User talk:Mpurcell22

Wiki Exercise #1 What is a good Wiki?
My experience with collaborative work flow was creating a Facebook page for an online class project. We had to create everything. The name, content, pictures, and information to create a believable page. We worked in a group of five people and we each had separate tasks to accomplish. We all collectively agreed on what type of business we were creating. We created a film production company. I was in charge of creating an info graphic filled with the main facts to put up on the page as the first post. One person was in charge of creating the logo with all of our input. Another had to come up with a location and selective pictures to be able to post on the page. One person was the voice of the company and mad a few announcement posts. The last person was in charge of actually putting all our content on the page as we all agreed on. One big difference between platforms is the professionalism that wiki's page puts forth. Creating a page is not about the fluffy things that you would put on a Facebook page. (Mpurcell22 (discuss • contribs) 11:09, 8 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 lower end of this grade band, so there’s clearly room for improvement here. 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, making more use of the wiki functionality and markup would go a long way to improving fluidity and functionality of posts. I suspect that, as you become more familiar and proficient with the platform, that this will make a considerable difference.


 * Re: responses to other people’s posts – none undertaken. This would effectively halve your mark.

GregXenon01 (discuss • contribs) 18:05, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

WIKI Exercise #2 Visibility and Data Trails
I am really visible on some social media sites and and not so visible on others. I can google my name and my picture pops up but that's about it. On Facebook I have an open page with most of my information on it. I think I even have my cell phone number in my information section. From my post you can know what neighborhood I live in and even what house I live in if you try hard enough. It has my school information but not where I live at school or anything while I'm there. My Twitter is very open as well but with less information. I have two twitters. One for tweeting about TV shows and such, and the other for my friends. On either page I probably only have one or two pictures of myself. My personal page has where i go to school and what year I graduate. I only have around 12 followers and follow 23 people on my personal Twitter. It's relatively new. My other page has my birthday and that's it about personal information. On my other page I have 1,259 followers while only following 1,018 other people. So I feel i have less control over my other account than my personal account because more people see it and retweet and like it. Which sends it to whoever follows them and it gets bigger and bigger. Tumblr is the same as my other Twitter. I have minimal personal information and mostly just talk about what tv shows I like but without all the followers. A lot less visibility but I don't post much on the site. Instagram basically just has my name on it. I post pictures of things I do and places I go and my nephew. I have 128 followers and follow 87 people so there is a little more visibility. I honestly have know idea how much information google+ has of me. I didn't use my name but with how connected it is it probably has all my information and then some. I am not overly cautious about myself being visible on social sites. My online stories are another thing all together. I write a little bit but i don't let anyone I know see it. They don't know what my "name" is or anything like that but if you do type in my name it comes up with the first story I wrote. A little over 10,000 readers read my stories and I got a good handful of reviews on it. But again on this site I put no personal information to keep from people i know finding it. I feel that this greatly relates especially to online/real self topics we have discussed and read about in lecture. I have many different faces on many different sites. From my personal twitter account to my other twitter account I post a wide variety of different content on each. (Mpurcell22 (discuss • contribs) 10:58, 15 February 2017 (UTC))

Wiki Comments

 * Hi, Mpurcell22. You raise a very good point about using each social media platform for a specific purpose. It’s interesting that your readership is engaged with you as an anonymous writer. Do you feel the anonymity allows you to be more forthcoming or creative? I’m thinking of my own anonymous engagement online, the various “faces” we often have for each platform, and how this aligns with the Persona concept. I tend to use a pseudonym when commenting on websites or forums that are focused on user discussion. My usernames are detached from my offline identity, are less likely to leave a trail (although my IP address is still technically logged) and I therefore feel more at ease when participating in online discussion. In some respects, I’ve disclosed more details about myself anonymously than I have on the social media websites that include my real name, personal pictures, etc. There is a sense of freedom that comes with being anonymous, do you agree?Tonyvall (discuss • contribs) 00:28, 17 February 2017 (UTC) Tonyvall (discuss • contribs) 00:26, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

Hi, I do find myself more carefree because of my anonymity. I never let anyone I know actually read my writing so the fact that no one knows that it is me is the only reason I do write it. However, my username is not at all secretive. It is a nickname that I'm often called so if my friends or family were so inclined they would be able to find it easily. I find myself posting completely different things between my accounts. So, yes, I agree that there is a freedom with being anonymous on the internet. Thank you for commenting. Mpurcell22 (discuss • contribs) 22:30, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise #3 Information Overload
I love the fact that there is so much information out there. I think it can only help us. All the information can come from different perspectives and can add to the discussion, but the first thing I do to avoid information overload is to try and get as specific as possible. I break down the information I need to find in order to simplify the process. Through this process it is easier to decide which outlet to use for information. This also can limit the work load at one time so the information can spread it out over time if the process is started early enough. I decided to work this way because it takes the immediate pressure off of me and I don't have to wade through the abundance of information out there. I start with the broad topics and look at subtopics that can break down the information. Sort of like an outline so I can keep up. Then, depending on what the topic/research is, I look at the experts in the field and read their information. Then I break down their information into sub groups and add it to the outline. This workflow is very helpful when working on the wiki book project. When working with so many people on the same topic it is very important to break down the information and divide the work. To keep the information from repeating over and over. There can still be overlap but if there is communication it won't be a problem. We have already started this process between two groups. Our main topic is The Hive Mind and Collective Intelligence. We split those into two separate topics and found a break down by Levy, P in 'What is Collective Intelligence' that allowed us to divide it further. After that we divided the readings between all of the group members. The way we have divided the work flow is extremely helpful. We all separately gather our information and if we see something that might benefit someone else we let them know. We have set up a face to face meeting for after we have gathered all our information since their are so many of us we don't want to miss anything. Mpurcell22 (discuss • contribs) 10:52, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

Wiki Comments
Hi, I also agree that an abundance of information is a great thing. Like you said, it is important to be as specific as possible when it comes to trying to overcome an information overload - I do this by including key words in searches as it eliminates results that do not include all factors I'm searching for. I agree that dividing up the topics for our Wikibooks assessment will make it a lot easier to handle, with each of us focusing on specific things being able to prevent an overload or repetition of information. Mmmorgaine (discuss • contribs) 18:22, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

I like that you keep the process so simple. It looks like a nice and easy way to make sure you only get what you need to complete your work, and I can't believe I never really tried doing it that way before. The way you divvied up the workflow sounds very similar to what we did in my group, and it looks like you're doing it just as effectively. The idea of a face-to-face meeting also interests me, and I kind of want to try setting one up now. ZachIsWack (discuss • contribs) 13:53, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

WIKI Exercise #4
During the Wiki projects we collaborated with many people. We were in a group of three and had the hive mind and collective intelligence. The first day we realized that another group had our same topic so we asked if they wanted to work together to lighten the load. Everyone seemed very happy to. We had one meeting face to face and divided the readings up with the knowledge that if anyone had any information that might be useful to someone else, then they would post it or link it in the discussion page and tag people. It was a very easy way to communicate. We had a bunch of people link books and journals to the people that were covering certain topics. Some people even typed out the information or summed up the information for the reader so they would know if it was something they should look at. The information overload was something to think about. I had to put my phone away so I would quit looking at it and finish my project, but there was still so much information to look through. Since not everyones readings were for them we had to switch around some. I ended up having to look else where for more information and there were so many articles and books to look through. Luckily one of my group mates found me a book that had the rest of the information I needed in it. Once we all had our information, we started to work on the book. It can all be a little confusing when you start out. Some people in our group talked with others and found out how to do certain things like pictures and references. Some found templates on how to put graphs on our page. These were incredibly helpful to everyone involved in our project. I went back and forth on questioning how to do these things because I didn't understand from the explanations on the discussion board. But I eventually found someone to help and show me on my laptop how to do it correctly. Once people started to write in the book, I started to edit little things if I saw them, like mis-spelled words or punctuation. People started to ask others in the group to read over their work and give them feedback. This worked well if they did it in time. Everyone seemed happy to do a peer-review. It was easy enough. Some read over and sent the writer a message of things they would change, instead of going ahead and changing it themselves. This was nice because then the writer could decide which they would rather have. Writing for a small audience gives a chance of communication from the reader to the writer. They can give their opinion on what they think about your topic and they can say how much they like or dislike your writing. They can help you brain storm if you need help. Many people helped with that in the discussion page. They can also fact check your information if something doesn't sound right. When you have a small audience it is easier for the multiple readers to have a discussion about the topic together. When they are talking amoungst themselves they can end up bringing in important points that the writer would have never thought of. Mpurcell22 (discuss • contribs) 11:14, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Wiki Comments
I like that you laid out a step by step process of your experience with this project. I agree that the information overload was a lot to take in. I too had a hard time concentrating on the task at hand and found it easy to get distracted with other findings online. I like that your group really did "work as a group" in the sense that you read through each others content and edited for each other. I would have liked my group to have been a little more hands on in helping each other figure out how to make edits and add content for this project. It sounds like you ended up having a fairly good experience though! Sam ediko (discuss • contribs) 23:50, 15 March 2017 (UTC)


 * I agree, the project was a lot to take in, and have projects on top of each other and the on going wiki exercises along side the wikibook was hard to manage. I wrote about that too on my discussion page. I like the team work you described with how you each helped each other. We did that in our group too, helping people figure out how to add picture, and do the referencing. Do you think it was overall a worth while experience? And is it something you plan to do again or do you think your wikipedia skills will go to waste now? BethIrish (discuss • contribs) 19:41, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Hi, I think we all worked well as a group in helping each other, however I didn't particularly like this type of project. It is interesting to have this knowledge though I don't think I will do anything with it in the future.

Content (weighted 20%)
The introductory section could have been expanded to give an overall summary of ideas, connecting those ideas and orienting the reader in such a way as to reinforce the notion of narrative and argument. It would have been nice to use Condorcet’s historical concepts as a way of introducing the themes and issues under the following discussion.

The discussion sections are generally well written, and evidence research, reading and draw from a fairly good range of sources and materials. Some use is made of the platform’s strengths to emphasise aspects of the argument, and evidence links between various concepts. I would have liked to have seen more in the way of interwiki links, however – these are links that would have enabled you to make the link explicit between the materials here in this chapter, and ,materials found elsewhere in the wikibook. This is especially so for those sections, for which little to no evidence of research and cited material appears - i.e. the majority of paragraphs in the Economics section, for example, where links should have been explicitly made to the Digital Labour chapter. This would have made a considerable difference to the authority and engagement aspects of your collaborative writing.

Some very interesting and fairly well written material on politics, aesthetics and aspects of the hive mind (although this last appears in repetition in a number of different places on the chapter – suggesting that delegation and joined-up working could have been better. Some interwiki links joining up the various sections would have made more of the platform’s functionality.)

References section evidences research, reading and sharing of resources. Very good use of wiki commons images. Overall, very well put together, a little more content would have been better, although there are specific considerations which have been taken into account there, 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


 * 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.


 * Reading and research:
 * evidence of critical engagement with set materials, featuring command of a fair range of relevant materials and analyses
 * some evidence of independent reading of appropriate academic and peer-reviewed material
 * Argument and analysis:
 * articulated and supported argument through judgement relating to key issues, concepts or procedures
 * some evidence of critical thinking (through taking a position in relation to key ideas from the module, and supporting this position);
 * some evidence of relational thinking (through making connections between key ideas from the module and wider literature, and supporting these connections);
 * some evidence of independent critical ability

Engagement (weighted 50%)

 * Little evidence from contributions to both editing and discussion of content (i.e. volume and breadth of activity as evidenced through contribs)
 * No engagement with and learning from other Wikipedians about the task of writing/editing content for a Wikibook
 * Little or no use of discussion pages