User:Daniel.sexton/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Festive ecology

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.)

I found this article while I was browsing the WikiProject for ecology in search of a topic and the title of the article stuck out to me. This article is of some importance to ecologists but is likely more important to historians and anthropologists seeking to know more about traditional relationships between humans and various festive plants. My preliminary impression of this article was that it seemed to be very narrow in its scope. I was also slightly bewildered by the layout of the article which seems to jump from the cultural uses of four plants in particular to a case study about a specific village.

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 section on the topic of "Festive Ecology" is not very useful in discerning the contents of the article. The first sentence provides a concise description of what "Festive Ecology" mean while the second sentence only mentions that there are examples listed in the article. From the perspective of a reader, it would be helpful to revise this so that the lead section at least mentions some of the specific topics that will be explored in the article rather than just stating that these topics exist.

The biggest issue with this article is content.


 * The "Christmas" section of the article briefly mentions the plants that will be described and then tangentially explains how the tradition of Christmas itself came to be. This seems very off topic considering the article is about "festive ecology" and not Christmas.
 * The breadth of information in the article on plants such as holly, mistletoe, and ivy is expansive but the subsection on yew is only two sentences which don't bear any direct connection to the article.
 * Perhaps the most glaring issue in terms of content is the section describing "Dressing the Arbor Tree". This is too specific an example for the subject of "festive ecology" and goes into far too much detail. I would suggest cutting this section in its entirety or finding a productive way to integrate it into the existing sections and subsections. For instance, some of this section could be integrated under a new subsection titled "black poplar".

This article does not seem to be written from a neutral point of view.


 * There is a warning at the top of the article stating that it may not adhere to wikipedias neutral tone guidelines.
 * The talk page for this article reveals the primary contributor most likely has a conflict of interest.
 * The consensus on the talk page of users critiquing the article is that "festive ecology" is a neologism and is not a distinct or cohesive topic in ecology. The sole detractor from this viewpoint is the primary contributor.

Many of the facts put forward in this article are not backed up by citations. Additonally, there are few sources (the most recent of which is from 2003) and only one of them has a working link associated with it.

The article is generally poorly organized and could benefit from restructuring. The sentences are coherent and concise for the most part but the paragraphs often end in tangents. Similarly, the organization of the topics and subtopics is lacking. The "Christmas" section begins with an introduction and has subtopics describing various festive plants individually. However, this format does not continue into the next topic "Dressing the Arbor Tree". The article would benefit greatly from better consistency in its formatting.

The images included in the article are well cited and well captioned. They are also relevant to the information in the article. However, there are only two images and the article could benefit from including more.

The talk page conversations pertaining to this topic are fairly critical. The article is of C quality and is part of the Wikiproject Ecology. The conversation revolves around which larger article this information could be integrated into because the consensus is that it is not distinct enough to need its own page.

Overall the article seems to be largely abandoned. The article goes into impressive detail on some of its topics and at times does a good job of integrating ecology and anthropology. However, the issues with the article make it difficult to appreciate its strengths. If the article were to be revised instead of integrated into another article, I would suggest keeping with one organizational style, avoiding tangential information, and filling in gaps in the presented content. As it stands the article seems very centered on the traditions of Europe. This would not be as much of an issue if it were explicitly stated that the article was about festive ecology in Europe. Since it is not explicitly stated, I can't help but see the lack of representation from other parts of the world as major gaps in content. This article has some interesting information but is ultimately poorly developed.