User talk:StuG772

Hello I'm Stuart and I'm working on a wikibook as part of a university module project StuG772 (discuss • contribs) 16:15, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise #1 What Is A Good Wiki?
ldfnfdpjin StuG772 (discuss • contribs) 16:20, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise #1
My current experiences of social media consist mainly of Facebook, Twttier and a wordpress blog, the wordpress being the format Stirling University student newspaper Brig. From my experiences with this format I have come to take very user-friendly interfaced for granted and have come far too used to options that let single format posts and sites become multi-media platforms. Although Wiki offers rather simple options to add multi-medias to posts and entries the format is simply not something I'm familiar with yet and I'm not entirely sure how adding these other media to a text field should be presented editorial-wise.

Although I've only had a small amount of time on the platform. aside from brief experiences "fact checking" on Wikipedia, there seems to be more emphasis formality and validation on the platform than on personal blogs, Facebook and Twitter. The access onto other people's user profiles who act as equal contributors also seems to stand apart as a qualitative difference from more commonplace social media platforms as without the "fluff" of Facebook of Twitter (i.e. meme culture, photo tagging, etc) the contribution/comment lends itself to allowing an interactive space in which there is no specific intellectual hierarchy and allows the Wiki platform to be a space of pier-contribution.

I'd say the platforms I know well are extremely intuitive and don't require any sort of walk through when first using the platform. There are pop-ups and interfaces that very simply illustrate all the uses, almost like the first tutorial mission at the start of a video game. Yet the wiki platform seems a little more complex and, although instructions are available and tutorials are within access, the guides on wiki seem more text heavy and require a lot of familiarity with the site even to find these quickly. I suppose you could suggest this is a qualitative difference from other platforms as at least in my case having a professional (or someone rather fluent with their wiki use) walk you through the different pages and functions of the wiki platform did well to present this platform as more centred around information, rules and certain structures that should be followed while completing entries. So with this more formalised impression created from having an actual class/lad on the "proper" pushes me to thinking all users are educated enough to not only use the platform with proficiency and respect but also to use it for a more intellectual purpose than most people take to other social media platforms for.

StuG772 (discuss • contribs) 10:09, 8 February 2017 (UTC) StuG772 (discuss • contribs) 20:42, 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.


 * 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 are beginning to engage with some of the underlying issues, and this holds a lot of potential for the project work you are about to undertake. If you keep in mind this, as well as (as with all uni assignments) the fact that drawing from reading and research will improve the quality of your argument considerably, then you have plenty of headroom to get great results out of this. Additionally, 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, but I would take a little more time to proofread work iof submitting for assessment (this goes for the post above too - there's some typo issues in there that are relatively easy to fix, and it's these incremental fixes that actually add up to quite a lot in the wiki worlds).. 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) 16:42, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

Hello Stuart! I enjoyed reading this post and it covered a lot of points that hadn't previously occurred to me. I found your point about the complexity of Wiki*edia and how you believe it generates an educated user-base that is above the general level of simpler social media especially interesting. At the other side side of the spectrum however, have you considered it possible that the complexity of Wiki*edia instead turns people away in a way that most social media doesn't? I imagine that you're correct in the idea that people who have placed a large amount of time into learning the ins and outs of Wiki*edia will have a dedication to the site, but I also believe that Wiki*edia makes general "trolling" highly accessible for those who have no interest in productively contributing. Perhaps the steep learning curve of knowing fully how to use Wiki*edia to its fullest potential discourages people instead of encouraging a collective intelligence you described? I'd love to hear your thoughts! LydiaWithTheFringe (discuss • contribs) 18:36, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Hi Stuart, great post. I think your journalism background with the student newspaper lends a unique perspective on social media, digital writing and articles. Your pondering on how to, editorially, layout a post is interesting in that it is a focus on surface matters, rather than content per se. Facebook, Twitter, blogs are all concerned with what appears on the surface and I know that from my experience on this site that it is what I wondered about the most. How will the page look, should I add a new paragraph here, where should the uploaded pictures go? The fact that this is not important when compared with the actual content of the post is irrelevant here though, as by adding this thought into your post it has become content all of its own, and I think it's an important discussion to have about this site. As the previous commenter wondered: perhaps this discourages people from using Wiki*edia.

Your comparison to video games is an excellent analogy I think. The step-by-step guide that other social media platforms have is designed for ease-of-use and to garner the biggest user base it can. These platforms are solely focused on numbers, and all other considerations become secondary in the face of this. Wiki*edia, perhaps, is different in that it provides a service first, and requires or looks for the user base second. Do you think that by changing this formula around the site would improve, or not?

Some queries I have rest on your use of the word validation: you say that on Wikipedia there is more focus on validation than on blogs. Is this in regards to information and articles provided (perhaps 'citation' would be a better term in that case), or is it to do with the user and what they gain from posting i.e. self-validation? Additionally I would encourage you to proofread articles before posting. I am working under the assumption that in this case, it would be wrong for other users to edit the post themselves to correct grammatical and syntactical errors, although I do not know for sure if this is true on all discussion pages, it is something you or another user can clarify for me. Regardless, I am sure that with your background in journalism this is an aberration rather than a typical situation for you, so perhaps my pointing it out is not so necessary here.

Thanks! Jackiebee (discuss • contribs) 19:26, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Response to Lydia with the Fringe
Hi Lydia, thank you for your thought on my post and your praise. Firstly in answer to the question if I think the complexity puts people off the platform, I would say often from my own experience the kind of people who want to contribute to the spreading of information and the educating of society in general aren't often put off by mildly complex interfaces they aren't quite used to yet. I would guess the sort of people who decide they want to become wiki contributors/editors and become part of the wiki community wouldn't head over to the website with said intention and simply see a mildly unfamiliar interface and give up on the idea, especially with the tutorials being made so visible to new members. I agree with your point about the easy access for "trollers" who have nothing better to do but sabotage but I think the issue of trolls is bigger than the wiki platforms and extends across all social media sites and beyond, I think there is a certain cult niche for "trolling" and Wiki is just another platform for this sort of behaviour I guess. I also see your point about the learning curve to getting to a level of strong proficiency although I would say Wiki do a good job of encouraging their newer users to stick with the site through things like beginners forums, welcome messages and small congratulation notifications. These little details seem to show that the "elders of Wiki" know new users are not pros yet appreciate their use of the site and value them being part of the Wiki community. Thank you for your comments Lydia

StuG772 (discuss • contribs) 20:21, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise #2 Visibility and Data Trails
I believe when tackling a question of our online visibility there are two aspects of this visibility that need to be taken into account and discussed. Firstly we must look at the mode in which we present ourselves online and how this makes up a large chunk of our perceived visibility – by this I mean the information that we and what we know others can easily view about ourselves on various social media platforms. This first form of visibility can be argued to have a simple control over it as this “self-presentation” is as it says on the tin, which is that it is done by the self for others viewing.

In a text key to examining this idea of self-presentation, Rettberg (2014) notes that those with the means have been taking time carefully presenting themselves for hundreds of years; through portraits, photo albums and even sculptures and statues. She states that social media platforms are simply just another way in which humanity have appropriated advances in order to better present themselves. With this considered we can then begin to look at how popular social media sites allow for high visibility when it comes to the presentation of self, focussing on the use of images as an allegorical example of the wider concept of visibility.

I think it’s fair to argue that images online make for a high level of visibility online, especially on sites such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat. These don’t just act as captured memories we can look back at nostalgically but as a validation as our presence at the certain place/event at a certain time, almost as if saying “Look world, I was here, I left my house and here is proof” – this is of course if you are part of the modern “pics or it didn’t happen” culture of validation.

Now my argument isn’t simply suggesting that this simplistic visibility of people seeing images of us is what makes up a high online visibility, instead I suggest it is the sum of all these images coming together on the “timeline” format (if looking specifically at Facebook) that makes up the visibility, it isn’t the content of these images but simply the existence of this build-up of images that forms the largest self-presentation and thus a high visibility.

Now the second aspect that should be taken into account when examining media visibility is the more worrying side of the concept, being our personal visibility which is out of our control. This can range from tagging culture in images to the companies or even the authorities having access to and using any image you have ever posted in whatever way they see appropriate.

In this second aspect, we can see how visibility is out of our control and is not entirely structure around our persona but instead whatever people want to do with us. Still looking at images as an example we can see how people can take something we personally made visible an entirely change its “purpose” (being another concept that would need its own examination). This can be seen most clearly in meme culture in which images of celebrities that were possibly taken by them or a photographer with expressed permission and intention on working to present themselves but these images are taken by the public, have a joke in text slapped on top of it and have this celebrity viewed in a whole other way.

This is one small example of how control of our visibility online is sometimes a tricky thing to control ourselves and instead it belongs to the collective mass.

Moving away from images and the more popular media platforms towards wiki platforms we can see how these arguments of visibility can be applied. Now we control our user pages, guide our user discussion and edits we make are under our names – i.e. visibility in our control. Yet again there is an aspect in which this visibility can be taken out of our hands and instead have its “purpose” reappropriated for a whole other audience we didn’t even intend – on Wiki this could be someone we are not in connection with quoting a statement we have made, linking a reference we produced, etc.

So with the example of images and then the Wiki platform itself, it is clear that visibility is complex when it comes to control, audiences and “purpose”; showing that we are not nearly close into finding any answers to questions raised in this examination and the field of digital media, being in its infancy, shall need to progress and learn before any answers become solid fact.

StuG772 (discuss • contribs) 11:04, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Response to Wiki Exercise #2
Hi Stuart, I loved the focus of this post so I thought I would comment on it. In a time when much of the focus is on governmental snooping and huge conglomerates selling individuals information it is refreshing to see a post focusing more on the culture of visibility online, and of the person-to-person information sharing that occurs.

You mentioned that social media is a mode of self-presentation. Of showing your best self in the way that art forms have done in the past. Instead of commissioning a portrait, people take selfies. Can you reconcile such an internal, self-focused perspective with your other point that your online self is judged and assumptions are made by the people who view it? The age old phrase "we judge ourselves by our intentions, and others by their actions" springs to mind here. The subjectivity of our viewpoint when we see people's online profiles complicates our ideas self-representation. What I mean is, do you think a) that the nature of the information we share is changed by the context in which it is viewed? And that b) our online visibility is affected by both what we share and how it is viewed by others? I'd love to hear your houghts on this! Jackiebee (discuss • contribs) 08:58, 17 February 2017 (UTC) Jackiebee (discuss • contribs) 08:58, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

Reply to Jackiebee Comment
I think it will always be tricky to examine the relationship between how we present and judge ourselves and how others perceive and judge us. The phrase "I don't really care what people think of me" springs to mind here, but the argument remains over what makes up our identity, whether it is our idea of ourselves or how the world perceive this presentation we have constructed. In more favourable situation these two things do overlap and others see us as we present but of course the web being the diverse range of perspectives it is will always expose us to those who will take our attempt at identity presentation and reappropiate it to something they find committal or simply as a weak show of their online presence.

Your second question(s) raised a lot of really interesting points and attempting to find an eloquent way to answer them has caused several days head scratching. I would say yes, in part, the information we share is altered in how exactly people consume it; in that when we post anything about ourselves or our views it is the public response to this posting that will probably form more of the actual identity altering information than the post itself, an example being writing a long social media post that comes across "civil rights warrior" -ish and either receiving no likes and no comments and a general "radio silence" from the public or sparking a large comment war in which lots of people come to clash with each other and their views. For me both those situations would seem to me more impact than the post itself be it on my own social media site or someone else's, responses to our media is what makes half of their "purpose" I suppose.

StuG772 (discuss • contribs) 00:35, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Response to Wiki Ex#2 - Ailsa
Hello Stu, I thought this was a very interesting argument. I thoroughly enjoyed the discussion of memes and it put the thought of visibility and the control we have into a whole new light, for me. Looking at memes in particular there are many low budget news paper headlines that read "Being A Meme Has Ruined My Life", and in our society I think that this a common story. People's personal photos are found, like you say text is slapped on it or it gets edited to become something different and then from the platforms of soical media its is widely spread across a multitude of platforms and then becomes "viral". And now out of context this can be viewed as a funny face or a funny joke but it when people track down the person in the memes what often follows is trolling. A horrible but common practice on the all social media platforms. I remember when Robin Williams passed away his daughter Zelda was bombarded with memes and attacks and general trolling to do with her dad's death. And I think that this links a bit into online visibility of more, the lack of it. It is very easy for someone to create a profile on these platforms with a fake email address or a fake name and destroy someone, and this is so common practice that groups of people come together jump on the band wagon so to speak and bombard people with abuse and hate. So I think the possibility of the lack of visibility or accountability is something that media platforms allow people to hide behind. Ailsamaloney12 (discuss • contribs) 11:22, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

Response to Wiki Ex#2 - Ross
Hello Stuart. This was a thoroughly interesting, focused and for the most part balanced piece of writing. I found your attention to the way in which pictures on social media have become a modern way of tracking one's life particularly interesting. It is true that today's culture has become far more focused on picture based evidence, as illustrated by such events as the death of Osama Bin Laden in which masses were unsatisfied and unconvinced that the event had occurred without the proof of a photo available. To what extent do you believe that the public's longing for visual proof has truly grown as a direct influence of social media over the last decade?

I also found your comments on memes rather fascinating. However I believe some of your comments to be rather contentious. It is indeed a problem for an individual if an image of them is taken out of context and spread across the internet as a "meme". However I feel that in your piece you have made this seem like a bigger problem than it is in reality. The majority of people who have open social media and high visibility are not made into memes and the diversity and range of memes is actually quite small. This can be linked to Richard Dawkins' original theory of biological memes, as he states that it is the most popular and effective that in turn grow in popularity due to their surviving nature. These rules can be applied to internet memes, as it is only those that appeal to a certain denominator and audience that spread and become popular. This explains why there is so little variety when it comes to memes in the internet. What do you think is the likelihood that you will become a meme? RossWithTheShirts (discuss • contribs) 19:28, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise #3 - Information overload
With the world we live in being so full of distraction it is near impossible to now avoid information bombardment, with “push notifications” on countless apps, even when we attempt to distance ourselves from certain social media platforms as a means of concentration there are still mediums that reach us, our phones will still but with an update from BBC news app, or a Facebook notification or someone near you going live. On social media we are used to “the information com[ing] out incomplete, distorted, or misleading. Vivid stories that address a very limited and unlikely set of circumstances offer pop to mind and where’ll statistical information based on a large number of observations that would be far more accurate in helping us to make sound decisions about medical treatments, investments, or the trustworthiness of people in our social world”, now although Levitin (2015) is actually discussing how the mind processes information when you receive it and attempt store it within your brain, it seems to very smoothly lift over to describe how our “social media brains” deal with the “information bombardment”. Without fully going tech-less and going into the middle of a field there is no real escaping this, we are connected and “always on”, when we wake up we check our devices for updates on the world. Conversations and human interaction are interrupted by social media demands to consume and produce – “I’m tweeting that”, “let’s take a snapchat [of that big global event taking place in front of me], “Hey, I’m vlogging this day out”. Information can be hard facts yet in an interpretation information is everything, what your auntie you have on Facebook had for dinner, what that girl you went to high school with wore on her work night out last night, etc.

Sharron M. Hope (2007) suggests “we have reached a point of information saturation [in which] It is no longer humanly possible to keep up with the amount of information created and then distributed”. Yet despite this impossibility we all strive (sometimes subconsciously) to consume as much as we can without filtering what information can be regarded as crucial and what cannot.

I think dealing of information in this way is because of the desire to feel part of something, never missing out. Pop culture trivia capital [allowing us to move higher in this constructed “fan hierarchy” (Hunt, 2003)], information is currency and build hierarchy, the sooner you know things the sooner you can tell people you know them. Being the first to break a story in journalism equal to being first in friend group to tell everyone about celebrity scandal, we want to be the first costumer and in an ideal situation the only costumer, we are addicted to knowing things others don’t and this addiction makes us what to be the first to everything. Created from ego and ego is fed by being seen by all as a source of information so we plug ourselves in to devices and platforms for absurd amounts of our day. It’s hard to assign distinctive reasons for why we have come to make these decisions in dealing with the “information abundance”. Boredom with personal situation/environment is a lot to do with it I would say, through exposure to more and more instant and exciting information our personal world and notion of day to day seems unexciting and so we decide to let ourselves be drawn into a world where something is happening to someone, somewhere or at least has at some point in time. Also a collective narcissism in our own friendships and relationships [Facebook news feed, snapchat, instagram], our senses of humour and our political views all spilling into the decision to expose ourselves to that which makes us “feel” – not necessarily makes us feel good but makes us feel – and makes us “know” -anything and everything that could be useful one day.

In terms of dealing with this information exchange within the WikiBook project I would say the platform is difficult to stay up to date with, especially when working in a group project such as this one, for many reasons. The first being the tendency to want to organise and discuss assignment topics on a platform that exchange of this crucial “information” is not only easy but familiar, however the Wikibook project demands all interactions about the project take place on the “talk pages” to show our engagement and participation, which is arguably very difficult to follow and stay tune in with, given the large clump of text not being immediately distinctive of who is saying what, in what order it was said due to replied and new topics etc. As well as the Wiki format not having the level to push notifications mentioned that other social media platforms do that pull us into almost instant response (Facebook notifications).

[ALSO WOULD SOMEONE PLEASE HELP ME OUT WITH HOW EXACTLY I INSERT PROPERLY FORMATTED REFERENCE LINKS INTO WIKI AS OPPOSED TO JUST PASTING THE REFS AT THE BOTTOM OF TEXT FIELD, THANK YOU IN ADVANCED]

Searching the Web: A Think Aloud Investigation Into College Students' Online Behavior, Sharron M. Hope, ProQuest, 2007 Levitin, Daniel J. The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload. United States, Plume Books, 1 Sept. 2015. Nathan Hunt, “The importance of trivia,” in Defining Cult Movies, 2003

Ailsa
I agree with your point entirely in reference to Levtin (2015) and think it moves very easily over to how our "online selves" interpret and gather information. Especially with push notifications which almost every app has from social media to games etc. constantly pushing you to remember they exist and that you should come back use them. It is also a very good point that the information we view online can be warped and distorted, even when it comes to personal usage of tweets, snapchat, vlogging etc. For example in reference to your statement "I'm vlogging this day out", this whole process creates a filtered and distorted view of the day. The person has to actively choose what to record, and introducing the camera itself could alter how the individuals act. Then the video has to go through the editing process and colour correction, music is added which can alter the feeling of the footage. That painfully dull train journey could be edited out for example and of course it won't show every minute of the day. So even in one example almost if not all information even on a personal level isn't "true", or "real".

Great point about the need to know everything as fast as possible and the slight competitive of the internet in the current climate. Another angle of this is the idea that the internet holds ALL of the answers, that there is such a vast amount of information online that the answer you are searching for must be on there somewhere. This thought of instantaneously 'googling' something is so embedded that at times I have even found myself 'googling' questions from my personal life, like "who told me ...", the automatic reaction to ask google a question I have despite it being very obvious that it will not know the answer. It is also very surprising when you ask a question in reference to a celebrity and in fact there isn't an answer, it almost angering, as a generation not used to not getting the answers to our questions, expecting every inch of a celebrity's life story to be online.

I too find the wiki books platform very difficult to handle, for reasons that you mentioned such as the lack of push notifications and the difficulty of trudging through masses of text with no clear definition. I also have struggled using the faulty iPhone app, to try and dedicate more time to the project but yet have not had success as it does not work, with work disappearing throughout the usage. I have also noted that it is incredibly difficult to sit aside hours everyday to catch up on the discussions and tackle the topic. I much prefer tackling an assessment in a few days intense work which I believe you do too. I have also been discussing whether, like I, you think integrating this work with an already actively used social media platform such as Facebook would greatly improve contributions to the project?, ie. using Facebook groups to discuss the topics making for a much cleaner discussion page and adding the push notifications and the fact most people already actively use Facebook. Ailsamaloney12 (discuss • contribs) 00:59, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise #4
'''In reviewing the Wiki project I am going to categorically review the process in how it addresses the module’s key points on why it is we use and engage with the wiki platform. These points are as follows.'''
 * Sharing resources, ideas, links and feedback with your classmates
 * Maintaining engagement with the themes and concerns of the module
 * Writing for a small supportive audience in a research environment
 * Practical application of the principles of peer-review, discussion and debate
 * Developing a reflective practice on how writing in publicly-viewable, moderated spaces shapes the way people engage with one another in everyday life.

Now obviously there is bound to be some overlap in how these issues manifested within the Wiki project for the module but I feel tackling how I feel each of them did or did not do so is the best way to review.

Firstly the aspect of resource sharing [links, ideas, etc]. Now at surface level this seems like a massively helpful and positive aspect of the project and the collaborative potential here makes sense for a huge task such as this, but I believe that for students this simply wasn’t going to go as smoothly as the thinking behind Wiki collab dictates it should. As students who spend most of our university careers working independently, finding our own resources, coming up with our own ideas, etc. the projects sharing aspect just didn’t feel fulfilled. Although people were sharing ideas and links, myself included, we (as students) had probably already invested time and thought into our own personal contribution so despite the mass of contributing ideas, people tended to simply just do what they want and the sharing resources seemed simply synthetic – put on for show to up the grade we were all cautious off centring around “engagement”. Too often I posted links, thoughts on a topic and ideas on how we can tackle the chapter as a whole but with such a mass of people and ideas your voice is lost in everyone trying to make theirs head and up their engagement grade while also going with their original angle they thought of before even engaging with the discussion page – as that’s what students are use to, their own academic prerogative.

Next looking at maintaining module themes and concerns engagement. This one I feel was more successfully achieved than the above. It seemed that with so much to do people were often a bit lost for where to start or where to go from a certain point, which is understandable with the open topic heading. The positive of this was at moments like this people referred back to the slides from lectures, their personal notes and key readings from the module. So throughout, the modules main points were very much present and engaged with. Something that can be taken of this is that despite people’s feelings on the Wiki format as an assessment tool, the module’s teaching and even the content was so clearly put across that people saw it as a foundation to return back to as a safe point to work up an understanding of a topic from.

I will tackle writing for small supportive audiences and the application of peer review principles in the same section as I feel there would be too much repetition in the points I wish to convey. This is another thing that in theory should work, and probably often does on other Wiki books that aren’t student driven. But I feel in the nature of student-ness (Yes, maybe I made that word up) these ideas just were practical in aiming for with the project. Now I’m not saying that the audience wasn’t supportive because everyone on my chapter seemed friendly and engaged. Yet the way in which everyone was both doing their own thing and trying to instruct others on content while having their own ideas reviewed seemed to simply just cause a room full of people wearing headphones but all shouting at once, it is another case of everyone wanting to get a good grade for engagement but following their own thoughts as ideas that, as students, has been ingrained into our learning and writing process. I too often felt that I was shouting into a void in how little response I got to questions and suggestions. Now, I do not condemn my group for this as they were also doing the same thing but with so many questions being asked and so many ideas and resources flying around and edits being made without discussion it just seemed like the order and process that should have been in place, was completely lacking because our student brains are thriving for the best grade and not the best discussion page and chapter- which differentiates us from those who use Wikibooks for their own desire to see this transparent knowledge base be successfully achieved.

For the final point I feel like the way I interact with people in everyday life didn’t change, because this was part of a university module I very much put on my academic voice, for the most part, when writing. Which personally isn’t similar to my everyday life interaction with people as I often strive for non-formal casual-as-possible encounters with everyone I come across. I would write sternly and coldly about the topic on the chapter but feel that the way I interact with people both socially and about information gathering and creating wasn’t affected by this project. Yes, people could publicly see my contributions but as a writer for the student paper, and even the owner of a Facebook and twitter account like so many people, I am used to these kinds of spaces and people seeing my thought written down as comprehensively as I can manage.

In general I see the merit in the format as a peer contribution centred platform for building information, however as a student used to working by my own timeline and dealing with my own challenges to ideas inside my head I found this form of assessment unfitting for a group of students as the time and work that would go into a book like this normally was both moderated and unavailable to a lot of students who engage heavily in activities outside of the module, and their academic life – so all of us, basically .

StuG772 (discuss • contribs) 11:21, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Comments
Hello Stu, you make many great points in this post. Firstly I agree that the contribution grade definitely played on everyones minds and was visible when people would post massive amounts of text that were of no benefit to anyone who would then have to slowly power through the useless information. I myself when on the discussion tried to avoid writing too much and more tried my best to structure things in a way that made it easier for everyone to understand. I think that when you added the topic headings etc. onto our group project that helped a lot and while you didn't do extensive amounts of writing to do that, it was far more useful than the word heavy conversations that were had in the 'introduction' section of our page. Also I found that as well when I was offering my assistance or ideas to a particular subject, mainly because of the lack of information that the person responsible had contributed, therefor leaving the group unsure of what was going on that I got no response or the response I got was necessarily helpful or collaborative, which was frustrating. I agree entirely with your last statement, in the sense that this project expected, or demanded around the clock attention. It expected you to check up constantly waiting for responses before being able to continue while other people in your group just went off and did their own thing. So you're left stressing over an answer that won't come or when there is a gap in your chapter of the book and you try and chase it up because there has been no engagement I felt that I often went to more immediate platforms such as Facebook etc. Dedicating that time to one was draining, not only were we having to create long interesting posts (and comments) throughout the week, keep up with other module course work, we had to be constantly updating and collaborating with the Wiki book discussion page, not to mention the outside responsibilities and projects that we (especially as film students) that we are currently dedicated to. Ailsamaloney12 (discuss • contribs) 12:59, 17 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


 * 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.


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