Blog #3

We have been talking a lot over the past few weeks about what it means to write and edit in a collaborative space such as Wikipedia. Whether it is limited to within our assigned groups or in the larger Wiki sandbox, there are different elements and circumstances that must be taken into consideration when working within this type of atmosphere. We must be mindful of these constraints for they are what shape our ability to be an active participant in the Wikipedia community. 

One of the issues addressed in our readings and one that I have experienced already in trying to compose collaboratively is the issue of transparency. Whether it is writing or editing, the text being analyzed shouldn't read as if it has been cut and pasted together like a jigsaw puzzle. Each author and editor might look at it and interpret a text differently but in such a shared space, the work’s craftsmanship must remain transparent. It is not conducive to building a collaborative argument if each person contributing to the text is bringing their own experience and bias lens to the work. The cultural and social identity of its composer should not be reflected in their argument. It is important to maintain this distinction when writing in such an open atmosphere. There are readers and editors from all over the world that will be privy to our work, not just those from the limited FSU community we might be used to; people of all sorts of identities and perspectives that might differ from our own. This idea of the “global reader” is something we must keep in mind when working with transparency. Even Dr. Wadewitz mentioned it in our Skype session last week- we must remember we are writing for a generalized audience; one that might not share the same educational, cultural or specialized interest as us.  Hood addresses this very concern in Editing Out Obscenity. She outlines the cooperative relationship between “a global population [that] reads and edits Wikipedia entries”, “the intellectual/ cultural concerns of that global audience, which emerge through the collaborative writing process,” and “any editor [that] confronts the needs/ sensitivities/ literacies of that diverse audience” (Hood). It is in the balance of these that one will find the transparency needed for composing in a public and collaborative space. 

These ideas of the "global reader" and transparency are things that I had never really considered in my writing before we began working in the Wiki space. We are taught throughout our time as a student to write for an intended audience and to situate our argument in something we feel passionate about; allowing our tone as a writers to identify our work as our own. It is a mentality and craft that is instilled in us as students from the earliest years of composition. Yet Gates argues that we must instead compose in an educational setting without these cultural stigmas and stereotypes. Without this ethnocentric take on the humanities, knowledge and culture could be more accessible to the masses, rather than the exclusive majority. It is not fair to exclude certain heritages from cultural knowledge solely on the grounds that their background is different or opposing to the most accepted point of view. Instead Gates feels that we must take a more removed approach to education in an effort to make it more accessible and understood. Though he is not addressing the Wikipedia platform specifically, Gates' ideas of cultural integration would also apply to composing in the public sphere. The main idea is not to exclude readers based on their heritage, but instead appeal to readers and editors of all cultural facets. The global reader should be able to engage with a text produced in such a public forum, regardless of identity or history.

It is here that we find the key to composing in such an exposed arena. We as students, writers and editors must be mindful of both our contributions and limitations. It is these culturally imposed constraints that might contribute to the exclusion of certain cultures and groups reading an article on an international level. In order for a “global reader” to be engaged, it must be the effort of the author to remove any kind of bias they might bring to the text. This transparency is key to insuring the accessibility of our Wikipedia article as it is accepted into the Wiki global network. If we are mindful of these ethical constraints while composing in the space, it will be in our advantage to end up with a completed article that remains accessible to our global reader, across all cultural and geographical divides.


Works Cited

Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. “Integrating the American Mind.” Eds. William A. Covino and David A. Jolliffe. 
Rhetoric: Concepts, Definitions, Boundaries. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn and Bacon, 1995. 342-349.

Hood, Cara Leah. “Editing Out Obscenity: Wikipedia and Writing Pedagogy.” 2008. Available online at 
http://www.bgsu.edu/departments/english/cconline/wiki_hood/index.html .