User talk:The one behind the pillar

This is my Wikibooks discussion page and this is for an educational purpose. Please feel to comment. This is the user The one behind the pillar (discuss • contribs) 14:17, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise #1: Educational Assignment
On Wikipedia I discussed Until Dawn. This time I am going to look at the app of Yik Yak. It is a lovely little place where people can anonymously say what they like and others can vote and give them an up vote or down vote, depending on if they like the Yak (status) or not. By adding a feature to vote, it almost creates a game feel to it and makes people addicted to making a Yak that will get high praise from others and voted to become 'Hot', enticing the user in. The idea of Yik Yak though is that it feels very personal to the user as the comments made are from people in the same area as themselves so they can relate to them. The comments read easily and the app overall is pretty easy to use. The posts themselves are very informal and almost like people's everyday thoughts (which is mostly true). This is what will appeal to others as they feel connected to those around them, even if they do not know the person, but simply because they share or shared similar experiences. However, the user can look at other area's Yaks if they wish. The anonymous nature to the app that the user can post anything links to the week 2 lecture that discussed that idea. The lecture discussed how people feel they can have the freedom to say what they like, thinking that it is consequence free, which goes hand in hand with the concern of cyber-bullying as there has been cases reported on the app. The anonymity also allows for a high comfort level in users as they feel safe in how nothing will be linked to themselves.

The anonymous nature also links in to the week 3 lecture to the idea of a persona. The users put on a 'mask' and becomes who they want to and to say things they necessarily might not say if it could be linked to them because they feel they do not have to suffer the consequences of what they say. This becomes dangerous as they do not take responsibility for their heinous actions and are not aware of the damage they can cause. They can simply hide behind the safety of the screen. But of course most users are not like this. They simply like the interaction and community created by the app as it prides itself on allowing the user to 'find its heard' and be part of something bigger.

Overall, I quite like the app as it is easy to use and understand and appears friendly to anyone who ventures to it. It can of course have its dark side, but what doesn't nowadays? Besides it is the small volume of people behind the Yaks and 'masks' that are the ones giving it its dark side. Not the majority. But I would recommend for people to check it out at least once as it can be fun to see what others have written about areas in which you live and that face the problems you do.

This is the user The one behind the pillar (discuss • contribs) 03:01, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

References: Yik Yak - https://www.yikyak.com/home Cyber-bullying case - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2615231/Anoynmous-app-Yik-Yak-blamed-bullying-schools-amid-calls-firm-trying-way-ban-children-using-it.html

Marker's Comments

 * A fairly well-written entry, albeit with some grammatical slips dotted throughout. It was useful that you related this to the themes and concerns of the module e.g. anonymity and persona. There are some readings in the module outline lists that contain pieces on gamification which might have worked really well applied here too. Would have liked to have seen better use of wiki markup to create links to relevant materials.


 * A post of this standard roughly corresponds to the following grade descriptor, although obviously at the low end of the grade band because you didn’t make the most of the mark up potential:
 * 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.

RE: Comments on others’ work

 * These are on time and provide an excellent example of how the format can be used to exchange ideas and discuss work-in-progress - lots of content, scope and reference to module themes is made explicit. Remember that your comments on other people's work is weighted as heavily as your own post when it comes to grades - in this case your comments have, if anything, enabled you to pull your marks up a little. Keep this up!! GregXenon01 (discuss • contribs) 15:28, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

I found your choice of topic really interesting, especially as someone who uses Yik Yak myself. I think you're absolutely right in your reference to the week 2 lecture and the idea that users tend to use 'masks' when going on the app. I think its definitely worth referring to the Week 5 lecture on Collective Intelligence as well, in particular James Surowiecki's work. He discusses the 'Wisdom of crowds' and how the collective can often be more intelligent than any single member of it. I think this could be applied to Yik Yak as posts are seen as either worthy or unworthy by the mass audience, and if the post appeals to many people who deem it worthy it ascends to the 'hot' section, where people go to find the best Yaks at the moment. People will trust in the judgement of others in their local area to decide what should and shouldnt be on the Yik Yak feed, and what should be 'hot'. Surowiecki also talks about diversity of opinion, independence from other people’s opinions, but most relevant to this particular post i think is specialist local knowledge. The 'localness' of Yik Yak makes users feel like a collective and their knowledge is combined to make this intangible "specialist" local knowledge. I wonder if perhaps Yik Yak could be used in research to study local opinions on matters through a method of posting controversial Yaks and noting how they are received. CwazyChris (discuss • contribs) 15:57, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

I must admit, I have a strong love hate relationship with this app. All the points you have highlighted are true, some people really do just hide behind a screen. However linking it back to my personal experience, when I visit home for any reasons my home town yin yak is a strong model for Cyber Bullying. People get named as "Slags, whores" ect as well as the fact if you do anything slightly wrong the whole of yin yak will know. But why do we care? It's just anonymous faces saying suff that we could report, Cyber Bullying is such a trick concept because of not knowing how people react or why people react the way they do. Thegirlwiththebluehair (discuss • contribs) 11:46, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise 2: Visibility and Online Footprint
In comparison to others I am quite limited with my online presence as I do not have that many. I have Facebook, Snapchat and at one point Tinder. I do not use Tumblr, Instagram or Twitter which I would argue in a way hinders me as I am not aware of how people interact on these sites and I feel disconnected to this type of online presence people have. This idea though of an online self can relate to the week 4 lecture with Sherry Turkle and danah boyd as they say we are all "tethered" to media and find it "ubiquitous" which I would argue the more tethered we are to it, the bigger people's online footprint is.

The types of information available about me online is what I have put out there willingly or at least agreed to as a part of terms and conditions. Nothing out there should surprise me, but I say should as people are shocked all the time with what is leaked to the wider world about them. For instance, phone hacking scandals which relates to the week 2 lecture as the user's privacy and security is put at risk when they weren't aware of the matter. But of course the leaking of information can be done by the user, in a sense, as companies may ask sometimes if they can either use or share your details and sometimes the user has to as it is mandatory for them to continue. Again, this can put the user's privacy and security at risk.

The information I usually share on Facebook and Snapchat is only really to close family and friends. It is easy enough to do that with Snapchat as you can select directly who to send the photos/videos to if you would like. On Facebook I only really talk to or like photos of people I am really close to. I do not feel comfortable liking photos or commenting on people's things if I am not close to them. I can see this being the case for others too. However, it begs the question - why are we friends with them? To seem popular? Because we like hearing what they are up to? An old friend and that is the only way to contact them? For work? Because we once knew them? All these are viable reasons and can spark an interesting debate surrounding this idea. The idea of keeping in touch with someone can also relate to the week 4 lecture with danah boyd and how she says we are all connected and assumes we can always be reached if needed as it is a way to stay connected to old or new friends.

The information I have online I would like to believe I have control over, but as I have stated earlier that may not be the case. Regardless I would argue I have some control over it as I have at some stage put the information out there myself. There are two issues with this though. One relating to the week 4 Paris Brown scandal as she was denied a good job and future by past information/comments she had put on Twitter herself. So, although she put out the information herself she still condemned herself because it was inappropriate. The second issue is how sometimes you simply do not have control over the information put online about you. This can range from the variety of mediums like Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat etc. For instance, someone being tagged in someone else's photo, a photo taken by someone else on Snapchat or a status written about you are all out of that person's control. To bring control back to the individual they can untag themselves or report the comments but unfortunately not much else.

Looking at the various applications of online media in which to create an online self is an interesting concept as we do alter our personalities in accordance to what we are on. This links to the week 3 lecture on persona and how we differ our persona to deal with different relationships in our lives. This could be because the applications differ and have different sets of rules and protocols e.g Facebook to Tumblr. Also what is available to users e.g Tinder to Facebook. So people will alter themselves in accordance to the application they are using. This again links to week 4 with Sherry Turkle as the users are always "tethered" to a type of media.

There is also something interesting surrounding the earlier idea of control to the individual as when asked how are you visible online? It may not always be what you desire. This can be relatively harmless through being tagged in someone else's photos and can escalate to more serious issues relating breaches of privacy of an individual. On the smaller end, you can of course untag yourself but it does not get rid of the image, you can report it but if not it can still be out there for others to see. This can be seen as comical as there are memes of two photos, one saying 'profile picture' accompanied with a stunning image and the other 'tagged photo' with a less flattering image. This relates to the week 2 lecture as the person's identity, realism and representation is lost as the two images are noticeable different. It also links to the week 3 lecture on the profile picture as with the 'tagged photo' the preparation of setting the shot and finding the perfect angle is lost and not allowed. Therefore, exposing a more realistic and truer image of the person.

Refs: Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Tinder, Tumblr, Instagram, Digital Media Lectures 2,3 and 4, danah boyd and Sherry Turkle

User: The one behind the pillar (discuss • contribs) 01:14, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

Wiki Exercise 3: Information Overload
There is no doubt that there is a tonne of information out there for everyone to browse at their own perusal and navigating and getting a grip on it is hard to say the least. We are bombarded daily with information left right and centre. From the academic and general knowledge side to advertisements and games side, information is all around us and is more accessible today than it has ever been before. I tend to deal with it well if I have an assignment due, a force pushing me to complete something important, I will be efficient about navigating my way around the internet and the vast and endless caverns I could get distracted by along the way. Also if I have to locate a piece of information quickly I will be efficient in finding it without being distracted. If I am aware that something will distract me I will avoid it completely until the task at hand is complete or only look at it on breaks.

The reasoning behind my methods is so I can complete any tasks I need to in the allocated time because I know how I work and what makes me tick. I avoid the temptation in order to be productive and I would say my method is pretty common. The idea though of there being an almost surplus of information surrounding us links to danah boyd and Sherry Turkle in week 4 who say that technology is "ubiquitous" and and that we are "tethered" to it and with all the information we can access from technology it is not hard to see why we find it so hard to not be connected.

The contributing factors in the way I deal with an overload of information like I have mentioned is if I have an assignment due, that alone will be enough to force me to commit only to that and power through any temptation until I reach its end. Also I know I will not know all the information in life and as much as I try to broaden myself by learning a lot and taking it all in I know I cannot. But that for me is alright because I know my limits when I have taken in too much to a point when I am overloaded with information. So I turn off for the day and relax. I feel like I am not alone i that too as everyone will know their limits. Another way to deal with it is how over time we become desensitised to all the information around us, our brains do not take it in or choses to ignore it. This is not a bad thing though as it helps us to not become overwhelmed with information, but rather is a pretty good coping mechanism which keeps us sane.

But having all this information at our finger tips is not a bad thing. It allows us to know that if we ever need to know a piece of information, not matter how trivial or apparently stupid, it will be there or it will have been asked before. That, for me, connects us together and unites us as we have a place to share vast volumes of information with one another and to better ourselves by learning something new that may help us out one day.

User The one behind the pillar (discuss • contribs) 01:57, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

Comments:

This is a good piece of work as it is interesting to see the differences between methods of staying away from the distractions Internet poses. Regarding your point about avoiding distractions when doing work do you ever find yourself being led astray when searching for extra sources or even when doing a set reading? For example I sometimes find myself being distracted when there are multiple tabs open resulting in me leaving my research to return back to previous websites. Your last point about us being connected through the Internet is also interesting as I have never considered this idea of the web uniting us. Kyra Paterson (discuss • contribs) 20:41, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

Wiki Project 4 - Reflection
The project to start with was for the most part confusing as many students had no clue in what they were suppose to be doing. I found myself just really being to come to grips with it as we were drawing to a close. However, once it was understood, the project was well underway. In terms of collaborative nature of the project with all of us being split in to five main groups to tackle one concept - it already drew a divide in people’s collaboration as they mainly stuck to their own concept. In saying this though there were some cross over between the groups as people from other groups posted on others for the most part congratulate them on their work and to check out what others had done. Further collaboration divides could have come from how even in our main group we were split in to small groups of around 5 in our seminar classes as a way of kicking off collaboration. Although I can appreciate the gesture and logic behind the move, it proved fairy irrelevant. As I discovered as long as you were in the main large group people would talk to you and vise versa in order to share ideas and work of the topic.

In terms of interfacing with people off line I only really spoke to a close friend of mine who is also on the course. We would discuss ideas and help each other out if we had any queries on what the project at hand was about as we unsure at times. The two of us did meet up with one of our group members to discuss the concept and to get the ball rolling. However, in regards to the smaller groups, we made several attempts to meet up and discuss work but the plans fell through as we came to the eventual agreement that it would be more beneficial to carry the work out online instead of face to face. Other than that I only discussed very little with people face to face apart from the odd chat in seminars about the work and how other people were also finding the task hard and confusing.

The discussion side of the main concept was really useful as it was somewhere everyone could access and knew where to go. It felt relaxed, informal and that you could chat freely about the work to your fellow class mates. This allowed an easy transition, flow and discussion of ideas between the entire group which never felt overwhelming or crowded. Ideas could be passed on, expanded or created as we all would help each other out either asking someone to start a section or asking someone if we could help with theirs. By having this right next to the actual page itself was helpful as we could flick back and forth between the two to interact with one another and never loss track of where we were or what we were doing.

In wider terms of the module I would say that collective intelligence in the civic web is applicable to this Wikibook project. Collective intelligence is relevant as we could have been accessed by solely writing essays, but we had been given the task of creating a Wikibook project as a whole group. This choice has allowed collective intelligence to flourish and be demonstrated as all our knowledge of the five topics had been placed together to create one super book of knowledge much more complex, challenging and accurate than if we all wrote it separately and individually. James Surowiecki discusses in | ‘Wisdom of Crowds’ and talks about how at a fair there would be a jar of jelly beans and you would try to guess how many there were and individually the guesses could be quite off, but collectively through an average they could be eerily close to the actual number (P. 255). This crosses over to the Wiki project as individually we may be a bit off or lack certain knowledge on the topics, but collectively we are incredibly knowledgeable and have created well rounded and informative articles. Pierre Levy also talks about collective intelligence in | 'What is Collective Intelligence?' saying it is “The basis and goal of collective intelligence is the mutual recognition and enrichment rather than a cult of fetishized or hypostatized communities” (P. 13). The project was a mutual recognition of we knew what we had to do and how to complete it effectively and that the completed end product would be enriching as we could look at what everyone wrote and contributed to not just on our topic but on the other four as well. Overall though, the project was certainly something new to us all in terms of working together as a mass group and tackling something like this on Wikipedia. However, what we have produced in the time given is certainly a testament to the real power of collective intelligence to enhance knowledge and understanding of a subject in making it well informed and well rounded. User: The one behind the pillar (discuss • contribs) 10:26, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

Comments:

I’ve just read over your reflection on the Wikibook project and had a couple of things to contribute. I think you’re absolutely right in the division into groups being a bit unnecessary, I felt like this confused and complicated the situation more than it helped. Like you I also found that offline communication was minimal and feel like it would have been useful to have appointed times in workshops or seminars to be able to discuss with the group having to attend.

I find your use of James Surowiecki’s jellybean example very accurate as I believe this is the case in some parts of the Wikibooks project, however I felt that many of our tasks were divided up specifically so that only a single person would look at a specific area, thus stopping any real collective intelligence. Did you find this as well at all? CwazyChris (discuss • contribs) 13:47, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

I totally agree with what you're saying with the fact this project was confusing. I feel this made its even messy and unorganised in a way. Offline communication was very limited but I feel like that's because we were constantly reminded to post thoughts on the discussion pages therefore no one seen it as a high priority to see eachother in person. Mass groupings was probably not the best as although people seem to just stick to their little sub topics there was a little infusion on how the whole thing would flow. You've touched on really good points despite having a negative outlookk you've given it a constructive criticism. Thegirlwiththebluehair (discuss • contribs) 06:43, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Marker’s Feedback on Wikibook Project Work
While there's only evidence of a limited range of contributions and discussion but the few traces show a high level of collaboration and discourse with peers. Your exercises are a good mix of analysis and description. Some chapter contributions are interesting, but make sure to tie discussion back to the theorists discussed in the lecture rather than the lecture themselves.

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) 14:55, 3 May 2016 (UTC)