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.