User talk:Idkun

Vaporwave
Vaporwave is an internet subculture that originated in the early 2010s. I hesitate to describe it as a genre of music as many vaporwave artists argue that it is more of an aesthetic than just a music scene, and there are other debates and splits within its community that make it a complex subject. The music itself is traditionally (though not limited to) samples of 80s funk and pop music remixed and repeated beyond recognition. The samples are usually not credited and creators deliberately subvert notions of authorship and ownership. Vaporwave is released either anonymously or pseudonymously, and typically for free.

The music, with its sunny synths and vocals, are distorted and looped to create an uncanny and familiar sound that is disturbing and dystopian. The most well known example of this is "リサフランク420 / 現代のコンピュー", a song from the album FLORAL SHOPPE by MACINTOSH PLUS. The track samples "It's Your Move" by Diana Ross and has since become synonymous with vaporwave culture. Song titles are often translated into Japanese or other languages and the accompanying artwork recalls early 90s internet culture, video technology, neon colours, cityscapes, roman busts and consumer capitalism from the late 20th century.

These juxtaposing themes create an alien aesthetic to listeners, part of vaporwave's appeal to me is that it takes on the quality of something you might find in a pile of discarded junk, like a mysterious videotape or an unnamed record. It is radically postmodern and it revels in its anonymity in an online world where privacy is seen as scarce. In today's uncertainty, producers of vaporwave are able to create albums of escapism, with the mundane familiarity of a supermarket or living room ("슈퍼마켓Yes! We're Open" by 식료품groceries), or the solitude of an unknown city at night ("新しい日の誕生" by 2 8 1 4), or unsettling ethereal noise that can evoke feelings of an entirely different world. Vaporwave is a type of music that is as challenging as it is relaxing. Anachronistic and oxymoronic and completely pretentious but nonetheless captivating, innovative and a testament to the potential of internet-based music scenes.

--Idkun (discuss • contribs) 12:23, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise 1: Formative Feedback
Your discussion of vaporwave offers a clear introduction to the genre and then offers some primary analysis of why this is a genre to pay attention to. This could be linked further to module theme in a more critical fashion as there are hints of deeper analysis but this needs to be teased out further. Your writing would benefit from dialing down some of flourishes, as phrases such as "anachronistic and oxymoronic and completely pretentious" lose their impact and meaning when strung together in this way. Your comments are a little terse and lack content. Bear in mind that engagement is just as important as your initial contributions, so make sure to critically engage with your colleagues' posts.

A post of this standard roughly corresponds to the following grade descriptor (due to the lack of comments): 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. Sprowberry (discuss • contribs) 10:33, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise #2: Visibility and Online Footprint
When you Google my name the only trace that comes up is a picture of me in one of those horrible Guy Fawkes masks, it's from a long lost Google+ account that I have no way to access. Apart from this embarrassing exception, my online presence is pretty much pseudonymous, and probably less visible than most. On Twitter I have my face in my dp and (albeit rarely) will tweet pictures with me in them, but my username and the name I give on twitter reveal little about me, and my account is public. This way people who know me can identify me, but my identity isn't available to everyone.

I prefer this sort of partial-visibility than that offered by Facebook, which I've stubbornly avoided using (although in the interests of full disclosure I did have an account for about 4 months in 2011). Whilst I don't use it I am aware that there are photos of me on Facebook that I have been 'tagged' in and have no control over. I'm not even sure how many there are and while I don't feel completely comfortable about it I'm not going to ask my friends to take down their photos just because I happen to be in them. My visibility on Facebook is therefore pretty spectral, my name will appear with no attached profile, and all photos of me will come from other people.

Some sites I use have little reflection on my visibility, an app that I have used since its release is Yik Yak, which started out like a completely anonymous version of twitter. There are no profiles and theres still no official way for users to identify each other, my visibility from using it is the same as everyone else. I also periodically use an app called Yo, which only sends a small notification and a "Yo" sound to other people you've added. The novelty has sort of worn off and whilst I am unable to delete the account, the information about me on the site is quite limited beyond the atrocious pun I made as my username.

I use Snapchat and Periscope to varying degrees. When I use Snapchat its mainly as a form of private communication and therefore low visibility, but on Periscope (which is linked to my Twitter account) I'm broadcasting myself immediately to anyone in the world. However both of these sites are notable in their impermanence, anything I post on snapchat is deleted after 24 hours, I think it's 48 hours for recorded Periscope broadcasts. So the level of online visibility I have can vary from day to day, I have pretty much full autonomy.

To conclude I'm fairly comfortable with my visibility online. Googling my name won't bring up a lot of information about me like a Facebook profile and not even the social media sites that I actually use will come up, just a cringey picture of my 15 year old self. I can live with that. --Idkun (discuss • contribs) 11:09, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise #3: Information Overload!
How do I deal with the vast quantity of information online? I don't, I guess is the short answer. I compulsively indulge distraction when it comes up, usually at the expense of productivity, and this is definitely a problem that I need to solve as my life becomes busier.

I'll admit it: I procrastinate. A lot. When I am using the internet for something important it's just too easy to casually check my timeline on Twitter and amass a reading list of clickbait articles and videos. The sheer quantity of information available is something that distracts me even though I have grown up with it. I suppose I do, in part, subscribe to the idea of "Always on". I do view technology as an extension to myself to an extent, keep updated on my phone when I am out, looking things up whether out of daydream curiosity or in relation to my environment. I have never, however, taken a self imposed sabbatical from the internet as danah boyd talks about. This has only really happened at times where the internet has been completely unavailable despite my best efforts. Call this millennial bellyaching if you want, but losing access to this stream of information can feel quite isolating. Anything could be happening either within my own social circles or a huge global event, I'm ignorant either way. It's not as though I am unable to do things like reading or working, but the concentration I make available to them seems diminished because of internet's ability to instantly gratify us with information. If I want to find out what I missed at the Oscars the other night then I have it presented to me in a zeitgeist of gifs and pictures. A good article from a few years ago by Nicholas Carr "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" looks at how this sort of information could affect us long term.

If I do have any way that would be considered dealing with all this, I suppose it's an awareness of it. I can acknowledge how problematic this tide of information can be, and try to ignore it. Keeping mindful that I'm being distracted at least means I can allot time for sanctioned distraction. It really isn't much of a solution though, my ability to focus is regularly dented by hordes of articles with little substance and as much as I want to free myself from this problem, I find that I am unable to do so.

--Idkun (discuss • contribs) 14:23, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Hi, you say that you procrastinate, but you also say that you see the Internet as an extension of yourself, in a way. Wouldn't that make the Internet an extension of your time as well? What I'm trying to say is that your procrastination could be non-Internet related, but only a projection of the need to procrastinate onto a platform that allows you to do so; maybe if you did not have the Internet, you would still be losing time in other ways. In the Nicholas Carr article it is stated that the brain adopts the qualities of the intellectual technologies, so you are still dominating the medium, after all, it is still your choice, you can control the flow of information. GABRIEL9 (discuss • contribs) 10:48, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

I completly understand your point of view! But don't you think it's very alarmingly in context of the "always on" culture how much we depend on the internet or technology in general these days? But of course it also has its good sides to always have access to the internet and all the information in it. For me as a study abroad student it is very practical to look up vocabulary that I don't know with my mobile phone, I cannot even imagine walking around and always carrying a big dictionnary with me. Like you I really like it that I have the possibility to find out about things I wnat to know, at least if I have got wi-fi, but I also think that it can be quite annoying to almost be bombarded with information and stuff that I don't care about. It sometimes can be very hard to find the exact information you wanted to have without being distracted. You can try to ignore the abundance of information but sometimes it isn't that easy. What is your opinion on that? Askoelsche (discuss • contribs) 11:42, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise #4: Wikibook Project Reflective Account
The wikibooks assessment has definitely been interesting in terms of giving a hands on approach to the theory discussed in lectures and seminars in relation to online collaboration. However despite its merits in terms of a hands on and immersive approach to the topic, I am unsure of the real benefits it has as an assessment on our understanding of the module. It seems to mostly focussed on form rather than content, it mattered more on how we coordinated our section in our group and subgroups than the content we produced individually. The upside to this was that the section I was working on got done, and done quickly, but it also worried me in terms of the adequacy of my input. Had I contributed enough? Did I communicate enough with the other people working on the section? Generally the discussion page was good for sharing ideas and preventing overlaps but I think had there been some group discussion in real life with those working together on sections it might have been easier to outline the content and distribute who should write what, but the size of the group made it difficult to organise this sort of offline interaction.

I would also argue that, while critically misnamed, Jaron Lanier's Digital Maoism can give us insight on the dynamics of this assessment process. By working collectively we put ourselves in danger falling into the same criticisms Wikipedia faces, for example inaccuracy stemming from a reliance on the collective. I would argue that we did avoid most of these pitfalls successfully, but perhaps only because we were working for a deadline and were dedicated in reviewing the work on the section extensively. Lanier writes that "A core belief of the wiki world is that whatever problems exist in the wiki will be incrementally corrected as the process unfolds" and this perhaps only proved true for us because of a few hasty changes at the last minute to prevent further editing. The coordination required by the assessment meant a great deal of consensus had to be arrived at on both the method to write the book and the content itself. Luckily the discussions prove to be largely cordial and there is little conflict, but is this a result out of a belief that conflict could hinder our productivity? There is certainly pressure to be conducive which I'm not saying is bad but may have suppressed people from voicing concerns on the section's construction.

To conclude, whilst a success, I have reservations about the wikibooks assessment in terms of its place on the module. I understand the value of an interactive assessment regarding the subjects of the module, but I am unsure whether a wiki platform has been the most appropriate. --Idkun (discuss • contribs) 10:39, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

Comments
As you said I think “The wikibooks assessment has definitely been interesting in terms of giving a hands on approach to the theory discussed in lectures and seminars in relation to online collaboration”, and in my opinion I think it was a really interesting way to explore and experience what we did during all semester, when you study something on a book you don't always understand what you are studying, in we this Wikibooks project we had the possibility in a bad or good way to live what we talked about during some of the lectures and the seminars. I can understand all your criticism towards this project and I think you raise really interesting point; especially in the end when you say “I understand the value of an interactive assessment regarding the subjects of the module, but I am unsure whether a wiki platform has been the most appropriate” and I was wonder if you had any suggestion regard with platform would suit better this kind of project, as we learned during this week this is one of the main point of the Wikibook project helping each other to achieve the best out of the all the minds and the individuals, working as a group of different people in a group that goes in the same direction. Wecandobetter (discuss • contribs) 09:04, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Marker’s Feedback on Wikibook Project Work
There is a limited body of contributions and engagement in your user history. While there is some evidence of engagement with the critical material and evidence of basic arguments, this could be undertaken in greater depth. Remember, when working on non-traditional assignments, that there may be other things that require equal attention than the ones that are emphasized through essay writing.

Content (weighted 20%)

 * 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.

Understanding (weighted 30%)

 * Reading and research:
 * evidence of limited critical engagement with set material, although most ideas and procedures insecurely grasped
 * evidence of independent reading of appropriate academic and peer-reviewed material limited, displaying a qualified familiarity with a minimally sufficient range of relevant materials
 * Argument and analysis:
 * poorly articulated and supported argument;
 * lack of evidence of critical thinking (through taking a position in relation to key ideas from the module, and supporting this position in discussion);
 * lack 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 independent critical ability limited, due to the fact that your grasp of the analytical issues and concepts, although generally reasonable, is somewhat insecure.

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 Wikibook
 * Limited reflexivity and creativity, and a somewhat insecure management of discussion pages

Overall Mark % available on Succeed

FMSU9A4marker (discuss • contribs) 14:52, 3 May 2016 (UTC)