User talk:Nikolas135

Hello everyone, This is my discussion page which I will be using for contributing in a group assessment at Wikibooks, you are more than welcome to provide your comments if you wish.

Wiki Exercise No.1: Educational Assignment
'''About Taste of Cinema. '''

‘Taste of Cinema’ is film website that was created in 2012 and is ideal not only for film students, but for the wider public as well, with the condition of course, of having a taste in cinema which is willing to break away from the globally entrenched Hollywood-centric one. The ideological strategy of the site is, primarily the creation of lists of movies, directors, actors, and cinematographers etc., which are brought together through a thematic element, and in a secondary level to provide film reviews as any other film blog does. What distinguishes ‘Taste of Cinema’ from the rest of the film databases like IMDB is their focus on world and classic Cinema. Saying that, ‘Taste of Cinema ‘database expresses no bias against recent American films, on the contrary it is a very frequent phenomenon to deal exclusively with Hollywood films and only.

To give you a glance of the character of their lists and the way they structure them, on the axis of finding common ground between the listed subjects, here are a few titles of their articles: “7 Andrey 7 Andrei Tarkovsky Films and Their Philosophical Takeaways” (09/02/16), “10 Great Movies That Lost Best Picture To Forgettable Winners” (12/01/16), “10 Great Indie Western Movies Worth Your Time” (29/12/15), “The 10 Most Visually Stunning Movies Shot By Gordon Willis” (03/12/15), “20 Great Postmodernist Films That Are Worth Your Time” (08/06/14). “15 Great Films Without a Soundtrack” (24/07/15). From these titles one can easily grasp the diversification that characterises this film site and the specificity with which its writers are called to investigate upon, within each list. A diversification which is reflected in the agencies of the writers as they are people from all around the world, mainly university film or other major graduates or simply passionate film buffs. This is what makes this site extremely interesting, as it balances perfectly between the in depth, analytical and expertise but sometimes boring and dull approach of the film scholars and the fully passionate, enthusiastic but many times too rush approach of the cinephiles. On the other hand this can be quite problematic as well because not all of the lists are of equal value as some of them might seem unsophisticated, but in general in the majority of the cases the quality of the writing is excellent.

In the end of each list a small paragraph with the name of the writer is provided which gives more to the reader about his ethnographical characteristics and in many cases they provide their links, websites, and organisations and thus it is possible to follow a particular writer furthermore in the case of taking a liking at him/her.

Nikolas135 (discuss • contribs) 10:58, 17 February 2016 (UTC) Nikolas135 (discuss • contribs) 10:59, 17 February 2016 (UTC) Nikolas135 (discuss • contribs) 11:11, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise 1: Formative Feedback
You describe 'Taste of Cinema' thoroughly with a list of examples, but it would be good to see more about why you have chosen this particular case study. Your response to the exercise would also benefit from more wiki markup: some links to relevant lists and the site's homepage. There is also a verbosity in your writing which is unnecessary (e.g. 'A diversification which is reflected in the agencies...'). Make sure to read your work back and see if it is a clear as it could be. Your comments engage with colleagues' thoughts, but could be underpinned by a greater connection to the module themes in future exercises.

A post of this standard roughly corresponds to the following grade 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. Sprowberry (discuss • contribs) 10:54, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise No.2 : Visibility and Online Footprint
I could never really understand the buzz surrounding the social media and I remember that in 2011 when I was 15 I tried to resist the ideology of the digital era which commanded all of the kids to go viral about the ‘Social Network’ called Facebook. Unfortunately or not I gave in, as I was curious on the other hand to be introduced to this thing that everyone seemed to be obsessed with. You see I never had a pretty good relationship with technology and I can never keep up with its rapid and constant evolution. I could never understand why people prefer to exist through a wall, through a barrier, through a screen which separates the real from the mediated interaction.

What Facebook and the other social networks provide us with is an opportunity for further visibility in this world. Personally I am exposed through Facebook mainly visually, through the vast amount of tagged pictures that I have. This visibility isn’t really guided by me as those are the photos that others have captured of me. Of course then, on a secondary level I have approved their existence on my Facebook account. But moving on to further primary sources of visibility guided by me, again I would say that I don’t really allow a lot of information about me through my account. My date of birth and my telephone number are up there as I have just taken a look and it seems weird to me that I have even chosen to provide my mobile number. No other personal information I provide the facebook community with. And as of the part of visibility of the shares that I guess is the element of this social media database where you express your personality and your personal taste the most, I would have to admit that I sometimes do share some interesting articles either about film or of a more activist-political position. In other more rare cases I would share a song but it has to be a very special song for me in order to do that. And to be a bit reflexive I guess as I am writing this piece of text about myself I leave my footprint in Wikipedia and in Wikibooks in particular where all of my peers have the opportunity to get to know a bit more about me and if they wish, and especially in this platform, they could edit a lot of information without my approval. But again the question could be arisen here: Am i providing you, as you are reading this piece of text, with valid and honest information about myself, or am i editing myself by giving a performance? Nikolas135 (discuss • contribs) 16:55, 6 March 2016 (UTC) Nikolas135 (discuss • contribs) 09:31, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

Comments
Nice read man it seems you are very reserved as to what you share with the public. I think when you refer to your phone number on the part about Facebook you don't mean that you share it with your "Friends", but that you have made it available on Facebook. In fact it is this part that most worries me when it comes to letting your whereabouts out there. How easily we ignore that all the internet platforms are channels that allows us to connect to one another but keep collecting all the data we provide them with. And how easily we do this in order to keep being part of the platform and maintain the same sense of belonging.Srepanis (discuss • contribs) 00:14, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

Hey Nikolas135, Unlike you I was very excited to get into social media and the world of the internet, I find it so interesting how technology is changing rapidly and it fascinates me as well as worries me. Are we going to be living in a world when technology takes over? My profile like yours was private for a while however I realized if it is out there it may as well be fully out there so I made it public, of course this comes with its own problems but nothing too serious, no one has stole my identity yet (that I know of). I like how you said you were leaving your online footprint in Wikipedia, I also use it when I am talking about social media and when I put pictures up I am leaving a little of me behind to share with others Tellegee (discuss • contribs) 20:37, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

When I first started getting into social media I was also apprehensive about sharing personal information. I would never share these details with people I didn't know in 'real life', but I'm finding that to be increasingly difficult as a result of smartphone integration with these social media apps. Google+, Facebook, and other apps are constantly asking me to verify my phone number in order to function and unless I go looking through the privacy settings available on each platform I'm pretty sure this number remains public unless otherwise stated. It's definitely strange to have a piece of private information like that broadcasted into the public sphere, but like you, I only really use Facebook in order to maybe share something I find cool which usually consists of a film trailer or song. Alan Chalmers (discuss • contribs) 11:54, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

Wiki exercise No.3: Information Overload
Through this digital era that we are living into, we are being constantly confronted and engaged with a vast amount of information, whether we consciously or subconsciously realize that. Now more than ever, the web can provide us with general knowledge about anything that we could think of. That could be something educational or it could be the slightest insignificant thing like somebody’s photo of food in Facebook. This informational haze should be discussed from both of its sides as the debate of whether the digitized era is beneficial or not seems very simplistic and primitive. Because between black and white there is a wide range of grays.

In this information overload it is very often observed, speaking from a subjective point of view, to catch the self in an anxiety state. We turn on our laptops and we have to do our university readings through a huge reading list and we don’t know from where to begin. Personal interests come to play as well. As a film student an indescribable hunger for cinephilic information is in a continuous play and thus my google window is full of web links that I haven’t found the time to read, from different film databases or YouTube interviews and anything that is related in any way with my this particular passion.

But even though I love going through this material as I find it very beneficial, it is a very frequent phenomenon to decide to ‘escape’ from this informational cataclysm, and go into my Facebook page to relax. But after a while I realise that I am not using Facebook for relaxation but rather I am abusing or overusing it as an escape window from the things that I should be doing. Thus an anxiety is at constant influence over my being as on the one hand I feel bad for not reading stuff that are productive for me and on the other hand I still feel bad when I am overusing Facebook as it feels that it has nothing to offer. But the problem isn’t this social platform itself as it is a soulless human creation, but how we, the human beings operate this platform, because in the end everything is a result of our decisions.

Thus we should gain control of ourselves and start to be more consciously aware of the choices that we make in regards to this information overload. If used correctly and in a productive way the web can and has been proved to be a very helpful tool.

Wiki Exercise No.4: Wikibook Project Reflective Account
Clay Shirky defines as Cognitive Surplus “the ability of the world’s population to volunteer and to contribute and collaborate on global projects”. This is exactly what the Wikibook project demanded from us, even though it wasn’t a volunteer contribution but rather a part of a mandatory graded assessment. Undoubtedly, were students given the choice of doing something else instead of contributing to wikibooks, the majority would have spent this free time on tv/media consumption rather than better invest that time on civic collaboration and creative endeavor, to paraphrase Shirky once more.

Only now, in the aftermath of this assessment the benefits of a collective project such as this can be better and more clearly understood. During the initiative stage of the assessment a veil of misunderstanding and panic characterised the whole process. As a result this project had both positive and negative remarks that should be mentioned for the benefit of the students in the upcoming years.

In An Internet of Everything our professor created five chapters where the totality of students were split into five equal groups. Each group then was split again into smaller teams of 5 people. Initially we thought that this was going to be a closely collaborative project between the smaller groups of 5. After our first meeting though, we came to the realization that we were free to work as individuals and that there was no point of meeting face to face again. Everything could be managed through the discussion page in Wikibooks or even better and more efficiently through social media communication platforms, as conveyance is faster and quicker. One of the flaws of wikibooks thus was the slow communicative platform that it provides.

But, this platform’s specificity was that everything could be done online, no formalities were necessary, no rules were set. Everybody was as free as their peer to add a topic or contribute in an already existed topic. Collective Intelligence thus just described, a very specified and unique communal process which is as collaborative as it is individual and competitive. Actions of groups can have a greater impact than the actions of individuals. Because of the great freedom that characterises this environment, clash and friction between the contributing peers can occur, as it has in our case. Many people seemed to be annoyed by the dominant presence of certain people that took leading control and made the rest feel that they needed permission before touching or editing any information.

Also it should be noted that many students misinterpreted Dr. Singh’s insistent repetition of ‘engagement marks’ and filled the discussion page with unnecessary comments that only occupied space and only added into wasting time but also contributed to the already chaotic atmosphere.

The results of this collaborative project are impressive and it feels proud to have contributed to an incredibly extensive and detailed chapter on Wikibooks called Public and Private Sphere. I decided to work on the body of work of Zizi Papacharissi a seminal writer of the theorisation of the private sphere. She argued how today the digitally and comfortably converged environment of our house enables one’s self to reach the public and become politically active whilst consuming. Correlating concepts of the prosumer and the viewser are evident in her work, even though not explicitly mentioned. Ironically, only now, in the reflective account of this assessment I am able to realise that this is what exactly this project enabled us to do, to actively reach the public through the seemingly isolated entrenched spatial characteristics of our private sphere.

Banaji and Backingham raise questions such as : “Are the young people civic slackers or civic activists? Are they digital natives or digital dunces? Is the internet empowering them to create new forms of civic culture? At the aftermath of this project the answer seems quite obvious. In those binary components we stand as active and not passive, informed and not uninformed, producers and not only consumers, civilly political and not easily manipulative, apolitical beings.

Comments
Your text is really interesting, and brings up many issues I also found with the wikibooks project. You also mention Shirky's definition of the cognitive surplus and how the wikibooks is a product coming from the student's body cognitive surplus, however don't you feel that since this project was not at all created out of the sheer will do create it, was it difficult to harness out of the cognitive surplus? This also leads me another point, that depending on the student, vastly different amounts of time on this project which lead to a significant differentiating passion for this work and like you mention unnecessary commenting and confusion around the engagement part! Adding that the "dominant presence of certain people" was an issue I also found. Even as I did arrive significantly late to this project, when writing the small part i was thankfully assigned, someone else added a text in the heat of a pressing deadline and I had to scrap the work I'd done. Your reflective text brings up some important issues! QueenElsaIngrid (discuss • contribs) 10:48, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

I didn't mean to categorise and attack the people that dominated the project, even thought sometimes they were a bit too controlling. On the other hand their contribution should be noted and applaud. The necessity of a leader is always apparent in chaotic cases just like the initial steps of the wikibook project where all of as had absolutely no idea of what to do and how to do it. Those people took control and lead the way making our job easier. I guess the lack of any censor from our tutor's provided them with further freedom in establishing themselves as autonomous instructors. In a first come first served basis they managed to establish themselves as the backbone of this project, something that could only accomplished by people gifted with extremely communicative and management skills as well as abilities to manipulate and edit online media platforms. Thus i insist that their contribution should not be left unrecognised. Nikolas135 (discuss • contribs) 22:29, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

Of course their work should not come unrecognised, they worked hard. But because certain people could feel intimidated when approaching said hard-workers it has nothing to do with the fact they are over powering but with the project itself. A project like this, must have participants with the same drive and push, so that the people who might be cautious when saying their point or wish are not afraid to do so. But I agree with you entirely it has nothing to do with the hard-working people, but the project itself. QueenElsaIngrid (discuss • contribs) 13:08, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

Marker’s Feedback on Wikibook Project Work
It's great to see that you did the Wikipedia Adventure, which shows in your competence with the MediaWiki platform. You also managed to find space in a busy group with some level of sustained engagement and contributions although over a relatively short space of time. Your chapter contribution shows an understanding of Papacharissi, although there is far too much biographical information. Your exercises are more wooly and lack the level of critical reflection that would demonstrate an understanding of a range of module topics.

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 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 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) 14:57, 3 May 2016 (UTC)