User:Allaboutrocks/Choose an Article

Article Selection
Please list articles that you're considering for your Wikipedia assignment below. Begin to critique these articles and find relevant sources.

Key Questions for Evaluation

 * Is the article's content relevant to the topic?
 * Is it written neutrally?
 * Does each claim have a citation?
 * Are the citations reliable?
 * Does the article tackle one of Wikipedia's equity gaps (coverage of historically underrepresented or misrepresented populations or subjects)?
 * Check out the article's Talk page to see what other Wikipedians are already contributing. Consider posting some of your ideas to the article's Talk page, too.

Option 1: International Energy Agency
Article title
 * International Energy Agency.

Content
All content in this article is very relevant to the topic. It begins with an overview of the organization itself, giving a brief explanation of its origin and initial motivations as well as how has functioned since its founding. It ends this introduction with influential actions by the organization and information about its current leadership. Each of these topics is explained in more detail throughout the rest of the article: history, leadership, organization/structure, membership, areas of work, and criticism. While most of these are mentioned in the lead section, the criticism aspect is left out. The controversies and criticisms of this organization are important to understanding it and how it works/has worked, and therefore should be mentioned, briefly, in the lead section.

Although there is a section for criticism in the article, this section - and the others that come before it - are very neutrally written. Looking at both the Talk Page and the version history of this article illustrates that in the past, this has not always been the case. Previous versions show that there was an intense bias against this organization by the author, shown by the article's intense critiques of the IEA and their implied preference towards oil rather than renewable energy sources. However, this has since been changed and the article now gives a very neutral point of view where facts, events, and data are used to explain rather than opinion. Even in the criticism section, the claims made against the organization are laid out clearly, but are not argumentative or persuasive.

The article may tackle an equity gap. In discussing membership, the article explains how the IEA created a new category of membership, "Association countries", in 2015 that allows "countries that do no fit the criteria of IEA membership to become affiliated with the organization and participate in its work". It works at a global level and therefore it might be more challenging to directly address issues of equity, but this sort of inclusion is a close second that is addressed.

Finally, this information is all very up-to-date. This is illustrated by the fact that the introduction includes information about how the organization dealt with, was affected by, and helped during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Organization and Writing
This article is very well-written and organized and covers many important aspects of the topic. While this organization has had critiques in the past, the article does a good job of staying neutral, not promoting the IEA, but also not letting these critiques overly influence it. The criticisms are given a balanced amount of weight at the end of the article, but should probably be briefly mentioned earlier in the lead section.

Citations and references
All claims are properly cited. While there are a significant amount of references and sources listed at the end of this article that are mostly up-to-date and current, many of them come from the IEA itself. Some of this is to be expected, as websites from the organization itself can provide information about their stated goals and objectives, or may be the location from which they share their findings and data. However, the majority of the sources cited are coming from this organization's news page, which may have a bias towards the organization itself and therefore raised the question of how reliable these sources are. Although the article seems very neutral and doesn't seem to lean particularly in favor of the IEA, ideally, there would be more non-IEA sources cited in this article to ensure that the information isn't too biased toward this one organization. There are a few, and they are well-cited and seem reliable; however, more would make this article stronger and more reliable rather than a reproduction of the IEA website/news platform. This may explain why the criticism section is left out of the lead section; editors may be biased in favor of the organization or the information they are gathering refuses to shed bad light on the organization because it is coming from the organization itself.

Talk Page
The Talk Page for this article mostly discusses old copyright issues with the logo used in the article, but a few editors mention the poor quality of the article. One mentions that the article is loaded with critiques of the organization and that the only takeaway from reading is that some people think the IEA is pro-oil. They go on to list the questions they still have that relate to the information they wish to learn about the organization. When looking at the version history from when this user wrote on the Talk Page (2012), it is clear where they are coming from. In the 12 years since then, significant edits and changes have been made, many of which answer the questions posed earlier and have helped create a more neutral and developed article.

Option 2: Light Pollution

 * Article title:Light pollution.

Content
Generally, many concepts and definitions are left undefined, unexplained, or uncited. There are also sections - which link to larger Wikipedia articles that expand on the subtopic - that need to be condensed. Right now, they take up too much room with lengthy explanations that don't relate directly to light pollution and are better left to be explained in their own articles. Additionally, there is no/little discussion of equity gaps in the topic. Although there is a section on the impact of light pollution on public health, it doesn't mention if specific groups are impacted disproportionately or more than others. Night-shift workers are the most specific that the article goes, and it does not draw conclusions about who is included in these groups.

Organization and Writing
There are small grammatical errors throughout this article, but the larger problem is the tone. Especially in the beginning sections, claims appear that are not supported by evidence and instead seem to adhere to popular thought or opinion. Further into the article, there are paragraphs within sections that state information or data or make claims about light pollution that send a message of favoritism or preference rather than fact. For example, in the "Improving light fixtures" section, images at the end - which compare different light fixtures - are captioned to make the reader prefer one type of fixture over the other. The drop-lens cobra luminaire is stated to "cause problems" in comparison to the flat-lens cobra luminaire, illustrating the kind of language that is used. Most of this language is concentrated in uncited or opinionated sections which are surrounded by cited data, facts, and neutral statements. These neutral sections are very well-cited and well-written.

Additionally, the organization of the article could use some help. There are multiple sections about preventative or "clean-up measures" that are scattered throughout the larger subheadings that could be condensed into one section. There are also a lot of different terminologies that are not explained concisely enough. Many references at the top of some subheadings link to a larger Wikipedia article that focuses on this subtopic, yet the description that follows is very lengthy and overly detailed. Some of these sections should be edited for conciseness and clarity, making sure that only the most relevant information remains.

Citations and references
Some claims are uncited, beginning with the last paragraph in the lead section. Here, a statement is made about the ease of solutions to light pollution and is followed by a claim that its status as a "manmade phenomenon" means that its political, social, and economic issues should be considered as well. However, there is no citation or source to back up this claim and the lead section is concluded with an unsupported claim. This pattern continues throughout the rest of the article, with uncited information appearing in the majority of the text in "Remediation", "Issues with measuring light pollution", "Ecological impact", "Effect on astronomy", "Economic impact", "Reduction", and more.

Most of the citations that are linked seem to be from reliable, scholarly studies or publications. There are a few that come from news organizations like Knowable Magazine, websites like the "International Dark-Sky Association", or corporations like Standard Pro Incorporated that raise a red flag for reliability and credibility. However, incorporated among them are much more credible studies by institutions and research groups that are current and reliable.

Talk Page
The Talk Page for this article has a To-Do List going that had been worked on by a couple of users. It requests updates to references and citations throughout the article and also asks editors to expand on certain sections or reorganize. One user also seems to believe there is a "liberal bias" in the article and wants to have it removed as a whole. Most of these comments and posts are from 2005-2008, not much has been talked about recently.

Option 3: Corporate Sustainability
Article title
 * Corporate sustainability.

Content
The lead section of this topic is short, concise, and well-written. It explains what corporate sustainability is, how it functions, and how it materializes. It also clarifies what it is NOT, defining the difference between corporate sustainability and corporate social responsibility.

There are three topics discussed within this article: Origins, Scope, and Principles for corporate sustainability. Each of these is very relevant and helps deepen the understanding of the topic without over-explaining or going beyond the scope of the topic. Another strength of this article is a paragraph about whether corporate sustainability can be measured. It explains the difficulties of measuring this concept in the real world, which is likely while there is not - and should not be - a section on the impacts (intended and unintended) of this concept and the policies that it has created. Sustainability is difficult to measure, and while figuring out how to do this best is a good use of time, until that is established and smoothed out, it is not concrete enough to have its own section in this article.

A section that could be added/expanded upon is the origin/history section. It seems that this term has its roots in the late 1990s, so it is likely that a study has been conducted that has examined how corporate sustainability has changed and developed since then. This would not be the same as measuring its effects. Rather its an observation of how, or whether, it has grown or stayed the same.

Another important expansion could be looking into what each aspect of corporate sustainability looks like. The aspects that are mentioned in the lead section (ethical, social, environmental, cultural, and economic) are talked about at different points in the article, but they are never given their own time and space to be investigated. Explanations of each of these as well as how they work together or against each other to create corporate sustainability may help strengthen the explanations of the topic as a whole.

Organization and Writing
The writing for this topic is very good and very effective. It is concise and clear and takes a neutral tone throughout. It also mentions where there are complexities in the topic, such as whether something like sustainability can be measured at all. Within this section, it cites multiple sources, ensuring a variety of viewpoints and explanations are shared.

Citations and references
Almost within the article is properly and well cited. Many quotations from sources are used which helps the reader understand how this topic is worded and talked about in corporate language. While there are fewer sources than some of the other articles I've looked at, their quality is much better. They all seem very reliable and credible, and they come from diverse sources and publications, indicating a well-rounded collection of information on the subject.

There are a few paragraphs that are missing citations which have been indicated.

Talk Page
The Talk Page mentions a concern about the "focus on 'green' policies". One user - who is backed up by an agreeing user - complains that too many of the examples and wording in the article put an unreasonable emphasis on the environmental aspects of this topic. While it seems that these emphasizes have since been edited/removed, this has sparked my interest in the value of possibly explaining the different aspects of the topic separately, in their own sections, and with proportionate weight.

Option 4: Slow Violence

 * Article title:Slow violence.

Option 5

 * Article title:
 * Article Evaluation:
 * Sources: