User talk:Sammyforbes

Hi, my name is Samantha (Sammy) and I am using this site as part of education class project at University, we are going to start working with Wikipedia and wikibooks, and learning how they both work. Sammyforbes (discuss • contribs) 14:46, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Wikiexcersise #1, What makes a good wiki?
As a 19 year old student, I use a number of social media platforms. These include Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat. I have also started using more apps which have a social media aspect, such as Depop, in which you can buy and sell your clothes with other users. From recently making an account with Wikipedia I have noticed a number of difference between Wikipedia and social media platforms. There are many differences I have noticed between my own social media engagement in comparison to my wiki engagement. I engage in social media everyday throughout a variety of platforms. At least once a day I will check all my profiles on the different social media platforms. I will directly engage with others through forms of messenger within these platforms and will share photographs and information on these platforms. I have not had a lot of direct engagement with Wikipedia. Before creating an account for a university project, I had never posted or edited anything on the site. I have also never searched anything directly on the site. My only engagement has been through searching something onto google and been given a direct link to a Wikipedia page. There is some hype surrounding Wikipedia and ‘not believing everything you read’, this seems to steam from the fact that it is common knowledge that there is the ability to edit posts of Wikipedia. In addition with social media platforms such as Facebook you are aware who your audience is, unlike Wikipedia. However there has been recent controversy of ‘fake news’ being posted and broadcasted on Facebook, and people believing these stories. With Facebook only your friends can see what you are posting which ensures you know who is reading your posts or seeing your pictures. However, this is slightly different for twitter and Instagram as if you have a public account, everyone has the ability to see what you are posting. However these social media platforms give users the options to make their accounts private, an option which is not available on Wikipedia.

Sammyforbes (discuss • contribs) 14:48, 7 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 upper end of this grade band, so a little improvement will go a long way to attaining a higher mark. 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. Additionally, you could make more of some of the themes discussed through reference to links, sources and reading.


 * Re: responses to other people’s posts – these are fairly good, but very little brief, with one being a mere sentence description of what was posted. You therefore really need to think about engaging more. Remember that the comments are "worth" as much as posts themselves. The reason for this is not only to help encourage discussion (a key element of wiki collaboration!) but also to get you to reflect upon your own work. This can all, of course be used to fuel ideas that might form part of your project work. Having said that, you are beginning to discuss 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). What you need now is more connection between content and reflection.

GregXenon01 (discuss • contribs) 14:24, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

Exercise #2 Visibility and Data Trails
As a 19 year old student I am very visible online. I use the conventional social media apps such as Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and Instagram to portray myself online. These apps are incorporated into my daily routine, as multiple times throughout the day I check all the social media apps in which I am associated with, particularly Facebook through the messenger aspect of the app which allows me to connect and chat with any of my Facebook friends instantly. Although I use these social media platforms regularly I am not always active on these apps, for example, I do not post on twitter and Instagram on a daily basis, and rarely post Facebook statuses to my own Facebook profile. However, as the vice-captain of my university’s cheerleading squad, I use my Facebook regularly to organise practices on the club’s Facebook group. Although I am quite active on social media, I spend most of my time looking at my friend’s posts and keeping up to date with their lives. I regularly watch my friend’s Snapchat stories or scroll through Instagram to see the most recent posted photographs. Also there is a difference about how visible I am to my friends on each social media platform. I will upload multiple photographs at a time to my Facebook profile and will constantly update my picture albums, however with Instagram, I will only post the photographs in which I think visibly portray me the best.

However, I am not fully visible on these social media sites as all of my social media sites are relatively private and I am only visible online to my family and friends. Both my Instagram and Twitter accounts are private so in order for people to see my posts they have to send me a follow request in which I can choose whether to accept or not. My Facebook account is also relatively private, only a few profile pictures are visible to users who are not my friends. My principal reason for keeping my social media accounts private is due to the fact that I work part-time as a gymnastics coach. The children I coach can age range from 4 to 16 years old. In the present day society young children are obtaining mobile phones, so in order to keep my public life not visible to the children I coach, I make sure all my social media accounts are private. My Snapchat is my most private social media outlet. I only have my close friends in comparison to Facebook and Instagram in which I have family members, this is because Snapchat is the app I predominantly use so I purposely limit the amount of users in which my Snapchat stories are visible to.

In relation to my wikibooks account, everything I post online will be public and visible to any users. However in order to gain direct access to my wikibooks account, a user would be required to search my user name into the search bar, as a result it is evident that the majority of the people viewing my content will be people I know on a first name basis such as class mates and friends. Sammyforbes (discuss • contribs) 20:13, 14 February 2017 (UTC) Sammyforbes (discuss • contribs) 10:37, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Hey Sammy, I really liked the points you made on your post because I could relate to a lot of them. I use the examples you gave of social media avidly however I would say I am quite active on them- mainly on Twitter anyways as opposed to how much I post on Facebook. I like what you said about mainly using our social networking profiles to see what our friends are up to and keep up to date with them because I never thought about this. Maybe we are making ourselves visible online to appear present to other people visible online? It seems in our generation we never want to miss a beat hence the several accounts we have across all platforms- we want to be visible. I agree with how you look on Instagram- when I post a pic I want it to portray me well or to show people how ‘exciting’ and positive my life is. However, I don’t think that’s because I am trying to give off a false image, after these positive pictures of me in different locations dressed well or looking happy would never have been taken if I was not in a good place at the time if you get me? Perhaps we can say we choose to emphasise the better moments of our lives online. Zizi Papacharissi in said in the chapter "A Networked Self" in "Look At Us Now: Collective Narcissism in College Student Facebook Galleries" that many college students “present the desired image of oneself” and cited Holland (1997) saying “Photographs present ideals” and perhaps that is what we can relate to on our accounts. Although your Instagram is private like my own to filter who can see our posts, we may be more visible to a wider audience than we think due to maybe accepting those we don’t know personally but know of? I know I have the tendency to accept may random people I haven’t physically spoken to but that may be due to my own desire to be visible and portrayed as a happy person. I understand however why you may not do that due to your responsibility as a children’s gymnastics coach! I too agree that despite our Wikibooks account being public, it is to an extent more private than these other given examples due to how no one can access our posts without searching us personally and would therefore need to know our personal nicknames to do so… that and because a lot of our friends and followers probably won’t be using this platform at all!Tamoloriiii (discuss • contribs) 22:50, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

@Tamoloriiii Hi, Thank you for commenting on my post as you share some very interesting points. The quotes that you put forward from the chapters tie in really well with the point I was trying to make. In relation to your point about the follower requests, I try to be strict with whom I let follow my profile, Instagram has a new setting where when you go onto someone else's profile it tells you how many of your friends already follow this person, so the only time I ever let people I do not know personally follow my account is if a lot of my close friends already follow this person too. Sammyforbes (discuss • contribs) 10:29, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

Hey! I can completely relate to your article, especially when you discuss keeping your social media platforms private, for professional reasons. I have been a swimming teacher for 5 years and would not want the children I teach to have access to my online profiles, not because I post inappropriate things but because I would not feel comfortable sharing my private information with them, in fear of influencing them in a negative way. Social networks are influencing the younger generation in a huge way, almost every 10 year old I know has access to the Internet. KGilbert (discuss • contribs) 00:28, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

@KGilbert Hi, Yes I completely agree with your point and this is why I tend to keep my social media profiles private, although I do not post anything in inappropriate on my social media accounts, a lot of the pictures I post on my accounts particularly my Instagram account are photographs of me out with my friends, so I think it is best to keep these private. Especially since children are particularly influential, for example, one week I could come into work with my hair in two braids and the following week kids will come in with the same hairstyle, as I am an adult and a authority figure in their lives I can be particularly influential and only want to influence them in a positive way. Sammyforbes (discuss • contribs) 10:29, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

Hi Sammy, I completely agree with your point about social media being part of a daily routine, I definitely think the more we check our various apps, the more visible we become online. Although we are not always active on things like Instagram or Twitter, our username still comes up on others' screens when we like something or follow new people, its not just posting that shows our use of it. In terms of being Vice-Captain I'm sure you have to add a lot more people on Facebook than you would if you were not in that position? I find this really interesting as you will need to provide information for a lot of people, some of whom you might not know at all? I agree with the point you made about photo sharing on Facebook vs Instagram, I think its notable in most users that Instagram is a more thought-out and specific process, so their visibility will be more limited on this site. My accounts are also private and I need to accept requests for people to see my content, and the point you make about being a coach and therefore needing this privacy I think is really interesting: I have friends who do teaching at Uni and they often can't have their real full names on their Facebook profile in case any of their pupils find them online. I think the fact that Wikibooks is so public will be a lot different from what we are used to and might be a bit of a shock, but you make a good point about only being able to see your personal content if someone knows your username, and even then I still find it quite hard to see what other people have shared. Cathym97 (discuss • contribs) 10:58, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

@Cathym97 Hi, Yes with my role in the committee of the cheerleading team I need to take an active role in posting on the group Facebook page. In my first year at university, I did not ever need to post anything on the page, but now that I have an authoritative role within the club it is essential that I post on the page in order to keep members of the group up to date with any training times and posting updates about the routines. At the start of the year the cheerleading page involved members that I was not familiar with, but now I am familiar with all members of the team. Sammyforbes (discuss • contribs) 10:29, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

Wikiexcersise #3, Information Overload
The internet has an empowering amount of information available online and this information can be portrayed in many different formats. F Webster in ‘The Information Society Revisied’ (2002) page 21 states that “The ‘internet’ is shorthand for a bundle of different media and modalities- email, websites, news-groups, e-commerce and so forth- that make it perhaps the most complex and plural of the electronic media yet invented”. There are millions of websites readily available and within easy access within the internet. I normally use search engines- particularly google- to deal with the fact there is so much information out there. If I am looking for something in-particular online I will search it into google and then from there will be presented with a selection of websites which directly link to what I am looking for.

It is very easily to get distracted whilst on the internet due to the fact it is so vast, and I often find myself with a dozen tabs open in my browser. This especially happens when I am writing a piece of coursework, for example, an essay and keep all the tabs open in case I have not referenced something properly and need to go back onto the website or article. To try tackle the problem of getting distracted I need to make sure I keep closing tabs and only have tabs open in browser which are related to the task I am trying to complete.

The contributing factors for dealing with this abundance of information is making sure I am only on websites relating to the task at hand. I try to stop myself from getting distracted as I am a very busy person and often do not have time to ‘browse the web’.

My workflow has been strained due to the demands of my contribution to the Wikibook project. When looking for sources relating the chapter I was presented with a vast amount of different readings, all of a similar nature, so it was difficult to filter through these sources and depict which were are most suitable for the task, as I simply do not have time to read them all. My colleagues and I have assigned specific sub-topics to each research for the Wikibook project in order to improve work flow.

Sammyforbes (discuss • contribs) 09:28, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

Hey Sammy, I totally agree with the contributing factors point you make, keeping yourself focused on the task at hand is key. It's so easy to get distracted by browsing or social media. Likewise I find my workflow very strained due to this project but in the long run time management skills are being improved slowly as I work on balancing both the workflow for university and the rest of my life. The quote you refer to by Webster put it perfectly, looking at the internet from an intellectual standpoint, however from a more natural case I would say that as much as it may be empowering it can also seem overpowering. Courtney 1994 (discuss • contribs) 22:29, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

I also use google to try and deal with how much information is available to us online. However, I still find that there is so much content on google to look through and most of it is useless in regards to what I need. I find that further filtering google by using google scholar can we particularly helpful when researching for university purposes as it only brings us academic sources and this can allow us to filter out bogus information.

Like you, I also tend to have loads of tabs open when doing work and I end up distracted by this. I end up having tabs open that aren't relevant anymore which can lead to me getting confused when I'm trying to find something so I should probably start closing them as I go instead of waiting till I am finished. I agree that the best way to not get distracted is to try and keep the task at hand and stay focused and motivated but I think that we should also allow ourselves study breaks so we can recharge and process our thoughts. Kaitlineaston (discuss • contribs) 10:32, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise #4: Wikibook Project Reflective Account
The wikibook project was a very different nature to the other assignments in which I have submitted previously. The wikibook projects main outlay is Wikipedia, a source in which we are generally not allowed to use in academic work in university so this is the initial aspect which differentiates the wikibook project from other assignments. The wikibook project had a large collaborative nature. We were required to comment on other students work in the wiki exercises and on the wikibook project, we had to work in a group with multiple students in order to create a chapter.

Although most of the project involved working online, it was necessary to meet up with the other members of the group and engage in face-to-face group discussion. It was difficult to distinguish between what we should have discussing face-to-face compared to the discussion page on our wikibook chapter. We were all conscious that a large part of our grade for the wikibook project was how much we contributed on group discussions on wikibook so wanted to make sure the main bulk of our discussion was available to be marked. I did find the wikibooks project particularly hard to use. The platform involves a lot of coding and in order to communicate with someone on the discussion page there was a specific code needed in order to reply to them. If this code worked, it was easy to miss messages as there was an abundance of information on the pages which made it easy for messages to get lost. This does not happen in face-to-face discussion and this was an aspect of the wikibook project that I found particularly challenging.

I felt that using wikibooks was very different to using other social media platform such as facebook. When using facebook I get notifications straight to my phone which means I can reply to a message fairly quickly. However with wikibook I found that in order to be able to communicate with the other members of the group, we all needed to be online at the same time using wikibooks. When using traditional social media platforms, users normally consider their online identity (lecture 2) and how they present their selves online. However wikibook users do not need to be considered with their online identity as profiles on the site are very brief and do not include any personal data or photographs.

I did however like the ability to peer-review each others work. It was interesting to be able to have access to all of our class mates work and also I found it useful to gain feedback from a class mate especially those that were having similar issues to me in relation to the project.

I agree that it was difficult to distinguish what we should be talking about in a face to face discussion and what we should be discussing over Wikipedia. I personally felt like the coding is OK to use as long as you have it copied somewhere, in ours at the very top we had a block of text that we could copy to mention everyone in the group in a comment which was handy. I agree that it is easy to get lost in this however, even after mentioning people and them getting a notification sometimes I wouldn't get a reply and this wouldn't be down to the person ignoring it, as I don't feel anyone in my group would have done that if I were to directly ask them a question, but rather that they have lost it in the sheer amount of information put onto the page. Hgfoster (discuss • contribs) 03:36, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

I too agree that it was difficult to put into perspective what should be discussed in person and just online. I would also agree that as a social media platform it was not as easy to get notifications for new progress within the wikibook and therefor getting lost within the writing and communication was very likely. I would also say that as good as it was for working together online, sometimes there are moments that you feel like views may be ignored. Courtney 1994 (discuss • contribs) 15:51, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

Content (weighted 20%)
The introduction section is very well-written, summarising many key points in relation to the subject matter. The presentation of a concept (i.e. in this case Fuchs and Sevignani) framing key ideas for discussion, and providing a foundational basis to proceed with an argument, is a really neat idea. It sets up what is essentially, the most theory-oriented discussion in the book, and this isn’t a negative by any means. In fact, it provides a crucial element of balance through which to address the more applied approaches that are perhaps more in evidence in other chapters.

A concerted effort is made throughout to communicate sophisticated ideas in concise ways. The overall structure is well thought out, and evidences deliberation, delegation and timely organisation. Coverage of many of the salient issues encountered in the module are touched upon, either explicitly or in passing, and this is a useful strategy for grounding some of the more abstract ideas.

Lots of live links are made – this chapter makes the most out of the platforms functionality, which in turn is read quite easily as a reflection made on the kind of platform used and the audiences for which you might be writing this chapter. This approach works very well overall. However, I think that more could be made of making interwiki links to various relevant sections in other chapters (especially, perhaps, chapters on Hive mind, or privacy in the Digital Age.)

The sections on Information Society and Network Society are particularly well put together. Although these are perhaps the least theoretically heavy, the way that you discuss and structure the concepts gives these sections a real sense of narrative. Some really good uses of examples and case here to illustrate points made. I would have liked to have seen some use of images or wiki formatting to break up the text a little bit more here, however. The same goes for the section on critical theory – however, this section is much less successful, as it seems rather abstract, and detached from the subject matter. It is factually correct, fairly well written and historically accurate, but perhaps the least satisfying section in the chapter because of this. The sections that immediately follow, featuring the material on social media, are very strong, although again, interwiki links to material on other chapters would make a considerable improvement to the argument overall and to the wikibook more generally.

The glossary is really useful – not quite exhaustive, but good for quick reference purposes. Use of interwiki links in here would have been useful. The references section again evidences research, reading and sharing of resources.


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