User:BobRoss117/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Irene of Athens

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I was curious to go earlier in history than we are covering in class. The Eastern Roman, or Byzantine empire is a conspicuous absence in the late 15th century with profound impacts on Italian politics, especially around Venice. I decided to focus in on one figure within that history. I had heard of empress Irene before, and was curious to learn more.

Lead
The lead begins with a strong time-line of Irene's life and rise to power. It then documents the stages of her prominence, along with major political struggles (iconoclasts vs. iconophiles, e.g.) and her position in them. This largely parallels the major sections of the article, and all the information given is elaborated on further in the body of the article. There is enough detail to allow the reader a solid sense of the major events before learning specifics from the body. There is one point which could be checked in the lead though. It states that her status as female sole ruler led to the crowning of Charlemagne as Holy Roman Emperor. This line of causation is de-emphasized in the body of the article, and is perhaps not the best way to summarize her dealings with and relevance to the Carolingian dynasty in a single sentence.

Content
The content of the article is all relevant to the topic, and well organized both chronologically and, where necessary, by theme. There are not many recent sources cited, which could indicate that the content is somewhat out of date with more recent scholarship (One source is a 2014 edition of a book originally published 2001, there are a few other late '90s and 00s sources, and many published through 20th century and earlier) but I don't have the personal knowledge to confirm discrepancies. The body of the article elaborates with detail on each section of the lead. Some specific events go somewhat unexplained (in particular the breaking off of a potential marriage alliance with the Carolingian dynasty and the exact circumstances of her deposition.

Tone and Balance
The article documents a period and a subject with a number of historical uncertainties, and works hard to acknowledge the sources of different stories. It acknowledges which may be introduced to the historical record at a later date, which may be propaganda (both on the part of Irene and of her enemies), and balances these to try to get a more holistic image of both her and her place in a complicated political situation, one which is affected both by the biases of her contemporaries and of historians. There are points, as mentioned before, that these uncertainties are not acknowledged in summaries of events in the lead.

Sources and References
There are multiple spots on the page marked "citation needed," especially information about the relationship to Charlemagne and the Holy Roman Empire. Additionally, as noted earlier, there is a bias towards older sources. Those secondary sources listed are typically books from reputable publishers. The authors are, largely speaking, white. There is a range of nationalities represented, and both men and women are represented. What links are present do work. A cursory search on JSTOR revealed a wide range of newer articles from reputable publishers which included references to Irene.

Organization and Writing Quality
While well organized and typically clearly written, the article could use some basic editing for scattered typos and smaller grammatical errors (missing words, etc.).

Images and Media
The article includes several images of Irene's likeness on coins, and one of the coronation of Charlemagne. These give a limited sense of personhood to the figures discussed, and help to corroborate an understanding of the power of both Irene and Charlemagne at the time. These images appear to all be in the public domain.

Talk Page Discussion
The talk page contains fragments from 2016, and a record of a minor change in 2021, but little other discussion within the last 10 years. This is consistent with the sources and bibliography, which are for the most part at least 10 years out of date. It is rated C class, and part of multiple wiki projects. The article itself approaches this topic much as we have approached political figures in class: aware of the religious, national, and personal prejudices which were present at the time, conscious of the problems and biases inherent in many primary sources, but both on the article and behind the scenes in the talk page, it tends to take propaganda of the time more seriously than we have in class.

Overall Impressions
This article is a good overview of the life of Irene, but could use a significant update. There is little inclusion of any scholarship of the last ten years. The description of her interactions with and significance to the Holy Roman Empire is fragmented, uncited, and at times contradictory. Minor errors distract from the content, and there is seldom more description of the biases of the age than simply that they exist. Both religious struggles and cultural understandings of gender are important to the content of the article, and are not always separate. The article could use more content on the exact nature of both of these, and how the framework in which Irene ruled differed from modern Christian thought, and possible from modern understandings of gender.