About this wiki

From HNRS353

This wiki is our sandbox for HNRS 353

I, Professor Sample, created the Videogame Wiki with only two goals in mind:

1. The wiki will be the virtual chalkboard for the class, where I share course materials, assigments, and class news. Likewise it is a place for students to share their own discoveries as the semester progresses.
2. The wiki will be a place to think critically about videogames. The manner, direction, and range of this critical thinking will be determined collectively by the class.

With this latter goal in mind I propose the following question, which students may begin responding to right here, right now, by clicking the "edit" link below...

What should a wiki in a university class devoted to the study of videogames do?

• It should just sit there.
• It should provide a way for students to make an impact on this class, and create an interactive learning environment.
• It should be big and grand.
• It should discuss what videogames the students like to play and reason why, other than saying it's fun.
• It should assess the cultural impact of various genres of videogames ranging from first person shooters to sandbox games to RPGs, etc.
• It should include discussions that look at video games as expressions of culture, similar to books, movies and music critiques.
• It should act as an update of the best current video games.
• It should analyze the cultural phenomena associated with playing videogames as distraction, stimulation, make-believe and even as second lives.
• It should examine the addictive quality of some video games.
• It should consider the question of whether the modern substitution of video games for other kinds of more interactive play has a positive or negative cultural impact.
• This wiki should include the opinions of everyone in the class and be a platform for good discussion of what the wiki should do
• It shouldn't have spelling or grammar errors. That's annoying.
• Speak of games this weekee shood
• It should discuss the specific videogames we have been playing for class and our experiences with them.
• You all realize, naturally, that the wiki can't do any of these things on its own.  You have to do them in it.  The wiki is simply a forum for our discussion.  It can't analyze cultural phenomena unless the people interested in games as cultural phenomena choose to write about that on the wiki.  It can't include everyone's opinion unless everyone engages and shares their opinion on the wiki.  Just saying that the wiki ought to do something is like telling a hammer to build a house.  Take some personal responsibility for what you want out of life, dammit.Hamilcar389 10:13, 30 January 2009 (EST)
• It should discuss the different devices we use to play videogames and how they affect our experience.
• Discuss the nostalgia we feel for old video-games we played as children.
• It should help answer people's questions, like this one
• It will discuss the various genres of video games and why they appeal to us.

What is this wiki actually doing?

• It's being frequented and constantly changed and updated by individuals of the class [some more than others...]
• No one's keeping people from updating and changing it. The fact is that no one is really that interested, so the most bored people in the class manage to dominate the discourse. If you'd like to play a larger role in constructing the wiki, Crisy, all you have do to is take action.