In class activity section: history, editing, discussion, comparing
wikipedia entry on Les Miserables
Right away I noticed the similarities between Moveable Type and the edit page. It looks like a blog entry would if we highlighted the text and clicked on the Rich Text button. But what I noticed most of all is the following set of instructions:
"Editing this way will cause your IP address to be recorded publicly in this page's edit history. If you create an account, you can conceal your IP address and be provided with many other benefits. Messages sent to your IP can be viewed on your talk page."
I do not currently have a Wikipedia account. I guess I will have to sign up for the purpose of this assignment. the preceeding instructions made a though pop into my head: many people may not even bother reading the instructions and go ahead and edit without logging in. This, however, would record their IP address-if they wrote something that was deemed inappropriate, the "Wikipedia police" would be able to catch them-this is how my old chorus teacher got caught writing those Xanga entries about students. But...if you create an account, do you have to provide a valid email address, or can you create another identity? We'll see later on...
Despite the inherent similarity between the editing page and Moveable Type, there are an insane amount of formatting/font buttons. I don't even know where to begin with formatting-Is there any way to type in regular form and not Rich Text? Or can I just type regularly and hit the buttons to format the page
St.Vincent
Well, according to Wikipedia, St Vincent college is a college in Gosport, Hampshire, England.There is not much information about this school. There are a couple of sentences about the sports teams, which include netball and something called "ultimate"-British terms I suppose.
So basically, all I can find on St Vincent College is that it's in England, it may be merging with Fareham College, and it has 4 sports teams. There is no information about their programs of study-which is odd.
Do you know what the difference between this school and the other in Latrobe? Saint. I typed Saint Vincent College instead of St Vincent College. Here is the correct page
Once again, I am shocked that there is no information on the fields of study offered at Saint Vincent's. Frankly, I find that more important than who has spoken there, that it used to be an all men's college, the Thanksgiving feast, and the sports traditions/fight song. There is a severe lack of substance. St Vincent's is a very trivial entry. We're supposed to discuss the strengths of the article, but I don't see any.
There has not been much discussed on the Sait Vincent site. It's part of 3 wiki projects: WikiProject Pittsburgh, WikiProject Universities, and WikiProject Pennsylvania. The site has also been rated B-class on the quality scale. Nothing special going on here.
There has not been much activity on the history page either. It appears that people stumbled across the page and added a sentence or two, but not much. Most of the activity deals with the wiki projects and not content
Seton Hill
I'm going to be honest-I half expected Wikipedia to lead me to Seton Hall's article. This article is much more informative content wise. There's information on the history, fottball team, campus clubs, merging of men and women, the LECOM expansion, and our new theater (woot!).
In addition, the article lists our Master's programs, centers, and links to Seton Hill related sites, including our NMJ blogs and the Setonian
Seton Hill's article is much stronger than saint Vincent's, but it does not include a list of undergraduate majors either. Granted, it does link to the school website, but Wikipedia is usually known for its convenience. I'd like to see a quick-click list and not have to meander through our course catalog.
Even though our article is more content rich and informative, it was still rated below B-class=stub class. And there doesn't seem to be much talk (if at all). Someone edited a mistake concerning the College Democrats, but that's all I see.
There have been even fewer discussions than the saint Vincent site. Evan Reynolds corrected a mistakes, and three others added the page to wiki projects.
Wow, I would have thought more than 4 people would have contributed to the article.
Right away I noticed the similarities between Moveable Type and the edit page. It looks like a blog entry would if we highlighted the text and clicked on the Rich Text button. But what I noticed most of all is the following set of instructions:
"Editing this way will cause your IP address to be recorded publicly in this page's edit history. If you create an account, you can conceal your IP address and be provided with many other benefits. Messages sent to your IP can be viewed on your talk page."
I do not currently have a Wikipedia account. I guess I will have to sign up for the purpose of this assignment. the preceeding instructions made a though pop into my head: many people may not even bother reading the instructions and go ahead and edit without logging in. This, however, would record their IP address-if they wrote something that was deemed inappropriate, the "Wikipedia police" would be able to catch them-this is how my old chorus teacher got caught writing those Xanga entries about students. But...if you create an account, do you have to provide a valid email address, or can you create another identity? We'll see later on...
Despite the inherent similarity between the editing page and Moveable Type, there are an insane amount of formatting/font buttons. I don't even know where to begin with formatting-Is there any way to type in regular form and not Rich Text? Or can I just type regularly and hit the buttons to format the page
St.Vincent
Well, according to Wikipedia, St Vincent college is a college in Gosport, Hampshire, England.There is not much information about this school. There are a couple of sentences about the sports teams, which include netball and something called "ultimate"-British terms I suppose.
So basically, all I can find on St Vincent College is that it's in England, it may be merging with Fareham College, and it has 4 sports teams. There is no information about their programs of study-which is odd.
Do you know what the difference between this school and the other in Latrobe? Saint. I typed Saint Vincent College instead of St Vincent College. Here is the correct page
Once again, I am shocked that there is no information on the fields of study offered at Saint Vincent's. Frankly, I find that more important than who has spoken there, that it used to be an all men's college, the Thanksgiving feast, and the sports traditions/fight song. There is a severe lack of substance. St Vincent's is a very trivial entry. We're supposed to discuss the strengths of the article, but I don't see any.
There has not been much discussed on the Sait Vincent site. It's part of 3 wiki projects: WikiProject Pittsburgh, WikiProject Universities, and WikiProject Pennsylvania. The site has also been rated B-class on the quality scale. Nothing special going on here.
There has not been much activity on the history page either. It appears that people stumbled across the page and added a sentence or two, but not much. Most of the activity deals with the wiki projects and not content
Seton Hill
I'm going to be honest-I half expected Wikipedia to lead me to Seton Hall's article. This article is much more informative content wise. There's information on the history, fottball team, campus clubs, merging of men and women, the LECOM expansion, and our new theater (woot!).
In addition, the article lists our Master's programs, centers, and links to Seton Hill related sites, including our NMJ blogs and the Setonian
Seton Hill's article is much stronger than saint Vincent's, but it does not include a list of undergraduate majors either. Granted, it does link to the school website, but Wikipedia is usually known for its convenience. I'd like to see a quick-click list and not have to meander through our course catalog.
Even though our article is more content rich and informative, it was still rated below B-class=stub class. And there doesn't seem to be much talk (if at all). Someone edited a mistake concerning the College Democrats, but that's all I see.
There have been even fewer discussions than the saint Vincent site. Evan Reynolds corrected a mistakes, and three others added the page to wiki projects.
Wow, I would have thought more than 4 people would have contributed to the article.
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Dennis G. Jerz on In class activity section: history, editing, discussion, comparing: Hmm... the SHU article has a "
Hmm... the SHU article has a "history" page that stores the history of the various versions of the main article, and the "discussion" page also has its own "history" page that stores the different versions of the "discussion" page.
The history page for the main article of SHU is very long, but there are indeed only for entries on the history page for the *discussion about* the main article.
I'm only mentioning all this in order to support the point you made about the interface.
While theoretically anyone can edit Wikipedia, in reality the complexity of the interface means that only people who have a greater than average tolerance for this sort of thing, or ordinary people with an unusual motive (like a class assignment) will stick with it long enough to make substantial edits.