User talk:EmilymDaniel: Difference between revisions

Welcome to my user discussion page This profile will be used as part of an educational class project for the Digital Media and Culture module at the University of Stirling The Wikibook is Living in a Connected World and the chapter I'm working on is Privacy in a Digital Age. My discussion page will be used to reflect upon the way in which we use online media in a collaborative way. You're more than welcome to comment on my posts, but make sure to ping me so I get a notification. Thanks! EmilymDaniel (discuss • contribs) 13:19, 7 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

There are three key elements which come to mind when I think of how I consume social media: education, entertainment and socialising. In general, the majority of the time I spend online revolves more around the latter two, whether it’s watching a video on YouTube or catching up with friends and family via Facebook Messenger. In relation to education, it's usually a more monotonous experience such as reading online journals for essays or listening to a lecture, something that is ultimately passive. This is where the Wikibooks project intrigues me as it’s a tool for learning new things with an interactive function built in, so it essentially combines education, entertainment and socialising.

The format reminds me of Reddit, a website I use every day to keep up with current events that are tailored to my specific interests. Reddit lets you subscribe to various subreddits which supply user-generated content based on a whole range of topics including television programmes, memes, politics, art, recipes and more. The comments on each post discusses the topic further, so the act of having an anonymous conversation with others who have the same interests is very rewarding. There are even some subreddits which allow users to buy one another presents by sharing their Amazon Wish Lists or gifting each other pizza.

Reddit is one social media platform which resembles the Wikibooks format, but the main difference is that Reddit's 'purpose' is more for entertainment rather than education (although there are subreddits which focus mainly on educating others). Wikibooks seems to have more of a fixed goal; to collectively enhance the user’s understanding of the world, whereas Reddit is more stagnant in its approach and allows more leeway on what can be posted.

Succeed is an example of an online learning environment which Universities encourage students to use as much as possible. While it is useful for presenting learning materials for each module in an organised way, there is a key feature which doesn’t get used as much as it could - the seminar group discussion pages. I have never seen these group forums used, nor have I attempted to use them. If I have a question about the module, I tend to ask my close peers via Facebook. So while there are educational online programmes which allow specialised discussions to take place, there is little demand for their use. This leaves the larger and more established social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter to assume the role of interaction between students, which could be limiting as not everyone is friends with everyone in their seminars. This is how the Wikibooks project could be utilised to its full potential. Because it is open to anyone, it gives the users more of a chance to interact and give constructive feedback. The main obstacle to overcome would be encouraging others to upload content and engage regularly, as its function depends on user-based content.

To sum up, my overall experience of online media is primarily based around entertainment and socialising on sites like Reddit, Facebook and YouTube. I am keen to expand my engagement with a focus on educational resources and look forward to working with Wikibooks further. -- EmilymDaniel (discuss • contribs) 11:18, 8 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

@EmilymDaniel:

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.

Excellent. Among other things, these entries will probably demonstrate a complex, critical understanding of the themes of the module. They will communicate very effectively, making excellent and creative use of the possibilities of the form (including links, as well as perhaps copyright-free videos and images, linked to from Wiki Commons), and may be written with some skill and flair. They will address the assignment tasks in a thoughtful way. They will make insightful connections between original examples and relevant concepts. They will be informed by serious reading and reflection, are likely to demonstrate originality of thought, and will probably be rewarding and informative for the reader. The wiki markup formatting will be impeccable.

This post is at the lower end of this grade band, so there’s clearly room for improvement here, although you seem to be working at a high level of critical engagement with the frameworks (both conceptually and practically). 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 starting to get to grips with the wiki markup and functionality with some proficiency already (probably far more proficient than me!).

Re: responses to other people’s posts - these are especially good. 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 have engaged in discussion 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). Keep this up!

GregXenon01 (discuss • contribs) 10:32, 13 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

• @EmilymDaniel: I find this very interesting as I have never used sites like Reddit before and I wasn't aware there were similarities with the way Wikibooks works but also differences in regards to its function. I also didn't consider Succeed when I thought about the different sites I use now, but I would say I spend a lot of time on Succeed and I have in fact had to make use of the seminar blog sections in previous modules. I found using them very useful as I could read through other students' submissions and learn from their learning and also gain feedback from them and from tutors. The way we submitted entries also reminds me a lot of the way we make edits on Wikipedia. I think the use of Wikibooks could encourage more group discussions and perhaps, through this project, the Succeed seminar dicussion and blog features may also benefit being of use. -- Tinytalia (discuss • contribs) 13:04, 8 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

@Tinytalia: Thank you for comment, you're the only person I know (so far) who has used the seminar blog sections, I'll definitely look into them more now. -- EmilymDaniel (discuss • contribs) 20:45, 8 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

• @EmilymDaniel: Reddit is fake news. Let me expand; ; the astonishing variety of subreddits on offer would seem to promise an endless source of information on any topic with a great diversity of views borne out in the comments, however, I feel that Reddit is a socially liberal and politically conservative space; the supposed ‘freedom’ of the innumerable options is the hallmark of a liberalism that in effect achieves the exact opposite of any emancipatory goal leaving us only the impression of progress. A fake progress. Who uses Reddit? Could it be the same people who gushed with praise over Meryl Streep’s pontification act at the Golden Globes? Who watched the series Friends and who would be surprised to learn the average viewer of this show was white, comfortably middle or upper-middle class? Friends was a segregated show that didn’t feature a non-white character until its 9th season. The obvious observation made by Michael Moore was that white New Yorkers like those in the show quite simply, did not socialise with anyone who didn’t look like them. I mention this because I think Reddit is similarly as about as lily-white as the internet gets. Where is the variety in privileged, white, suburban Americana? The range of topics you mentioned that we can find on Reddit in reality just reflects the views and interests of a narrow section in society. This is a complete reversal. Reddit isn’t full of diverse views and opinions; it’s water, water, everywhere nor any drop to drink! --CITIZEN LUC (discuss • contribs) 19:09, 12 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

@CITIZEN LUC: I agree that Reddit does produce a lot of content which could be described as 'fake news'. There are often many clickbait headlines in r/worldnews and r/news which present a very skewed version of a story, often biased towards a marginalised group of people or with important information conveniently missed out. It's not until you read the comments that you see how the headline has been twisted to present a particular agenda. For example, this headline very clearly portrays the oil company Shell in a negative light, whereas the top comment indicates that it's probably the best thing to do for the environment.

In my opinion, I think you have painted Reddit out to be a somewhat limited platform, but I believe it is full of possibilities. The subreddits I mentioned merely outline the scope of topics available, from the broad to the mundane. I don't agree with you regarding the userbase being limited to 'white and privileged' as there are a huge number of subreddits with a variety of people from different minority groups. The posts on r/Makeupaddiction for example include selfies from a range of different skin types as well as make up advice for transgender people. The dominant userbase may very well be 'white male from America', but that doesn't mean the whole of Reddit is a reflection of this. Like Greg mentioned in the first lecture 'Critical Perspectives on Digital Media', it isn't the Internet or the websites themselves that are politically biased, they are simply a tool for us to present ideas, and Reddit has a very accessible format in which to do so. -- EmilymDaniel (discuss • contribs) 17:53, 14 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

@EmilymDaniel: This might be of zero interest to you now but I wanted to comment further and clear-up some of the points I’m worried you may have misinterpreted really through my lack of a decent explanation. What you are achieving on this page deserves better than my initial comment.

My use of ‘fake news’ isn’t to be understood literally quite simply because news is an abstract concept; one could quite easily propose that “all news is fake news” and substantiate this remark with a critical analysis of what ‘news’ itself actually represents. Clickbait or ‘skewed’ headlines might be ‘fake news’ when this term is in the arsenal of tradition news outlets but again, this definition doesn’t suffice. The BBC produced a lot of skewed headlines in 2003 when our country illegally invaded Iraq but, when analysing this term it’s only the theoretical value that might offer something interesting to us. Whether or not the BBC produced ‘fake news’ to bolster support for our country’s role in the worst crime of the century is a matter of fact pale in comparison.

That case you linked about Royal Dutch Shell is to me a fascinating example. The intellectual self defense you bring to all consumption of media must be on high alert with an example like this. How else can we understand one of the largest companies in the world as something other than exploitative, environmentally destructive, a threat to all life on Earth? An ideologically rooted breakdown into what an oil company actually is lays the case out clearly. A single comment is utterly irrelevant in this regard. Do Shell harmfully impact the natural environment; pollute our seas and make the air unfit to breathe, deplete our natural resources and lead humanity headfirst into climate chaos that risks not just the survivability of our species but also every living thing? Yes. They do. This is demonstrably the case and to whom do we owe the time for an alternative voice to be heard? The best thing Shell could do for the environment is to disappear entirely.

My favourite ‘fake news’ (as the term is regularly used) story was this disgusting example. If you have an understanding ideologically of either all or some of what America is, of what BLM is, of what racism is and of what the police are – then this story could never be true. And, with this understanding: “Shell does ‘best thing’ for the environment” is a headline that can also never be true.

Of course lots of people use reddit and I’ve previously described it as a “socially liberal” space; you’re not going to get shouted down for being gay, Muslim or Hispanic on this site. Across society there has been an obvious material improvement for that vast majority of people who aren’t white, heterosexual, male, and as stated this is tied to the dominance of socially liberal politics. However, this doesn’t translate to diversity or a wide range of possibilities as we might expect or indeed, should demand. When opportunities are seemingly opened up to all people from all backgrounds the liberal reflex is to praise the great and proper functioning of the market that provides these opportunities. On the reverse side, failures are laid squarely at the feet of the individual who didn’t take advantage of these possibilities; this must is down to some personal inadequacy. Failing to find the right subreddit for your interests must be akin to failing to find a job - all the possibilities are there you’re just not trying hard enough! I’ve laboured this point a little bit: I’m only trying to say that Reddit’s possibilities are fundamentally limited to a system that succeeds in propagating the illusion of progress over progress. Reddit is home to many different categories across the board but it’s entirely dependent on one system that seems grossly inept to deal with the challenges we’ve seen unfold in recent months, and of which the criticism reads like a foreign language. Thanks for your time. --CITIZEN LUC (discuss • contribs) 19:50, 20 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

@CITIZEN LUC: I can see what you mean about Reddit not being an ideal platform on which to present the news and that it is fundamentally limited in many ways. Reddit is very much dominated by American views and if a hotly debatable article is posted, the top comments will often be biased towards that view. Although now, not so much with the election of Trump, these very extreme nationalistic views are limited to a few sub-reddits (The_Donald springs to mind). But previously, if someone posted an article relating to gun control, there would be a number of comments about how it won't work in America, Australia is different, second amendment etc.

The article you linked regarding fake news is part of this ever changing media climate where we as humans have to adapt to the overload of information being thrown at us. We now have to evolve to pick apart each headline and find multiple sources to cross reference with an article in order to determine whether or not it's fake. Or, look at the comments on Reddit to find the neutral user who posts a nuanced argument so that we don't have to do the source checking ourselves. I have been guilty of seeing a headline and jumping to conclusions, only to find that it was telling an incredibly skewed version of events.

Thank you again for your insight, I agree that the West's involvement in many Eastern countries such as Iran, Iraq and Sri Lanka is deplorable, but I personally find Reddit the best source for finding out current events. Yes, it is flawed in many ways, but it will inevitably evolve as a news source as time goes. EmilymDaniel (discuss • contribs) 19:48, 2 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

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The question of online visibility in relation to myself as an individual is fairly subjective. In comparison to my close friends, I don’t use as many of the popular social media apps as them…yet I have more of an online presence than my Grandpa who only uses the ‘interwebs’ (as he calls it) for emailing and Amazon. There are a number of possible reasons for why I don’t use Twitter, Instagram or Snapchat regularly, despite being the target demographic.

1. I am worried about becoming too addicted to them.
2. I am a year older than many of my peers at University, so maybe I missed out on the collective pressure at school for everyone to have these apps.
3. I own an outdated smart phone which is only capable of Facebook Messenger and basic web searching, both of which load at a glacial pace so the idea of downloading any more apps is unthinkable.

However, some of these factors are arguably flawed. My friends often use a wide variety of social media apps and have a very broad Internet presence, yet there are others who only stick to the familiar Facebook to keep in touch. It would be problematic to lump all of my contemporaries into one category of ‘regular social media consumers’ and label myself as a ‘social media luddite’. In the past, I have used various sites to communicate with others such as MSN messenger, Bebo and Yahoo Answers. While I have drifted away from them, the information I shared is still available to access online.

Facebook is the main social media platform I use to present my online identity. It shows where I have been to school, where I have worked and the pages I have liked. Yet I don’t regularly post or share content with my friends. As Adrian Athique notes in Digital Media and Society: An Introduction - “The more active users compensate for less active members of the network in maintaining a dynamic field of content that retains the interest of network members”.^[1] This suggests that my network of friends share and post regularly enough to keep me captivated with Facebook. My public activity on the most popular social media platform essentially reflects my shy and reserved personality. I have the privacy settings relatively high, but I understand that while my profile is visibile only to my friends, every photo and comment will be stored online indefinitely.

About 5 years ago, I used to regularly visit Yahoo Answers and answer various silly questions in order to boost the points on my profile. Looking back, I remember going on it every day for a long period of time and thinking how important it was to increase that meaningless number. All of the questions I have answered are still online and easy to view which shows that even if I did delete my profile, they would still be visible for everyone else to see. All of the cringeworthy thoughts of a bored teenager essentially became the property of Yahoo.

I also used to have a Snapchat account where I’d regularly share pictures of my cat to the delight of some of my followers. I deleted this account because I felt it was too addictive and decided to limit myself to Facebook and Reddit. While the pictures I shared are not easily accessible to the general public like Yahoo Answers, they were still stored on a server belonging to Snapchat. Whether or not they are still backed up on a hard drive somewhere is something I will probably never know the answer to.

My online identity these days is very much centred around Facebook private messaging and Reddit lurking with the occasional public post on both. While I tended to drift away from sites like Bebo, Twitter and Yahoo Answers, I stayed with Facebook and Reddit mainly out of habit. In many ways, it is a shame that I have become an inactive Internet user, but with the Wikibooks platform I can now express my thoughts and ideas with a more realistic knowledge of how online visibility works. As Jaron Lanier advised, “Put effort into using your personal voice outside of the wiki to help attract people who don’t yet realise that they are interested in the topics you contributed to.”^[2] Essentially saying that by being more expressive online encourages people to be more reflective offline, inviting others to discover new interests.

References

1. ↑ Athique, Adrian. "Digitial Media and Society: An Introduction", p.240
2. ↑ Lanier, Jaron. "You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto", p21

-- EmilymDaniel (discuss • contribs) 10:06, 15 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

• Wikibooks is very successful in expanding knowledge and with that can discover new interests, with that, I do think it is important for the user the express their interests in a topic. I forgot about Yahoo answers and too used it a lot. The knowledge from people, who had a profile and ratings felt like a secure place of information although at times they were as clueless as me. The importance of knowing your audience when being online is such an importance factor in the type and strength of your visibility online. Littlekatie1 (discuss • contribs) 02:12, 15 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

@Littlekatie1: I completely agree that it is important to know your audience depending on the platform you use. Yahoo Answers is an informal tool with people asking very silly questions (like this infamous example), whereas like you said, Wikibooks is a more formal platform for users to expand their knowledge with accurate sources. -- EmilymDaniel (discuss • contribs) 09:49, 15 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

• I was never a user of Yahoo Answers; however, I still sometimes visit it to find out if the world wide web users know the answer to my question or, if I have spare time, the silly questions and answers are always a good read. I feel like the concept of collaborative knowledge is similar with Yahoo answers and Wikimedia (although it's a lot easier to troll on Yahoo Answers than on Wikimedia as edits on Wikimedia are scrutinised before they're accepted fully, whereas anyone can answer a question on Yahoo Answers with something silly and it won't always be scrutinised). I think sites that allow for users to collaborate and share their own knowledge are truly beneficial because people can consume new knowledge and share it offline too, but how do you feel about the fact that even if you delete your Yahoo Answer profile, the information you produced will still be left there as a trail that you were there? In a way it's similar to the apparent permanence of edits on Wikibooks, I assume that when we delete an account here our edits on posts still remain too. Also I see you managed to embed your image into your post, would you be able to help me figure out how to do the same? -- Tinytalia (discuss • contribs) 20:53, 15 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

@Tinytalia: Hi Talia, thanks for your feedback. In answer to your question, it does feel a bit strange knowing that some of my thoughts and ideas will always stay on the internet, even if I did delete my Yahoo account. At the time, I didn't really think about it because I was younger and wasn't aware of the future implications. Luckily a lot of the questions I answered were just trivial ones like "What is your favourite book?" and "What are your top 10 films?", so nothing especially personal. I like that you made the comparison between the formality and informality between Wikimedia and Yahoo Answers as it does show that one is much more reliable than the other. In answer to your other question about embedding images, I watched this tutorial on YouTube, but I will quickly go through the steps here:

1. Go to the menu on the left and under Tools click "Upload file".
2. It will then tell you what you can and can't upload to Wikimedia. Click "Next".
3. Click "Select media files to share" and upload your photo. Click "Next".
4. Select "This file is my own work", click "Next".
5. Add information about the photo in the description box, the date the work was uploaded and category.
6. Click "Next" and your photo should be uploaded to the Wikimedia Commons. To find it, either follow this link and search for recent files, or go to Wikimedia Commons and on the left menu under Participate, you will see a link to "Latest Files". It didn't take me too long to find my photo as it came up in the "Newbies" section.
7. In order to embed the file on your own Wikibook, open the page you want to edit and click on the photo icon. Copy and paste the filename (it should be something like File:Image One.png) into the Filename box. Adjust the size/allignment/caption and click "insert".
8. If you want any more information, this help file is a really useful guide for using the Wiki markup to adjust an image.

Hope that helps! -- EmilymDaniel (discuss • contribs) 10:00, 17 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

Good comparison for wiki and Yahoo, Talia! The trail still being there is like it documenting our movements through the internet. Our knowledge is still there which is good but then comes the idea of what is rightfully our. Once we input that information to websites as such-it no longer belongs to us. Littlekatie1 (discuss • contribs) 23:09, 15 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

• I find it interesting how one of your reasons is that you are one year than your peers, particularly as personal a few of my friends are even 7 years older than me (I guess they act a lot younger, however theres still a large age gap!) Your experience being a prime example, I feel like those people who may not have smartphones at all or have very slow ones may feel left out of the social group/ whats going on .. would you agree? I’m a bit of an addict so I know when I had no smartphone I hat3ed it at first, but as soon as I got used to it I loved it, things like Snapchat weren't as important to me as they are when I have my smartphone. Hgfoster (discuss • contribs) 19:34, 16 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

@Hgfoster: Hi there, thank you for your comment. I remember being one of the last of my friend group to get a smart phone, and for a lot of my teenage years I didn't even bother with a phone at all. This might seem like a bit of a 'hipster' statement, but I clearly remember thinking I never want to get addicted to them as I already procrastinated quite a bit. Fast forward to now, and I really struggle to stop myself checking my phone every 5 minutes. I don't know if you've seen this video, but it explains how we have become addicted to our screens in a very engaging way. Going back to your question, I think it's important for people without social media or smart phones to feel included as it's part of human nature to want to belong somewhere. At the same time, it is becoming more and more difficult for them to integrate into a group of people who use Facebook to communicate in a group chat. People without Facebook don't automatically see the various events being put up on the newsfeed and their friends have to invite them to parties/gatherings through a separate medium, meaning they miss out on the collective organisation of the event (i.e. Who is going to bring the food? What drink should I bring? etc). -- EmilymDaniel (discuss • contribs) 10:00, 17 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

• Hey great post EmilymDaniel!

Like you, I rarely post or share on Facebook, so I do agree that I rely on my friend’s content most of the time to keep me engaged with the platform. I guess it’s down to the fear that no one will “like” my posts so I tend to avoid sharing my thoughts. YouTube on the other hand is a place where I can freely post my thoughts and emotions, I feel like it’s easier to comment on YouTube because it’s strangers who see the posts instead of family and friends, so there is no stress of incoming positive or negative judgement. Did you feel this way with Yahoo Answers? Thanks for sharing the steps on how to use embedded images. Shakeygravesbeattie (discuss • contribs) 16:06, 17 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

@Shakeygravesbeattie: Hi, thank you for your feedback! I relate to what you said about the fear of people not liking posts on Facebook, even though it's completely irrational and not the end of the world if it doesn't get any likes. I suppose it sort of goes back to that childhood fear of being seen as unpopular or not fitting in with the crowd. I also find it easier to share thoughts and comments with strangers and Yahoo Answers was the kind of site where people would welcome your ideas. For me, I think the difference is largely to do with Facebook consisting of the people you see offline rather than YouTube or Yahoo Answers where it tends to be an avatar with a nickname and probably someone you'll never meet. I'm glad the embedding images steps were helpful :) -- EmilymDaniel (discuss • contribs) 23:02, 17 February 2017 (UTC)Reply

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It's astounding how far technology has come in such a short space of time. I remember when the first iPhone was announced in 2007 and being amazed that it had no buttons, only a futuristic looking touch screen. Now, smart phones are ubiquitous. Instead of being the odd one out for having the cool, new smart phone, you are now seen as the outsider if you don’t own one. The term ‘smartphone’ essentially refers to a device which allows the user continuous connection to the global network.

This ‘always-on’ culture that has developed since the mid 2000s has led to people having to adapt the distribution of their time. It's an area of study which is of interest to both danah boyd and Sherry Turkle who explore the ways in which we are ‘tethered’ to the technology we consume. There's so much information readily available on the Internet that to someone who perhaps hadn’t grown up and evolved with the transition would find utterly overwhelming. boyd argues that many have evolved with the technology and found a balance between being online and offline depending on different social contexts.^[1] Personally, I am able to put my phone away when I'm at the cinema, having a meal with friends or when I need to do some work. I know for others it's sometimes harder to ‘switch off’, and being glued to a phone is sometimes labelled as an addiction. Yet boyd disputes this notion. She says that it's natural for humans to be interested and passionate in one another and that it's easy to get distracted from somewhat mundane tasks by checking our phones.^[2] Arguably, this could be because when we receive messages from friends and develop a flow of conversation online, it's a faster form of gratification compared to writing an essay.

Turkle argues that technology offers new possibilities for experimenting with identity and that our Facebook profiles are often a fantasy of who we want to be.^[3] Like boyd, Turkle argues that reality and virtuality distinctions have become blurred. If I define the abundance of information on the Internet as a ‘bombardment’ or an ‘onslaught’, the experience becomes distorted by having negative connotations. Instead, I look at the Internet as an advanced version of a library with many shortcuts towards gaining knowledge and understanding the world.

The way I attempt to overcome distractions is to set myself mini-deadlines followed by rewards, such as “finish reading this chapter before noon, then get a cup of tea”, or “finish this Wiki Exercise, then watch Star Trek”. boyd states that “the online is always just around the corner”,^[4] so in order to prevent myself from getting distracted, I put my phone out of reach and activate airplane mode. This is to prevent me from getting tempted by the notification sounds. It works in theory, but as the timestamp for this exercise will indicate, distractions come in many forms such as conversations with flatmates (Tinytalia and I got talking about ducks somehow) or the promise of food. As boyd notes, “there’s no formula for embracing always on practices”,^[5] in other words, there is no correct way to navigate the blurred boundaries between online and offline engagement.

In relation to the Wikibook Project, I believe I am managing my time well so far. After being assigned the topic of Privacy in a Digital Age, I spent the first week reading up on the etymology and distinctions between public and private in A Private Sphere.^[6] Since today’s lab session, my group have allocated which topics we’d like to cover and which individual in each sub-group would like to do. I believe environment plays a key role in how productive I am. When I was in the lab today, I found myself concentrating on the task and working hard. Once I got back home however, I found myself getting distracted and being less productive. Therefore, in order to improve the workflow towards this Wikibook Project, I may have to change my surroundings and work in the library where there are minimal distractions. For the final week, my group will start writing each section and begin piecing the book together while working collectively. There is a lot of information we have to get through, so it's important that we really focus in the next week.

References

1. ↑ boyd, danah. "Participating in an Always-on Lifestyle", in The Social Media Reader, p72
2. ↑ boyd, danah. "Participating in an Always-on Lifestyle", in The Social Media Reader, p73
3. ↑ Turkle, Sherry. "Always on", in Alone Together, p152
4. ↑ boyd, danah. "Participating in an Always-on Lifestyle", in The Social Media Reader, p71
5. ↑ boyd, danah. "Participating in an Always-on Lifestyle", in The Social Media Reader, p74
6. ↑ Papacharissi, Zizi A. "Public and Private Expression in Contemporary Democracies", in A Private Sphere, p26

--EmilymDaniel (discuss • contribs) 00:32, 1 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

• @EmilymDaniel: I must admit I am definitely one to always be engrossed in my phone or laptop, checking messages from people on Facebook and such. I'm not so bad that I would call it an addiction but I know that sometimes I can become so engrossed that I zone out from the world around me and miss parts of conversations that people are having beside me. I have found it beneficial to put my phone aside at times and shut off from social media for a few hours a day, though. Sometimes I leave my phone at home when I go out with my family or if I pop to the shops and I get to really take in the world that I've been missing when I've had my head in my hands and it really feels refreshing to do! I also agree that if I'm going to the cinema or having a meal with friends or family it's important to put all gadgets to the side and enjoy, what seems to be fast becoming an outdated form of communication, actually conversing face to face with spoken language with the people sitting in front of us. I think it's impressive how far technology has advanced in enabling us to be able to communicate without ever actually having to open our mouths, but it is also a shame that nowadays people spend less time talking to each other and more time tweeting each other or tagging each other in memes on Facebook (don't get me wrong, I love a good meme, but the art of conversation feels like it's becoming extent the more advanced technology gets). I've noticed that I can have a really long-winded conversation via text or private messages with people and then when it comes to sitting with them and actually talking face to face it feels stunted and awkward on either end. Have you felt like you've been in similar situations at all? -Tinytalia (discuss • contribs) 19:06, 1 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

@Tinytalia: Thanks for your comment, I like what you said about face to face conversations becoming a somewhat outdated form of communication, but communication without opening our mouths has been going on for centuries with letter writing and postcards so I think the key factor which emphasises the shift would be speed. With faster communication, we've had faster progress (scientific breakthroughs, University collaborations etc.), so with the development of social media, we're able to get instant responses from people all over the world.

In response to your question, I message my cousin in Portugal with a lot of long-winded conversations and anecdotes, but when we're together in real life we're just the same. We often converse out loud with the abbreviations we use in our messages and have developed this weird other language that really blurs the line between the online and offline divide. Many of the words we use are often accidental autocorrected versions of the word (we call them Freudian slips and curse Freud when this happens) which then become part of our everyday language both in real life and on Facebook.

Therefore, I think for me it does depend on the person if it's more awkward in real life than online, but overall I think I'm better at communicating my ideas through text rather than face to face as I have more time to think and organise my ideas. On the other hand, I much prefer real life interaction, in particular with my cousin as we don't get to see each other as often as we'd like. And I agree, I like a good meme too. They can be a bit too addictive sometimes, but they are good fun. EmilymDaniel (discuss • contribs) 23:20, 1 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

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Before the WIkibooks project, I tended to view the Internet as just a source of entertainment containing a barrage of ridiculous memes with the odd bit of educational information thrown in. With the creation of Lolcats, it seems we haven’t exactly moved on from our fascination with the animals since the Ancient Egyptians worshipped them. But having completed the Wikibook chapter, I have found myself contributing more online, posting comments on Reddit and taking part in discussions rather than just lurking. The following sections will outline the successes and challenges of the WIkibook process.

There are two key benefits to the Wikibooks platform. Firstly, it’s an open source of information meaning anyone can access it and enhance their knowledge. Secondly, as the books are digital, they can be updated and added to by anyone at any time, meaning the information is always current. While it's an excellent platform to display information, there is still the negative stigma that Wikipedia is not an accurate source of information. Yet, the collaborative nature of the Wikibooks project is fascinating as there are loads of people all over the world working to produce an educational tool, which forms the phenomenon of collective intelligence. Pierre Lévy emphasises the importance of this style of research in the modern age for "the enrichment of individuals".^[1]

Regarding my personal collaboration with Wikibooks, I often asked questions on the big discussion page only for them to be ignored or not followed up. The only way I could get another group to reply was to directly ping the other members. While this drawback is arguably frustrating, it indicates that the Wikibook platform is not entirely ideal for group discussion. On the chapter discussion page, a lot of questions got lost in a sea of text which made it hard to keep track of who was doing what. Within my own group ‘TEKnology’, we had discussions outside of the talk page of Wikibooks through Facebook Messenger and a Google Doc. Messenger was used as an informal way to get quick replies to simple questions while the Google Doc was used to post our ideas and proof read each other’s work, making sure it flowed with our concepts and that nothing overlapped before posting it to the chapter. We only met up face to face once during the final computer lab where we discussed which ideas we wanted to talk about and what our overarching topic would be. It was much easier to communicate with these faster methods as Wikibooks does not have push notifications and it was simpler to use instant messaging to get quick answers to questions. There was also the barrier of formality; these discussion pages are viewable to anyone so the language was kept relatively formal, whereas Messenger allowed a degree of freedom (and we didn't have to keep writing out {{ping|Tinytalia}} every time we wanted to ask a question).

We did have a group discussion sub topic on the discussion page, but the general appearance made it hard to see new questions or answers to old questions. I often missed some of the group’s discussions for several hours which led to delayed and arguably incoherent responses. However, one of the key concepts I learnt on this module was the idea of being ‘Always-on’. Outlined by danah boyd, the concept is one that a number of people have a vague notion about, but since reading her chapter (name), it really highlighted just how often we spend looking at screens and how we’re “tethered” to the global network. Therefore, it was often a welcome break to be working on Wikibooks rather than scrolling through social media and passively taking in information, instead actively contributing information to the platform, albeit in a somewhat arduous way. While these challenges were often problematic in advancing our research, there were a number of positive outcomes regarding collaboration. When reading other people’s Wiki Exercises, it was interesting because I could see how we all approached the questions in different ways with different insight and examples. The Wiki markup was somewhat confusing at first, once I got to grips with the basics, it became almost second nature to format text and I found myself looking for more creative ways to display information on the page with tables and images.

This project has taught me a lot about the discourses of online privacy, especially in relation to Zizi Papacharissi's research where public and private spheres are constantly shifting to the point where there may no longer be complete privacy any more. I put out a survey on Facebook for people to fill out which asked questions about their social media usage in relation to privacy. One of the comments I got back was "Your survey is shit". It was interesting because the survey software I used SurveyMonkey) allowed me to see the IP addresses of everyone who took part. So I could pinpoint the location of the person who dissed my survey and go egg their house if I wanted to. It really highlighted the notion of online disinhibition, a concept which is very heavily focused on in the Black Mirror episode Hated in the Nation.

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• Hi @Koavf:, would you be able to give me a hand with linking Wikibook articles? I've been able to link Wikipedia articles with the format 'Plato', but when I try to do the same with Wikibooks, I always get a red link and a message saying the article doesn't exist. Any ideas on where I'm going wrong?

Thanks for your time!

P.S. Is there also a way to demonstrate the Wiki markup without it being displayed on the actual page?

EmilymDaniel (discuss • contribs) 19:59, 2 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

@No problem. First off, to display the code in a comment without turning it into a link, using this format:

<nowiki>[[example]]</nowiki>

Note that the example above is in those nowiki tags itself--look at the code of this page to see it!

So if you want to make a link to Wikipedia, you can always do the format:

[[wikipedia:Emily]] or [[w:Emily]]

To link to a different language edition of Wikipedia:

[[w:es:Emily]] (this example is for Spanish: Chinese is zh, French is fr, German is de, etc.)

I looked at a couple of your edits and didn't immediately see any problems but if you have a specific example of something giving you any issues, don't hesitate to ask. Also, let me say the Wikibook that you are working on is vital. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:59, 2 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

Hello Koavf, thank you for your reply. In the Wiki Exercise #3, I tried to link the Wikibook I'm working on (Privacy in a Digital Age) through an interlink rather than it coming up as an external link.

I've tried formatting it like Privacy in a Digital Age which doesn't seem to work.

And thank you for your comment, it's been very interesting working on this Wikibook EmilymDaniel (discuss • contribs) 21:21, 2 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

Ah. There is the problem. You should not write [[wikibooks:Living in a Connected World/Privacy in a Digital Age|Privacy in a Digital Age]] but just [[Privacy in a Digital Age]] (like this Privacy in a Digital Age. If you are on Wikibooks, you don't need these Wikibooks prefixes. If we were on Wikipedia and wanted to link here, we would have to use [[wikibooks:Living in a Connected World/Privacy in a Digital Age|Privacy in a Digital Age]] (or use b for wikibooks). Please let me know what else I can do for you. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:40, 2 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

Ah, that makes sense, thank you very much, I probably should have read the help page in more detail. Thanks again for all your help!

EmilymDaniel (discuss • contribs) 22:13, 2 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

• @EmilymDaniel: Thank you for posting this,Emily. I was wondering how to do this, also. Very useful. Littlekatie1 (discuss • contribs) 01:27, 3 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

No worries Littlekatie1, I was wondering for ages how I was formatting it wrong, but it tends to be the simple solutions to the problems like these. EmilymDaniel (discuss • contribs) 09:59, 3 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

• @GregXenon01: Hi Greg, I just have a question about the formality of the Wikibook. Should we avoid contractions and informal language? On Wikipedia, the articles tend to be neutral, are we allowed to be biased on the Wikibook? For example, could I say "The Facebook privacy settings page looks shady" or should I avoid statements like that? I checked the module guide, and it said to generate critical commentary, would that be similar to an essay format?

Apologies if you've already covered this in the labs, just wanted to doubled check. Thanks! EmilymDaniel (discuss • contribs) 18:11, 3 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

@EmilymDaniel:: Hi Emily - just to follow up our previous conversation. Checking for bias is a really important element in any essay-type exercises such as this. However, you can be critical - that is to say, you may included arguements supported through reference to theoretical material, as well as evidence from existing debates. In Addition, you could improve a statement like "The Facebook privacy settings page looks shady" very easily through thinking about how that might be communicated. The kinds of privacy (consumer-user choice within a framework not of their choosing)involved invite criticism. "Shady" is a little descriptive, and probably don't add to arguments that interrogate privacy issues on FB. Hope that makes sense. GregXenon01 (discuss • contribs) 15:44, 7 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

That's very helpful, thanks GregXenon01. I'll have a read through my sections now to double check they're not too shady. EmilymDaniel (discuss • contribs) 15:56, 7 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

Hello @Koavf:, sorry to bother you again, I was wondering if you could help me with centering these "Rquotes". Say I wanted to put this quote in...

...is it then possible to put it in the middle of the page? I tried swapping "left" for "centre", but I'm not sure how to then place it in the middle. Thank you! EmilymDaniel (discuss • contribs) 23:53, 6 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

It looks like this template doesn't have centering functionality. Template:Cquote is made for centered quotes. (Which, by the way, we should not have two identical templates for the same functionality but that's another issue...) —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 00:01, 7 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

@Koavf: Thank you for the speedy reply Justin, that's very helpful. I had a quick look at the template help page but couldn't find anything at first glance so thought I'd check with you. Cheers again - EmilymDaniel (discuss • contribs) 00:05, 7 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

Also, you can center normal text like this {{center|Stuff}}. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 00:30, 7 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

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This section will outline some the things I have learnt over the course of the last few weeks, special thanks to Koavf for his patience and help. There are a lot of tutorials and help pages (here's a direct link to the Wikipedia guide), but it does help having someone to demonstrate how to do something.

I found out through the Wikipedia Tea House how to link other users without actually pinging them (essentially removing the '@' sign). For example, rather than this format - [[ping|EmilymDaniel]] by changing the word 'ping' to the letter 'u', it now shows up with just the username like so - [[u|EmilymDaniel]]. @EmilymDaniel: and EmilymDaniel will send the user a notification.

I learnt how to ping other users through my classmate Tinytalia who asked via the Wikibooks Reading Room. Here is a direct link to her question.

In order to link users without sending them a notification, you can use, so just exchanging 'ping' or 'u' with 'noping' instead. It will come up like this - EmilymDaniel.

To display the Wiki markup on a page without the code turning into the designated format, you just need to use this format:

<nowiki>[[example]]</nowiki>

There is a more in depth explanation in the General Queries section of my user page from Koavf. The benefit of this code is that it allows users to demonstrate Wiki Markup on the page directly, rather than the user having to go into the editing section to see the code itself.

Another way of displaying code without it coming up like that on the page is this way [[<code>[text]</code>]] which presents the text like so:

example

This format is often more desirable as it helps the code stand out. It uses the same font as the editing box too.

Again, Koavf helped with this, and there is more information in the General Queries section. The following table shows the Wiki Markup for:

• External links
• Links within the Wikibook
• Links to specific sections on a Wikibooks page
• Links to pages on Wikipedia

For more help on how to interwiki link with other Wikimedia sites (such as Wiktionary and Wikinews), this page has a very helpful table which displays the different codes for each site.

I made a quick guide on this page in response to a comment, but I will copy and paste it here to make it easier:

1. Go to the Wikimedia main page, then navigate to the menu on the left and under Tools click "Upload file".
2. It will then tell you what you can and can't upload to Wikimedia. Click "Next".
3. Click "Select media files to share" and upload your photo. Click "Next".
4. Select "This file is my own work", click "Next".
5. Add information about the photo in the description box, the date the work was uploaded and category.
6. Click "Next" and your photo should be uploaded to the Wikimedia Commons. To find it, either follow this link and search for recent files, or go to Wikimedia Commons and on the left menu under Participate, you will see a link to "Latest Files". It didn't take me too long to find my photo as it came up in the "Newbies" section.
7. In order to embed the file on your own Wikibook, open the page you want to edit and click on the photo icon. Copy and paste the filename (it should be something like File:Image One.png) into the Filename box. Adjust the size/allignment/caption and click "insert".

Just to add to this guide, you can also find the filename of the picture you have just uploaded on the 'upload complete' page.

I had a bit of trouble with references at first, but it turned out I just hadn't closed the </ref> at the end. Here's a link to my query on the Reading Room.

So it's just:

<ref>Author Last Name, Author First Name. ''Title of Book'', p. 0</ref>

Followed by more text on the rest of the page, and at the end add a heading dedicated to references and simply put this code in:

<references />

I found this on the Wikibooks Help page, but I will quickly go through the formula here. Copy and paste this code:

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Header text !! Header text !! Header text
|-
| Example || Example || Example
|-
| Example || Example || Example
|-
| Example || Example || Example
|}

To include more sections, add || for rows or |- for columns. To include less sections, simply delete the same code. You can also insert a table via the editing panel by clicking Advanced, go to Insert and click on the table icon.

In order to display a message box (like the one at the top of this page), you start with:

{{ Message box|heading = '''Heading title'''

then after typing the title of the heading, add:

|message = '''Rest of the message...'''}}

If you're still having trouble (like I was for ages), you can go into the edit section of this page and copy and paste the code and change the text.

In order to place an info box for an individual, copy and paste the following code and fill in each section. Note, if you don't fill in a section (for example death date), it won't come up as an empty section on the actual page.

{{Infobox person
| name = 
| image =    
| image_size =     
| caption =
| birth_place =  
| death_date = 
| death_place = 
| education = 
| occupation =     
| nationality =  
| notable_works = 
| residence = 
}}

In order to display images in a gallery format, simply copy and past the following code and change the "exampleimage.jpg" text to the filenames of the images you want instead. Note that you can also add captions.

<gallery>
File:exampleimage.jpg|Image 1
File:exampleimage.jpg|
File:exampleimage.jpg|
File:exampleimage.jpg|
File:exampleimage.jpg|
</gallery>

EmilymDaniel (discuss • contribs) 14:59, 7 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

I asked Corrie Wheeler from the social media marketing company Gumption to see if she had any insight on Facebook's marketing operations. Corrie has hands-on knowledge of Facebook advertising and she provided me with some really useful information which can be applied to the Wikibook.

• 
  Click to enlarge
• 
• 
• 

She also notes other advertising strategies include the use of Facebook Pixel, which is a piece of code added to shopping websites like RedBubble and Amazon. This code remembers what pages and products you looked at and can feature them in a Facebook ad targeted specifically at you.

As I am working on the Wikibook chapter about privacy, this information about how specific Facebook's advertising can target users is really beneficial. It really does highlight just how much Facebook knows. EmilymDaniel (discuss • contribs) 09:31, 8 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

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1. ↑ Pierre