opinions as I knew someone was watching and reading all of my interactions.

This task can relate to the theory of Collective Intelligence that we studied. It is defined by Pierre Levy as ' the mutual recognition and enrichment of individuals rather than a cult of fetishized or hypostatized communities.’ (1999, 13). This is what this wiki book project was about. It was to have individuals be able to share their information and their knowledge about a specific subject. Intelligence is a resource that needs to be nurtured as it is constantly changing and needs to be updated.

However, it is important to not get carried away with Collective Intelligence and confuse it with the notion of Hive Mind which refers to the idea that when individuals are confronted with a project they might submit themselves to crowd psychology. This refers to when people forget about their individual ideas in order to conform with the mass. We can also relate it to the always-on culture, as we needed to be able to get in contact with the rest of the group regularly. We needed to be connected with each other so we could share our ideas and have immediate feedback.

References: Lévy, Pierre (1999) Collective Intelligence: Mankind’s Emerging World in Cyberspace. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books

Clarabiswiki (discuss • contribs) 10:25, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

I enjoyed reading your reflective account of the Wikibook Project, and agree with many of the issues you have raised in it. I also found that to begin with, the discussion took place with mainly just group members, but as the project developed it was necessary to see what was happening in the bigger picture and discuss with the remaining groups to check on what was being covered. Our group also spoke on Facebook as well as on Wikibooks and I think that this was problematic as well as useful. We began in our group of four and when we realised another group was doing the same topic, it became essential to collaborate on the Wikibooks discussion page so that everything we had said on Facebook could be seen by all people working on this chapter.

I think the point you raised about keeping the information relevant was an important aspect of the project to consider. With each person allocated a different section of the chapter it was important to make sure they all linked together. I also agree with your comment that feedback from others was essential. It not only made sure that the work could be the best that it could be, but also made it more comfortable for members of the group, to know that they had the support and help of the group as you mention.

The peer review aspect, which you speak of, was something I also found helpful during the course of the project. I found that this format was very different to other forms of work I have had to do in the past. When working on a piece on a word document, it is made very apparent that the work you are doing is by you alone and there is no form of interaction. On Wikibooks, the notification system and the discussion page just alongside from the book page meant that you could always go somewhere for guidance or even to offer support yourself.

I like the quote you use, by Pierre Levy, to summarise the project. I think the idea of "enrichment" in collaboration which he speaks of was a key part of this project. I believe that the overall outcome of the chapter I was working on was of a much higher in quality and more varied than I could have created by doing it myself. This is due to the idea that everybody is different and has unique knowledge and qualities to bring when collaborating. Ailsaharv (discuss • contribs) 15:55, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Content (weighted 20%)
The introduction section is incredibly well-written, and summarises some of the points which follow. I think that a concerted effort could have been made to narrativize the chapter before proceeding to the discussion proper. The overall structure that follows is well thought out, and evidences deliberation, delegation and timely organisation. Coverage of many of the salient issues surrounding the relationship between technology and self are included, although the overall feel of the chapter tends towards high-end description, rather than analysis, debate and argument.

That said, some of the sections are incredibly detailed and well written. Where theorists are listed, often it is the case that the coverage is characterised by a list of accomplishments next to some biographical and bibliographical detail – without going into discussion and application of the theories themselves. Here, you have managed to avoid the trap of biographical list, but the movement towards discussion and application of the theories could have been more detailed and applied to the issues under discussion in the chapter.

Some of the sections are really well written, but lack evidence of research – particularly in drawing from any peer-reviewed material, which is essential to helping establish a written argument. The whole section on “Forms of self-representation” for example, has large chucks of text that contain no reference to this kind of material (although, to be fair, there are some interwiki links apparent). Again drawing from this section as an example, there could have been more use made of interwiki links to other chapters.

This could have benefitted the chapter enormously. Such interwiki links could have been extended to include more reference to other chapters in the book, such as connecting your subsection on “distrust of AI” and “newspapers facing decline” to the chapters on Online/real-life divide and news, evidence and memory respectively. This could also be useful in relation to interwiki links on the same chapter: for example, the whole section on blog/online diaries – I would have thought this would follow on quite neatly from the discussion of Jill Walker Rettberg’s work, particularly in relation to her book Blogging! (This section didn’t have a single link or reference, and where the relevance to concepts in this chapter may be considered self-evident to the author, it is the author’s job to connect these ideas through argumentation).

Later sections (including the material on dating sites, gaming and video) are much stronger in this regard, and do all of the necessary things outlined above that are missing from other sections.

Overall, reasonably well put together, especially considering the number of total students working on the chapter.


 * Satisfactory. Your contribution to the book page gives a satisfactory brief overview of the subject under discussion in your chosen themed chapter. There is a fair range of concepts associated with your subject, and an effort to deliver critical definitions. There is evidence that you draw from relevant literature and scholarship, however your own critical voice in the building of a robust argument is slightly lost, perhaps due to a variable depth of understanding the subject matter or over reliance on rote learning. The primary and secondary sources you found about the chapter’s themes cover a somewhat circumscribed range and depth of subject matter.

Wiki Exercise Portfolio (Understanding weighted 30%)
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 overall (and particularly in relation to Understanding and Engagement elements), that should give you an idea of strengths and weaknesses within the achieved grade band, relative to the descriptor


 * 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.


 * Reading and research:
 * evidence of critical engagement with set materials, featuring discriminating command of a good range of relevant materials and analyses
 * evidence of independent reading of appropriate academic and peer-reviewed material to a fairly wide degree
 * Argument and analysis:
 * well-articulated and well-supported argument through judgement relating to key issues, concepts or procedures
 * 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);
 * clear evidence of independent critical ability

Engagement (weighted 50%)

 * Evidence from contributions to both editing and discussion of content suggests minimally sufficient standard of engagement (i.e. volume and breadth of activity as evidenced through contribs)
 * Acceptable engagement with and learning from other Wikipedians about the task of writing/editing content for a Wikibooks
 * Reflexive, creative and fairly well-managed use of discussion pages using deployment of somewhat limited judgement relating to key issues, concepts or procedures