User:Conor Robinson

About me
I was born on the 21st of March in 1993, I was raised in Hull and moved to Scarborough in 2012 for university. The majority of my sections on this page are about my engagement with technology, which says a lot about me and my interests. Ever since I started studying digital media studies in 2010 I've always been interested in the effects, I find this an interesting subject due to the size and income for the media and concerns that people have over, if and how it will shape the future.

Hobbies
Whilst studying Film studies and Digital media studies I stepped up my film and television viewing, too many film and television is more of a past time however I'd argue if you don't merely observe it then it becomes a hobby. Keeping physically active is key to me which is why I am a keen swimmer and jogger, I believe exercise to be essential when dealing with stress.

Education
I am currently in my second year of Digital Media Studies at the University of Hull Scarborough campus. Previously I attended Mersey Primary School, then Trinity House School which at the time was a naval school, whilst at Trinity I was taught how to sail Toppers. Every Wednesday I would study animal management as a vocational course at Bishop Burton whilst attending Trinity. After secondary school I then took on Animal Management full time for a year at Bishop Burton, however after 3 years of doing this course I had lost all passion towards the subject and decided that I wanted to move to a more technological course. Wilberforce college was my next source of education in which I enrolled onto Sociology, Film studies, Media studies and I.t. Due to Media being my most passionate course and having the best grades in this area I decided to continue my studies, which led me to Hull University.

Gaming
My most passionate hobby is gaming, for many years I simply found enough enjoyment from playing games, however in recent years I've become much more interested with the impact of gaming within society. For many years the media and parents have be concerned about the issues related to watching violence, however there is a lack of evidence into this topic. I personally see the problem as much more related to the engagement that is happening between audiences on these games, games such as Fifa are rated as 3+ which basically means that nobody younger than this should be playing the game, what is not taken into account is the other people who are playing these games. Numerous times I have heard children targeted with verbal abuse, a common arguement is children have safety settings on there consoles so should use them, however I'd argue that children don't take advantage of this and that children should not have to. This opinion is one that has not been welcomed by many gamers. Criticising gamers I believe to be a risky due to the audiences influence on the internet, a key example of this being Anita Sarkeesian a feminist who talks about issues with gaming, the abuse given went to the extreme of a gaming being created in which you beat her face up. I am not using this section as a platform to spread my opinion, the purpose of this section is basically the reason why I hope to continue keeping bias off Wikipedia and the internet as a whole, Anita Sarkeesian has been bullied on numerous different media platforms and Wikipedia needs/ and should be the one place these cyber bullies can not touch. I don't always agree with her opinions however I do believe she should be able to view her opinions without abuse.

Personal Reflection
Info box

The first step taken after deciding on our groups was performing a textual analysis on Wikipedia pages similar to what we was researching into, this task was essential for a site that isn't about being creativity but about presenting the facts. Another reason I found to not break formula was info boxes, I found it was much higher quality and efficient to follow the conventional info box for this topic. The info box the group decided on was ship, which was chosen due to it being the conventional info box type for ships but we also felt it gave us the essential categories we needed. After performing out textual analysis we noticed particular sections that kept appearing, these were specifications and the fate of the ships, we felt these essentially needed to be included as to make sure our page was not breaking convention but also was effective with supplying the user with easily to digest information. Whilst creating this topic I knew there would be a wide group of people viewing this site, not only people just people who specicalised in ships, therefore we broke down information and made sure that only the essentials were left on the page.

Sandbox

After deciding on our info box we then decided to begin on our research into the subject, we decided to simply find numerous resources at the beginning, this was essential as we was not narrowly only looking for specific subjects, this proved to be effective as this way I found out about the HMS Hardy being in the fourth flotilla. After we had typed up our information we then felt that the current info box wasn't looking very presentable, therefore I worked on improving this which led onto issues such as implementing images and copyright issues. After this task was completed I moved the HMS Hardy out of my sandbox, a concern I'd had throughout developing this page was wither or not the page would be edited by more than just me and Hayley. I decided to put a question onto the tea house asking if people knew of a way of getting our page assessed to make sure we hadn't broken regulations, thanks to the incredible support of the Wikipedia community our page was altered to an even greater quality.

Expectations

Once all the information had been uploaded I decided to perform a text analysis on our page and noticed that some of the sections contained naval phrases that some audiences may not understand, therefore I decided to create more internal links so that user could easily view what these terms actually meant as everyone should be able to understand what is being said. My expectations of this Wikipedia assignment was to upload the page then have little to no contact again, however the reality has been pleasantly different, with professional Wikipedians erasing some of my content and challenging our information this led to me understanding the regulations much quicker than reading pages full of information. My newly formed perspective of Wikipedia is that it is a vibrant welcoming world in which the experienced Wikpiedians teach and inform novices of how to contribute to this hive of knowledge. However, there are some downsides to Wikipedia that I've experienced.

Issues

Unfortunately whilst searching on subjects that were relevant years ago I found that many sources had dead links, many of these were found within gaming pages as many websites had closed down, I'd argue that this issue will therefore create a less creditable pages on the website. Another issue encountered whilst searching gaming companies was that particular publishers was receiving bias comments on there pages which were cited, I then decided that I wanted to investigate more into this subject that interested me, however these citations only led to broken link. After investigating I could not find any evidence of this quote but only evidence that supported this company, arguably this type of user contributes to the negative perception of the website.

Tea house

The tea house has been a very positive source of engagement for my time on Wikipedia with users replying within minutes to my concerns, I found the information often contained links which I found to be essential as topics like copyright legislation can not be summed up with one or two paragraphs. I also found the tea house to be a place for small groups of people to question the way in which Wikipedia was organised with issues related to users feeling towered over.

In conclusion

I feel Wikipedia is much more professional then I had been led to believe, with professional users spending hours assisting people each day, I also now believe that the site is more reliable than I had previously thought with users keen to update and protect there favourite topics. As previously stated there are issues on this site such as reliable references concerns and particular users using Wikipedia as a platform to speak there opinions, luckily this bias is often deleted quickly. As time progresses it could be argued that pages will lose their quality due to website pages being closed down and bias being easier to implement on older topics which less people view.