User:Jgarc800/sandbox

Week 2 Questions

• Wikipedians often talk about "content gaps." What do you think a content gap is, and what are some possible ways to identify them?

A content gap is when an article seems to be missing something within itself, such as missing information or sources. Possible ways to identify them are when the article doesn’t seem to have a flow with it and when reading the article it seems choppy. Another way is to see if there are sources listed correctly and if those sources are accurate and reliable enough to be able to use.

• What are some reasons a content gap might arise? What are some ways to remedy them?

They might arise because the authors aren’t connecting their ideas together to make the article flow easily or aren’t looking at sources that can be completely relied on or aren’t from a very reliable source. Some ways to remedy them is to tell the author of the article via the talk page that the article isn’t flowing like it should or that the sources aren’t reliable to see if the author fixes the problem or just go and fix them yourself.

• Does it matter who writes Wikipedia?

It doesn’t because anyone can write a Wikipedia article, however, that person must realize that they have to follow guidelines when writing that article and they would want to make sure that they try to write in an accurate way in order to ensure the reader gets what they need.

• What does it mean to be "unbiased" on Wikipedia? How is that different, or similar, to your own definition of "bias"?

It means to show both sides of the topic you’re sharing on Wikipedia without picking a side in order to let the reader decide for themselves what they need or what information they want to use. That’s different from being bias because it’s ok to have some form of bias toward a topic since no human can be bias on any topic, but it’s important to be unbiased on Wikipedia because it’s used for information and if that’s biased, then it would lessen the validation of the article written.Jgarc800 (talk) 23:36, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

Week 4 Questions

• Blog posts and press releases are considered poor sources of reliable information. Why?

I believe that these are poor sources because, for example, blog posts are matters of the opinion of the person running the blog. The blogger would most likely only post their opinions with little to no sourcing on the topic they are trying to discuss. They can also have a heavy bias toward one side of the argument instead of trying to remain unbiased and try to just give the information to allow the reader to make their own opinions like a good source of information like peer review journals do. The same goes for press releases. The people talking on those press releases can have an extreme bias toward a side of what they’re talking about such as political views or scientific views. This, like the blog post, doesn’t give the reader a good idea of the correct information and can influence the reader into thinking the way the writer or speaker of these sources think.

• What are some reasons you might not want to use a company's website as the main source of information about that company?

A reason not to use a company’s website as a main source of information about itself is that it would make sure that it only puts out the good things about itself in order to preserve its reputation. A company won’t post anything bad about itself in its website so if you were to use it as a primary source, you wouldn’t be able to get both sides of the story and your information would be lacking in quantity. For example, the company Monsanto is an agricultural company that promoted the use of GMOs because they sold them to farmers to use. The problem is that if you want information on GMOs, for example, the company’s website would only give benefits of GMOs instead of giving the full spectrum of what GMOs and the pros and cons of the controversial organisms.

• What is the difference between a copyright violation and plagiarism?

Although both are similar, they have a key difference between them. Plagiarism is when someone either copies verbatim on what someone else wrote and claims it is their own work or they read something, then just change around some words but still claim the idea is theirs. Copyright violation is when a student, for example, uses a song for a video presentation without getting that person’s permission for using it even if that person wasn’t a famous singer or not. They can both be tough to avoid since sometimes both can be done by accident or without malicious intentions.

• What are some good techniques to avoid close paraphrasing and plagiarism?

One of the best ways to avoid either close paraphrasing or plagiarism is to read the information that you want to write down, close the site or book you were reading from, and then write down what you remember reading in your own understanding. That’s the best way to avoid it since you won’t be looking at the source and accidently copy down or just changing a few words in the text in order to finish whatever is being done quickly. Another way to avoid plagiarism or close paraphrasing is to be able to note down anything you deem as important so that when you are writing the paper or presentation, you can use those notes to elaborate on the bigger points on the essay you’re writing.Jgarc800 (talk) 23:43, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

Week 4 Topic

A topic I believe I should work on is my own character in the project, Francois Anne Jacques Bouron. He does not have a Wikipedia article whatsoever so I think I can capitalize on that by actually coming up with a Wikipedia page for him. Although I have found some information on him, I believe that it would be most beneficial in creating a page on him so that others could benefit from getting some information from him since so many other figures in that time are more easily accessible in the information department than he was. Another topic I was thinking of is the page on the Vendee region, the region he represented in the National Assembly during the Revolution. I think I can write some insert into the history part of it since although they talk about the war a little, they don't include the influence this region had during the revolution. The talk page of it hasn't been recently updated with the last update being in 2012 and that was only for a small correction in the way a word was pronounced in the article. The URL is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vend%C3%A9e Jgarc800 (talk) 00:05, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

Week 5

• Some things I can add, since this article is pretty barren from information is add some details of Lameth’s involvement in the assembly since the page doesn’t talk to much on it. Another thing that I can contribute to the page is more of his background in the American War of Independence since there is only a mention of him being in it and something he did.
• Something that can be done to improve the article is to add the sources that I put in the bibliography since the Wikipedia article depends on a couple of sources so adding a few more would help out the articles validity. Another thing that can be done is to add more headers since they have only a few of them and also to add onto those headers since the most one of them has is a few paragraphs.

Week 6 Questions

What do you think of Wikipedia's definition of "neutrality"?

*I believe that it’s a reliable definition of neutrality and that Wikipedia editors must stay within that level of neutrality. I think it’s good that the articles have to be within that neutrality because if someone comes and wants to know about, for example, the controversy of the Vendee region and the killing that happened during the war and whether it was a genocide or not, people should be able to read the part of that article and should be able to choose for themselves whether or not it was a genocide. People that write the article should not be writing to try and convince the people that read it to lean toward one opinion or another, but to just present the information and let the people that read it decide their own opinion based on what they read

What are the impacts and limits of Wikipedia as a source of information?

*An impact that could happen is that teachers might not see it as a reliable source since anyone can write on Wikipedia. That could make someone get a lower grade for not using a “reliable” enough source for a paper or project they were working on. Limits of using Wikipedia is that the article that someone is using for a paper could not either exist or not have the information they need in order to write the paper. For example, if someone is writing about Francois Bouron, former lawyer to the king, and goes to Wikipedia, they won’t have luck on finding any info since there aren’t any articles on him. Another problem is that the article could either be biased or have the article based on one source which doesn’t make it that reliable.

On Wikipedia, all material must be attributable to reliable, published sources. What kinds of sources does this exclude? Can you think of any problems that might create?

*It excludes websites that could be written by anyone, blogs and news media outlets that have bias like FOX news. A problem that could rise is that using these types of sources could lead into giving out false information, especially when getting from news outlets since they report anything that might be breaking news with the possibility of not fact checking whether it’s happened or not. Some websites or blogs could purposely give out false information in order to mislead the people that don’t fact check or rely that the news source that they get their news from as the complete fact and that could lead to them sharing this on social media which can lead to a mass problem of misinformation.

If Wikipedia was written 100 years ago, how might its content (and contributors) be different? What about 100 years from now?

*If Wikipedia was written 100 years ago, the content would be different in the sense of information. Some of the information would be hard to gather since the internet hadn’t been invented yet, which would make it harder for the writers to be able to write the most reliable content for Wikipedia or they would rely heavily on very few sources since it wasn’t as readily available like it is today. Contributors would also be different since back then, woman were looked upon differently than they are now so most, if not all contributors toward the articles would be mostly men. If Wikipedia was fast forwarded 100 years in the future, then the content would most likely be in abundance because of technological advances and the contributors would probably be more knowledgeable on subjects since there would be so much more information to contribute to the articles on Wikipedia, not to mention more topics to write about would come up as time goes on.Jgarc800 (talk) 02:02, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

Final of Vendee article

• Battle of Nantes

Poor coordination between the four Vendean armies led by Charette, Bonchamps, Cathelineau and Lyrot hampered the assault, and Cathelineau's forces were delayed in their deployment by fighting along the Erdre river with a Republican battalion. Cathelineau himself was shot at the head of his forces, causing his men to lose heart and retreat, and ultimately the Vendeans were unable to take the city.(already in article) In October of the same year, in order to punish the prisoners that were sent to the region after they lost the city, John-Baptiste Carrier resorted to trying to have the prisoners die by shooting them in mass crowds, but when that wasn't fast enough, he had the prisoners round up and sent off into the Loire river in boats that the bottom of the boat would open and left them to drown. In addition, woman that were not guilty of any crime were publicly humiliated by the revolutionary Jacobins by being unclothed and sometimes tied with men and were sent to their death. This was called a Republican Marriage.

• Background

Consequently, the conflicts that drove the revolution in Paris, for example, were also lessened in this particularly isolated part of France by the strong adherence of the population to their Catholic faith (in article) Since common people of this region, or the peasants to be more specific, didn't have access to education like people in the city, they did not have these revolutionary thoughts that caused the French Revolution. The people of the Vendée region solely depended on the Church's ideals so when the people in Paris wanted to take the church's influence away from the people's lives, they thought of this and started to cause some unrest in the region.

• Aftermath

There were many reported atrocities and a campaign of mass killing universally targeted at residents of the Vendée regardless of combatant status, political affiliation, age or gender (in article) One specific target were the woman of the region. Since they were seen, in a way, that they were carrying anti-revolutionary babies, they were seen as primary targets.