User talk:KO525W/Guerilla Open Access Manifesto

To peer reviewers, we're mostly done, other than the lead section! Please ignore the random links lol, it's how we're giving each other sources we find for each section and should be deleted soon. Stickygecks (talk) 22:53, 4 February 2022 (UTC)Reagan Dennison

Amy's Peer Review
I really enjoyed learning about the content in your Wikipedia article! I think you had a lot of good information and research put into this draft, and my suggestions mainly revolve around cutting some of this information down when working on your second draft.

I think my first suggestion for improvement would be to write a strong lead section that has enough information to set the stage for readers who may not be familiar with Aaron Swartz or open source. In order to get an understanding of what I was reading, I had to look up Aaron Swartz on my own. I would take a look at similar articles like the GNU Manifesto to see how they structure their lead, as well as the general content and structure of the article. Another suggestion would be to try cutting down on the amount of content on this page–I think having more information isn’t always better, especially for an encyclopedia-like article. I think you can reduce a lot of the context in the “Historical context and focus on scholarly access” section, if I’m reading an article about the manifesto specifically I don’t necessarily need to learn about the creation of large information databases. For that section, I think honestly only one paragraph is necessary (if at all) to understand the background information necessary. I would say maybe only the second and third paragraphs in that section are necessary, and even those could be shortened a lot.

Additionally, I think you can get rid of the “Prelude: Aaron Swartz’s work…” section entirely, and instead just hyperlink to Aaron Swartz’s wikipedia page where the content is pretty much the same.

For the analysis of the content section, I would rename/reword it to be a summary of the Manifesto. I think “Analysis” implies a less neutral POV, but for this article you should be summarizing instead of making any conclusions/judgments on the meaning of the Manifesto. Overall though, I think the content in the first paragraph (“The manifest opens…”) gives a great overview of the content!

For the repercussions section, I would also cut down on content here. I think some of the repercussions aren’t directly related to the Manifesto, but instead related to Swartz’s JSTOR attack which should be kept separate. Also, make sure not to use phrases like “most are in agreement…” and instead say specific names (if possible) of people in either support or against the Manifesto. I would check out the reactions section of the Google's Ideological Echo Chamber page for possible inspiration.

I would also double check spelling and tense as well before the final version, I think I noticed a few small typos and inconsistencies with the tenses.

Overall, I think you have a good first draft and I would mainly recommend just rewording and getting rid of sections that may be redundant/unrelated to the Guerilla Open Access Manifesto. Guamyo (talk) 00:22, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

Briana's Peer Review
The content of your article is very in depth and I enjoyed reading it and learning about this topic. I have very few suggestions that haven't already been mentioned, and I do want to reiterate some points made in Amy's Peer Review.

First, as I was reading it was a little bit unclear to me whether or not some of the information was opinionated. When it comes to information such as affordability and access to resources, it can be a fine line between stating facts and making that information come off as opinions, especially if you have strong feelings about the accessibility of information. In the lead when you use lines such as "has been known", I felt like I was reading more of an opinion than an actual fact, and was wondering if there was a source that could be cited for that. Also the term "very expensive" could have been questioned, because this could mean something different for each reader.

I do agree with Amy's review that the Prelude section could potentially be omitted because of the repetitiveness related to other articles that are already on Wikipedia.

Finally, I would suggest to make sure that you are making the sources you have used/are going to use clear, and not put words into the sources' mouths. When mentioning similarities between sources, use specific facts from each source and cite them, rather than making it sound like both sources were in conversation with each other.

Overall, the structure of the article was very easy to follow and the order of the content was very clear. The information was balanced throughout the article outside the background on Aaron Swartz's life and work. The sources are reliable, but just make sure the content is neutral and does not sound opinionated to the readers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Brianacrowley (talk • contribs) 19:37, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

Dylan's Peer Review
I think overall, it's a great article. I really liked the Lead section because it gave me lots of contextual information about Aaron Swartz and the open access movement in general. However, I noticed some grammatical errors in that section that make it a little bit confusing to the reader. For example, y'all said "as well as creating programs to help people who could to afford scholarly journals gain access." The meaning of that sentence is unclear to me due to the grammatical issues as I expressed above. I also think it would be a good idea to combine the last two sentences of the second paragraph of the Lead section so it reads "In 2013 Swartz was brought up on 13 felony charges by federal lawyers, and in fear he might be given a heavy sentencing, he took his own life." I disagree with Brianna however about the fine line between opinions and facts in regards to access issues. From what I can tell, the assertions y'all made come from Swartz's beliefs, and it's information that gives the readers additional insight into who he was as a person. And to be quite frank, socioeconomic status is objectively a barrier to accessing scholarly information, so I don't think it's overly opinionated or a stretch by any means to make that claim.

I do agree, however, that the information about the JSTOR attack, while interesting, is not necessarily directly related to the manifesto. I think it's fine to mention it, but it does appear to be one of the the foci of the repercussions section. I would also avoid phrases like "most are in agreement" unless y'all already have statistical evidence to back up the claim that the majority of activists had arrived at that consensus. Overall, I think it's a great article and it's super interesting! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dylancomm378 (talk • contribs) 01:38, 9 February 2022 (UTC)