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.
