Facebook and Personal Politics

Everyone has their own reasons for using Facebook.  For some, it’s because everyone else does.  For others, the reasons are more in tune with trying to stay connected with loved ones and friends.

For me, I would say the latter.  I like to know what’s happening with my friends, and I find that not having Facebook would be detrimental to that (not being invited to events, having the expectation you know what’s going on in others’ lives, etc.).  However, I find that for most people, Facebook is politics.

After being dumped recently, I mentioned to a mutual friend that I was thinking of “unfriending” the person that dumped me.  I was told that “unfriending” them would be an immature thing to do.  Instead, I should just hide their posts and continue to consider them my friend.  On Facebook, anyway.

However, when the person that dumped me ended up blocking me on Facebook completely, none of our mutual friends batted an eye.

Then, as the result of my ex lying about things that happened after the breakup, one couple who I had considered friends told me I was no longer welcome at their apartment.  Woah.  Now that’s a pretty big statement.  “You are no longer welcome at my apartment”?  Says a lot about the boundaries of your relationship.

Guess what, though?  They have still kept me as “friends” on Facebook, and I’m told the whole situation will just “blow over” in time.  However, to me, telling me I’m not welcome at your domicile is a pretty clear message that you are not my friend anymore.  So why am I still “privileged” in being your friend on Facebook?

I’ll tell you why.  Facebook politics.  I wonder what the person who told me I was being immature by wanting to unfriend my ex would say about the couple informing me I was unwelcome at their living quarters.  Are they being immature by keeping me as friends on Facebook?  Or did they handle the situation well?

Unfortunately, I don’t know the answer.  I wish it was cut and dry.  It seems that Facebook is another way of being two-faced; maintaining friends to the public who you really don’t consider yourself friendly with at all.  I always prided myself in only having friends on Facebook who I would actually spend time with outside of the online world…but perhaps I have had the wrong approach?

Blogging Thoughts

Oh, so you say that I should maybe update more than once a month.

Ha.

We will see how that goes.

I can’t believe how stressed this semester is making me, but hopefully I calm down a bit and take the time to write more regularly.
I’m still struggling with this whole blogging thing.  This is a medium and a genre that interest me so much, but I struggle to keep it interesting and find an audience.  Who would read what I have to say, after all?

I guess I don’t have the self-confidence for regular blogging, because there’s a lot I could say, a lot of things I’ve written down in a notebook as post ideas, that never make it to the blog because I fear the flames of people that don’t agree with me or know more about a subject than me.  But I guess that’s what you get when you “put yourself out there” through a blog?

After all, I’ve seen way more controversial blogs that cover things way more close-minded than anything I could say (although is it really close-minded to say that Lady Gaga is part of the Illumati?  That’s super imaginative, if you ask me).

Well, I will do my best.  I’m thinking of reworking with Cheap Geeks Anonymous, and maybe gaining another writer in the hopes of continuing content and keeping everything fresh.

Or, I could default on posting cute pictures of my cats.  Who doesn’t like cat pictures?

Fresh Start and Life Reflections

New semester, more stress, back to blogging.  Sort of?

I’m hoping I can make this more of a habit, but I’m not sure if that will actually happen.  I might decide, in the midst of all the other research I’m doing for this project, that keeping up with my own blog is just unecessary or impossible with all the other stress in my life.

I may end up making an entirely new blog on WordPress, but for the time being I’m happy here.

So, the first project for the semester in Capstone was to, using any genre, evaluate what we want out of life.  Thinking of what I want my Capstone project to be and my fascination with food blogging, I made a pull-apart cupcake cake.  I’ve never tried it before, so it was a buttercream-y adventure!

Overall, this is like the easiest thing ever.  I found this way easier than decorating individual cupcakes (though I discovered that I am awful at writing with a decorating pen).  Plus, there’s tons of frosting on the cupcakes, and who can go wrong with more homemade buttercream?

I’m not a goddess at food photography, so bear with me.  Maybe by the end of this semester I will get better?

In evaluating what I want from my life and what my future holds, I basically decorated the cupcakes to focus on broad, general things I wanted out of life, and explained a bit more when I presented.

I want to enjoy my job.

I want enough money to life comfortably.

I want family and friends who love and support me.

I want a close-knit group of friends.

I want the freedom to travel.

I want the freedom to spend time doing the things I love (like baking!).

I want the freedom to change things up if I want.

And ultimately, who doesn’t want to be happy and enjoy life?

A Long, Long Time Ago…

Right after the semester ended, I was so determined to keep updating at least one of my blogs…is anyone really surprised that I haven’t been?

 

In my defense, I moved to a new place, didn’t have internet access for a week or two, got two new cats, have had to adjust to living with another person again, and have been slowly letting gaming take over my life again.

 

All those excuses aside, though, I’ve decided to get back to it and keep updating (now that classes start up again in a few weeks.  EEK!)

 

I’ve got a pretty solid idea for when the semester starts and I’ll have to get serious about Capstone, though.  I think what I’m going to do is jump into the world of food blogging and either convert Real Women Wear Corsets to a food blog, or start an entirely new one.  I figure that with Pinterest, Foodgawker, and similar sites, food blogging is the “way to go” to get a blog on the map and experience pretty quick growth.

 

My reasoning for waiting until the semester starts is that I can build up a backlog of recipes/pictures/posts for when life starts getting hectic with school and I can’t find the time to cook.  Granted, I’m not a professional picture-taker by any means, but I can still take some pretty appealing pictures of food.  And with my boyfriend always urging me to try new recipes and experiment, new recipes won’t necessarily be something I can let fall by the wayside.

 

Anyway, I hope everyone’s summer was great.  I hope you still find the time to read what I write!

The Networked Nonprofit and New New Media Review

As the final project in this class, here is my book review of The Networked Nonprofit by Beth Kanter and Allison H. Fine and New New Media by Paul Levinson.  I decided to do the book review as one and kind of compare and contrast the two while talking about each on its own merits.  I hope that works.  Although this class is over, though, I hope to continue using this blog, and my other (older) blog and try to be an active blogger over the summer.  There are ideas for Capstone boiling around in my head about electronic communication and blogging, so why not stay active online over the summer to try and get a jumpstart on that later?

Anyway, enough of me rambling (although if you read my Capstone mention, Dr. Brooks, feel free to give me any thoughts or suggestions!).  Here’s the book review!

The Networked Nonprofit is split up into two distinct parts, “How to Become a Networked Nonprofit” and “What to Do as a Networked Nonprofit”.  In addition to a few introductory chapters, the two parts are also split into various chapters.  At a total of 165 pages of content, the book is short and a quick read.  Basically, the aim of the book is to be a guidance for nonprofit organizations who are ready to expand their efforts positively and successfully online through social media.  Obviously, this book is directed at anyone who is part of a nonprofit organization, perhaps even people acting as free agents for nonprofits.  Unfortunately, as someone who isn’t really active with any nonprofit organizations, I found this book to be rather dull.  I tried to read it with an open mind; since I have a blog, and I would like to get back to being an active blogger, I read it from the standpoint of a blogger trying to engage readers and start conversations with them.  That helped me get through the book, but without being invested in an organization, there were parts of the book that simply didn’t apply to me, didn’t appeal to me, and were thus very boring.  Even while working with a nonprofit organization for the class, I didn’t find the book entirely too helpful.  On the whole, though, I think The Networked Nonprofit would be an excellent book for the shelter itself to read.  From the perspective of a person running a nonprofit organization, especially one that is just starting out on the web or wants to better engage with people online, this book would be a great asset.

I did find some flaws with The Networked Nonprofit, though.  Although I understand that the target audience of the book may not be familiar with social media or the World Wide Web at all, I felt that a lot of the book was simply expressing the same information in different words.  In particular, Part 1 of the book seemed to be saying the same things with each chapter.  Chapters 5, 6 and 7 mentioned the same general themes, just under a few different topics.  The ideas of simplicity, transparency, and building relationships were expressed throughout the entire book, in my opinion, and giving them entirely their own chapters just made things too redundant.  On the flip side, though, I can understand needing to describe each idea thoroughly in its own way.  However, I would think that even a Networked Nonprofit newbie would be able to notice the redundancies in the book.

At first, I found the various examples and quotes to be very helpful.  Especially when dealing with subject matter having to deal with the internet, where literally anything can happen despite the results a nonprofit might want, examples that show positive results or even surprising results are helpful.  However, eventually I found some of the quotes to be a little excessive.  Some of the quotes helped in showing examples, but others were included, I felt, just to support the things already said.  Three to four lines of quotes just to back up the previous paragraph?  I don’t think it was entirely necessary.

The only other setback of The Networked Nonprofit is that though the book describes how to become a more integrated nonprofit organization through social media, it doesn’t describe the social media or even give a comprehensive list of all the social media available.  That, I’m sure, is one of the reasons we read New New Media this semester.  New New Media is organized by social media; each chapter covers its own website, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Second Life, and many more.  One interesting thing about New New Media is that although the book includes relatively new sites like Twitter, it does not include very new sites like Pinterest or Google+.  It would be really interesting to see where newer editions of New New Media go, and what Levinson chooses to get rid of and add in from the various social media sites out there.  One setback of the book, then, is that because of its subject matter, it hinges on timeliness.  There is a chapter in the book on MySpace, but I’m sure the rest of my class found that chapter old news like I did.  MySpace may still have been very popular when the book went to print, but especially in the college crowd, MySpace is a thing of the past, or a social media site unknown bands and the elderly use.  New editions will have to come out pretty quickly in order to stay relevant (actually, the next edition is being published at the time of this writing!).

New New Media‘s purpose is to discuss various new new media sites, or social networking sites that are unique in their popularity and user-run aspects.  The book talks about using each site, and also about the various avenues and possibilities available to network on each site.  Overall, the book is pretty thorough, and like The Networked Nonprofit it uses a lot of quotes from various people the reader has probably never heard of to back up its claims and as examples.  New New Media also uses many personal anecdotes of Levinson’s, so as far as objectivity goes, The Networked Nonprofit appears to be a little less biased and opinionated because it is written by two authors and leaves out personal tales.  There’s nothing wrong with Levinson’s use of anecdotes, but it can leave the reader (as our class discussed shortly) feeling suspicious that Levinson is simply writing about his experiences with each site and how he things each makes an impact.

Although I had issues with both the books we read in this class, I learned a lot from our required readings.  I tried to soak up as much information as possible, because like I’ve been reiterating all semester, I would like to keep blogging and get active again.  I tried to keep an open mind throughout the readings, even though they may not have been about personal blogging or personal social media use.  I found a lot of information in The Networked Nonprofit to be helpful.  Even though I’m not active with any nonprofits, a lot of the advice in the book could apply to anyone trying to network, engage, and start conversations online.  Here are some specific things I’ve learned, though:

• Some Social Media Aren’t for Everyone.  For the first half of the semester, when we went through New NewMediachapter by chapter, trying out whatever social media the week’s chapter covered, I found out that there were just some sites I didn’t like.  I like Facebook, Twitter, Google +, etc….but when we tried out Second Life and started a class wiki?  None of that was for me.  I didn’t enjoy it, and the class went from “fun” to “homework” and a burden really quickly.  On the bright side, at least I tried them out.
• Simplicity and Transparency.  I enjoyed reading about this in The Networked Nonprofit because I felt like they can be applied to a lone personal blogger like me, too.  As a blogger I often tell myself I have to write elegantly, like writing prose in a creative writing class, but in many ways this book suggests otherwise.  Not to say that the writing shouldn’t be fluent, but it made me think about what I write about, how long my posts are, and who I’m trying to reach as an audience.
• Social Media Aren’t Forever.  I’m sure MySpace was nostalgic for others in the class.  Reading about it made me realize how quickly social media go in and out of favor.  But at the same time, people still use MySpace.  It isn’t dead yet!
• Social Media Are Powerful.  While The Networked Nonprofit illustrated this well, I think that what drove this idea home to me is the social media hype over Corky while we helped Cat’s Cradle.  Checking today, they’ve raised over $18k through widgets posted on Facebook, tweeted about, and presumably shared all over the web.  Amazing.
• Social Media is About Conversations.  Okay, this might sound silly.  But I think sometimes we lose sight of that while logging on to Facebook to play games.  As a blogger, a company, a nonprofit, engaging with people is important.  Networking is important.  Building an audience is important…and you do that through engaging them in conversation.  Even on a personal level, can you even say you “use” Facebook if you don’t post statuses or interact with others, and just “have” the account?

I think The Networked Nonprofit is an excellent book for nonprofit organizations to read.  The book is not only informative, but helps quell some of the fears nonprofits have about their online presence. (Cat’s Cradle was definitely a little apprehensive about Twitter and any social media other than Facebook.  We hope we helped with that.)  As a student, though, I don’t know if it should be kept in the curriculum.  As I mentioned, even though I tried to keep an open mind, I found the book repetitive, and there were so many things that just couldn’t apply to me.  It was helpful in helping the organization, but it would be nice to have a textbook that could do both.

I think New New Media is a good choice as a textbook.  Although definitely get the new edition.  I would love to see what is new in the next book, and if MySpace made the cut.  Will Pinterest make the 3rd edition?  If using this book, I guess you’ll always have to get the brand new edition to keep things fresh! ;)

I don’t really have any suggestions for incorporating the books differently.  However, maybe an option for incorporating additional readings would be to divvy up chapters of New New Media (or other social media sites not included), and having a student find some good articles online to share with the class when it’s their week?  For example, if I had Digg, I would find a few stellar articles about that site and share them with the class when we covered Digg, posting blog posts summarizing and analyzing the articles.  I guess it would be a version of writing a new chapter to the book.  Not sure if it would work, though, as you’d end up with some people having months to work on their project and others having just a few weeks for theirs.  Maybe some will be up to the task, though?

A Blogging Reflection

If this semester has taught me anything, it’s (1) my time management for online courses sucks and (2) blogging takes a lot of dedication.

We’ll get to 1 later.

In many ways I feel like I should have had a huge advantage over some of my classmates.  I’ve started up and maintained a blog.  I’ve explored many different social media avenues and interconnected them with my blog.  I’ve networked with complete strangers online before.

Despite all that, I’m floundering at the end of the semester, realizing that I’ve spent the entire second half of the semester avoiding WordPress like the plague.

And in the last week of class as I’m trying to think of something, anything, to post about to make it appear that I’m dedicated to the class, I realized that I just don’t have the dedication or ambition to blog that I thought I did.  That’s probably why my other blog hasn’t seen a post in a long time.  (Other than, of course, a bad-ass recipe that I posted a few months ago that I was super proud of.)

Blogging takes dedication.  You have to be locked in to the idea of firing off a post a few times a week, maybe a little more, maybe a little less.  You have to constantly be thinking about what you can write, what you can say, to make your posts desirable to the internet masses.  You’ve got to feel a twinge of guilt when a week or two goes by and you haven’t posted.

Blogging also takes ambition.  I guess the two go hand in hand, but my screwed up vision sees them seperately.  You can have ambition to blog without the dedication to keep it up or post regularly.   With the ambition to blog, you’re constantly considering ways to improve your blog, your posts, everything.  Maybe you’re ambitious in the sense that you want more readers, more followers, more traffic.  Maybe your ambition drives you to start conversations and get more comments.  Maybe your ambition is just to be dedicated and post regularly and honestly.

Either way, I thought I had dedication and I thought I had ambition, but both of my blogs are looking awfully stale.

Icouldblame the fact that my life has been hectic.  Well, really hectic, but it feels like a lame excuse.  I’ll just have to get myself on WordPress or Blogger more often.

Oh, going back to the first thing I discovered this semester…

Well, it shouldn’t really need explaining.  My time management for the class hasn’t been stellar.  End of the semester and just starting to blog again?  Come on.  If I’m ever going to take an online course again, I think I need to put reminders into my phone or have friends willing to pester me on facebook.  Quite frankly I would forget about this class because I don’t physically show up.  Yes, I did a lot of work with Cat’s Cradle the second half of the semester.  But if you asked me what class it was for, I would have had to think about it before answering.

Cat’s Cradle and Corky, the Superstar Kitty

I’ve been scarce online with the second half of the semester.  Sorry about that!  Things have been busy, and you’ll see why.

If you haven’t heard of Cat’s Cradle Shelter or Corky the cat, you probably have been avoiding the internet.  Or something.  When John Lindensmith and I first decided to approach Cat’s Cradle Shelter for our project, the mindset behind helping the no-kill cat shelter was”The internet loves cat pictures!” or something along those lines.

And boy, has the internet proved us right!

John, Matt Kirschenmann, and I would like to think that the absolute explosion of media coverage and subsequent Facebook likes and plethora of donations were at least in some way caused by our work with the organization.  Not sure if that’s true, and there’s really no way to confirm that.  However, the Corky internet phenomenon probably would have happened whether or not John, Matt, and I were pushing Cat’s Cradle to get on Twitter and explore other social media avenues.  While the women running the shelter may not consider themselves social media mavens, they have definitely dominated Facebook as a resource for their non-profit.

A quick look at their Facebook like data shows how much buzz Corky created.  Corky’s Facebook page, created just this month by popular demand, has surpassed Cat’s Cradle’s page in likes (unsurprisingly).

I was originally thinking I would post a link to various news stories, videos, etc. dealing with Corky…but honestly, the list is just way too long.  Hopefully this suffices:

Bing Search for “Corky the Cat”

Granted, all the above images and stories aren’t about Corky, but the plethora that are is simply mind-numbing.  Enjoy!

Fitocracy: What I Know About Everything Else

So, I wrote up my Fitocracy Basics post, and now I’m jumping in to everything else Fitocracy has to offer.

The basics are definitely not all there is to Fitocracy. After all, tracking workouts, gaining points, and leveling up would get rather boring after a while, wouldn’t it? It’s a good thing there are incentives in place to encourage you to try out new things and push yourself, in the form of Quests and Achievements.  Thereis a difference between the two.

Quests

• You earn points by completing quests, which is the big distinction between them and achievements.  Quests seem to be more tailored to your trying new things (lifting weights if you never have before) reaching little goals (lifting a certain amount in one set, running a certain distance or at a certain speed on one occasion), and mixing up your workouts (completing certain exercises in a day).  They are little ways to get you to challenge yourself and prevent you from fitness boredom.

Achievements

• Achievements are harder to earn than quests.  You don’t get points for achievements, but you do get nifty little badges that appear on your profile page.  Achievements include things like bench pressing or squatting a certain percentage of your body weight (.8x your weight, 1.6x your weight), running a certain amount in your lifetime (starting at 20 miles and going up to 1000) and being social on the site by receiving props and posting comments.

The Social Aspect of Fitocracy

Don’t be fooled by everything I have written into thinking that Fitocracy is a lonely place where you log workouts, get some points, and are rewarded with an occasional level that is otherwise useless.  Just by logging in, you can tell that Fitocracy is encouraging more than just tracking workouts.  I say that because instead of taking you right to the “Track” page when you log in, you instead log in to “Home.”  Your Home in Fitocracy is a page sort of like your homepage on Facebook, except somewhat simpler.  It shows you a newsfeed of all the activity of people you are following and groups you are a part of.  All in all, it can lead to a lot of sifting through conversations when you log in.  Let me break it down:

Following

• You can follow people in Fitocracy and they can follow you, similar to Twitter.  By following someone, their updates (like a Facebook status update) and workouts they log appear in your newsfeed on your homepage.  In my opinion, there are two perks from following someone.
• First of all, seeing their workouts might either motivate you or allow you to get a new idea for changing up your own workouts (multiple time before I have “stolen” someone else’s routine.  I’ve also collaborated with others to make a really kick-butt new workout).
• Secondly, seeing their updates and workouts encourages you to comment and give props.  You’re basically building relationships.  That’s really where there is a social media aspect to Fitocracy!  Oftentimes if you follow someone, they will follow back.  Surprisingly people really start to get to know each other based on their updates and little comments they type in when logging their workouts.  Someone commenting on your status or workout will facilitate conversation and collaboration.
• You can also post directly to their profile.  Just yesterday I had someone I met on Fitocracy post on my profile asking me to give them a friendly reminder to do a certain workout tomorrow.

Groups

• You’re encouraged to join groups on Fitocracy to help motivate you.  How is it motivating?  Well, what other people post to the group shows up in your newsfeed.  Often it’s people starting conversations, asking for advice, reporting on their success, or just something random that pertains to the group and/or fitness.  One of my favorite groups I’m apart of is “Getting Fit for the Zombie Apocalypse,” but I’m also part of groups like “Weight Loss” and “DoctorWho.”  There’s a huge variety out there for everyone!
• Unless you have real-world friends on Fitocracy (I got some people to join but they are unfortunately either inactive or don’t work out every day like me), groups are the best way to meet new people.  Some people post every day in different groups!  I don’t, but it helps me find new people to follow and see what other types of workouts people are doing.
• Groups havechallenges.  Yep, another incentive-type thing to get you to work out!  Challenges can be a free for all for most points in a given time period or track something specific like running distance.  I’m part of a challenge in one of my groups right now that is about to end tomorrow, and I’m vying to keep my #1 spot. Talk about motivating. (As a note, one group I’m in offers prizes for winning a challenge.  That is totally at the admin’s discretion, though.  Normally what you get is bragging rights)

I hope all of that above has summed up groups and followers enough…on to the last social aspect of Fitocracy.  There is a Forum.  I haven’t been on the forum that much myself, and I’ve never posted anything.  But by joining Fitocracy you automatically have a username for the forum.  Eventually, I will take advantage of all that.  Some great discussions have gone on at the forums, but I’m rather shy about jumping in to a conversation.

I think Fitocracy becomes very collaborative, because although all you do to earn points is track activities and exercises, there are plenty of people on Fitocracy who are maintaining or reaching a healthy lifestyle and are more than willing to help out others.  Posts in groups, those you follow and who follow you, and the forums are great places to ask for advice and help.  In my short time on Fitocracy, I’ve seen dozens of people offer someone help in deciphering proper nutrition or discuss proper form for weightlifting.  People not only offer encouragement, but help!  If someone posts something that is incorrect, people are generally very polite when correcting.  It’s just a large community of people who are trying to meet the same goal: a fit and healthy life.

Despite all that, you could easily use the site without interacting with anyone.

Anyway, I wrote the last two posts so I could start writing out what I thought of the site and the different important parts of the site.  This will be a reference for me and a jumping-off point for my GoogleDoc.  Thanks for following along!

Fitocracy: What I Know About the Basics

Like I did with 750 Words, I’ve decided to write up a post including what I know about Fitocracy and my own experience with it before diving in and doing too much other article-reading.  This will, hopefully, let me organize my initial thoughts and set a beginning point before learning more about the site through others’ opinions.

Basically, Fitocracy is a website and online community centered around getting fit and living a healthy lifestyle.  The site’s motto, “Level Up Your Fitness,” is an extremely fitting and succinct description of the site; the basic premise is that you track your workouts, earning points, and leveling up when you have amassed enough points.

The Basics

Stripping Fitocracy down to it’s basics, like I mentioned above, has a user doing three very simple things:

• Logging Workouts
  • The site it about being fit, right? This is the feature of the site and ties in everything else. You log your workouts under the “Track” tab, picking whatever activity you did from Fitocracy’s huge database of activities (everything from push-ups to bench presses to snowboarding) and simply type in the details of your activity (how many push-ups? How much weight for your barbell squats? How long and how far did you run?). That’s it.
  • You are able to log workouts for the current day and any previous day.  If you aren’t able to log something, or forget to, for an entire week, you can go back and log each workout.
  • Can’t find an activity?  Even though Fitocracy has a huge database, they don’t have everything.  Part of the problem is they’re still in beta.  But, they are open to suggestions for adding new activities.  For example, followers of certain workout videos on YouTube were struggling to log some activities for their workouts, so they compiled a list of suggested activities with video examples and pitched them to the site owners.  Most of the activities showed up in their database a week or two later.
• Earning Points
  • Obviously, tracking workouts wouldn’t be that fun if you weren’t rewarded for it.  Each activity you track earns you points based on the difficulty of the activity/how many muscle groups it engages, the weight you are using (if it is a weighted activity), and how many reps/how long you enjoyed the activity.  For example, a set of 10 push-ups is going to earn you more points than a a set of 10 crunches.  Bench pressing 50 lbs earns more than squatting 30 lbs.
• Leveling Up
  • Earn enough points, and you level up!
  • Leveling up is easier at lower levels.  Everyone starts at level one, and if I remember correctly, leveling up to 2 only takes 500 points.  I’m at level 20 right now, and need to earn 6,000 points to level up.
  • Points don’t stack.  So, those 500 points I earned to get to level 2 are not helping me get to level 21.  I need to earn 6,000 additional points to reach 21.  However, under your stats page, you are able to see how many points you have earned since joining and how many you have earned in the past 30 days.

  

It may sound simplistic (because it kind of is), but there’s something insanely rewarding about reaching the next level.  Maybe it’s just the gamer in me talking, but I love the satisfaction of logging a workout and having my results pop up along with a congratulatory “You’ve reached Level __!”  I’ve never felt happier doing an extra set of burpees!

There you go.  Those are the basics (in my opinion).  I’ll be writing up another post shortly on all the other things on Fitocracy and why I think it fits into “new new media.”

Apathy and Wikipedia

I fell behind in the class this week.

Other than doing the readings and posting an initial “Wikipedia-themed” blog post at the beginning of the week, I avoided Wikipedia like it had done me some sort of injustice all week, not even logging in to the class wiki after I first joined.  I could, I guess, blame my absence on a busy week, because with midterms approaching my other 4 classes have been demanding attention.

And, while I vow to make up for the time lost, I realized Sunday night as I shut down my computer (freely choosing to go to bed early rather than spending a few futile hours trying to update the class wiki) that I’m simply apathetic to Wikipedia.

This week, more than any other week in the class, has been cumbersome to me.  I was excited to try out and discuss every other social media platform we’ve tried over the weeks, but when I looked at the schedule and saw that we would have to work with Wikipedia, I inwardly groaned.

I mentioned in my previous post on Wikipedia I don’t use the online encyclopedia for much.  As for wikis, my workplace uses two of them, that as the Technical Writer I “oversee” and edit for clarity.  But I actually don’t do much with them, because everyone in my workplace seems to suffer from the fear of writing something up and putting it out publicly for their coworkers to see and use. Doesn’t help that most of my coworkers are computer and science geeks who view writing as a burden.

So, unfortunately, I have had a lot of trouble getting over that apathy towards Wikipedia in order to participate last week with the class wiki, or trying to edit a Wikipedia article like John.  But, I don’t want to fall to far behind in the class, and I’m going to try to work overtime this week to catch up and really make an effort to try out Wikipedia.

Don’t be surprised if you see a lot of updates, additions, and comments on the class wiki from me this week!  I’ll be working full force with both the class wiki and making headway for my essay.  It’s going to be a busy week!