User:Agmayer/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
I am evaluating the List of Deaf People. Granted, this is a list and not an article, but I think it has most of the same issues that articles do.

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose this article because I am interested in improving Deaf STEM education in the U.S. Part of that improvement should be including Deaf scientists, engineers, and mathematicians as role models for Deaf students. Overall, I think this article needs a lot of improvement.

Evaluate the article
The lead section of the article is problematic. It defines "deaf people" both medically and culturally, although fails to say what qualifies as "deaf" in terms of the list. It also doesn't use "Deaf" with a capital D when talking about Deaf culture. The lead section doesn't include the different sections of the article or how they were decided.

Deaf people in sports are heavily overrepresented in this article. It's the only heading with sub-sections, while lawyers, poets, and politicians are relegated to the "Other occupations" heading. In terms of STEM careers, the article includes a very short list of Deaf scientists, one Deaf mathematician, and no Deaf engineers. The article also has problems with editing; it lists Konstantin Tsiolkovsky twice (under Deaf scientists and Other occupations). I think this should be merged with the List of deaf firsts, as all but three of the people in the List of deaf firsts is included in the List of Deaf people: Haben Girma, Wilma Newhoudt-Druchen, and Henry Winter Syle.

This article obviously calls attention to a historically underrepresented population, which is great. However, the article lists people who are partially deaf or late-deafened (such as Bruce Willis, Millie Bobbie Brown, and Stephen Colbert), which I think is questionable and is extensively discussed on this article's Talk page. The problem of who to include on the list is complex and includes what medical category their deafness falls into, if they achieved their goals before or after being deafened, and if they are active in the Deaf community. I would suggest only listing people who are Deaf (culturally Deaf and/or use ASL as their primary language).

Most of these names have no references other than their Wikipedia page, and if they do, they are often news articles. I see very few secondary sources, which is a large issue. Most recently famous Deaf people might only have a Wikipedia page and a few articles about them, so I'm not sure what to do about this. However, someone like Thomas Edison surely has a better reference for his life than a PBS news article. There are no images, although this is probably for the best, as putting one person's image up and not others would imply more importance.

This article was almost deleted in 2020 for lack of upkeep, and it is discussed on the Talk:Deaf page. I think it would greatly benefit from a deep dive into secondary sources about Deaf people, deletions and additions based on inclusion in Deaf communities, and some balancing of headings and sub-sections.