Week 10 has been full of interesting H800 activities and full of Anna's professional and personal activities so it's been something of a busy time and I reach the first day of week 11 without having really done justice to week 10.
I am not sure if it was intended but I feel that week 10 has been inviting us to consider the motivations of people, institutions and maybe even ourselves.
We began by thinking about Wikipedia and how much we could rely on it given what we know, and have learned, about the politics behind the editing and writing process. Wikipedia seems, on the surface, to be benevolent and good; concerned with making as much information available to as many people as possible without charging. It is easy to understand their model - they don't pay experts to write the articles and check for accuracy - they engage experts with the overall ideal and get them to do it for free! And they do! The credentials of the 'experts' are not checked and anyone can self proclaim as an expert. Vandalism and mischief should abound surely.... and yet neither do. The project is now so big that almost all edits - both mischievous and genuine ones - are checked very quickly and Wikipedia remains remarkably accurate overall. I find myself trusting Wikipedia because all of those mischief makers can't stand against the majority of people who stand with the Wikipedia ideal and want to give the user good, accurate information.
Of course - an analysis of Wikipedia for 'facts' (the population of nations, the height of mountains, the careers of politicians) is one thing. An analysis of Wikipedia's reporting of 'issues' (Palestine and Israel, gender politics, abortion law) may well reveal a particular worldview prevails.
Next we looked at Stack.com (and I quickly went to similar sites such as Quora and Yahoo answers) where individuals ask questions and other individuals answer them. The questions are often very practical 'how do you....' rather than the more non specific 'should someone....' Individuals who see a question may also vote for the answer they think is best. I have found these sites very useful. Again - I am aware of the potential for mischief but if someone has asked 'how do you poach an egg?' I would not expect hundreds of people to vote for 'place the whole egg in the microwave without cracking the shell'. I rely on the desire of people to be right - and give /confirm the right information - and the desire of people to be helpful - and give / confirm the right information - over the desire of people to cause mischief or discord - and deliberately give / confirm the wrong information. Of course this benevolent assumption is rather thrown into sharp relief as we learn more about how both the EU referendum in the UK and the 2016 US Presidential election seem to have been deliberately influenced by false, inflammatory and deliberately discordant use of social media in particular and the internet in general.
And then blogging. I felt a small smug thrill as I realized I was ahead of the curve on this! There were some very interesting articles about what happens when blogging is required (it's not good) and how students use blogging in studies (see all my former posts for a wide representation of reflection, ranting, catharsis and thought development).