User:AngstyArmadillo/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
I am evaluating Wildlife.

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
My master's degree is in "Wildlife Science." This article was listed as a C-class article, so I thought I would give it a try. Wildlife Science is vital to the preservation of our planet's biological diversity, so as such the Wildlife page should be at a higher standard. The first thing I noticed is that it seems to be lacking in sufficient reliable sources. There are many statements made without any citations at all. Additionally, there are vague statements such as "... is still a significant food source in some parts of the world." Without any further specification. The wording in some places also feels a bit clunky and could use refinement. There are instances of wording that feels a little too strong or too opinionated: "have value to humans beings," "...provoked activists to protest against the exploitation of wildlife for human benefit or entertainment", and "further evidence that humans have unleashed a sixth mass extinction event," all feel like the author is trying to convince the reader of something (that humans are bad and are hurting wildlife). Several sections, such as wildlife tourism feel underdeveloped. While It gives an overview of the economy surrounding tourism, it does not cover the possible affects of tourism on wildlife (both good and bad). It also says a lot about how humans have harmed wildlife and nothing about the efforts towards conservation and reversing this damage. For an article about wildlife, there is a an awful lot about humans, and not much about the actual wildlife - nothing about natural history or biodiversity of the world.

Evaluate the article
The article begins with a clear sentence defining the word "wildlife." It could perhaps be worded a bit better, but it does clearly describe the topic. There is potentially in issue with that definition, however. The article says "wildlife has come to include all organisms that grow or live wild in an area without being introduced by humans." However I'm not sure if that is true. Is wildlife really everything or just animals? World Wildlife Fund only mentions animals on their website, not plants or insects or other organisms. Merriam-Webster is ambiguous, defining Wildlife as "living things and especially mammals, birds, and fishes that are neither human nor domesticated." The article does cite two sources for this fact, both books (citations 1 and 2 on the page). One I couldn't find much info about but the other does appear to be legitimate and does support the article's definition, although it is from 2009 (citation 2 from the article). This probably requires more digging, but it could be a serious problem if this is potentially an incorrect definition. The lead covers briefly that humans have affected wildlife negatively, but does not specify all the topics that will be covered in the rest of the article; namely, media and tourism are missing from the lead. The rest of the sections are alluded to, as brief mentions. There is also information in the lead that is not addressed in the article, such as a brief mention of activism, or that some wildlife are dangerous, or that humans have "historically tended to separate civilization from wildlife in a number of ways." That would make me think that there is a section on the history of human civilizations' interactions with wildlife.

There is not a lot of original content in this article. While all the content appears relevant to the topic, many sections are excerpts from other Wikipedia articles (Wildlife trade, Wildlife tourism, Wild animal suffering, etc). The content that is here is also organized strangely. I think one big thing that is missing as a section on natural history. The entire article is put around the lens of human interaction with wild animals, but there is very little that pulls away and just talks about wildlife themselves. Further, only the first section is titled as such; 1. Interactions with humans. The following sections, 2. Suffering and 3. Loss and extinction are also very much about interactions with humans or through the human lens of human morality and responsibility. Also missing is a section on wildlife activism and conservation efforts showing the other side of human interactions. The content appears more or less up to date, with citations from 2020, and most citations from the 2010's. This article does not deal with an equity gap.

As mentioned in the discussion of the lead, there are several statements that feel a bit like they are trying to sway the reader toward believing that human interaction with wildlife is only bad - for example, "exploitation" is used quite a lot. Additionally, there are entire sections on loss and extinction which solely focuses on anthropogenic forms of wildlife destruction. Entirely missing is a section on animal rights activism and conservation work that is being done. Thusly, this article needs work to be considered neutral.

This article is lacking is sufficient citations. There are many statements that are unsupported and are also leading the reader, such as "Exploitation of wild populations has been a characteristic of modern man since our exodus from Africa 130,000 – 70,000 years ago." Every single section needs more citations, with some sections or subsections, such as Overkill, having only one citation in the entire subsection. The last three subsections don't have a single citation among them. Most of the links to other Wiki articles appear to work, so that's one plus. Citations 3 and 4 are both news articles, rather than scientific journals, so those are not reliable sources, especially for the claim that we are causing the sixth mass extinction event. This is brought up again later with different sources (41-43), two of which appear to be legitimate (citations 42 and 43), two being opinion pieces (41 and 44). Sources appear to be mostly from white authors, and mostly white men at that. I didn't have time to review every source, but most of the rest seemed to be appropriately cited. Still, there were many statements made that were uncited, so that needs more work. This is even mentioned as a warning on the page - "This article needs additional citations for verification".

The writing in this article needs some work. I noticed a few grammar errors, and some of the wording feels clunky. The first subsection begins with the sentence "Wildlife trade refers to the of products that are derived from..." and "This final group is one of secondary effects." is the first sentence of the last subsection, for example. It needs some edits for clarity and conciseness. As mentioned above, the structure of the article does not make sense, as all the sections have to do with interactions with humans, but only the first section is titled as such.

For the most part, the images seem appropriate. One exception is an image of insects on sale in Greece - it is unclear whether insects would be included in the definition of wildlife, as mentioned above. Also, the two pictures that show animal parts on sale are both from Greece, which seems strange to me, and overly represents Greece for animal trade, while underrepresenting the rest of the world. Additionally there is a map of early human migrations under Loss and extinction which feels a little out of place. The article only mentions migration of early humans in one sentence in that section and it is to highlight that we are causing mass extinction of wildlife, which doesn't really relate to the image. I was a bit confused when looking at the images about where they come from. None of the captions on the base page were cited. When I clicked on the images, many said things like "own work," which I am a bit skeptical of. Others do appear to be properly cited. Another thing I noticed was that all the captions are not sentences with periods at the end.

This article is listed as a level-5 vital article in Biology, General. It is associated with the following WikiProjects: Biology, Ecology, Environment, and Animal rights. The majority of the talk page is in consensus that this article needs more work - it is poorly written and not properly cited. There is interest in making a page for different countries, such as "wildlife of India, North America," etc. This would be a great way to expand the page, but would take a lot of work. There is also the discussion about the definition of wildlife as mentioned above, and the need for more representation and diversity in sources. There isn't much discussion, but rather editors commenting that they dislike the article and a few cases of rewrites. It definitely needs more work.

Overall, as discussed, the article is in poor shape and desperately needs more work. It needs to be rewritten for clarity, conciseness and accuracy. It needs more diversity in points of view and needs more neutrality. There is a lot that is missing from this article. There is nothing about activism or conservation and nothing about natural history or biodiversity of wildlife, or wildlife in various regions of the world. It is very much underdeveloped and needs restructuring, and perhaps a complete rework from the ground up.