Analysis_Reflection_Russell_Grigg_-_993188867

=My Contributions=

Using Wikispaces, I focused on two contributions: a page on Line 6 Technology, and I attempted to imply a ‘Wiki-wide’ format for the Wikis that people were leaving.

With the Line 6 Company, I have been increasingly interested in the work they’ve been involved with, and when I got this assignment I thought they exemplified Digital Innovation and Cultural Transformation perfectly. Clearly, after reading the Wiki, their digital contribution comes in the form of their commercial products. The cultural transformation they’ve created – sharing amplifier tones through the internet – almost a guitarist’s heaven.

As I started Wiki-ing half way into this semester, I looked to see what other people had done before I added any material. What I saw was a number of Wikis that were a little more than stubs, but they all needed structure. Some people copied and pasted their information straight from the word document they saved on their computer at home and there wasn’t any navigation or style to aid a user in obtaining information on these pages. So I tried to employ a novel-type format for all of these Wikis. The steps I undertook to implement this is as follows:
 * In class, Professor Jones taught us all how to create a Table of Contents that tracked the Headings a user placed in the body of the Wiki. Going over the class’s submissions, I tried to have the Table of Contents as the first thing on the Wikis.
 * I also saw people putting their topic title on top of their submissions as well; so I would see “eBay” on the navigational Table of Contents, and then “eBay, eBay” on the actual Wiki. I did my best to reduce the occurrence of this redundancy.
 * Some people needed help with their headings too. Heading 1 looks similar to Heading 2, and some people had these two features used in place of one another. I also made practice of underlining every Heading 1 (just a little something my grade two teacher taught me to do).
 * With the MLA format, a Works Cited page is required at the end of a document, on a separate page. I tried to simulate this ‘separate page’ by implementing a line between the Wiki’s information and the Works Cited section. I also tried to make an image subsection of Works Cited sections to appear on the Wiki’s Table of Contents.

The aforementioned uses of “try” and “tried” are just that. As the due date approached, more and more Wikis popped up on the Wikispace, and I could not devote my time to going over each and ever submission; although I *did* try. My first attempt, a week and a half ago, I formatted the Wikis A through J. My second attempt, three nights ago, I formatted Wikis T through Z.

=My Suggestions=

While I was doing my second round of formatting, I noticed also that a certain two users were undoing my ‘work’ and formatting Wikis to another ‘style’. With this in mind, I would recommend to any Wiki user to consult the ‘History’ of updates any particular Wiki has undergone before altering its content/format. Stemming from that idea, I think any particular Wiki should have an overtly blatant format/style guide, for consistency’s sake, and readability.

On a more positive note, I also suggest to students to fill Wikipedia with the material that they've created, if the information isn't on there already.