Wiki-Who? The In's and Out's of a Wikipedia Page

The prompt I am taking under consideration is a comparison of the Wikipedia pages of Marshall McLuhan and Michelle Citron.  At first glance, the articles are vastly different.  Not only is Citron’s Wikipedia page barren in comparison to McLuhan’s, but the structure of the articles are also distinctive.

Marshall McLuhan’s Wikipedia article is robust, giving great detail into the many facets of his life.  The article’s structure begins with a summary of who he was, followed by an explanation of his life almost completely year by year, his works, and his legacy.  Following that are sections devoted to notes of statements given in the article, a works cited of pieces written by McLuhan as well as about him, further reading into the subject, and finally an extensive list of external links.  It is possible that the reason for such depth into McLuhan’s is primarily due to the fact that he has already died, and so all the works about him and records of his life are more readily available than that of a living individual who might have something to say about privacy.

Michelle Citron’s Wikipedia article, on the other hand, is scarce with information. Her introductory section is only a single, scant sentence long-- as compared to McLuhan’s two paragraphs.  Citron's article fails to give a depiction of the individual, and the closest thing to an illustration are tables assembled to display her filmography and multimedia.  The article focuses on Citron’s works, with only cursory information of the person herself.  The structure of the article moves from the scarce sentence to her early life, career, filmography, and bibliography. Following that are the notes, a reference section, and a short list of external links.  None of the works listed in the reference section contain links to other articles or web pages-- unlike McLuhan’s reference section, which was riddled with hyperlinks. 

Citron’s article’s lack of depth could be attributed to a few different factors.  Firstly, Michelle Citron is still living, meaning that she actively holds copyright to many aspects of information about her person.  A link is given for her personal website, suggesting to the reader that if one wished to learn more in depth about her one must follow the hyperlinks to a non-objective point of view.  Another possible attributing factor is the subject of her works.  McLuhan’s focus was primarily on contemporary rhetoric and the effects of technology on culture- a “hot topic” in today’s discourse.  Citron, however, holds a focus on the LGBT community (primarily the lesbian community) and her works are for the most part on film (as compared to McLuhan’s book list).  This topic, although becoming larger in the community, has not yet reached its apex and therefore is not given as must attention from intellectuals.  On top of that, with Citron’s personal webpage and living presence in the world, it is more difficult to relay information about the person and her life without either committing plagiarism or expressing opinions that appear to be written by Citron herself or a close associate. 

Although McLuhan’s article is extensive and thorough with information, it pales in comparison to that of a featured article.  After comparing Citron to McLuhan, I chose to look at the article given on Earnest Hemingway-- the notable fiction author of the twentieth century. Hemmingway’s article is a veritable novella, giving to detail to every aspect of his life and works.  Unlike the articles of Citron and McLuhan, Hemmingway’s article also delves into the themes of his works, audio of the individual, and a number of pictures with detailed captions.  Hemmingway’s article also includes a list of over 200 notes and references, something that makes the other two articles look as if they were written by a first-year English student. While McLuhan and Citron’s articles lean on the expected use of external links, Hemmingway’s article is self-sufficient, with an extensive analysis of every category.

The beautiful thing about these three Wikipedia articles is that they provide a clear view into the laxity of rules Wikipedia has about the complexity of an article.  Jonathan Zittrain, in his piece The Lessons of Wikipedia, goes into extensive detail over the advantages of Wikipedia’s lack of strict structure and rules.  Zittrain explains how Wikipedia has very few rules over its content, with a general focus on how an editor should not produce original research and how a person cannot contribute to an article about themselves (or have someone write an article for them). This constraint lends to the superficial aspect of Citron’s article (it is more difficult to write something about a living person without committing plagiarism). However, the fact that Wikipedia does not hold a “maximum” limitation, persons are able to give as must detail as they wish, which lends to Hemmingway’s dauntingly long article. 

Wikipedia, as mentioned previously, has a strict “no plagiarism” rule.  This is one of the only things that Wikipedia is adamant on, and for good reason (one wouldn't want their website shut down because of plagiarized content).  Russel Wiebe, in the article "Plagiarism and Promiscuity,"f gives detail onto how even accidental plagiarism can lead to negative consequences.  In Weibe’s piece, a university used the image of one of its students for advertisement purposes, even though the student portrayed had actually been protesting and was not compliant with the use of her photo.  Wikipedia is very careful to not allow appropriation such as this and quickly removes or flags information that even has the hint of appropriation or remediation of previously published content.  This allows a safe-guard against possible lawsuits and fraudulent information.