Studio Lab 3

This project was an example of crowdsourcing. It utilized a large group of people to answer one broad essay question. It allowed for a paper to be written fairly quickly on what would have been otherwise a long and time consuming topic. Wetpaint allowed group members to check what others have written and give comments and suggestions in realtime. This advantage was further sweeten by the fact that everyone was in the same room. Being able to respond both on Wetpaint and in the classroom allowed for quick and convenient feedback when one of the mediums were unavailable. However, using Wetpaint also caused some problems. The main problem was consistency. Since many people were writing different parts of the paper, there was no fluidity to the writing. There was also the problem was opposing ideas, one might take on view on the subject, while the rest of the group took the other view. And perhaps the most troubling of all was the format of Wetpaint. It resembled a forum in some ways and in other operated like a blog. I had to learn how to use the site. I didn’t know where the group’s central post thread was, I didn’t know when I was creating a thread or posting a reply. And the first problem I immediately thought of was submission. How were we going to combine our group’s writings into one thread and then send it to the other groups? And still how was the entire paper going to be submitted? Nevertheless, it was an interesting take on writing a paper. Might not be the most consistent way but can be a very efficient method.