Reflective Paper
The wiki project was both educational and challenging. The wiki format gave
us the creativity to design a page that can easily be edited by anyone in the group.
This is beneficial but also creates some challenges. There were challenges in
medium, layout, and content. The wiki project helped to understand how important
it is to organize information before taking action. Before this project, I never knew
that wikis existed. Although I was familiar with Wikipedia, I did not know it is a
wiki. The name of our wiki project is called Hyperpedia (The Web Wiki) and is
created using Wikia.
I learned a lot from the content of our wiki. It helped me to understand the
foundations of the web as well as the future of the World Wide Web. I learned
about current issues and that there are problems that we don’t even know exist yet.
I learned how your past searches effect your current results. This may result in
limited information being displayed to a user. This is scary to me because a
computer “decides” what information I am looking for, when in fact; I may be
searching for something completely different. This might mean information is not
being displayed to me, although it is there and is being displayed to someone else.
I can see how a wiki is an effective way to communicate information. It
organizes and structures information in a way that is easy to navigate. New
information can be added to a wiki by adding new subsections or by creating new
pages. This is beneficial because, unlike a research paper, there is no strict layout.
The information can be broken down however the creators and editors decide is the
best way. There are links in a wiki that will conect pieces of information within a
wiki. This helps to make sections as straight forward as possible. Links within a
paragraph should guide a user to more specific information if he or she desires. I
believe that wikis are a good way to organize information by breaking it down into
the smallest possible subsection. This created an issue when trying to decide on the
overall layout of the wiki.
Because we were not completely familiar with each topic presented in the
wiki outline, it was difficult to decide what information would be relevant and what
the sections on each page should be. We started with a basic outline to show how
we would relate generic information and then we added subsections within pages as
we developed the wiki. I found that beginning the wiki required a vision and an
outline. As the wiki develops, new connections are made and information can build
exponentially. The interactivity allowed all members to add, remove, or edit
information. This was like having 5 personal editors with which you could verify,
correct, and collaborate information. I can see why wikis may not be considered a
good source of information. Anyone with the ability to edit a page can do so with
whatever information they decide. It will remain with that information, whether it
is correct or not, until another edit is done by that person or another person. At any
moment, the information on a Wiki may change. This is another reason why wikis
should be built with factual information. Wikis are not a good place for opinions.
Personal opinions should be left to websites and other outlets that are more
controlled than a wiki.
For our team, it was important to decide on a leader. This helped us to
minimize issues with medium and layout. After the decision was made to use Wikia
as the wiki host, we nominated a leader who chose a color scheme and layout design
that we all agreed on. This helped to have a consistent, easily readable format
throughout the whole wiki. Formatting is important for readability to the user.
When a person gets accustomed to viewing information a certain way, it is
important to remain consistent so users do not lose interest or become frustrated.
Wikia is not the easiest application to use. When the wiki pages would get
edited, it would sometimes take a full day to show the changes. This made it difficult
to make changes. There was an instance where the page never updated. When I
would hit the “edit” button it would show the edited version, but it never showed up
in the “published” page. To solve the issue, we created a new page and deleted the
broken page. I am still not sure what the issue was. Another issue with Wikia is two
users cannot simultaneously edit the same page. Unlike Google Drive that shows
edits in real time, Wikia publishes all the edits at once with the click of a button.
With Wikia it is important that only one person is editing a page at once. This might
create an issue if many users edit the wiki. In the future, I would research different
wiki host sites to determine the best one for the task at hand.
Every member of my group played a role in completing the wiki. Ryan is the
person who is responsible with creating the format and layout of our wiki. He took
the time to add more pictures and make the wiki visually appealing. He also
completed a portion of the writing. I give him a 9/10. Tom took a lot of time to help
with editing the wiki. He helped me fix a couple of issues I was having with Wikia.
He verified all the links and made sure that each page is accessible. He also did a
large portion of the writing. I give him a 9/10. Jace and Promise were responsible
for writing a portion of the wiki. More information and better communication
would have increased the quality of work. I give them each a 7/10. At the time of
this project, I was also involved in two other team projects for two other classes. I
found that the most difficult part of the assignment was finding time to work
together. The group would have benefited more from setting strict deadlines.
Overall, I am pleased with the performance of the entire team.