Tomkins,+Reflection

=Contributions=

My contributions to the course's Wiki have focused on the technical, rather than cultural aspects of the course. I have, for example, contributed code examples and technical clarifications to a variety of topics. I’ve also tried to maintain cleanliness and consistent Wiki formatting. My main contribution to this Wiki Space was on Podcasting. Podcasting is a term meaning to publish media files online, such as: music, movies and tv shows.

=Analysis=

I noticed throughout the experience that once an opinion is formed, contributors are extremely attached to their own contributions. In a larger environment - such as a fully-fledged 'Wikipedia'-style repository - this can degenerate into 'edit-wars'; luckily, this environment is poorly suited to such petty vandalism.

The amount of content we were able to generate in such a short period of time is substantial - especially since many contributors have never used a Wiki before. In addition to everyone contributing their own ideas and opinions, we were able to quickly review others' work and correct or clarify their points. A significant advantage I found with this smaller-scale Wiki was familiarity with other contributors: if ideas disagree, the contributors can easily seek each other out to discuss the situation. I found it was much more beneficial to discuss any difference of opinion. Sadly, this impacted the number of edits I preformed, since the other party usually quickly edited their contribution.

The lack of anonymity in the system is a double-edged sword as people might be afraid to sign their names to their opinions. This increase in accountability also helps prevent issues such as plagiarism or citing bogus sources.

Even though there are so many benefits to a private collaboration environment, the most crippling thing is that niche articles receive either little or no benefit from the multiple editors. If a topic is so obscure that only one person has any authority on the matter, how can others hope to improve the information? What if the original author has some sort of bias on the topic? Readers have no choice but to accept the information as fact until another knowledgeable person comes along and edits it. If that ever happens, the bias that was already introduced could cause edits which are detrimental to the truth of the matter. To verify each and every individual opinion would quickly degrade into being a full-time job (fact-checker?)

=Suggestions=

I would love a little more power over the layout or style of content I've written. For example, the code tag is fantastic, but I couldn't find a way to add whitespace to XML code (makes it slightly messy). And when trying to insert and source an image, the WikiMedia Foundation's code allows such wonderful things as captions or alignment. I understand (from the wikispaces help index) that it's in production, but it would have helped. Maybe taking advantage of other open-sourced software would help showcase the benefits of online collaborative work? ... And maybe speed development?