User:Dp566/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
I am evaluating the article "Cycling Advocacy." The link to the article is here: Cycling advocacy

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I have chosen to evaluate this article because I am deeply passionate about cycling advocacy as a means to promote accessible and sustainable mobility and transportation. Unfortunately, my initial impression of the article was rather negative due to the poor organization and imbalanced empahsis of certain topics within cycling advocacy.

Evaluate the article
The lead section of the Wikipedia article for Cycling Advocacy contains a strong introductory sentence that provides a succinct overview for readers seeking to identify the topic. The first paragraph provides a strong background of issues of concern within cycling advocacy, as well as brief examples of these concerns and proposed solutions. However, the second “paragraph,” which consists of a single sentence, does not provide as thorough of an overview of cycling advocacy organizations as the previous paragraph provides for cycling advocacy issues. Furthermore, the lead section almost exclusively contains information which is not provided in the body of the article--information about cycling advocacy issues--and the information which is provided in the body of the article--information about international cycling advocacy--is not mentioned.

While the content of the article is mostly relevant, it is not very balanced in its coverage of cycling advocacy. With the exception of the subheader on “Copenhagenization,” the article does not cover any details about cycling advocacy concerns and rather only focuses on listing cycling advocacy organizations. The content is not entirely up to date, as the most recent reference dates to 2017, and statistics about membership numbers of cycling organizations date to 2015. The article does not address any of Wikipedia’s equity gaps, nor does it address the relationship between cycling advocacy and access within underrepresented populations beyond an unexplored subheader on cycling advocacy within the “developing world.”

The article is generally neutral in tone, although the usage of superlative adjectives presents some subjectivity. For example, a list of five cycling advocates are listed as “best known,” a list of four cycling advocacy groups are listed as “major,” and Jahn Gehl’s contributions to the field are referred to as “instrumental.” Otherwise, no claims appear biased in nature--the article does not attempt to persuade the reader towards adopting a certain perspective--and none of the perspectives appear to come from fringe or minority groups, and thus do not need to be labeled as such. North Carolinian bicycle advocacy groups are heavily overrepresented, while non-Western perspectives are heavily underrepresented.

Multiple facts throughout the article are not backed up by secondary sources. For example, the subheaders on Ireland and North America lack a single citation. The sources are not current, as no sources more recent than 2017 are included, and almost half of the sources are over ten years old. Stronger sources on the topic may be available than the currently-sourced blog posts and webpages belonging to specific cycling advocacy groups. While the sources represent a variety of publication types, the authors of these sources provide largely European and American perspectives. Most, but not all, of the links still work.

While the writing of the article is relatively clear and easy to read, the article is very poorly organized. The sections “Cycling advocacy around the world” and “List of cycling advocacy groups and individuals” do not break down the concept into more logical and relevant subjects, such as its history, areas of concern, controversies, or connection to other topics within cycling, transportation, or urban planning. Over half of the article’s body is found beneath the “See also” section, which contains a list of additional cycling advocacy groups and individuals which would better fit within the previous section. The subheaders of “Films and other media,” “Bicycle advocacy in the developing world,” and “Similar urban design concepts” appear to have been thoughtlessly tacked on to the end of the article. There are multiple spelling and grammatical errors, such as “many worldwide are member [sic],” and “Mikael Colville-Andersen coined and popularized the phrase the term [sic] in this meaning.” There are hanging sentence fragments, misplaced commas, and unnecessary punctuation at the end of bullet points.

The images included alongside the article enhance its visual appeal, but their inadequate captions prevent them from contributing to the reader’s understanding of the topic. For example, the caption “Austrian Poster 1902” for the image adjacent to the lead section fails to connect the cycling advocacy poster to the history of the initiative. The other two media relate only to Copenhagenization and do not pictoralize the rest of the material presented. All three media adhere to Wikipedia’s copyright regulations.

The article’s talk page is scant; only four non-bot users have ever contributed, it has not been updated in more than three years, and the “to-do” list of improvements no longer reflects the current structure of the article. The article is C-Class, and while it is part of the broader Cycling WikiProject, it is rated as “low importance” within that project’s importance scale.

The article succeeds in its neutrality and its thorough description of multiple cycling advocacy initiatives. The article struggles in its organization, and while the article is not underdeveloped, it is poorly developed. A restructuring of the article to prioritize the cycling advocacy issues mentioned in the lead section would contribute to a more balanced overview of the topic. Lists of individual cycling advocates and groups could be consolidated and pared down, while lists of international cycling efforts could be fleshed out to consider underrepresented and non-Western perspectives. Media which more accurately illustrate each of the sections with detailed captions could enhance the reader’s understanding of the topic. More up-to-date and legitimate sources could provide fill in gaps in information and lapses in credibility. Copyediting could improve the text’s readability. Through thoughtful addition and restructuring, the Wikipedia article for cycling advocacy has the potential to provide clear, neutral, and relevant information to the reader.