gunter

Richard Gunter


__Contributions__ Nov 2 - started the MMORPG page, and added in a section of text about the history and defintion Nov 5 - took two images for the MMORPG page and edited/cropped them Nov 23 - consolidated two MMORPG pages into one, created the banner for the MMORPG page Nov 23 - made the banner for the Role-Playing Game page, also added a list of well-known RPG's

Reflection #1

This is my first time using a Wikispaces website and it has proven to be an interesting experiment so far. I really like the whole community vibe the website gives off, especially in the topics that a lot of people have participated in. I definately like how you can view a history of each page and see who has edited what.

Hopefully I can get enough content up on this site that will prompt someone to edit and/or add to the stuff I have put on here. I really like the idea of a community developed knowledge base. It's interesting how it works with very little rules, yet things manage to stay fairly organized because the community as a whole wants to see the wiki succeed. This kind of thing is definately evident with //Wikipedia,// I remember only a couple years ago it was conisdered very, very bad to use it for researching things and now it is recognized as one of the easiest, and often times, most accurate sources of information.

Reflection #2

I find that the easiest way to figure out what to contribute and where to is to contribute things that you are interested in. For example, I don't really know anything about emo music, nor do I care to find out about anything to do with emo music, so I choose to stay out of that topic because anything I add would only be hampering anything on that page. It's much easier to stick to something you are interested in and either know a lot about already, or you are interested in the subject and would like to research it some more in order to add something positive to the page. It's also a good idea to find a page that doesn't have too much information on it already. I mean, sure, you can choose to add something to a page that someone has already written 5000 words about the topic, but it will be quite difficult to add something they haven't already mentioned. Conversely, if you find a page that doesn't have enough information and you think you could add something to make it better its much easier to get that information in there. I find that images really help to solidify a page. If I open up a webpage, whether it be an external site, or a page on wikispaces and I see a huge block of text filling up the page it is really, really discouraging. The great thing about the web is its flexibilty; whether that be with images, videos, sounds or links to external sources. And, like the saying goes, "a picture is worth a thousand words."

I like the idea of adding to other peoples pages. It gives the website a felling of community and togetherness. "Community" is a word that the profs have used countless times to describe the wiki, and it applies, but I feel like it needs more explanation. With the additions, subtractions, re-arrangments and comments on the wikispaces it really feels like an evolving and living space. The discussions that can arise from a topic like "The Console Wars" are really great, and while we are adding all this information in order to inform people, we can also have discussions on different viewpoints and the like. Of course there are always going to be pride issues. I know if I spent hours upon hours working on a page and someone came along and felt that they needed to change everything of mine I wouldn't be too pleased (especially if what they added was subpar), but luckily that hasn't happened to me yet. However, the openness of the wiki doesn't really allow for subpar information to be up for too long. If something is incorrect, or doesn't contain enough information it isn't long before someone else comes along and changes it.

I do check to see if anyone has changed what I had added onto wikispaces, however I haven't had the opportunity of someone changing my pages as of yet, but I don't think it would be a huge deal. Different people have different ideas of how things should sound or look and a second opinion is always good. Hopefully, if the person does take the time to change what I have written it would mean that they have put in as much thought and effort as I had, so that it would all sound good together as a piece and not look like two people took two pieces of information and just slapped them together.

Reflection #3

The main challenge when working collaboratively with someone on the wiki is communication. I found it hard to communicate with others given the limited features of the wiki. For example, I had noticed that someone else had started a MMORPG page under a different listing than mine with different information within the page. So I tried my best to contact them and let them know I had changed it and combined the two pages under one, but I am not sure if he noticed what I did. Although, I have now just noticed a mail feature which I hadn't know about until a couple days ago (maybe they just added it?) Regardless, that was the main challenge with working as a group on a wiki. I have also still not had anyone edit my work, which I would have really liked to experience. I left my MMORPG page semi-unfinished for quite some time to see if anyone would add to it, but I guess it wasn't a very popular subject and so I added in what I felt was appropriate to finish it off. I really feel like the wiki is a great place to have an open area for the class to discuss a wide variety of topics. Whether or not it is academic really doesn't matter, it's the communication and community that it builds that is so great. I think that there were some great discussions that occurred on the wiki and a lot of the content on here is really great.

I really liked the major project we had to do in the class. I think it really turned out great and a lot of groups came up with some very original and interesting stuff. The only suggestion I can think of for improving the class isn't geared so much towards the content or structure, but I would have really liked some more marks prior to going into the final test. Knowing what I had gotten on only the analysis really made me freak out for the test because I had no idea how well or poorly I was doing in the class.