User talk:Ted 95

Wikibooks Exercise #1
Ted 95 (discuss • contribs) There is a distinct lack of nice places to eat at Stirling University. Food is either wildly overpriced or very poor quality. Sometimes it is both, leaving you with a sour taste in your mouth both physically and metaphorically. Maybe that is a little bit of a harsh description. Haldanes has a certain loveable quality, probably because they serve food vaguely reminiscent of school dinners, making you feel like you might be twelve again just for a second. The burgers at Refresh are delicious as well, even if you do have to consume it in the blandest room in the world. But that is pretty much it. If you miss the small window of opportunity where Haldanes is serving hot food, or don't have a tenner to dispose carelessly on a Refresh, you are left with a range of options so pitiful its like choosing between a rock and a hard place.

Food of the World, the centrepiece of the Atrium, offers a small selection of bland, soggy burgers and undercooked pizzas. Apparently they serve stir-fry as well although every time I have attempted to purchase one I have been told that I am too early or too late. Or you could go down to Starbucks, and wait fifteen minutes for an over-priced toastie. And have you ever tried the food in the union? The macaroni cheese taste like feet!

Ted 95 (discuss • contribs) 18:30, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

Ted 95 (discuss • contribs) 13:44, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

Marker’s Comment

 * some unusual things going on with markup here - although very usefully you are experimenting with the markup it's quite important to learn how this can be controlled to make more effective use and communicate your ideas in a neat and tidy manner. I sympathise with your concern about the on-campus catering (really, I do!) however, this is a little off-topic and you need to feed this into the themes and concerns of the module though, and you haven’t really engaged with this part of the brief at all (always, always, pay close attention to what the brief is asking you to do).


 * A post of this standard roughly corresponds to the following grade descriptor:
 * Very Poor. Often, entries of this standard are quite brief, are structured poorly and are not spell-checked. They are often irrelevant, and offer little engagement with the concerns of the module or the assignment brief. Entries of this grade may have been subject to admin warnings or take-down notices for copyright infringement. The wiki markup formatting will be of a very poor standard and as a result it will be difficult for the reader to engage with the discussion.

RE: Comments on others’ work

 * These are on time and ok - however, they are a little on the short side and could do with development in terms of content, scope and reference to module themes. Remember that your comments on other people's work is weighted as heavily as your own post when it comes to grades. GregXenon01 (discuss • contribs) 16:52, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise #2: Visibility and Online Footprint
Online visibility is difficult to measure. Though we are able to see our own Facebook pages and Twitter accounts, we don't know who is looking at them and how they are assessing them. We know that our Facebook pages in particular are often a reflection of how we want to be perceived by others, whether this is by posting highly politicised rants or by uploading holiday photos for people to peruse, but platforms where we can communicate anonymously such as Reddit are growing in popularity, perhaps as a knee-jerk reaction to social media's new found ability to lead to real life consequences. When I was in school I wasn't too bothered about what I posted on my Facebook. I didn't care who read it and I didn't care what they thought about it. Since most of my friends were the same age as me I knew that if I said something outrageous it would get me likes, rather than disapproval. Nowadays, however, it's a different ball game. I am constantly aware of what I say on Facebook and the consequences it may have on me now, or in the future. When Mhairi Black was triumphantly elected into parliament in 2015 becoming the youngest MP in British history, it did not take long for someone to delve into her past and soon she was being tormented with childish tweets she had posted years before she had dreamt of being a politician, with the mainstream media eager to cash in in an attempt to stain her reputation. This dull formality of making people suffer consequences for what they have said on a social network has, for me at least, taken much of the joy out of it. In many ways it may have bettered certain online media sites. Hate speech is now a crime in the UK meaning people can be held accountable if they blurt out bigotry for the world to see, but the rise of users on anonymous networking sites where anything goes, may be a symptom of identifiable online profiles being over-scrutinised, and you only have to take a small look into what goes down on some of these sites to realise that this is a dangerous thing. Ted 95 (discuss • contribs) 17:03, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

Comments
Completely agree with your observation that anonymous networking sites are becoming synonymous with danger, and as a consequence are creating shackles for responsible users of social networking sites. Reading about the dangers of being online reminded me that it's not just online sites such as Facebook or Reddit that possess danger, but also networking through gaming consoles. I remember a trend a few years ago known as 'Swatting' where angry gamers would track down the IP address of the person who angered them and send a SWAT team to their home by reporting a fake crime, usually murder or terrorist activity. Ironically the act of 'Swatting' is branded as an act of terrorism. This shows that even while doing something harmless like playing a game online, you are still extremely visible and easily tracked by anyone with malicious intent. Beespence1 (discuss • contribs) 18:59, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

I too agree that these sites are becoming quite dangerous, and the cross between social media and real life is becoming more and more clear. As a woman online there are times when people threaten to 'dox' (to find and publish someone's personal information on the internet) or hack you if you won't send them pornographic pictures of yourself etc. This happens to a lot of young girls who are to naive to just block them or ignore them and is becoming quite an issue in my opinion. KerryFromThePub (discuss • contribs) 08:55, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

I think it's really interesting you've brought up anonymous sites where people are creating an online identity that is fleeting and unsubstantial. People tend to think that anonymity is a form of protection or invisibility, and so grants them the power to be anyone they want to be without suffering real-life consequences; however, if push came to shove they can in fact be traced down - and we see this in terms of people 'catfishing', for example. I find it interesting how these people may have their own Facebook, Twitter or Instagram accounts, on which they will be constructing a representation of themselves to be seen by anyone who searches them; but then they also use these anonymous websites where they think nobody will ascertain their identity and so they will put far less care into how they are putting across their thoughts. Muir97 (discuss • contribs) 10:24, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

I agree that online visibility is difficult to measure. I have also never thought about what I posted years ago. I didn’t care about that. Nowadays I don’t share or comment or even post something so that no one can prejudge me. It is interesting to think about why anonymous websites are growing in popularity. I think that it could be because of the negative consequences of social networks like Facebook. We all know these disadvantages and some people maybe try to avoid them. But I don’t think that anonymous platforms get too popular, because most of the people want to show who they are and want to know who they are chatting with, so that this kind of platforms won’t establish. But sometimes it is a great diversion to Facebook and other social networks. Mausjjudith (discuss • contribs) 12:07, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise #3: Information Overload!
I think most of us have the ability to dissect the massive amounts of information we receive on a daily basis, and work out for ourselves what sources are worth taking in or ignoring. I personally think our generation has adapted to the information era quite maturely. We know that information is not knowledge. We know that it is easy to be misled or manipulated and so we are quite careful. In fact, it may be this immunity that has made us more intolerant to the shear abundance of nonsense we scan through on a daily basis. The media's ability to twist the facts to suit its own agenda isn't exactly a new phenomenon, but calling them up on it is, and it's a good one. Scroll through the comments on any online article, blog, Facebook post, and you will find people fact-checking then subsequently debunking and slating the site for misleading its audience, usually to the metaphorical rapturous applause of a thousand up-votes or likes. Social media is participatory. The people who use it define what it is, which makes it inherently different to media forms of the past, and I believe this is a good thing.

It is hard to say specifically how I filter information in a way that separates true from false and useful from just plain irritating. Maybe I am not as good at it as I think, but I find that with most stuff it doesn't really matter anyway. So much information on the internet is completely trivial or based on completely materialistic issues that don't affect my life whatsoever: 10 Tutorials For The Perfect Messy Bun, 23 Things People Who Sleep Soundly Will Never Understand, Husband Caught Trying To Cheat With Wife's Best Friend So They Confront Him About It. These are examples I found from a quick scan of my Facebook newsfeed, and it is a minuscule percentage of what pops up on a daily basis. With information like this, I do not find it hard to just block it out. This sort of information falls under the category of clickbait, which is the practice used by websites to generate online advertising revenue by using cheap, catchy, sensationalist headlines to attract web users. So I guess as a general rule I try to avoid anything that falls under this category. Media outlets that would traditionally be defined as broadsheets are also guilty of employing clickbait, however. Many of the 'opinion' columns on websites like The Guardian and The Independent simply aim to stir up debate on trivial issues, under the pretence that a sophisticated broadsheet wouldn't waste it's time on issues that aren't important. I am likely to engage with this sort of journalism as it can be thought-provoking and intellectually engaging, however I think it is important to recognise that very little information comes without the baggage of political bias and a need to generate a profit, and that pages like Wikipedia are uniquely helpful in this way.

Being bombarded with information is normal in the age of 'always-on' culture. It is one of these inevitabilities that we can't really avoid if we want to be a functioning part of wider society, so we need to learn or be taught how to gauge with it. I think I, and most other people my age have become accustomed to it, however I can see how it would be a problem for more impressionable people like children or pensioners, so I think there should be extensive education available on the subject for everyone.

Comments
I like your analysis and the fact that you considered the extent of the phenomenon in a broader way than what I did. At the same time though I don't necessarily agree with your starting point as you state that in your opinion we are able to understand which data is useful and which instead should be avoided but in many occasions I've seen people being completely 'kidnapped' by the web, getting lost in whatever random thing comes up on their feed. Young and mature users included in this. This is the 'always-on' era, this is the digital world but does this not, at least partially, show that it is extremely difficult to filter the information? The fact that the majority of people are now phone-dependent and reaching out to/in the world through a screen ensures a constant exposure to an information overload, where many of the things we think we need or are looking for, are the consequence of such exposure. You see something somewhere and "casually", out of consequence you are prone to searching it, looking at related things and so one, link after link (just think for example how easy it has become on youtube to end up from the intended video to any other one, not only through the suggested videos of the previous interface but the fact that now they play 'randomly' one after the other). Even ads are now personalised, some using your name in them, some presenting products that you have recently searched. There is good and bad with this evolution that the internet is going through as we are in constant development. I think though it is difficult to really stay focused in such a distracting environment. Juliabutgiulia (discuss • contribs) 01:07, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

You've made some really good points about the 'always-on' era and how digital media effects how we filter the information we come across online. I think that there is a huge issue, especially among the younger generation, with people limiting their access to information (consciously or subconsciously) because they want to see things that they agree with, especially in a political sense, in turn creating a sort of echo-chamber for their opinions. I am very pro-"let people look up what they want on the internet within reason" but I can't ignore that this seems to be becoming a problem in real life politics, with some politicians gaining almost cult-like online followings simply because they refuse to look at the other side of the spectrum (this works for both sides). Some sites such as Twitter have even implemented rules which permit censorship of certain users and opinions, basically saying goodbye to freedom of speech. The rise of digital media has changed politics in a huge way, and people's inability (or just that they don't want to) to look up opposing arguments because it may "offend" or "trigger" them means we now have a generation of uninformed voters. KerryFromThePub (discuss • contribs) 10:08, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise #3: Reflective Account
I personally found this project quite demanding. I'm not naturally tech savvy and apart from Facebook (which I spent weeks learning how to navigate) I rarely engage with social media. I don't use twitter. I don't even have a Youtube account. So for me, getting used to the user interface on wikibooks was a huge challenge that left me feeling quite frustrated. I found communicating with others on the page was the hardest part of it. As more and more people began to add their ideas onto the page it became more of a maze, and I thought it became quite unorganised. It was obvious that certain people were taking pro-active roles within the larger group covering our topic and as much as I wanted to be one of these people, I felt I didn't understand the platform well enough to be pro-active, and rather I would have been better off receiving instructions than dishing them out. All in all, I contributed little to the main body of conversation and instead spent my time working on my own section to add to the topic, rather than getting involved in the topics that were being discussed and arranged by many. I felt I was also hindered as the two people in my smaller group didn't turn up, leaving me to my own devices. Anyway. Enough moaning, and on to the important stuff..

I think wikibooks is a perfect example of how online collectivism is both incredibly useful and also pretty dangerous. I was part of the group writing about Access to Knowledge In Everyday life, and just watching how the page sprung to life was quite inspiring. Within days new topics were springing up left, right and centre. Inklings grew into ideas as the combined knowledge of all the users took shape into a genuinely interesting page that explained how and why new and old concepts had become prevalent in modern society. There had been a lot of talk in the lectures and seminars, of the disadvantages of living in an always-on culture, that made people disengaged with what was happening around them; that caused a panacea based on trivial information that had engulfed us, and turned us into narcissistic drones. This was a prime example of how the internet can be a place of learning, and if you do it right (I didn't) communicating too.

On the other hand, I can see the dangers of online collectivism. At times the page was incoherent. There was too many ideas floating around at once, and nobody really getting to the point. More importantly, information that is undoubtedly useful becomes the result of multiple channels, making it dull and arguably inaccurate. As Jason Lanier points out in DIGITAL MAOISM: The Hazards of the New Online Collectivism, the storytelling element of information is so important into how we read our entire history. Is it really wise to call an end to this cultural phenomenon on the grounds that it isn't neutral? Is it really wise to define everything we know by simply 'true' or 'false' when every single person knows an entirely different existence? I think wikibooks is a really useful source and found a lot of the information on it to be incredibly interesting and valuable, but the end product was undeniably a mass of different facts that were interesting separately but led to no solid conclusion, and I can safely say I'd learn more if I sat and read a book written by someone who had dedicated part of their life to a single piece of literature, as I know that even when a fact is a fact, no subjectivity needed, I'd be reading their version of events.Ted 95 (discuss • contribs) 01:43, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Comments
I totally agree that while the project was based on our ability to communicate and organize a task, the nature of Wikibooks as a place to compile information rather than a social network (i.e. a place designed for communication) meant that it was very difficult to do so—particularly for people who do not naturally like taking charge, as you have indicated you do not, and with which I can relate. Another thing I noticed about communicating around a digital group project is that people dip in and out of conversations as they do other things, and thus organization is further impeded. In my own experience of the project, I had to leave my computer to walk the dog and because of the break in conversation I had caused it then took a day for me to get a reply. Even though I was communicating with someone who was a little more take-charge, the fact that we did not have a face to face planning session and instead had to rely on hoping to catch each other when we were online meant our contribution to the project suffered, as too much time was spent on spread out conversations allocating topics. Was your experience similar? --EmLouBrough (discuss • contribs) 00:19, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Marker’s Feedback on Wikibook Project Work
A small number of useful contribs to chapter content towards the end of the project period. Your material on political polarisation especially, but also the section on access in North Korea were useful, if a little descriptive and fact-based (as opposed to critically engaged and analytical). Understanding, through progress made on the wiki exercises, was in evidence. More use of the discussion page would have allowed for further engagement – you mainly used the discussion page as a sort of sandbox.

Wiki Exercises


 * 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.

Content (weighted 20%)

 * Your contribution to the book page gives a good brief overview of the subject under discussion in your chosen themed chapter. There is a good range of concepts associated with your subject, and the effort to deliver critical definitions, drawing from relevant literature and scholarship, and your own critical voice in the building of a robust argument is very much in evidence. The primary and secondary sources you found about the chapter’s themes cover a good range and depth of subject matter.

Understanding (weighted 30%)

 * Reading and research:
 * evidence of critical engagement with set materials, although some ideas and procedures more securely grasped than others
 * evidence of independent reading of somewhat circumscribed range of appropriate academic and peer-reviewed material
 * Argument and analysis:
 * well-articulated and well-supported argument featuring variable depth of understanding
 * satisfactory level of evidence of critical thinking (through taking a position in relation to key ideas from the module, and supporting this position in discussion);
 * satisfactory level of evidence of relational thinking (through making connections between key ideas from the module and wider literature, and supporting these connections in discussion);
 * evidence of variable independent critical ability

Engagement (weighted 50%)

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

Overall Mark % available on Succeed

FMSU9A4marker (discuss • contribs) 15:07, 3 May 2016 (UTC)