What Being a Mindful Citizen Critic Means in Practice

            Before this assignment, I had never edited a Wikipedia article before. I was unaware of how easy it is and how openly available Wikipedia is to allow anyone to edit an article, but I was also unaware of the many standards and responsibilities that come with editing for Wikipedia. Through years and years of school I would often use Wikipedia as a quick reference to look something up, but never in formal contexts as I was always taught how unreliable Wikipedia is. After this assignment, I would no longer necessarily say that this claim is true. My beliefs about this have changed because of the Wikipedia trusted system of being a mindful citizen critic when working in the Wikipedia sandbox. With the lessened reward and punishment system of Wikipedia, the result is, “…basic order maintained, as people choose to respect particular limits in the absence of enforcement” (Zittrain 128). Wikipedia is an open source publication that anyone can access and edit; however, the standards and monitoring in place do hold weight for Wikipedians to avoid bias and provide accurate information to Wikipedia consumers.

            This was an interesting assignment in that the entire class contributed and worked together, which I found to be the most difficult and rewarding part of completing the article. Creating one single article with over 20 individual contributors all working in the same room created a lot of issues from some being upset that their section had been changed or entire sections being deleted on accident. Corbett and Eberly stress the importance of working together in this kind of sandbox environment in “Becoming a Citizen Critic” when they say, “In a democracy, rhetoric as the actualizer of potential depends on citizens who are able to imagine themselves as agents of action, rather than just spectators or consumers” (Corbett and Eberly 131). This was an important learning process, as the class learned how to work as a democracy, making changes together and bringing each individual section into conversation with the article as a whole. Learning how to work together in Wikipedia’s sandbox environment brought in overarching class principles on how to be a citizen critic and trust in each other’s work, which is discussed in “Becoming a Citizen Critic”: “Citizen criticism requires some sense of faith in whatever public or community is being addressed” (Corbett and Eberly 122).

            Responsibility played a large part in being one individual writer for this collaborative article. This required utilizing Wikipedia’s regulations in order to provide accurate and unbiased information, while at the same time trusting the editing system of Wikipedia in knowing that mistakes can be fixed, and the Wikipedia network, in this case being our classmates, would be helping to provide validity for our work. An open source system of this sort works because, “When we face heavy regulation, we see and shape our behavior more in relation to reward and punishment by an arbitrary external authority, than because of a commitment to the kind of world our actions can help bring about” (Zittrain 128). By not being highly regulated and punished for minor and unintentional discrepancies, Wikipedians strive to uphold the standards and ethics of open source publications for their consumers. This is largely because of Wikipedia’s editing system, which allows that, “If any of the posted material is objectionable or inaccurate, people can either ignore it, [or] request for it to be taken down…” (Zittrain 131). A system similar to this is exactly what took place in our large editing workshops in class, with everyone working together to question material when necessary or remove extraneous information for the better of the article as a whole.

            One final concept that I gained from this assignment was a more complex but concrete understanding of rhetorical velocity. In “Rhetorical Velocity and Copyright: A Case Study on Strategies of Rhetorical Delivery,” rhetorical velocity is defined as, “a strategic concept of delivery in which a rhetor theorizes the possibilities for the recomposition of a text based on how s/he anticipates how the text might later be used” (Ridolfo and Rife 229). My understanding of rhetorical velocity came from the way I adapted my writing in the context of a Wikipedia article. This required me to provide accurate and unbiased information, in a matter of fact way, relying heavily on sources while using little quotation, and citing with footnotes. My typical academic writing, including the majority of my writing in this class, relies more on quotation and manipulating quotations to the arguments specific to an assignment. Ridolfo and Rife touch on the importance of how Wikipedia operates as a commons: “When rhetorical velocity and copyright converge, one has to define the commons, because designing documents or discourse to be appropriated ultimately means placing creations in the commons, which is a place reliant on the appropriation of things with no owners (i.e. orphaned work) and of things previously owned (as in the case of human bones)” (Ridolfo and Rife 238). Respecting the commons environment is essential to being a Wikipedia editor because constructing an article in the Wikipedia sandbox relies so heavily on appropriating information and accurately conveying that information to one specific topic or article. Appropriation was another large overarching theme of the class that we were able to further understand because, “…cultural properties – unlike natural resources – are not exhaustible, and in fact depend upon appropriation to survive” (Ridolfo and Rife 238). This was true in our collaborative article as we appropriated many class sources as well as additional outside sources to provide information pertinent to our article topic for Wikipedia consumers to utilize in the future.

            Overall, editing a Wikipedia article for the first time was a large learning process that brought together several overarching themes from the class, ultimately giving me a deeper understanding of what rhetorical velocity and being a mindful citizen critic really mean.

Corbett, Edward P.J., and Rosa A. Eberly. “Becoming a Citizen Critic: Where Rhetoric

Meets the Road.” The Elements of Reading. 121-138. Web.

Ridolfo, Jim and Martine Courant Rife. “Rhetorical Velocity and Copyright: A Case

Study on Strategies of Rhetorical Delivery.” 223-243. Web.

Zittrain, Jonathon L. “Lessons of Wikipedia.” 127-295. Web.

What Does Being a Mindful Citizen Critic Mean When Operating in a Commons?

Wikipedia largely functions as a “commons,” requiring a trust system that each Wikipedian (or Wikipedia editor) act as a citizen critic, only editing where appropriate and with proper citation, to better Wikipedia as a source for all its readers. As a new Wikipedian, I went into editing my first article with hesitations about whether or not I would be expert enough to provide contributions to the article. This required being a mindful citizen critic, reading the article from a neutral point of view, considering the rhetorical velocity of any changes I made, and sticking to Wikipedia’s many guidelines for maintaining their sense of trust for the open source publication. Ridolfo and Rife define rhetorical velocity as, “a strategic concept of delivery in which a rhetor theorizes the possibilities for the recomposition of a text based on how s/he anticipates how the text might later be used” (Ridolfo and Rife 229). Upon completing the revisions I felt necessary to make in order to better the article, I felt that I had a better sense of what being a mindful citizen critic means in respect specifically to the commons that is Wikipedia, and how rhetorical velocity plays a large role in considering how editing for Wikipedia defines citizen criticism.

As an open source online publication, openly editable to anyone, Wikipedia must lay out a strict set of guidelines for its editors to follow in order to keep its information credible and up to date. Wikipedia operates as a commons based on the way “commons” is defined by Ridolfo and Rife in “Rhetorical Velocity and Copyright: A Case Study on Strategies of Rhetorical Delivery” when they state, “When rhetorical velocity and copyright converge, one has to define the commons, because designing documents or discourse to be appropriated ultimately means placing creations in the commons, which is a place reliant on the appropriation of things with no owners (i.e. orphaned work) and of things previously owned (as in the case of human bones)” (Ridolfo and Rife 238). This largely relates to rhetorical velocity in the commons of Wikipedia, as Wikipedia is comprised solely of appropriation, compiling information from a vast number of sources to provide unbiased and accurate information to its audience. Citizen criticism is important to upholding this commons by considering rhetorical velocity when making any changes because of the freedom that Wikipedia allows in making these changes. Corbett and Eberly address this important connection between rhetorical velocity and being a mindful citizen critic in “Becoming a Citizen Critic” when they say, “Citizen criticism requires some sense of faith in whatever public or community is being addressed” (Corbett and Eberly 122). All Wikipedians and consumers of Wikipedia articles must have this faith in each other, that Wikipedians are being mindful in their contributions, and that readers are receiving accurate and credible information.

The article I chose to edit, titled “Bulgarians in Albania,” was flagged for needing “copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone, or spelling.” I took on this task, line editing the article for any of these problems, finding only three “minor” errors. These included adding a comma, removing a word, and removing a period in the middle of a sentence. While these are all very small errors, they do help clarify the article by making a few sentences easier to read. I expected to find more obvious errors when reading this article because it had been flagged, but even while editing for such small errors I had to remain a mindful citizen critic, and consider the rhetorical velocity of these changes and how they would affect the article as a whole.

While my few contributions to making a single article a little more understandable for readers was a small task, it still allowed me to experience how Wikipedians remain mindful citizen critics in Wikipedia’s democratic “sandbox” environment. Corbett and Eberly state that, “In a democracy, rhetoric as the actualizer of potentional depends on citizens who are able to imagine themselves as agents of action, rather than just spectators or consumers” (Corbett and Eberly 131). This is important for Wikipedians as their role isn’t simply to consume articles, but to take action and edit where necessary for the better of Wikipedia as a whole. The rhetorical velocity or editing in this “democracy” is also important as Wikipedia relies strongly on appropriation to provide its material. This is touched on by Ridolfo and Rife who state, “…cultural properties – unlike natural resources – are not exhaustible, and in fact depend upon appropriation to survive” (Ridolfo and Rife 238). Because Wikipedia relies so heavily on appropriation, Wikipedians must strictly follow the guidelines, only making judgments and actions when necessary to better or further the aim of an article.

Revising a Wikipedia article in this context where I only needed to make a few grammatical changes is very different from the type of writing and editing that is required when drafting an entire article. However, it was a good example of the importance of considering rhetorical velocity for any changes made to remain a mindful citizen critic who respects the democratic structure of Wikipedia as an open source “sandbox” that other consumers will be utilizing. The Wikipedia commons relies on a system of trust and following a set of guidelines to survive, and even small editing roles for a single article can showcase how to operate appropriately within the commons.

Corbett, Edward P.J., and Rosa A. Eberly. “Becoming a Citizen Critic: Where Rhetoric Meets the Road.” The Elements of Reading. 121-138. Web. 

Ridolfo, Jim and Martine Courant Rife. Rhetorical Velocity and Copyright: A Case Study

Wikipedia: Neutral Point of View and Verifiability

Wikipedia is a very unique online encyclopedia in that it is open source and openly editable by anyone who chooses to make themselves a contributor simply by registering online. The ease of becoming a Wikipedia editor leads to a lot of criticism for the reliability and verifiability of Wikipedia as a trustworthy source, especially in academic settings. This is why Wikipedia has a strong set of guidelines in place, their five pillars, to keep Wiki contributors from presenting false or biased information. Wikipedia’s featured articles have even stricter criteria to ensure that editors write only well-written and neutral articles that are backed by thorough research. All of these guidelines combined are the sources the Wikipedia contributors utilize in making their composing decisions. The most important factors in these composing decisions involve sticking to a neutral point of view and providing verifiability for the entire article, both of which are done almost entirely by thoroughly researching article topics and providing as many sources as possible to make sure that every single sentence provides necessary, useful, and credible information to the article as a whole and to Wikipedia consumers in general.

To exemplify the factors that make one Wikipedia article “better” than another, one can compare articles on “MarshallMcLuhan” and “Michelle Citron”. These articles have several similarities in that their leads introduce that both of these people were scholars of sorts, cover their lives and careers, and use external links and footnotes to verify their sources and provide credibility. However, there are also many factors that make the composing decisions and overall article for McLuhan “better” than the article on Citron. The article on “Michelle Citron” is much shorter as a whole, has a very short lead of only one sentence, has very few external links that are non-descriptive and nonspecific, fewer references, and a structure with no subsections. The lack of external links and references are the biggest factor in deciding that this article has less to offer. It provides less information and is less credible.  The article on “Marshall McLuhan” gives a thorough lead introducing McLuhan’s contributions to media theory, provides substantial external links on his external influences, and a thorough and descriptive structure with subsections that further break up the article into digestible sections for the reader. The references for McLuhan’s article are also numerous and from credible sources including Random House, university presses (ex: Oxford University Press), and credible journals from Routledge.

In another comparison of what differentiates Wikipedia as a source from other online encyclopedias is a Wikipedia article on “Henry Sidgwick” compared with an article from the Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy on “HenrySidgwick”. While the Wikipedia article is very thorough and overall a useful and informational source, I would still use the source from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy in doing credible research on Henry Sidgwick. There are several factors that make the Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy a “better” source. First is the lead, which is much more descriptive than the Wikipedia article. It reinforces that Sidgwick is one of the most influential ethnical philosophers of the Victorian era and goes on to include many of his influences and contributions, providing more introductory information than Wikipedia. Another benefit of the Stanford Encyclopedia is its language and tone, which are both more academic sounding, using more philosophical sources and information to describe Sidgwick’s work. The structure and outline of the article are also much more thorough, with more descriptive titles to inform the reader what they will be learning about, including useful subsections as well. The source list is also thorough, utilizing credible sources from scientific journals and several Oxford and University Presses. The one benefit that Wikipedia has over the Stanford Encyclopedia when comparing the article on Henry Sidgwick is its use of footnotes, showing the credibility of every single statement, whereas the Stanford Encyclopedia uses in-text citations instead making it a little more difficult to track down and use the outside sources.

Another important part of Wikipedia is its featured articles. These are articles that receive the most attention and are most closely monitored for their neutral point of view and verifiability, which are enforced by the standards of the featured articlecriteria. Neutral point of view and verifiability are so important to prevent cases of plagiarism. In “Plagiarism and Promiscuity” Wiebe states that, “As Moore Howard suggested, in academic writing, at least, there is no simple ‘originality,’ no such work that simply jumps from the student’s mind to the page in some unmediated way” (Wiebe 33). This is applicable to Wikipedia because the article must utilize outside sources to provide their information to avoid wrongly using claims and facts. These two important parts of the featured article criteria can be examined for their strengths and weaknesses in the Wikipedia article on “W.E.B. Du Bois”.

Wikipedia defines neutral pointof view as “representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without bias, all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic” (1). The article on W.E.B. Du Bois is very strong in representing a neutral point of view. It does this by being careful not to present claims as facts or facts as claims. Presenting a neutral point of view prevents the possible rhetorical velocity of using outside sources in different contexts than their original. In “Rhetorical Velocity” Ridolfo and Rife state, “Ridolfo and DeVoss (2009) defined rhetorical velocity as ‘the strategic theorizing for how a text might be recomposed (and why it might be recomposed) by third parties, and how this recomposing may be useful or not to the short- or long-term rhetorical objectives of the rhetorician’” (Ridolfo and Rife 240). The article discusses Du Bois in depth but also discusses his outside influences and how their work impacted Du Bois and the era that he lived in. This article also has a strong use of external links, which helps support that there is a lot of context for the work that Du Bois did and shows that it is a well-researched article while not bringing in too many extraneous details by allowing the reader to do further research on their own through the links. By not creating bias, this article presents a neutral point of view, simply telling of Du Bois’ life with no bias for the social issues he impacted or how he played a role.

The verifiability of the article on Du Bois also has many strengths, but a few weaknesses as well. Wikipedia defines verifiability as “[meaning] that people reading and editing the encyclopedia can check that the information comes from a reliable source” (1). This article is certainly verifiable, based on its very thorough citations (with almost 300 footnotes). Its verifiability is also proven through its substantial further reading list as there is a lot of information to be covered on Du Bois and further reading makes the article less dense by allowing the reader to do further research instead of providing too much extraneous information. However, the reference list is very short considering the length of the article and the number of footnotes. The reference list is important because Wikipedia articles rely on appropriation to present their information.  In “Rhetorical Velocity,” Ridolfo and Rife say, “…because cultural properties – unlike natural resources – are not exhaustible, and in fact depend upon appropriation to survive” (238). Appropriation is necessary, but it must still be properly cited and provide enough reference. A longer and more in depth reference list would provide much more verifiability for this article.

While all of these Wikipedia articles discussed have both their strengths and their weaknesses, they all follow Wikipedia’s five pillars and article criteria to some extent as these are loose guidelines that are up to the interpretation and use of the Wikipedia editors. Providing loose guidelines rather than rules is essential to the world of Wikipedia because as Zittrain says, “When we face heavy regulation, we see and shape our behavior more in relation to reward and punishment by an arbitrary external authority, than because of a commitment to the kind of world our actions can help bring about” (Zittrain 128). By following guidelines instead of rules, Wikipedia contributors can work freely to provide the best information possible while still working ethically to be credible.

World Wide Wikipedia

In response to Ashley's Blog Post:

I like your focus on ‘guidelines.’ Wikipedia operates purely on a set of guidelines, or what Zittrain would call standards, rather than a set of rules. According to Zittrain this is a worthy approach to the world of Wikipedia because, “standards can work better than rules in unexpected contexts” (Zittrain 128). The issue of rules vs. guidelines has been experimented with in other contexts. Zittrain discusses an experiment done in the Dutch city of Drachten where the removal of traffic signs, parking meters, and parking spaces led to results that were, “counterintuitive: a dramatic improvement in vehicular safety” (Zittrain 127). This same system of trust in guidelines rather than defined rules with strict consequences is how Wikipedia operates leading Wikipedia editors to write and edit mindfully and to be considerate of content. 

Focusing on your first question, “Will Wikipedia ever produce a final article,” is a difficult question to answer. However, it seems unlikely to me, and if Wikipedia were to produce a final article, a similar online encyclopedia would likely appear. Zittrain says, “Wikipedia has charted a path from crazy idea to stunning worldwide success. There are versions of Wikipedia in every major language…” (Zittrain 136). This success on a global level proves the usefulness of Wikipedia and the fact that even though it is often viewed as an untrustworthy source, it does serve a purpose and the world does utilize its information. In response to your second question, “Should we expect more sites like Wikipedia in the future,” this is also likely especially if Wikipedia were to produce a final article. According to Zittrain, “If Wikipedia did not exist there would still be reason to cheer the generative possibilities of the Internet, its capacity to bring people together in meaningful conversations, commerce, or action” (Zittrain 148). The creation of Wikipedia, despite negative views about the validity of its open source content, is a unique creation that allows worldwide collaboration of information in a way that had never been seen before. In addition to Wikipedia, or after Wikipedia is no longer contributed to, Wikipedia has made the Internet a place where anyone can freely edit content and create a worldwide collaboration to benefit everyone. 

- Christina Morgan

Citizen Critics: To Trust or Not to Trust?

According to the Wikipedia:About page, “Wikipedia is a multilingual, web-based, free-content encyclopedia project supported by the Wikimedia Foundation and based on an openly editable model” (1). A large collaboration written by anonymous volunteers who can edit and make changes to the articles at their leisure, this presents problems of validity and credibility when trying to define the constituents and constraints of the Wikipedia project as a whole. Corbett and Eberly state in “Becoming a Citizen Critic” that, “Citizen criticism requires some sense of faith in whatever public or community is being addressed” (Corbett, Eberly 122). This is certainly true for users and collaborators of Wikipedia who must trust in the anonymous system in order for the site to function successfully. 

In her article “Finding the Good Argument,” Jones presents several rules for making arguments in discourse. The two most important ones in relation to freely editable projects such as Wikipedia include The Burden-of-Proof Rule and The Validity Rule. Jones defines the Burden-of-Proof rule saying, “If you make an argument, you have to provide evidence to back it up” (Jones 173). According to Jones, the Validity rule states, “The reasoning in the argumentation must be logically valid or must be capable of being made valid by making explicit one or more unexpressed premises” (Jones 176). Sources used on Wikipedia must provide evidence for what is said in an article and must be used to create a valid argument in order to produce accurate and trustworthy information. 

Wikipedia has categories for articles that are incomplete or require additional information. These are categorized as “stubs” for incomplete articles and “articles to be expanded” for those that could benefit from additional editing and sources. On Wikipedia you can enter anything into the search bar and you will either be brought directly to a page or given a list of redirection pages that may link you to the information you were looking for. 

One of the main arguments that Jones makes in her article is that, “What is often missing from these discussions is research, consideration of multiple vantage points, and, quite often, basic logic” (Jones 158). 

After doing a random search for several terms and topics relating to the public sphere and public policy, several of them linked to direct pages but others provided several redirection links which included some very useful sources and some that were irrelevant to the information being sought. Terms such as public sphere, public policy, Jim Crow, and criminal justice brought up direct pages with information usually beginning by offering a definition and history of the terms and then branching out into subcategories of these issues as all of these (aside from Jim Crow) are broad terms that do not pertain to one issue. 

Other searches, however, brought up redirection pages. A search for “criminal justice” brings up a direct page, but when changed to “criminal justice racism” a redirection page including links for sexism, racism, and racism in the United States come up. When searching for “race response” a redirection page for Race and Ethnicity in the United States Consensus is the result. Another search for “race response to Katrina” brought up redirection to Hurricane Katrina Disaster Relief and Criticism of Government Response to Hurricane Katrina with Race as a Factor in Slow Response. All of these redirection pages were brought to attention from terms related to the public sphere and were useful links. Others came up which were not relevant but they are typically easy to weed out. 

As a collaborative website that could easily invite inaccurate or false information and plagiarism by its many contributors, Wikipedia has a “reliable sources” policy outlining that, “Articles should be based on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. This means that we only publish the opinions of reliable authors.” Using a Wikipedia article titled “Reed Vole” from the “Did you know…” section of Wikipedia’s main page, the types of sources and how reliable they are can be examined. 

This article contained only three sources, all of which were from credited websites and one of which was from a book published by Princeton University Press. While all of these sources seem reliable and trustworthy, this does not mean that every fact in the article will be entirely correct. After randomly choosing five facts from this (short) article, four of the five matched up to the sources provided. The one fact that did not match up, I was unable to find in the sources. Another of the facts which reads, “The reed vole is native to eastern Asia,” was a correct fact but was an overgeneralization that could have included the more specific areas of Asia where this animal is found as well as failed to include that reed voles are also found in parts of Europe. 

In their article, Corbett and Eberly state, “Just because someone’s claim is supported by a so-called expert does not mean that it is beyond response or rebuttal. Be particularly aware of reasoners who use only ‘expert testimony’ to support their claims; such reasoning is often shallow and easily refuted” (Corbett, Eberly 127). Even though the sources in Wikipedia articles (and in “Reed Vole” in particular) are reputable sources, this doesn't mean that their validity should not be questioned or that every bit of information used by these sources in this article has been transferred over and used correctly. 

Four of the five facts were technically considered correct, so as a whole this article could be considered generally reliable information. However, while it is reliable, it could be made more reliable by including more information, more specifics, and more sources. When an article is lacking in these regards, it is up to the anonymous Wikipedia editors to correct them. Corbett and Eberly believe that, “In a democracy, rhetoric as the actualizer of potential depends on citizens who are able to imagine themselves as agents of action, rather than just spectators or consumers” (Corbett, Eberly 131). Those who anonymously edit for the Wikipedia world must take on this personhood as citizen critics and agents of action to edit and add information where articles are lacking to create more reliable and accurate articles. 

Corbett, Edward P.J., and Rosa A. Eberly. “Becoming a Citizen Critic: Where Rhetoric Meets the Road.” The Elements of Reading. 121-138. Web. 

Jones, Rebecca. “Finding the Good Argument OR Why Bother With Logic?” Writing Spaces: 

Readings on Writing. 156-179. Web.