Forays into Editing Wikipedia

I actually edited another Wikipedia article just a few days ago and I was excited to note that my edit is still there after two days! Since I have a bit of experience with HTML/CSS coding prior to this experience, for that editing I did on the 18th, I was able to figure out what I was doing based on what the coding did for other cited sources. Of course, any editing feels daunting so when I opened up the editor I got a little nervous about all the functions available but I powered through. Since the article I edited for this short assignment was actually my second attempt I felt a bit more comfortable navigating the controls.

Generally, when it comes to Wikipedia, I still feel generally positively about the information. I share Zittrain's optimism. Yes, I see how easy it is to edit it but I believe in the "lawless" order that seems to have been formed here. And I believe in the fact that Wikipedia has remained—if not the top—one of the top results in Google searches. Something about the format has created a trust among the readers and editors and users of Wikipedia. Yes, it is free to edit but as (Carra Leah) Hood explicitly explained in her article about Editing Out Obscenity in Wikipedia, there is absolutely a hierarchy in place; while users have freedom to add and take away whatever they want whenever and however they want, there are still administers and those who monitor pages. There is always a trail no matter how much people believe in internet anonymity. IP addresses allow virtually every single internet user to be held accountable if conduct is not followed. No, the internet is not total anarchy but it certainly is "lawless." It exists more on the plane of moral codes and social mores. And honestly, social mores are almost more binding than laws. We follow social mores in order to avoid embarrassment and ridicule. We try to do things that benefit us and do not harm others in these types of public, open, observable spaces.

But more importantly than all that, I feel comforted in the idea that if I made errors (which I'm certain I did) then someone will be along (shortly, most likely) to fix them. To edit what I've edited which was also probably edited. And people can feel comfort in posting articles, safe in the knowledge that most likely, somewhere along the way others will edit the article and make it better. I feel comfort in the fact that nothing I do on Wikipedia has to be a final draft. I can contribute and cause others to feel motivated to contribute and in this way there is a connection and a community of mutual benefits. And it's incredibly interesting that I don't have to know anything about a subject to contribute. I'd never even heard of machine translation (though I use the function on a regular basis through GoogleTranslate) before Wikipedia directing its users to pages that "need help." I bring to the table my own set of expertise—in this case, it is editing. With our class Wikipedia page it will be editing and also everything we know about public sphere writing. And that's incredible to me. It's exactly a sense of accomplishment.

Response to Daniella Abinum's Post

Link

Response to Ashley Natareno's Post on Wikipedia

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Wikipedia Exploration

I looked up "ethnocentric" and was redirected to "Ethnocentrism." It seemed to be on point with our readings. Next, I looked up "pandering." This led to two different pages suggested: one was "pandering (politics)" and the other was "procuring (prostitution)," which I found interesting that the two of them were closely enough related that they came up next to each other. The definition of political pandering seemed to be on point with our reading. Next, I looked up "partisan" which gave me the general "partisan (political)" and then an incredibly long list of pandering in reference to something to do with World War Two as well as music. The "partisan (political)" page was rather barren and directed off to different pages. From there, I clicked on "polarization (politics)" and got a more in-depth description that tended to be American-centric, referencing our two-party system and our congress. The introduction to the page briefly mentions that it can be something other than political but it doesn't go much further than that. Next, I looked up "citizen critic" and found that there was no such page. I think that is a bit of a travesty and is a term that should, in fact, be included. Next, I looked up "primary certitude," another page that has yet to be added that I do believe could use its own page. Next, I looked up "false analogy" and got a pretty good article that also linked to "list of fallacies" and a page called "apples and oranges" which was a good break down of the American idiom that is basically a false analogy example. Next, "paradox" that led to a very informative article that I think was very well rounded. Next, I looked up "rhetoric," a term often misused in the media. However, the article was well-written and seemed to be on point with what I have learned as an EWM major. It was a long article and as the subject is difficult to pin down I felt it was appropriate in length. From there, I looked up "audience," since this term is equally difficult to pin down and comprehend. As far as I could tell, this article was also quite lengthy and rounded-out. Next, I looked up "citizen" which redirected to "citizenship." This page took the term quite literally and related it to laws and countries, linking to the page for "nationality." Citizenship is generally acknowledged as having full rights within a municipality/state/country/nation/etc.  Next, I looked up "enthymeme" and found a page that was a bit short but also had links to logical fallacies which I found appropriate. And finally, I looked up "bias." As I suspected, the page was mostly made up of explanations of the "negative" type of bias, refusal to acknowledge the other side or the fact that something could even have a bias.

For the article I analyzed I(entitled "Queen's Building, Wolverhampton"), there were only two sources—one was a print book and the other was a Wikipedia stub that linked to an online database which I found difficult to navigate or find out any information about where they get their information. A Google search of the same name as the database (The National Heritage List for England) took me to an entirely different webpage than what was linked on the Wikipedia stub. Since the source that seemed to be drawn most heavily from was the book (entitled Britain's Historic Railway Buildings: A Gazetteer of Structures) that I do not have access to it is difficult for me to fact-check the information and I was unable to really navigate the website listed. A search of the website returned with only internet and image searches. So, I was unable to verify any information off that website as well. I think the book is potentially reliable, based on the fact that the edition and page numbers of a specific book are listed but I do not find the website even usable, much less reliable.

Wikipedia is actually much more reliable than many high school teachers might have us believe—it is rather well regulated and monitored, with programs in place to look for fictitious/libelous information. However, some pages will be more or less rounded then others, given time and much room for debate and edits. The longer a page has been around, the more likely it is to be mostly free of bias and rather neutral. Yes, it is open to all citizens with internet access but there are only certain types of people who will edit pages (those who believe they know information pertinent to particular pages). However, all pages (except those that are specifically monitored by Wikipedia staff), are completely transparent; they will list when they were originally posted, by whom they were posted, and who has had any part in editing the pages and what his/her/their contributions may have been. Thus, it is possible to track exactly what has been done to individual pages as well as the constraints on information verifiability—the sources must be specific, listed extensively, and be a third-party source. If things are not well-sourced, it will be apparent to staff and promptly removed. Wikipedia does not abide by poorly sourced information. Of course, no matter what type of media you are interacting with, there will always be a bias—always. Human beings created the content, it has a bias. However, the more eyes look at a page, the more people who edit or tweak wording the more likely it is to have less of a bias. That is the idea behind Wikipedia. It is still more likely to have a white, male, upper class bias because almost all media does and those are the people most likely to e able to access the information and want to edit it, but the idea is that it has much less of a bias than a traditional print encyclopedia. Donald Lazere, in chapter five of his book Reading and Writing for Civic Literacy: A Critical Citizens Guide, speaks extensively about bias. He says that every viewpoint is and isn't biased. How does that make sense? Well, we try to keep things as "nonpartisan" as possible, but no matter who we are we carry our identity in our experiences and our experiences shape our opinions. I am a twenty-something, white, female. I am shaped by this. I am shaped by my privilege as a white person and my discrimination as a female and as a "young person" with "no job experience." I will tend to vote democratic and I will write like a liberal person. Lazere explains that you are more likely to be seen as reliable if you acknowledge your own bias: "You will never convince someone who doesn't already agree with you if you stack the deck by presenting only arguments in support of your own position…" (Lazere 129).

Wikipedia is the epitome of "our public discourse" as Edward Corbett and Rosa Eberly discuss in their book The Elements of Reasoning.  We are all citizens of the public, this shared space. We have the right and ability to participate and in that way we have the responsibility to come into it in a responsible way. There will never be a singular experience but we have the ability to share it, come to an understanding with hope and the possibility of change. This is the nature of a "citizen critic." We can help discuss and change things if we come at it with the ability to change ourselves and hear others. That's exactly what Wikipedia gives us the ability to do. We can read, disagree, edit, and be edited ourselves. Wikipedia is the symbol our freedom.

Response to Emily's Post on Remediation

Here is the link to the post and my response to Emily's post on remediation

Editing Analysis of Short Assignment 3

To start the editing process, the first step, of course, is to read the article and try to get a sense of the message the author is going for. This is a bit difficult since it seems that the message at the beginning is not the same message as what we wind up with at the end. From this, I critiqued the ending, adding a comment about how to make the article more consistent with the rest of the article. It seems to have a tense change (not in the grammatical sense) in the sense that it shifts from a critique of present and immediate to a projected future (the potential Hilary Clinton presidential campaign) because the author perceives this future as a "positive example" of how to shift the behavior. As mentioned by David Kaufer, when it comes to policy changes it is important to find positive comparisons that have whatever desired effect(s) the author wants. In this case, though, the "positive comparison" is not one that has actually happened. It is all purely speculation.

Next, I started back at the beginning and went through looking for all the references I believed to be too "high context" or a bit tone-deaf when it comes to the subject matter at hand. The problem I see with this article is that the issue of the Michael Brown shooting is not frivolous or light and I don't believe it to be a good backdrop for an article complaining about too much media coverage. At least, if the author was dead set on this particular focal point than they needed to give it the gravity it deserves underneath the criticism of potentially reprehensible media behavior. To this end, calling Ferguson a "Woodstock" even if that is the way the media treated it seems disrespectful (looking at the guidelines mentioned in Working With Words' chapter “Sexism/Racism/Other -Isms”). I suggested a removal of this particular term.

Then I began to look for things that seemed enthymematic and I found it surprisingly easy to find in an article as short as this. The author was not concise with their meanings yet made several statements that jumped to conclusions (looking at the guidelines about Cohesion and Coherence in Style).

The seventh or eighth paragraph is where the article starts to lose its focus and starts to shift into an argument that doesn't really help the author formulate a solution or argument for a solution. He starts to give positive examples, as Kaufer talks about, but he does not use them as qualifiers since they don't further his argument. There does not seem a point in bringing up positive examples of "national conversation" unless he does something with the examples, which he does not. He simply states, this person does it well at this point in time and this person does it well later while the first person starts to slack. This also does not seem to have much relevance to his point about media specifically being the source of the problem here.

It seems that the author is particularly bothered by "24 hour news" and their need to fill time and space with whatever they can and they have become sloppy—honestly just showing up and watching. However, he does not propose a policy shift or any kind of solution and that becomes a problem when it comes to an article about policy changes. He brings up Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton as presidential candidates and points out that their behavior and strategies are similar to those used by the media but he does nothing further with these examples. It would be a perfectly acceptable shift in subject if it was brought back around to the subject of the media (perhaps if he suggested these figures were responsible for changing the behavior or modeling the behavior so as to influence the media). Instead, he just ends it an almost-conclusion, and almost-there statement about solutions that he himself can't seem to make a solution out of. 

Science Blog Link

Here is a link to my science blog