What's a Wiki?

Intro 

This week in my English class, individually each of us created a wiki page on our class canvas, then we were supposed to go through and edit and link ours to others. A wiki page is an informative page that allows for collaborative discussion, users can create, edit, and delete information on an interlinked page. In an article about wiki pages, the author Zach LeBar mentions that because of the collaborative editing that wikis allow for, they are very different to other types of websites, but it is extremely powerful to utilize. As a normal consumer of media, you most likely have never created your own wiki page before, neither had I until this assignment, but you can recognize that a common wiki is Wikipedia. While the collaborative editing for wikis is powerful in every sense of the word, it has led to Wikipedia having a poor reputation as an uncredible source due to the free editing nature of these pages. For my class, we were not required but strongly encouraged to create a wiki based on an assigned article that we had to present on. This meant that you would automatically have links to those in your group and then would only need to search for a few more wikis that had content that correlated to your own.

The Assignment

When we first created our wiki pages we were required to link outside sources to the page, and so I linked a few different social media apps when I was giving analysis on the image I included. I also linked to the article that I was assigned and then wrote my wiki on, I had chapter 8 of A Better Pencil by Dennis Barron which led me to my topic. I wrote about digital communication and how it has become so ingrained in society that we rely heavily on it, as well as the advancements that can be seen in the industry. For the second part of our assignment, we had to link our own page to four others and then edit our own and link another page to our own. Out of the four I linked my own page to, some were coherent enough that I felt comfortable just linking my page to a word or phrase. With others I felt that my editing would help to make their page sound more professional, and it allowed for a better place for my page to link in. The first page I linked my own to had been about email and written by Angelique, she was a part of my group and I linked to the phrase “communicating digitally” as I felt that it would provide benefit in giving the reader more information about different types of communication. The second linked page had been by Emma and about instant messaging, she was also in my group, so I felt it was easy to link to “digital communication” when she was speaking about how IM is a form of digital communication that Baron writes about in the chapter.

When I linked to Faiths, I decided to also provide some editing to a paragraph in order to find a better space to link and to give more information. She had originally written “This study helped show that access to technology not only helps students with their education, but is almost required for our future. With more and more things moving to the digital world, it's essential to equip our students with the proper tools to succeed.” Which I edited to say, “This study helped show that access to technology not only helps students with their education but is almost required for our future. As there are an increasing number of processes, from communication to work and personal life related tasks moving to the digital world, it's essential to equip our students with the proper tools to succeed.” Then I linked to the word communication. The last page I linked to, which was by Audrey and about blogs, I decided to edit slightly to once again, help it seem more professional and have a nicer spot to link to. She had originally said, “There are lots of benefits to blogs, such as. These benefits help people explore their writing voice and be able to tell their story. There are also many types of blogs like expressive blogs, business blogs, travel blogs, news blogs, niche blogs, pretty much anything you can think of. We have talked a lot about blogs in class, as well as making our own, I do not like making a blog just because of the fact other people can see it. If blogs where more private I think a lot more people would partake in creating them.” Which I altered into saying “There are numerous benefits to blogs which can be seen in the linked article here. These benefits help people explore their writing voice and be able to tell their story to anyone who stumbles across the blog due to their digital nature as a form of communication. There are also many types of blogs like expressive blogs, business blogs, travel blogs, news blogs, niche blogs, pretty much anything you can think of. We have talked a lot about blogs in class, as well as making our own, I do not like making a blog just because of the fact other people can see it. If blogs were more private, I think a lot more people would partake in creating them.” I linked to the phrase “digital nature as a form of communication” as I believe that it would provide additional background into how people telling their story gets across.

To my own page I decided to link Tara’s wiki about the impacts of online writing into my page as I felt that it could provide additional understanding about what comes from online writing and why it is so popular. I linked her article to the phrase “casual or professional” in my wiki because she writes about social media which would be a casual form of communication and email which would be professional.

Another portion of the assignment was starting at a single page and clicking on links, just as you would do on Wikipedia. For simplicity’s sake I started at my own page, and then clicked on the linked phrase “social media” which took me to Katelyn’s page about social media and the different uses of the different platforms as they portray different messages. From her page I clicked on the linked phrase “We are creating and journaling our days” which brough me to Tara’s page about the impacts that online writing has as well as the different types of online writing, like social media and email. From her page I clicked on “Now we have websites where anyone can publish a book and make it available” bringing me to Daija’s page about the e-reader device kindle. In her page she mentions the convenience that an online reading device brings and how it is more cost effective in the long run. Her page only had one internal link which was “social media” and it brought me back to Tara’s, so I clicked on “instant messaging” this time and it brought me to Emma’s wiki about instant messaging such as WhatsApp and Skype. In her wiki she mentions how Baron mentions the point that IM allowed for more freedom in comparison to things such as email, so I clicked on that link. Bringing me to Angelique’s page about email and how we rely on this platform in order to communicate with others quickly and to end my rabbit hole game, I clicked on “communicating digitally” which brought me back to my own page, completing a loop.

Reflection

Overall, this process was very informative as I learned what it is like to go in and edit other people’s work without their consent and had the same thing done to my own page. It feels strange to see where people had decided to edit phrases or add sentences, especially if I disagree with the placement. An individual added a sentence to mine in order to have a spot to link their own wiki, but I don’t feel that the sentence added to my overall paragraph while the edits that I made had and it is a strange feeling to confront. I find this type of collaboration interesting in comparison to group work where normally each person takes a part and doesn’t intervene with the other parts but here you were. In addition, while this was an individual assignment, my assigned group and I still had done some level of collaboration as we talked about which portion of our assigned paper we wanted to focus on and where we would be able to link to one another easily. 

Citation

LeBar, Zach. “What Are Wikis? How Are They Different from Knowledge Bases?: Envato Tuts+.” Business Envato Tuts+, Envato Tuts, 2 Feb. 2024, business.tutsplus.com/tutorials/what-are-wikis-and-why-should-you-use-them--cms-19540. 

My Wiki Page