User talk:MurrayHighFive

My name is MurrayHighFive. I am part of a group project at the University of Stirling and I would like to explore Wikibooks further. MurrayHighFive (discuss • contribs) 18:06, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise #1 What makes a good Wiki?
When it comes to online collaboration, Social media platforms can both help and hinder workflow and efficiency. Specifically, Facebook's group chat feature allows fast communication with multiple people at the same time which allows relevant information to be shared with ease. Other platforms that allow this include:


 * Twitter
 * Instagram
 * WhatsApp etc.

Even though these sites feature instant messaging features like Facebook, they lack the feature of instant group communication. Therefore, collaborative activity is limited on these platforms as sharing information with more than one person at a time is not possible. Facebook's messenger allows effortless sharing of multiple types of files like images and video which aids in the construction of successful group projects. The range of information that is allowed to be shared can sometimes be detrimental to workflow as the topic can easily switch to one not relevant to the overall task.

There are multiple differences between social media engagement and wiki engagement. Whilst social media communication is often instantaneous and easy to navigate, wiki communication is less direct and can often feel less straightforward. Social media also differs greatly in that each post is clearly shown to have come from a specific person or profile whereas wiki sites often do not operate by explicitly showing which profile made which contribution to the post. Despite most social media sites allowing the ability to comment on the posts of others, Social Media is often far less collaborative than wiki sites. Social media is better suited towards communication and the organisation of group projects, whereas wiki sites allow for users to critique and add to the work of others. In Lanier's (2011) "Missing Persons IN, You are not a Gadget: a manifesto", he illustrates the collaborative nature of the internet and wiki sites as he says:

"In vast numbers, people did something co-operatively, solely because it was a good idea, and it was beautiful"

Group projects are well suited to wiki sites as the information is a benefit to the public as a whole which results in the collaborators having a common goal. On the other side of things, as social media sites are commonly developed with the individual in mind, they are less suited towards group collaboration as a whole. Overall, despite both social media and wiki sites having a range of similarities and differences, they can be beneficial to the overall development of group projects as social media allows easier communication and wiki sites offer a more suitable platform for the project to be held. MurrayHighFive (discuss • contribs) 02:25, 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.


 * Excellent. Among other things, these entries will probably demonstrate a complex, critical understanding of the themes of the module. They will communicate very effectively, making excellent and creative use of the possibilities of the form (including links, as well as perhaps copyright-free videos and images, linked to from Wiki Commons), and may be written with some skill and flair. They will address the assignment tasks in a thoughtful way. They will make insightful connections between original examples and relevant concepts. They will be informed by serious reading and reflection, are likely to demonstrate originality of thought, and will probably be rewarding and informative for the reader. The wiki markup formatting will be impeccable.


 * 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, although you are starting to explore markup (which is great, by the way!) making more use of the wiki functionality and markup would go a long way to improving fluidity and functionality of posts. E.g. embedded links, template citation etc. 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 – these are especially good. I like that you have framed some of your responses to solicit discussion (this is, arguably, what discussion pages are all about!) and also that you have engaged in discussion in an open and critical way (that is to say, you've responded to what other people are saying and are contributing meaningfully to discussion - arguably the civic element of wiki that you ought to be thinking about, which you clearly are). Keep this up!

GregXenon01 (discuss • contribs) 18:27, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

Comments on Wiki Ex #1
Hi MurrayHighFive, I'm Bricedoesn'tlikehighfives and i read your piece on the qualitative differences between Wiki pages and social media pages. Overall, i found the piece to be very informative and certain key points were made that I subsequently took interest in. The points made about individuality - whereby pages like Facebook explicitly show the name of the writer/commenter/sharer etc. - were interesting when compared to that of Wiki pages - contrastingly, a more whole, group project, which is constantly ongoing and changing. The use of a quotation, from a well written and relevant scholar, added a certain gravitas to the piece as a whole, and provided the reader with evidence of further reading and interest into the subject of social media engagement. The final point, in illustrating the need for both types of online platforms in todays world, nicely rounded off the piece and brought back the point that both Wiki pages and social media pages are used widely on many different bases - communicatively, in production of "group projects" and for the more straightforward sharing of information. One or two wordings/spellings were incorrect but on the whole, the piece was eloquently written and easy to engage with. Bricedoesn&#39;tlikehighfives (discuss • contribs) 15:19, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Hi MurrayHighFive, I found your thoughts on the differences between Wiki engagement and social media engagement very interesting. Your discusion about Facebook's instant messaging is insightful as it's one of the most impactful ways in which social media has changed online collaboration as it's allowed the expectation of communication between people to become less and less. I think you define probably the biggest difference between the wiki engagement and social media engagement when you identify the way in which the information is presented. Social media focuses far more on the individual whereas wikipedia and other such informative sites is more concerned with the content that is being displayed. I think this shows the key factor that seperates the two as it demonstrates the more narcissistic appeal of social media over the more knowledgeable appeal of wikipedia. Overall I found your thoughts really engaging and I enjoyed reading them.ChrisintheHat (discuss • contribs) 11:30, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise #2 Visibility and Data Trails
The extent to which an individual is visible online varies greatly from person to person. Personally, I do not post at all on social media and spend my time mostly browsing as I have a large number of profiles on sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc. I feel I am somewhat different from others though as a lot of people I encounter have larger social media presences. I usually only interact with close friends on social media, however I do still accept people as friends if I do not know them all that well. Others may be more selective of their friends as they share more information which they may not want relative strangers to have.

In the chapter "Web Mining and Online Visibility" by Schmidt-Mäns and Gaul (2005), online visibility is defined as:

"...the extent of presence of a brand or a product in the consumer’s environment"

Although visibility is being talked about in a commercial sense, the quotation still applies to the way people present themselves to those browsing social media content. Online visibility is not restricted to social media sites. Other venues where online visibility is achievable include gaming platforms (Steam, PlayStation Network, Xbox Live), Dating sites (tinder, match.com), blogging platforms (Blogger, Wordpress) and video sites (Youtube, vimeo).

Frighteningly, individually we may not be as in control of the information we share than as first thought. Many of the terms and conditions that are so commonly ignored include sections which give the site control over the information being posted to the site. In an article by Oliver Smith (The Telegraph, 2003), it is revealed that in the terms and conditions presented by the site Twitter, they are granted control over your content. An individual still technically owns the photo however Twitter can use it as they see fit.

It is very difficult to know what exactly will happen to the information we put out on to the internet. Websites have been known to sell information off to companies, such as email addresses, so that they can send their own advertisements, spam or even emails of malicious intent. Furthermore, it has also been revealed that government agencies may have access to the private information of individuals as people like Edward Snowden have tried to expose. This implies that online visibility goes beyond that which we deliberately post on line to that which is out of our control. MurrayHighFive (discuss • contribs) 20:59, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

Comments on Wiki Ex #2
Hi Murray, it's Bricedoesn'tlikehighfives. I feel that this article nicely introduces the concept of online visibility and data trails. Your use of real life examples like Edward Snowden and your further reading (shown by your interest and mentioning of Oliver Smith's article) are commendable and add merit to the contribution. You discuss the fact that you use social media in more or a 'browsing' sense, whereby you consume the vast majority of you information but don't necessarily react to it, or give you opinions publicly on the platform. Do you feel that no interaction at all with articles/videos/pages/memes etc is as influential to your online image as perhaps reacting everyday to these forms of information (i.e. liking/sharing/posting/commenting)? Is there a reason why you don't interact? Do you feel that in the past people have been lured into reacting or posting their views and have fallen foul of online platforms ability to share publicly? (for example, comedians like Ricky Gervais and Stephen Fry who have in the past been ostracised from social media platforms) Or do you see your interaction with online platforms as 'taking the moral high ground', amongst most millennials - with there"larger social media presences" - who post, react, comment and to an extent mould their image daily in an attempt to become noticed? Your commentary on the multiple other platforms whereby visibility is key is informative. In mentioning Schmidt-Mäns and Gaul's quote about visibility lending itself to a commercial form of industry, do you think it is morally correct for the government to have ownership of some of our media content (to an extent, our views) or do you believe that they have the publics best interests at heart? Finally, following on from discussions of Twitter and Government control, do you think that at some point in time - in the near future perhaps - all content produced and shared on social media will be privately owned by government agencies? Overall, your piece raises many questions about the state of current online visibility, both through your own personal experience and through further reading and use of scholarly research. Hope to hear back. - sorry, for the amount of questions... Bricedoesn&#39;tlikehighfives (discuss • contribs) 18:50, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

Hey Murray, I found your thoughts on this subject really clearly outline the different ways in which online visibility and data trails affect a wide array of online outlets, including less obvious sites such as Youtube and online gaming. Also your use of examples that link your concepts to actual events and recognisable names really grounds the arguments that you make. I'd be interested to hear your own personal fears concerning such harbouring of information and to what extent your own experiences have led you to be sceptical when it comes to this aspect of the internet. ChrisintheHat (discuss • contribs) 22:30, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise #3 Information Overload
According to the UK Office for National Statistics, 87.9% (45.9 million) of the population are frequent users which has only increased from the 86.2% in 2015. The information generated by these individuals is phenomenally huge. Technologies such as search engines (Google,Yahoo,Bing) and wiki sites allow for easy navigation of this information, however there are some drawbacks. Due to the wealth of information available, it can be difficult at times to navigate with any focus. Many sites are plastered with advertisements meant to draw you to their sites and as mentioned in the previous exercise, sites can use the data you produce to tailor these advertisements specifically towards yourself. Also, the tools available only make the searching easy to an extent, sometimes the data can be so vast that finding any specific topic can be incredibly difficult.

Personally, I struggle to maintain focus when trying to navigate the internet. Not only do I sometimes fall prey to adverts on sites, i also seek out distracting websites on their own. In particular, platforms such as Youtube and Netflix are always very tempting when using internet enabled devices. When working on assignments or essays, I often have to turn off all devices that I am not using to maintain focus and work efficiently. It would be very difficult to have a platform such as the internet, where such a large quantity of information is available, and not have such distractions. This is due to the fact that although many of the resources on the internet are easy to access, they are not always going to be relevant to the users needs. When it comes to deciding how to deal with the large amount of information available, it is usually better to have a goal in mind. Searching for a specific thing is always easier as if you enter with no goal in mind, searching could be endless. Although it may not always be possible to have a clear goal when navigating information, most wiki sites are able to use keywords which allow information close to desirable topics to be found.

In terms of the Wikibook, there have definitely been some hurdles to overcome. The way in which communication is executed on the platform has made getting a cohesive answer somewhat difficult, and as a result determining clear tasks and goals has also been hard. This is due to the communication between each member being featured on a single page. To navigate our way around this, my colleagues and i have separated the discussion page in to sections so as to allow both teams a clearer communications platform. This has in turn allowed for each individual to determine a clear objective which increases the workflow within the chapter.MurrayHighFive (discuss • contribs) 23:17, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Comments on Wiki Exercise #3
Hey MurrayHighFive. This article was informative and accurately written. Your use of statistics (with their appropriate links) not only shows a keen interest in the topic yourself and illustrates further reading and research, but also skill - in being able to create such links. Your mentioning of adverts and how data trails leads to adverts being suited specifically to each individual user are points that i personally speak of also. You have a clear three paragraph structure whereby you can easily transition from subject to subject. Your personal section again made good use of links and also gave an example of your first-hand experience; one which i'm sure most students would probably find familiar. Your comments on how information overload has affected the wikibook were interesting and honest. In agreement with your points i feel that perhaps as a form of communication, wikipedia (and specifically wikibooks) has some major downfalls. The fact that such other communicative apps such as messenger exist - and are the norm - makes it hard to continually communicate through wikibooks. This can sometimes seem (especially for this overall task) that there hasn't been a lot of engagement as a whole, whereas truthfully, those who are using wikibooks as a form of communication - and who are new to the system - may struggle. Overall, your piece was written clearly and with a structure that not only flowed but made it easy to read and linked your own personal experiences to those of the public. Bricedoesn&#39;tlikehighfives (discuss • contribs) 11:35, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

I found this post to be easy to relate to as I would also find myself in the majority of the analytics that you used in your study. I found it to be accurate how you point out the downfalls of the communication aspect of Wikipedia. This is quite relevant to communication in the Wikibook project, especially. Throughout the whole of the piece I appreciate the splitting of of paragraphs as it helps the reader to keep track of what is written and to engage with it on a personal level contributing to the overall flow of the piece.Ianthe2nd (discuss • contribs) 12:11, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Hey MurrayHighFive, I found the information you sought out to include in your piece here very interesting and supported your own experiences well. The way in which you turn yourself off from the internet to focus is driven and highlights the way in which there is so much information, and tempting sites online for you to be distracted by that the internet becomes something you have to wholly avoid to maintain focus. I found what you discussed on the Wikibook project especially interesting as you illustrated the way in which large collaboration on Wikibooks can be hard to maintain and engage with as it doesn't lend itself especially well to communication and messaging compared to such sites as Facebook Message. You created a clear, concise article on the information overload online that clearly details the issues and ways you combat these whilst working online. ChrisintheHat (discuss • contribs) 12:30, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise #4 Wikibook Project Reflective Account
Engaging in a collaborative project such as the wikibook one comes with multiple benefits as well as hurdles. To achieve the best possible outcome, a combination of both online and in person collaborative had to be performed. The nature of the collaborative wikibook project relates heavily to ideas of collective intelligence. Pierre Lévy defines collective intelligence as: "The mutual recognition and enrichment of individuals rather than the cult of fetishized or hypostatized communities" What Lévy means here is that collective intelligence aims to better the individuals involved through the sharing and development of knowledge, allowing them to develop their own thoughts rather than just maintaining them as fact. As each individual involved in the wikibook project took on a specific aspect in their research, the addition of other topics in the book allowed others to learn from that and further their knowledge on the subject. Examining the subject and content of the other members of the group was necessary in determining a cohesive structure for the book.

Communication was vital in developing the wikibook. The group I was in used the wiki discussion page, Facebook messenger and met in-person using the library study rooms. The wikibook communication platform was incredibly irritating and one i will be pleased to never use again. Facebook messenger enabled instant communication which was good for workflow as was the in-person meetings. Though clunky, the discussion page of the wikibook provided somewhere where the group could show larger pieces of work to the rest of the members which allowed a form of peer review to take place. The instant messenger provided a place where co-ordination of the group was easier as messages and responses were easier to interpret, this allowed us to organise in-person meetings which allowed for us to more clearly organise the overall structure of the wikibook chapter in development. One example of the meeting benefiting the overall quality of the wikibook was that one individual had knowledge of the markup and knew how to input pictures in to the page, the meeting allowed for him to clearly demonstrate how to perform this in a way that may not have been done as easily through other communication means. This meeting was required to structure the wikibook the way we did as one individual could not have laid out a cohesive structure which suited everyone's chosen research topics. This relates to the idea that groups can be smarter than the most intelligent amongst them.

One factor which i feel drove the group to push for a better project was the lack of authorship on the main page. Unlike the discussion page where each post is signed, the chapter page has no signatures. Each individual's work becomes part of a whole or the collective, so we become encouraged to make sure the page is the best it can be. Other members of the group and I used our individual knowledge to help format, edit and review the wiki page to create the best possible outcome. This was only a benefit to an extent however as there were some members who appeared to contribute little which hindered both the initial structuring phase as well as the collaborative review at the end. Overall, the project benefited from the collective intelligence of the group through the various communication platforms available to us, however the communication was only useful to the extent to which team members used it.MurrayHighFive (discuss • contribs) 00:43, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Comments on Wiki Exercise #4
I like your assessment that a single piece on the internet, like a Wiki article, can have multiple authors no matter if this can be seen in the finished piece or not. It's especially relevant now as it should be noted that some Wiki articles are not a group effort, but are instead made by one person. When you talk about how each individual's work becomes part of the collective I couldn't help but liken this to the theory of the hive mind and collective intelligence. Although, I appreciate that you cover this concept of a collective in a positive light showing that the collective isn't always stupid, however, it is important to point out the downside to a collective as all it takes is one weak link to hinder progress. Overall I would agree with what was said in this exercise and that this is a fair assessment. Ianthe2nd (discuss • contribs) 00:01, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Hi @MurrayHighFive, after reading this article i feel like i have a stronger understanding of your own personal experiences in participating in this project as well as some of the key issues that you (and others) struggled with. I very much liked that you introduced your article with a brief quote from a renowned scholar and then linked to a key area of discussion within the topic, "Collective intelligence". This provided me with not only the knowledge that you had done extra reading on the topic but gave me a clear definition, which aided me to further understand the term and how it related to the wikibooks. You have a nice structure through the piece, linking theories to your own personal experiences and i particularly liked you idea of "no one (1) author". You highlighted the importance of a collaborative process in achieving success and provided the reader with plenty of examples to back up why this may be the case. Overall, this article has a confident tone; it was an enjoyable read and one which on occasion i could strongly relate with. Bricedoesn&#39;tlikehighfives (discuss • contribs) 22:52, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Hi Murray, this is a solid assessement of the Wikibooks platform. Your comments on how articles have multiple creators and editors resonates with me, and I too agree that this aspect of the Wikibooks platform drove our group to work as a collective to create a more unified result, rather than singular posts. Your assessement of the communication aspects of the Wikibook is very interesting, and I find your honesty with regards to the problems that Wikibooks has very refreshing. Do you think there are ways that the Wikibooks communication could be improved? I also agree that the other communication methods that were used (whether it be Facebook messenger, or real life meetups) were far more time efficient and easier to read and interpret. Overall this is a good analysis of your experience with the Wikibook platform, and your honesty about your dislike for the experience is very interesting. Reuben1508 (discuss • contribs) 17:02, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Hey Murray, I thought your reflection on the project was a concise, accurate summary of the experience. The way you have used quotes from renowned scholars in the field to introduce your own findings in the same matter throughout the project has been a very unique and impactufl way to structure these responses. I agreeed with what you said about the communicative aspects of the Wikibook site, and would be interested to hear how you felt our communication as a whole was reflected through or discussion on Wikibooks.The lack of authorship on the final article helped shape the way in which our group approached the task was an approach to the issue that I myself had not considered. Overall i enjoyed reading your reflection as it helped reinforce my own experiences and introuduced new ideas that I had not considered. ChrisintheHat (discuss • contribs) 17:46, 20 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


 * 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%)

 * 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