A7AberleHenriksonFischerAparicio

A7AberleHenriksonFischerAparicio

To-Do

• describe the most important themes from the lectures for your project
• describe important themes for your project that are not discussed in any of the course lectures

describe the most important themes from the lectures for your project

A large theme discussed in lectures (mainly lecture 11) that has to do with our project is Cultures of Participation.  Wikipedia and KNOL both center around participation.  Without people wanting to participate in their sites, the sites would be just homepages with nothing to display.  If people just posted things, and no one read them, it also wouldn't be very exciting.  However, these sites have people writing, reading, and even discussing topics of interest. 

Another theme that relates to our project is Distributed Cognition from lecture 3.  Not every person in the world can keep every fact out there in their heads.  It's just not possible.  Sites like Wikipedia and KNOL help to distribute this information not only between one person and technology, but between multiple people.  They help anyone who cares about something, learn about it easily and share their own information about that and other subjects.  Which is the core of the symmetry of ignorance - people getting together because they want to know what others know and share with others what they know.

Usability and Sociability Factors is a theme mainly discussed in lecture 12.  Usability is important in large websites.  The designers need to make the sites easy for everyone to use.  If things could be difficult for a user, the designers need to make a good help section.  With the use of Meta-Design, designers can make it so that there is a high ceiling for anyone wanting to do more than just the obvious things that designers can come up with.  The designers need to do all this, and more, while not taking away the users' liberty to do what they want.  Sociability comes into play on the sites because there are a lot of people using them.  People will tell their friends about things to go look at.  They will make pages about things they're interested in, fulfilling their desire to give back to the community.  On KNOL, users who post articles can be recognized for their work.

A major theme from the lectures that ties into this project is Meta-Design. Both Wikipedia and KNOL rely entirely on user-created content. It is important for these sites to have tools that easily allow users to add and modify content. This is especially important on Wikipedia where a driving force of the site is user collaboration. Meta-Design fosters "design communities and the emergence of power users" (lecture 9), both of which are vital to Wikipedia's operation.

An element that strongly divides Wikipedia and KNOL is the distribution of input and output filters on content published to each site (lecture 11). KNOL articles are authored and owned by one person, meaning there is a strict input filter, as only one voice is heard in the article. This leads to a weaker output filter since other users cannot modify or dictate content that is present in another person's article. Wikipedia contrasts this with its weak input filter and strong output filter. Any person in the World with access to the Internet can modify an existing Wikipedia article or create their own. Because of this, many, many voices are heard and sometimes inaccurate or extraneous information may be posted. This is resolved by the strict output filter of diligent curators and informed contributors to the site.

A final topic discussed in lecture that is applicable to this project is motivating users to contribute. As mentioned before, the success of sites like Wikipedia and KNOL rely entirely on user contributions. As such, motivating people to create and refine content is key. The equation "utility = value / effort" helps analyze how to get users to contribute. Someone is more likely to participate if they feel like they get a large amount of value from contributing, but only if they are willing to exert the necessary amount of effort. On the flip side of this, if something will give a user minimal benefit but requires an inordinate amount of work, they are much less likely to participate.

describe important themes for your project that are not discussed in any of the course lectures

One important theme, not previously described in lectures, is the way to use a meta-design product such as Wikipedia and KNOL. One can generally use these products as collaborators, consumers, or prosumers. Through these people the product will expand and evolve over time, which, in the case of these encyclopedias, creates a huge library of information.

Another important theme that has not been discussed in lecture is the credibility, relevance, and coverage of information inserted in meta-design products such as Wikipedia and KNOL. These are important factors that one needs to consider when looking for specific information. Meta-design products can be modified by many end-users, therefore these aspects are important to keep in mind. This is why we must study the aspects to determine how they would affect information gathering.