User:Fmsrlyams/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Afo-A-Kom

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
The Afo-A-Kom is a carved figure that represents the power, wealth, and body of the Laikom people. I am choosing to evaluate this article because I am currently editing and adjusting the Kom wikipedia page and this sculpture was made by the Kom community.

Evaluate the article
Lead Section: The lead section is fairly short, but it starts off with an immediate explanation of the object, where it's from, who made it, and how it had been returned after being stolen. I feel this lead section is short and simple but says exactly what it needs to for this specific article to a reader who may only be interested in a brief explanation.

Content: The content seems to be up-to-date with fairly recent edits by a handful of people. I wish it discusses more as to what it is used for in spiritual practice and WHY it is so important to the Kom people. It says it is very significant but we aren't really given much elaboration on the aspects of the statute that are culturally powerful and why they may be seen that way (Divination reasons, mystical reasons? What objects normally hold spiritual power in this culture and why? How is this connected to the Afo-A-Kom?)

Tone and Balance: I feel this article is unbiased but carries a tone that resembles story-telling in a way, rather than a presentation of fact combined with the Kom belief (and this must be explicitly distinguished as belief). For example, the author talks about the statue bringing destruction to the people who stole it from the Kom, and how the person who stole it tried to throw it in the sea only to get back home and see it there. This is obviously a cultural story with impact, but I do not feel it shows an accurate historical representation of events. They started the story with "The Kom believe..." but did not show the other perspective. This could be interpreted as bias.

Sources and References: The bibliography seems kind of bare, there are no notes for the sources and some of the citations seem to be lacking in information. The sources, do, however, look to be reliable (Nat Geo, The New York Times, University of Geneva). I do appreciate the number of links to other wiki articles that the page has. The links within the bibliography that I am able to click on are in working order. Some citations are still needed within the body of the article itself, some links are broken. I am positive that there are other sources available that could have been used and cited, given how mainstream Nat Geo and The New York Times are. I feel there must be more academic journals that talk about the Afo-A-Kom.

Organization and writing quality: The sentence structure seems slightly off in that there tend to be large groupings of very short sentences followed by run-on sentences. I feel like there could have been a better variation in sentence structure. Overall, the writing quality is adequate.

Images and Media: There are no images on this page. However, there is a link to an image in an article that was cited. In the body, it gives instructions to scroll down and click to find the image. I feel since Wikipedia is meant to compile a lot of information into one place, it feels a little bit unproductive to instruct the reader to look into other sources when the page is about an object. There should be images on the page. A map may also have been useful.

Talk page: There is only one post on the talk page and it is an explanation for inconsistent source material.

It's in the Wiki projects Africa/Cameroon, sculpture, and visual arts. It is rated as a low-importance Africa article.

Overall Impression: I think this article is fairly underdeveloped but has promise. Some sources and formatting needs to be fixed but I feel the information stated has the potential to be better.