User:Auggie456/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Anti-communism

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
(Briefly explain why you chose it, why it matters, and what your preliminary impression of it was.)

The article is relevant to the course, and it could be a useful starting point for people doing research on anti-communist sentiment in various contexts or who are interested in the ideological roots of anti-communism. I noticed that the Talk page was extensive and contained some uncivil discussion. The article itself looks thorough (at least regarding its scope), but many paragraphs are missing citations and others lack detail.

Evaluate the article
(Compose a detailed evaluation of the article here, considering each of the key aspects listed above. Consider the guiding questions, and check out the examples of what a useful Wikipedia article evaluation looks like.)

The lead sentence concisely describes anti-communism. The lead does not include a brief description of the article's major sections. It includes a summary of anti-communism's history, which is not presented in more detail in the rest of the article (excluding in the sections for the regions described in that summary). Overall, the lead is overly detailed, including information that should be more thoroughly included in its own section.

All the content seems relevant to the topic. Some sections, including that concerning the United States, are much more up to date than others, like the sections for Finland and Spain. A few significant sections are incomplete or nearly empty. The article has serious equity gaps, favoring Western over non-Western regions.

The article is neutral, lacking obvious bias towards a particular position. There are arguments about bias and representation in the Talk page, but on the whole, it does not read as persuasive.

Many claims in the article lack citations. For instance, there is no citation in the entire South Africa section. Some sections are thoroughly cited with diverse and current sources, but in others, citations are sparse. Certainly, better sources are available. Many of the links do not work, or lead to the front page of the referenced publication instead of the article.

The article's prose is fairly easy to read (better in some sections than in others), but it is rife with grammatical errors. The topics are well organized.

The images presented are well-captioned, helpful, and within copyright rules, but the many sections lack pictures and the images' organization could be more visually appealing.

The discussion in the Talk section is varied, including debates about whether certain sections should be included, bias, the quality of the writing, and the lack of citations. The article is part of four WikiProjects, all in Start-Class, mid-importance. We have not had enough class discussions to compare to the Talk page

Overall, the article has potential, but it needs an overhaul. The strongest characteristic is its organization, and the literature, religion, and United States sections are good, if incomplete. Many of the sections, including those that address very significant regions, are empty and/or lack citations, or are overly specific (see the Japan and Manchukuo subheading). The article is underdeveloped and needs a lot of work.