User:Andean condor/sandbox

Final Edits - East Africa Belief Use
Little is known regarding vulture belief use in Eastern Africa. It is unclear whether this dearth of information indicates limited use, or rather a lack of research conducted within the region. Scholars have called for increased examination, particularly within the countries of Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, and Ethiopia.

The few studies that have been conducted suggest notable differences between East Africa and more prominent vulture-using regions such as Southern and West Africa. These include differences in traditional spiritual and medicinal practices associated with Muti, West African Vodun, and East African witchcraft. Cultural taboos also differ between these regions.For example, some groups within Kenya believe vultures to be unclean and ugly, while other associate them with death and view them as bad omens. Such perceptions may result in limited use and market demand for vulture species.

Article evaluation - West African Vodun
Question 1:The vast majority of the information seemed extremely relevant and worth including within the article. However, the number of hyperlinks to related to topics was distracting at certain points. For example, “nasal” and “high-tone” were both tagged and linked to additional Wikipedia articles. While interesting, and worthwhile information to include, this seemed like overkill. Does Wikipedia automatically add related topic links? Is there such a thing as too many?

Question 2: Given my relative lack of knowledge on the topic, the article does appear to neutral and unbiased. Additionally, after looking at the Talk page, it appears that most of the bias or inappropriate positions/content have been removed from article.

Question 3: The viewpoints in the current version of article seem appropriately represented. Though again, more citations are needed particularly on the topic of how Vudon relates to Bò.

Question 4: Overall, more citations are needed. There are relatively few (only 3 for the entire article), and 2 out of the 3 are used in a single paragraph section on practicing demographic. That said, the sources found within these citations do support claims in the article.

Question 5: No, the “Theology and Practice” and “Relationship to Bò” sections are lacking citations as noted by Wikipedia. The citations that are used appear to come from a mix of books and the CIA fact book website—all decent, non-biased sources. That said, it’s interesting that the “Further Reading” section includes so many sources, but none of these have been incorporated into the article.

Question 6: Not being well versed/informed in West African Vudon, it’s hard to say if any information is missing or out of date. However, I would argue though that more references are needed, and that perhaps, in reviewing and adding citations additional information and themes would likely emerge. That said, how much information is too much information in one of these articles?

Question 7: On the Talk page, there is some talk regarding additional the countries to which Vudon has spread, and whether or not these should be included in the article. Additionally, there is a long, archived debate over naming conventions (Vudon, Voodoo, Vodou) and how to properly speak about the origins and spread of each tradition and integrate/link them across Wiki articles.

Question 8: This page is part of two WikiProjects: 1.) WikiProject Religion, which focuses on developing articles on the world’s religions and related topics; and 2.) WikiProject Africa diaspora, which focuses on recording histories, practices, etc. related to African diaspora.

Question 9: We’ve only briefly touched on Vudon in class. At the moment though, it seems more research will need to be done on specific practices and how animals (including vultures) and their parts are or are not incorporated into these.