User talk:Gnivs

This is the user discussion page for Gnivs (discuss • contribs)

This is a page being used for educational use only. I will be exploring wikibooks with this page, please feel free to leave comments on any of my posts to engage in discussion with me. Gnivs (discuss • contribs)

Wiki Exercise #1: Educational Assignment
The blogging site, Tumblr, is an online forum used by a range of bloggers. I personally enjoy the site as it gives me access to content that I usually couldn't find anywhere else online. Although, as other websites (like Facebook and Twitter) have begun to regurgitate the popular posts posted on Tumblr, there isn't as much exclusivity to the site anymore - but that doesn't change my preference of social media platform. As a fan of many shows, books, etc., the Tumblr community is an amazing place to access information about the shows I love, and a place that I can contact and meet others who share the same interests as me.

One of these interests is Hamilton, the musical that hit Broadway in 2015. The musical is a hip-hop/rap musical created by Lin-Manuel Miranda, who decided to write the musical after reading about Alexander Hamilton's life. I was skeptical about the musical at first, especially since I'm a huge musical theatre fan. I decided to give the soundtrack a chance and listened to it on Spotify. At first I only liked a select few of the songs, for example, I fell in love with Eliza Hamilton's ballad, Burn. As a singer, I decided pretty much as soon as I heard the first couple of lines that I wanted to learn this song, and sing it whenever I could. Currently, I've performed it in my kitchen, to my dog, in the shower, and to my flatmates who can most definitely hear me belting it from my room. This isn't the only good song in the show, there are other incredible songs such as Satisfied, Guns and Ships, and Yorktown. As soon as I'd decided to listen to the entire soundtrack from start to finish I knew I'd made the right choice. The place I heard about it was Tumblr, and if it wasn't for the hype on my dashboard then I probably wouldn't have listened to it.

Tumblr is a forum that allows me to see what's going on in the world of the Hamilton fandom. I have access to gifs of the show, interviews, and people's opinions of the characters that I can engage with if I want to. On the site you don't have to use your own name, like Facebook, so the anonymity of it also makes the site different to others. It's a site that lets you be who you want, and so your online identity is completely in your hands. The personal touch that you have over your own username, page and the content that you post is what I love about Tumblr. I've been on the site for five years, and I've created my own online persona over that time. Despite the fact that it's a public forum, it feels like a personal space, and a place where I share a lot in common with my followers. Social media is a big part of my life, so it's interesting that it actually aligns with what we're studying in this module. Gnivs (discuss • contribs)

Wiki Exercise 1: Formative Feedback
This is an engaging and interesting reflection on the importance of Tumblr as a social space. This reflection could be linked more closely to theories and critical discussions from within the module. In particular, it would have been worth exploring the theme of exclusivity within Tumblr and the way in which content is reappropriated. Your comments on other peoples' exercises engage with their topic and are of an appropriate length but again, could draw out further critical reflection on the module's topics.

A post of this standard roughly corresponds to the following grade 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. Sprowberry (discuss • contribs) 10:38, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Comments
This is super interesting, and as a new Hamilton fan and a long time Tumblr user, I can related to a lot of your points. I've been on Tumblr since 2010, and it's without a doubt the social-media platform I am most active on. Seeing the site grow in terms of new features, number of members, how these members use the platform, etc. is fascinating. Looking back on my own blog, which I started aged only 13, it's a real mess for a good 2 and a half years; a huge melting pot of really old memes (the kind with a character in the middle, colourful stripy background, and white on black text, like the socially awkward penguin? Ah, memories.), excitement over the last Harry Potter movies coming out, and hipster photography. Then it changed to a Sherlock/Doctor Who blog, much to my embarrassment now. Currently, and since around 2013, it's a predominantly Disney, art, and animation blog, which I'm sure some would consider more embarrassing, but I'm very proud of my blog currently. In 2014 I started making a lot more of my own content, first just with icons and personal text posts that no one read, but eventually more complex stuff which is pretty native to Tumblr, like picspams, gifsets, masterposts, etc. I've made close friends with people from all over the world on Tumblr, discovered new music, musicals, films, TV shows, games, facts, news stories, recipes, and so much other stuff that I wouldn't be exposed to otherwise. Another thing I love on Tumblr is the use of language and grammar on this site. As a non-native English speaker who has almost lost fluency in their native language, language is something I do struggle with in terms of expressing exactly what I want to say. And on Tumblr, lack of grammar, like punctuation, capitalisation, run-on sentences, and so on, really puts me at ease. I can vent and rant and just talk about my life freely. I can write a sentence that is 400 words long with zero capital "I"s and way too many commas and "and"s and "but"s and "also"s because that's what it's like in my head, and people will understand it. That for me is one of the things that make Tumblr such a unique and personal place. (On a slightly unrelated note, my favourite Hamilton songs are Non-Stop and Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story) Sleepyzoe (discuss • contribs) 16:28, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Tumblr is surprisingly one of the few social media sites that I have struggled to fully grasp. I am yet to set up my own Tumblr account, despite occasionally spending time on the site looking through the blogs of friends. As a fan of many things - Hamilton included - it is odd how little appeal Tumblr has to me, especially as a place where the fans of things such as Hamilton are celebrated and can interact and share and discuss. Your enthusiasm for Tumblr really shines through, and I love that it allows you to be introduced to new things that you may not have encountered without it. I absolutely love Hamilton. It's recent Grammy win is a true testament to the unique storytelling and songwriting power that musical theatre has. I think the way you use Tumblr is the way that all social media sites should be used, as site to create your own personal online space where you explore your passions while broadening you interests and finding new things to love. EilidhNo.2 (discuss • contribs) 23:56, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise #2: Visibility and Online Footprint
I can’t remember when I first began to use the internet as a means to contact others, and for social media use. It became this huge part of my life, and throughout the years I grew more and more dependent on online browsing. When I was in primary school I remember using sites like Bebo, or using MSN to chat to my friends in the evenings. As I grew up, sites such as Facebook and Twitter began to surface. I grew out of the sites I used when I was still a child, and began posting about my life on the internet via Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook. Online visibility is potentially dangerous as we share every moment of our lives online. The idea of privacy is an old myth when it comes to sites like Twitter or Instagram. People post photos everyday of what they’re eating for lunch, or drunken photos from nights out, whilst people tweet daily about what they’re doing, with no real concept of who can see what they’re posting. I, and potentially most other people, put that aspect of posting online to the back of my mind and use social media as if it were a necessity in my life. I followed in Sleepyzoe's footsteps and googled myself to see what exactly came up online, and whether I’m actually visible to complete strangers. The answer is yes, I am. The results show my Facebook page, Instagram and my Youtube account that I never post on but only have due to my google account. These three links are available to anyone who Google’s my name, which is quite a scary thought. My Instagram is public, so if anyone were to in fact google me they could be linked straight into a personal photo album of my current life… and continue to look back on my life for the past three years. I doubt anyone would actually google my full name, but just the thought of my life being extremely accessible to complete strangers is very disconcerting. I have created different online identities through many websites, and I don’t think one is similar to another. My most visited sites (and the apps I use on my Iphone) are Tumblr, Twitter and Facebook.

Tumblr
Since July 2010 I have built up a blog on Tumblr, and I've changed my username many times since creating my first one. This site feels more like a personal place more than any other. I will visit it everyday, and scroll my Dashboard on my phone if I ever find myself with a free moment. I've never said my full name on it, and I occasionally post selfies but it's mostly a place where I reblog posts that are in my interests (for example, photos from Marvel films), and write short personal posts that are usually written as if I were speaking to nobody. I have 563 followers, whilst I follow 476 people. I see it as a anonymous site, although people (including myself) say personal things on it, forgetting that is an incredibly public forum and anyone who gets hold of my username would have access to extremely personal information. Although, that is the exact reason behind a username that doesn't include my real name. I've posted 113,781 posts since I joined, and I can't remember a day I haven't at least scrolled through it.

Twitter
This site is just as public as Tumblr, but the difference is that you have the choice to make your profile private. This means that only the people who follow you can see your tweets. This stops the problem of being completely visible to strangers, giving you the control over who sees the content you post. My twitter page is not private. I have 252 followers, most of which are people I know in real life. The difference between Tumblr and Twitter is who I interact with, and how. Knowing that old school friend's follow me on Twitter and not Tumblr affects the way in which I speak on each website. Twitter is a place for quirky snippets of my life (for example, almost crashing my car in a funny situation) and not a place for deep emotional rants. I'm on Twitter as much as I am on Tumblr, and I scroll my Newsfeed without feeling the need to post anything. It's more of an interactive site than Tumblr, as my friends and I will respond to each other's tweets in a conversational way. I have posted 23.9K tweets since 2009, and even if I regret some old tweets that I've posted, unfortunately I have no control over who sees them because they're now lost in the depths of my Twitter feed.

Facebook
Finally, I have been on Facebook since the very start of 2009. I use my full name, and most of my personal information is on my page, which is why it's extremely private. The only way people can see all of the information about me is by becoming my friend. There's a way in which to view your page from the point of view of a stranger, and I've gone through that process a few times just to make sure that my page is definitely hidden from people. They only have access to my profile pictures, cover photos, and the fact that I attend Stirling University. I upload photos, and interact with my friends via comments or the instant messenger. I feel obliged to keep to myself on this site, compared to the others, as the only people who see what I post are people from my life. It's a very different environment to the likes of Twitter or Tumblr. I have 484 friends, but I will only interact with a very small percent of that number. The fact that someone can find my Facebook profile on google is not as worrying as my Instagram, due to the difference in public/private settings.

My online footprint goes from these main sites to others such as Instagram, Snapchat, Tinder, Vine and even DeviantArt. My usernames are all different, and the only place that I use my full name is Facebook. My Instagram and Twitter usernames are nicknames. People in my life have access to my Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat account, so my identity has been shaped due to the persona I feel I have to create on those profiles. Gnivs (discuss • contribs)

Comments
I found your take on this subject really interesting! It's so strange to read about Bebo again, it's a site that I completely forget ever existed although at the time it was quite an important part in my life. Sites such as Bebo and MySpace show how social media and online platforms evolve over time. It's interesting that people our age and younger have grown up with the evolution and development of online technology, the emergence of Facebook and Twitter came at a pivotal point in a lot of people's lives. We are probably the last generation to remember a time before these things while still growing up alongside the internet ourselves. I find your thoughts on the different personas that we create online very interesting. I've thought about this before and I think that because Facebook is so public and often impersonal I find myself less willing to post any kind of personal opinions or statements. I use Facebook primarily to interact with friends and communicate with people. I absolutely agree with your comment about feeling obliged to stay on Facebook. The thought of deleting Facebook does not make me feel liberated, but anxious that I will lose contact with friends. I worry that it has made me lazy in terms of communicating and keeping in touch with people. It is so easy to keep up to date with what is going on in friends lives that I think it would be easy to eventually stop reaching out personally to people face to face at all. Like you, the only online platform I participate in where I use my whole name is Facebook. I also absolutely relate to the feeling of enjoying being on Twitter without feeling the need to necessarily contribute or post anything firsthand. EilidhNo.2 (discuss • contribs) 21:52, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I always forget about Bebo, and I think you're right because it does show that these sites evolve. I think younger generations use sites like that, and actually the younger generations use Instagram now like how we'd use Facebook. It's interesting to see how differently people use social media, and especially if we look at the sites we used to use compared to now - and the difference between younger people on social media compared to people our age and older! I totally agree with you about the possibility of losing contact with friends if I deleted my Facebook profile, and I've become more lazy over the years with staying in contact with people due to what we actually have access to on their profiles (photos, status updates etc). Thank you for your comment, it's genuinely nice to know that someone uses these sites and views them in the same way that I do! Gnivs (discuss • contribs) 17:27, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
 * That is such an interesting point about the way different generations use different social media platforms but for the same thing. I think one of the highlights of social media is that people are allowed to use them in different ways and be as active or inactive as they chose while still being a part of the online community in one way or another. Sites such as Twitter and Tumblr especially give their a huge amount of creative freedom to express themselves, while on platforms such as Facebook it is easier to observe and keep up to date with friends. EilidhNo.2 (discuss • contribs) 11:51, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

I thought it was super interesting that you brought up old social media platforms. When I was 11 I was on a website called Kupika (which I'm pretty sure used to have a Wikipedia page, but I can't find it right now), and it was a pretty weird social media platform. It's advertised as a "pen pal" service, and although I did message a lot of people on there (mostly 11-14 year olds, a lot of them being friends I knew in real life), there were much more interesting features on the site. There was an art gallery and a built in art software (like Paint, just slightly better), everyone had there own diary where a lot of people used it to write short stories, and group forums, which was one of the only features you could make private, and which a lot of people used for roleplaying. I remember spending most of my time there either messaging friends or editing my profile, and it's where I in fact learnt most of the coding I know now. Looking back this was a very ugly website, with lots of children and very creepy adults. I stopped using the site immediately when I found Tumblr and Facebook, and I've never missed the website, it was overall very weird, and I do think I was too young to be on there, but I had a really bad, cheap phone where texts were at least 10p, so I had to find some way to talk to my friends, and none of us liked Bebo. I think I made a profile on Bebo at least 3 separate times, and never used it for more than a day, and our group of friends in school used Skype to message each other a lot more than MSN for some reason, but since then I've only used Skype twice in 5 years, and both were for interviews. It's interesting to think what other new social media platforms will pop up in the future, and which are the niche ones that the mainstream don't know about, like Kupika. Sleepyzoe (discuss • contribs) 11:58, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise #3: Information Overload!
=== How do you deal with the fact that there is a lot of information out there and that it is easy to be distracted? Why have you come to deal with it this way? What are the contributing factors for the decisions you make in dealing with this abundance of information? === In this Digital Age, there are many ways to look up information online. Google is the most frequently used search engine on the internet and this is the place that I go to to find things out. It happens pretty much daily that if I have a question that no one can answer, I'll bring up Google on my iPhone or laptop to search the site for answers. This is where the issue of being "Always-On" comes into play. Having constant internet connection on my phone, leads to me having access to the internet 24/7. I'm always online, in a sense, in that I have notifications switched on for most of my apps - which leads to me being alerted when my friend's comment on Facebook posts or if someone favourites one of my tweets. The fact that I am able to check Google whenever I want, is a prime example of the Always-On theory. However, by doing this I then face the issue of which link to choose. More often than not, I'll be looking up which actors appear in a television show or movie that I'm thinking of watching, so IMDb is the usual link I will look for. If I'm looking up some form of news topic, I'll aim to find the BBC News website amongst the thousands of results Google brings up for me.

The amount of information that we have at the touch of a button is truly incredible, and it's usually when I should be working that I'll end up on some strange corner of the internet because I was so drawn into the click baits shown to me on Facebook. This is an interesting way of collecting useless information though, because due to the "news" that Facebook offers us at the side of the home page, I now know quite a lot about subjects that really shouldn't be considered "news". Currently if I look at the Trending section of my home page, one of the titles is on Caitlyn Jenner because she is "to partner with MAC cosmetics." Things like this are presented to me daily on Facebook and even if I'm not interested in the trending topic, I'll still click on the link to be nosey. We're in an age now where we can find out anything we want if we want to, which is somewhat overwhelming. It's definitely something we will now all take for granted. I'm extremely reliant on Google to give me the exact answer I want to any question, but I'm also reliant on Twitter and Facebook to keep me updated with nonsense news that I really shouldn't care about. I even follow certain celebrity accounts on Facebook and Twitter just to make sure that I am receiving the updates I want. I find the internet incredibly useful for that, and having so much information at my fingertips is extremely helpful.

When googling anything, it's impossible to manage the overwhelming quantities of results. I've decided to rely solely on websites I'm familiar with to give me the answers I'm searching for. For example, IMDb or something like a Buzzfeed article is more appealing to me than a random link to an unfamiliar website. Whether Buzzfeed as a source is trustworthy or not is debatable. However, if the title of the result looks interesting enough, I may venture onto the website and have a read. I visit the NHS website quite a lot when I'm ill, to look up my symptoms (something you really shouldn't do because then you'll end up with the conclusion that you have cancer), but I wouldn't go elsewhere to look at things like that. Even when you want to find out how to do a certain thing, you can just "google it". This sort of thing is what Google is great for, because it'll usually link you pages like Wikihow - and tragically my friend's and I have relied on this page before for silly things like "how to get over someone." It's pages like these that I'll go to for information, and the reason I decide on dealing with the abundance of information in this way is due to what social sites I'm on and which ones I find trustworthy.

I use the internet as a way to learn things that I didn't previously know. I use it as a source of knowledge, that helps me educate myself. It's an incredibly useful tool, and using the amount of information it has to my advantage is how I learn. I will use it not only to find out things I'm curious about, but also for university assignments. For example, looking up articles that I could read and use for essays, or looking up the topic I'm writing on etc. There are so many positive features to having access to endless amounts of information.

It completely depends on our interests as to where we look for information, and what information we look for. Personally, Google, Twitter, Facebook and even Tumblr are great sources of information for me. I will use them daily as part of my routine, but I am very reliant on them for giving me information that I want to find out. News is no longer only presented to us in the Newspaper, or on television, we are now able to look it up on our phones. Our phones, laptops, tablets etc. are so useful for this, and I think being part of this digital age that allows us to have everything at our fingertips is incredible. Gnivs (discuss • contribs) 17:37, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Comments
I found your points here very interesting and many of your opinions are similar to my own. One comment you made that I found particularly interesting was about how we now take this easy access to information for granted, which is something that I personally am absolutely guilty of. I too find myself increasingly reliant on not only Google but other online sites and sources to not only find information when I am interested in learning something, but also to do university work. This links back to the idea of 'always on', and the way that it's hard to completely be 'offline'. I use sites such as Twitter and Facebook as a way to learn about current events. I don't take everything I read on these platforms as factual but they often raise the awareness of issues that I should know about that I then go and learn about on more trustworthy news sites. An example of a world issue that I first heard about on Twitter is the Flint water crisis, something that I arguably should have known about previously. As a source of unlimited information, the internet is truly staggering. I find myself feeling grateful that, among other more negative things, the internet is also a way to educate and inform. EilidhNo.2 (discuss • contribs) 12:16, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

Hi @Gnivs, I found your comments on the Always-On culture very interesting, especially your point on having to choose which link you want from Google. I touched on this in my own post on my discussion, about how we must be selective of which information we choose to digest, especially with this information overload.

Similarly to the comment above, I also think the idea of us completely taking this access to information for granted is very relatable. Do you think that this is a problem? Thinking about it myself I feel that should the internet go down, the country would go into complete disarray and it would be like the end of days.

I also pose the same question of whether it’s a problem about your observation of using the same popular websites to find information. While this may deal with insecurities about foreign websites, I feel it is worrying how we rely on only a few websites, which could easily be biased or give misinformation. I accept you find these select sites trustworthy (and I do not disagree, I’m much the same) but I believe we should try diversify our intake of information. CwazyChris (discuss • contribs) 18:41, 3 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your comment! I would say that taking all this access to information for granted could potentially be an issue, as we are now all reliant on it. I totally agree with your point about if the internet went down. Since we're so dependent on technology and the internet these days I don't think we would cope without it.

I also agree with you about trying diversity in our searches, and trusting other sites than the ones we are familiar with. I see it as a possible issue for receiving false information, especially on sites like Tumblr. I've mentioned this blogging site before in my other posts, and it's one of my favourite sites to use. However, there are many people on it that will spread misinformation to younger people who don't know any better - an example of this is posts about politics. Rumours spread throughout the website, so people are misinformed. Trusting certain sites to be your only source of information is definitely a problem today, but I think that's how people deal with the amount of information that we have at our finger tips.

Thank you again for your comment! Gnivs (discuss • contribs) 20:56, 3 March 2016 (UTC)


 * I absolutely agree with your point about Tumblr, I access it occasionally and amongst other issues with information on it it seems like a lot of misinformation is on it. Again, you're quite right, its difficult not to limit ourselves to certain sites, and this is our only real way of narrowing down searches.

CwazyChris (discuss • contribs) 12:30, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

I definitely relate to a lot of what you've mentioned. I can barely watch any movie without checking at least one actor on IMDb to see what else I've seen them in. I also check the internet a lot whenever I'm ill, definitely more often than I go to the doctors or ask my parents. But as you said, it does tend to lead to the conclusion you now have to write your will because this sore throat is actually terminal. What I found particularly interesting though was your point about you having many sources of information for news, like through Facebook, Tumblr, etc. It reminds me of all of these discussions going on about media blackouts, where "reliable" news sources choose to not cover certain stories, which in turns leaves people who use those as their only source of news to be ignorant. The biggest example I can think of are of all of the events surrounding the Black Lives Matter movement, especially with the death of Sandra Bland, where I saw multiple posts about it on Tumblr only about 6 hours after her death, but when I wanted to read articles about it outside of Tumblr, I googled her name and selected "News", and there were hardly anything about it at all, but all the posts of Tumblr had thousands of notes. News stories spreading on social media in turn forces "proper news sources" to cover these stories even if they had no intention to previously. Makes you think of how much of history has been completely lost, even extremely recent history, because no reputable sources talked about it. Sleepyzoe (discuss • contribs) 23:03, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise #4: Reflective Account
When we were introduced to this assignment, I thought as first that it would be an interesting and fun part of the module to get involved in. However, working within a large group of around 30 students led to a chaotic and difficult assignment, that I generally didn't understand. I understood the intention of the Wikibooks project, I think, but in the end there were too many people assigned to one blog page that no one really understood what was going on.

I find the idea of the public and private spheres online quite interesting, and I was excited to work on the project in my own time in my own way. I had come up with some ideas in my own time, that were related to the sites that I visit on a daily basis (Twitter, Facebook etc), and I was keen to message my group about what we could potentially work on for the page together. I visited the main blog page and suddenly it had been bombarded with one group's work, leaving little room for other groups to really get any say. In the end, it felt like although I had chosen my own small group of five, it was really an individual project with little to no group work whatsoever. As we all scrambled to assign ourselves a section of the blog, I feel like some people lost out and barely got any say. As well as being confused about what we were allowed to write, I was also confused about how to actually use Wiki mark-up. Not only was I confused as to what this was, as I felt the phrase was just used without any explanation, I also didn't know how to use it at all. The only way I learned how to edit posts and to use this format was by copy and pasting other people's edits. Using this site, which seems rather outdated, rather than an actual blogging platform was an interesting choice to say the least.

The difficulty with this task was trying to work alongside 30 odd other pupils. It would have made a lot more sense to split the blog page up between groups, and so ensuring we would work as a group of five on one part of the page. However, once one group took it upon themselves to control the entire page, we were pretty much doomed. I discussed with my small group on a daily basis, asking them for help on certain things I was attempting to do on the page just to make sure my "contribs" were adequate. If this assignment had been for a smaller group then it could have had potential, unfortunately the mere number of students I was trying to work with really put a downer on the project as a whole.

I learnt from other students about the topic we were writing about, which was a positive of this project. I learnt about people like Thomas Friedman, and Alan Turing, and I learnt more about the private sphere in Papacharissi's work. I was interested in what I was reading about, but the time restraint on the project meant that my work was rushed and not to the best standard it could have been. I feel I let myself down with my contributions on the project because ultimately, I was confused about what I was meant to be doing and sought out help from my peers on a daily basis.

A positive I can take from this assignment was the group work I was involved with, with my friends in my group, as we did meet up and worked together on the project to help each other through it.

I feel like I haven't really taken away much from this assignment, as I spent most of the time trying to work out how to work the site than getting involved with discussions. However, I didn't really feel welcome in discussions either, despite it being a "group effort". I would have liked for my group to have the opportunity to have more say/input in our Wikibook because I know they are all talented students who have their own views on the topic we were given, but without really any real guide on what we were expected to do/how we were supposed to work the site itself we were then limited to what we could actually contribute.

Overall, the Wikibooks project really has its flaws. I feel like I learnt some things, but not enough to consider it a learning experience. It would have been in our best interests to assess us in another way - even if it was still group work. Using this platform to create a blog wasn't really in keeping with the guidelines of the site, considering the first attempt at creating our profiles we were approached by admin and some content was actually deleted. I feel like this could have been more beneficial if we had used another site, and instead of working with 30 odd people on one thing, the groups had all focused on separate things to improve our teamwork skills.

Comments
I absolutely agree with your post and I think you succinctly sum up the main issues regarding this project. I completely support your views on the flawed nature of this assignment. Working alongside so many other students was near impossible, and what should have been a project about collaboration turned into a struggle to individually be able to write about what you were interested in before somebody else took over that topic. I think I would have enjoyed this experience a lot more had everyone been able to write about what interested them and what they wanted to learn about, rather than just choosing from what was left over after other students had begun to delegate topics to themselves. I agree that smaller groups not only would have been more beneficial, but would have actually helped to advance our teamwork skills. I also completely agree with your point about spending more time trying to figure out how to operate this site, rather than actively being able to participate in the project. EilidhNo.2 (discuss • contribs) 13:43, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

The project definitely felt chaotic, I agree. I believe I read that the average wiki page has between seven and twenty-one contributors, which still seems like a lot to me; regardless of whether or not that is true, with over thirty working on each page of our project it was really just too much. Being put into smaller groups within the larger topic group felt arbitrary, as with so many people on the one topic it became something of a free-for-all anyway, with individuals scrabbling to write something on the main article. Discussion and collaboration—which were the purpose of the exercise—fell by the wayside because of the oversized groups. I'd disagree with you on not taking anything away from the assignment—it definitely showed some of the concepts we were learning about in action—but as an assessment I agree that it was not really effective. --EmLouBrough (discuss • contribs) 09:27, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

I completely agree with you in terms of the group sizes. It really was far too many people to start a wikibook with time restraints and lack of knowledge in the first place. I understand that most wikibooks have even more people working on them sometimes, so I can see why we were assigned in these sizes. However, I beleive that when these wikibooks are created, the writers have much more time, knowledge, and opportunity to discuss amongst themselves and allocate tasks. I'm also sure that all the people in the book are allocated equal parts, which I think was also a big problem with this project. I also really resonate with what you talked about in your fourth paragraph, about feeling disappointed with your work due to the time restraints. The day before the deadline, I thought of the topic of the deep web, which I think was perfect for our assignment. However, I barely had enough time to write about it due to other deadlines with my modules, so I wrote a few paragraphs off the top of my head with the resources I could find and my previous knowledge, and ultimately, I want to kick myself for not thinking about it sooner. I could've gotten help from people who were maybe struggling with getting enough contribs and stuff, but since the discussion page is ten miles long and laid out 50 different ways, it's completely impossible to find what is new/old/relevant! That was one of the most disappointing things I found in this whole project. As you said, we were all too busy working out what the project was to actually contribute to it in a way that reflects what we can do. Sleepyzoe (discuss • contribs) 09:34, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Marker’s Feedback on Wikibook Project Work
Your contributions show a sustained engagement and collaboration with colleagues. Your exercises are variable, with some being very descriptive while others being a lot more descriptive and overly lengthy for the amount of content and there is a lack of critical engagement with the conceptual issues behind the briefs. Your chapter contributions demonstrate a better engagement with hte literature.

Content (weighted 20%)

 * Your contribution to the book page gives a good brief overview of the subject under discussion in your chosen themed chapter. There is a good range of concepts associated with your subject, and the effort to deliver critical definitions, drawing from relevant literature and scholarship, and your own critical voice in the building of a robust argument is very much in evidence. The primary and secondary sources you found about the chapter’s themes cover a good range and depth of subject matter.

Understanding (weighted 30%)

 * Reading and research:
 * evidence of critical engagement with set materials, although some ideas and procedures more securely grasped than others
 * evidence of independent reading of somewhat circumscribed range of appropriate academic and peer-reviewed material
 * Argument and analysis:
 * well-articulated and well-supported argument featuring variable depth of understanding
 * satisfactory level of evidence of critical thinking (through taking a position in relation to key ideas from the module, and supporting this position in discussion);
 * satisfactory level of evidence of relational thinking (through making connections between key ideas from the module and wider literature, and supporting these connections in discussion);
 * evidence of variable independent critical ability

Engagement (weighted 50%)

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

Overall Mark % available on Succeed

FMSU9A4marker (discuss • contribs) 14:53, 3 May 2016 (UTC)