User talk:Scottmcindoe

Hi! I'm scottmcindoe. I'm part of a Film and Media class project where we are working on a Wikibook. So excited to start posting amazing content. Scottmcindoe (discuss • contribs) 14:45, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise #1 What makes a good Wiki?
Online collaboration is a common method used for its obvious communication and practical conveniences. There are many ways to collaborate online that range in how formal they are. Social media websites like Facebook are often used for online collaboration, especially in more formal settings. A lot of university group work is done using this type of social media. This is where I draw most of my experience from. When working on a presentation as a group, we used Facebook to communicate. In a group chat we shared ideas and read over each other's work. This is obviously a very informal way of working together online.

Hence, the main difference between Wiki engagement and use of social media for online collaboration. Whilst social media is a multipurpose construct that is often utilized as a tool in work and online collaboration, Wikibooks is devoted entirely the one purpose of developing wikibooks. This means a big difference between social media engagement and wiki engagement is that the former is a broad tool which isn't set up specifically for working so, although convenient due to its global popularity, can sometimes hinder productivity or cause distractions from work. On the other hand, wiki engagement is a linear way of collaborating devoted to getting work done. Scottmcindoe (discuss • contribs) 06:06, 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.


 * Good. Among other things, good entries will make a clear point in a clear way. They will relate concepts to original examples in a straightforward fashion. They will make effective use of the possibilities of the form (including links, as well as perhaps copyright-free videos and images, linked to from Wiki Commons). They may also demonstrate a broader understanding of the module's themes and concerns, and are likely to show evidence of reading and thinking about the subject material. The wiki markup formatting will be very clear.


 * 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, you need to write more (!!!!!!) but that also 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 – these are fairly good, and you seem to be asking the right questions which will lead to more full explorations later in the project. They are, however, very brief. 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. I like that you have framed some of your responses as questions to solicit discussion (this is, arguably, what discussion pages are all about!) and also 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).

GregXenon01 (discuss • contribs) 15:53, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

I find it interesting that you said Facebook was used for online collaboration in relation to formal settings, for I would have felt it would've been more informal as you mentioned later, with the user interface being particularly easy to use and the themes of the content one uploads to Facebook to be quite cause, even if you do have your boss on Facebook! If I'm understanding correctly you are saying that Wikibooks doesn't have the same distraction that other social media platforms have due to a more concentrated and direct way of going about things? I would have to disagree in that sense if so, saying how easily it would be to read another article! Hgfoster (discuss • contribs) 03:45, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

What Is Our Online Image?
Now more than ever, we are not only represented by the image we possess online but, more often than not, defined by it. Online image has acquired such prestige by becoming an unavoidable aspect of everybody's life, we refer to the internet for almost everything nowadays. This ranges doing most tasks online, from grocery shopping to paying bills, to ruthlessly sharing everything that we do beyond that. Obviously, vast technological advancements revolving around the internet and especially social media have led to this. Because of this, people are now represented by the information they share through a wide array of of platforms such as dating apps (like Grindr and Tinder), online gaming networks (like Xbox Live and Steam) and - the single most visible platform for creating an online identity - social media accounts (like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter).

My Personal Online Image
I, personally, am a good example to this because I am, to an extent, the exception to the rule. I am not particularly active online, being in the minority as a university student. The norm is to be connected through multiple social media sites and dating apps many go beyond this to purposefully create their online image by blogging etc. I am comparatively conservative: out of these ways of presenting myself online I only utilize Facebook, the most basic of social media tools. Since I mostly use it simply for the messenger app, I have few pictures uploaded and successfully restrain myself from ever posting long-winded updates regarding my life and its first world woes. Many people deliberately showcase their personality interests and everything about their life online for everybody to see. I have no real interest in doing so and therefore theoretically should not have a large online profile or be easy to track online.

The Inescapable Online Image
My personal story of online presence leads to the crux of this issue of online visibility because even though I make no attempt to be found and known online, I am still very available to find, know and stock online. Despite the fact that a neglected Facebook account is all I present to people, there is a much wider profile of mine clearly out there. Even if your own social media profile is bare, there is no way to keep yourself out of others; I'm plastered all over social media websites I have never been on due to friends and family putting me there in group pictures etc. as well as finding myself in promotional pictures for clubs, the privacy of which I have no control over. Even that is just the information available to random acquaintances or strangers browsing the internet. Companies clearly have a much more detailed account of me. The fact that these companies blatantly track online search history in order to target me specifically with their e-mails and pop-up ads. If a stranger can get a good idea of my personality in spite of my lack of social media engagement and companies can advertise products I have fleetingly viewed when bored then it is clear that online image is a big part of how we are represented these days and there is absolutely no avoiding that. Scottmcindoe (discuss • contribs) 12:01, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

@Scottmcindoe I enjoyed reading your post. I believe that your view of social media is shared by a lot ore people than you think. I like that you brought up the point that even if you are not active online, you still have an online presence. It is nearly impossible to not be present. How do you feel about being used in promotional photos of clubs? Would you rather not be in those photos? Even if you are in the photo are you necessarily consenting to it being posted? Everything we do is monitored. I feel like the internet knows me better than I know me at this point. I also like how you formatted your wiki. It is easy to follow. Your points are clear, simple and well thought out. Charleneabeana (discuss • contribs) 05:20, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

The Internet As A Form Of Procrastination
One of the biggest problems that students face in their daily student lives is their unproductive urge to procrastinate. I, very similarly to almost every other student I know, have a habit of starting a piece of work or an assignment and being almost immediately sidetracked by just about all things that have nothing to do with the task at hand. The easiest way to find an unhelpful distraction is by using the internet for all of two seconds There is no need to go searching for such distractions because of the information overload that faces you regardless. The temptations presented by advertisements etc. range from leading you on a shopping spree to mundane "Top 10" lists which intend to educate you on the least helpful facts about celebrities possible. Needless to say, the internet is very much designed to distract. The web's interface is designed to grab and steal your attention, usually with "click-bait" designed to convince you to visit a website, usually for the purpose of ad revenue. The "Information Overload" is as deliberate as it is unhelpful.

The Necessity Of The Internet
This poses the question as to why one bothers to use the internet at all when trying to be productive. The answer to this is, of course, that as a student at university it is impossible not to use the internet for your studies. Students are not unique in this way, most jobs require the internet whether it's for research or communication or any of the other many tasks we now require the internet to complete. Of course, many of the websites used for studying like Succeed and Portal are academic and don't include too many distractions, but even these don't guarantee safety from alluring pop-up ads. The much bigger problem is when non-academic websites must be used. A simple google search to do some research is enough to lead one completely astray. Even worse is social media which is near vital for any group project as it's the primary way to communicate in this day and age. It, of course comes packed with an entire news feed consisting of memes and news.

Working On The Wikibook
This is a problem I encountered when working on the wikibook as a group. Initially my group communicated through Facebook as it is simply the most common form of online communication and one you can almost guarantee everybody will have. Its great convenience conflicts with the fact that it is for recreational use and thus is one of the best catalysts for procrastination there is. This was a slight problem for my group as the platform we were using to communicate encouraged us to do less work, rather than focus on the task at hand. To solve this, we have started using wikibooks itself as our primary form of communication. This way there is much less distraction. Nevertheless, it is clear that when working on a project like this the internet and its many distractions due to the "Informational Overload" it provides is unavoidable to one extent or another. Scottmcindoe (discuss • contribs) 11:59, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

I feel like your writing about the internet as a form of procrastination is very accurate and relatable to many, including myself. I think a lot of this has to do with the need to be entertained constantly- for example having the TV on in the background while doing work is still a sensory overload.

I like your point about the need of the internet, there is even a need for less achidemic websites like Facebook, where for me my Work posts the rota and timetable up, which is vital to knowing when to work. There is no other way this is sent out so without Facebook it would get in the way of work, which relates to your point about a ‘simple google search…’ as going onto Facebook for work can quickly turn into just scrolling on the newsfeed.

I feel like working on the discussion part of the Wikibook, although more time consuming, is more organised in that we have categories for each statement we have said so its less of a ‘jumbled mess’ Hgfoster (discuss • contribs) 16:49, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

I like the point you make about the information overload that we all face on the internet being able to distract us from what we originally went on the internet for. I find that the internet is a main source of procrastination too, as not all the information stored online is necessarily 'useful'. As well as this, you make the point that we don't always have to search for something for it to become a distraction. I find that notifications online often provide me with information I didn't want as much as search engine results do. A part of this, I think, is due to the fact that not only does the internet hold masses of information, but it also stores information and specific things that we have searched for. Search histories allow for adverts tailored to you as an individual, and this increases the chance of distraction as you are more likely to be interested in what is being presented to you at the side of the screen.

Your comment about the use of the internet being a necessity in day-to-day life also, I think, is due to the fact that information stays online and as more information is being added online every second, the overload we speak of is always increasing. This means that although the information that we do not find useful is continually being added, so are the important information sites, and we can find answers to more of our questions online than we now can by walking into a library for example.

I have also found with my group that communicating on the Wikibooks discussion page has been helpful and less distracting. Although the notification aspect of Facebook is useful in insuring the person receives your message quickly, Wikibooks is useful to communicate on for this project in order to keep everything in one place. I also found that by communicating on Facebook and Wikibooks we can sometimes repeat what we have said and this can cause confusion between the two platforms. Ailsaharv (discuss • contribs) 19:43, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

How We Communicated On Wikibook.
The Wikibook project was completed as a part of two groups; a small group of 5 people and the larger group of 13 contributors on the Wikibook. These groups provided a divide between offline and online communication. Wikibook’s purpose is to allow creators to collaborate without ever meeting in person and this was well-utilized by my group. We discussed everything from the lay-out of the Wikibook to how to tackle the content. This worked well enough, but the discussion page quickly turned into an endless series of paragraphs and made it difficult to keep track of your part of the conversation.

A few members of my group even found the endless wall of text so unappealing to the eye that they had to print out hard copies of the page just to read it. This was very inconvenient given that the page was constantly updating, rendering their hard copy pointless. It also defeated one of the purposes of collaborating online which is to maintain all information on one easily referenceable webpage. The walls of text which encompassed everything we discussed on Wikibook was very useful to refer back to, if slightly time-consuming to search. This is one advantage it had over face to face discussion or use of social media which can get a little cluttered with casual talk rather than work.

How We Didn’t Communicate On Wikibook.
Some of the problems I have stated are the reasons why my smaller group of 5 students didn’t utilise the platform much at all. Instead, we used Facebook to organise when to meet up and work together. We met up in person on several occasions and had a much easier time discussing the small details face to face. Chatting in person or talking on social media is a stream-lined, efficient experience which is not offered by Wikibook; a platform that tended to offer confusion and lack of organisation. Wikibook communication even became an outright obligation. As a small group we would work together in person and be very productive, but were slowed down by writing redundant discussions on Wikibook almost just to prove we had been doing so and for the off chance that something we had discussed happened to be useful to a member of the larger group. Even if it was, they would probably never find it due to the overcrowded nature of the discussion page.

A big difficulty in communicating on Wikibook was the inability to know if a group member had seen what you had written or when they had seen it. On social media like Facebook it is made clear whether the person you are talking to has seen you message, along with when they saw it. On Wikibook it was easy to write someone a paragraph of advice for how to approach the work and have no idea if they were taking it on board or had even seen it. There was a good chance they would not see it, given that the notifications provided were not all that helpful. Unlike social media, you had to check Wikibooks to see if you had notifications, so if your work depended on somebody seeing your comment to them on the discussion page there was no way to guarantee they would see it in a timely manner.

Peer-Review.
Peer-Review was a very helpful aspect of this project. Wikibooks offered the chance for students to comment on each other’s work, This is already good because feedback from a fellow student is more helpful in some ways because they are more relatable, being in a similar mind-set to you as they are also a student. However, what made the peer-reviewal especially valuable was the discussion aspect. We would reply and go back and forth discussing each other’s work which was an incredibly intuitive way to critique work.

I totally agree with your idea about peer reviewing as a more relatable way of reviewing content, stepping away from someone who knows how to do the thing inside out and may have a more critical perspective, but not critical in the way where its provoking thought or discussion but rather 'going through' the other persons comment. Having been in your group, I obviously participated in this face to face interaction and we all had to go down the Wiki discussion page group chat at one point to make sure that everything we had discussed- though Facebook and in person, had been posted on the discussion page for everyone to see. The discussion page did seem very overcrowded- especially at the start under the heading 'introductiony chat' as there were multiple conversations going on at once and it was very easy to lose track as there were loads of people replying to different parts of the conversation. A clash happened a few times as well- where I would try to save the page but somebody had already changed it. Luckily I had copied and pasted what I had said but the discussion had moved on anyway so I had to reply to that as well- in this case a group chat would be easier. There were a few times what I had said would get lost in the discussion and not been replied to, not knowing if they had seen it or not or maybe replied at a different time.

Haha having to print parts of the discussion page was my lowest point - I find it difficult to read large volumes of texts (for example, books) off of a screen, and the way our Wikibook discussion page was at the start certainly didn't help! It was total mayhem. Hgfoster (discuss • contribs) 21:47, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Content (weighted 20%)
The introduction section is incredibly well-written, summarising many key points in relation to the subject matter. A concerted effort is made to communicate sophisticated ideas in a concise, summative way, before proceeding onto the main sections of discussion. The overall structure that follows is well thought out, and evidences deliberation, delegation and timely organisation. Coverage of many of the salient issues surrounding online identity are included, as well as some quite well-chosen examples and cases.

The actual content itself, in the discursive sections, is a little more patchy than what we expect after that Introduction, with some parts that are more superficial and descriptive, yet others that are clearly very well researched, developed, and thought through. The overall effect of this is fine, because as a whole, there is a clear aesthetic that you are writing a hybrid version of a collaborative essay, and an encyclopaedic entry.

There are some instances of typo errors, and a few formatting decisions that could have been better thought through. In addition, the repetition and ill-organisation in one or two subsections (especially the Tinder and Online Dating Websites section, where there is a lot of description, and not much application of theoretical material from the module – references to journalistic pieces on anonymity for example, where reference to good peer-reviewed sources would have given just as good information with obvious added value and opportunity. Anonymity appears in a couple of sections barely sentenced apart, and yet there doesn’t seem to be much joined-up thinking here, nor applying the concept to the section’s subject matter (Tinder and Online dating). Likewise, discussions of various applications repeat (e.g. Snapchat has a few sections specifically devoted to it. Some interwiki links joining up the various sections would have made more of the platform’s functionality.

The final main section, on AI is particularly interesting – it is fairly well structured, well researched, and draws from a wealth of different kinds of sources and materials – ranging from peer-reviewed sources, through journalism and popular cultural materials, to speculative and science fiction. This helps to close off the chapter in a way that establishes a sense of authority as well as being well-written, and therefore is an interesting read, on its own merits. Again, an interwiki link to join the section on Black Mirror with the previous section on the same topic would have been useful.

Referencing – good formatting, good range of sources and materials.


 * Poor. Your contribution to the book page gives an acceptable brief overview of the subject under discussion in your chosen themed chapter. There is a qualified familiarity with concepts associated with your subject, and although there is an effort to deliver critical definitions, the grasp of conceptual and analytical issues although reasonable, tends to be a little limited and insecure. 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 limited 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 minimally sufficient 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


 * Poor. Among other things, poor entries may just offer links without real comment or apparent point. They may offer nothing more than poor-quality synopsis or description of material of dubious relevance. They may have serious clarity problems (including dead links, random graphics) which affect comprehension (or even worse, admin warnings or take-down notices for copyright infringement). They might be off-topic, private trivia, or of unclear relevance. The wiki markup formatting will be of a poor standard.


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

Engagement (weighted 50%)

 * Evidence from contributions to both editing and discussion of content suggests deficient standard of engagement (i.e. volume and breadth of activity as evidenced through contribs)
 * discernible lack of engagement with and learning from other Wikipedians about the task of writing/editing content for a Wikibook
 * Lacking in reflexive and creative use of discussion pages