David Sherlock

A map

Interests

Some of this started as a laugh. Wrestling graphs ended up in the PhD. Streaming a choose-your-own-adventure with Harold Bishop has not, yet. I usually start with something people already care about and show it to them. This map is those interests, and some that have not gone anywhere yet.

The map

Solid lines already exist. Dashed lines could become a paper or a class, but have not yet.

Click an interest. Filled pills have already shown up in a paper or a thesis. Outlines have not, yet.

WrestlingDigital footprintsWikipediaClassroom gamesSoapsStreamingText adventuresCookie clickers

Digital footprints

ScholarshipIn a paper. The thesis itself. Open-source stats on the traces platforms keep, sitting next to Snowden and Cambridge Analytica in the same conversation.

TeachingUsed in teaching. The jam sessions: bring some methods, some data, see what people make of them. Teaching the stats lecture did not land. Showing a picture people already cared about did.

I was working as an educational technologist, running workshops on digital footprints, hoping people would get a feel for what data-driven organisations actually do. Pretty quickly the conversation stopped being about study habits and became about privacy.

The thesis is already written. What I have not done is put other interests through the same thing: soaps instead of wrestling, a live chat instead of a workshop, a stream instead of a seminar.

Already tied to

  • Wrestling. The graphs became cycle three: a community’s own data, shown to that community.
  • Wikipedia. Open methods on public traces. Wikipedia is one of the places those traces live.

Could be built

  • Soaps. The wrestling move, with soap fans: show them their own data, then let them ask how it was made.

On this site: Data-relationships and digital surveillance, Exploring Wrestling Stables.

Writing: PhD thesis.