User:Geec22/Evaluate an Article

Squamish People: Squamish people
I have chosen this article to evaluate because these were the Indigenous People that I had most exposure to growing up with many of my childhood friends being Squamish.

This is where you will complete your article evaluation. Please use the template below to evaluate your selected article.

Lead
The Lead includes an introductory "thesis"-like sentence that concisely describes the article's topic of the Squamish People. There are clear and cogent sentences that describe what the rest of the article is going to cover while simultaneously making sure not to include any information that the articles does not cover later. In my opinion, the Lead is the right balance between being too concise and being overly detailed.


 * Does the Lead include an introductory sentence that concisely and clearly describes the article's topic?
 * Does the Lead include a brief description of the article's major sections?
 * Does the Lead include information that is not present in the article?
 * Is the Lead concise or is it overly detailed?

Content
The article's content was relevant to the topic. Everything that was written in the article was pertinent to the Squamish People as it covered the basics such as the history, geography, society, and culture. Everything that was written was up-to-date and I did not find any information that was particularly out-dated or irrelevant. However, some content that was missing was some writing about sports. Sports, such as canoeing and lacrosse, are very important aspects of the Squamish life and they were absent from the article. As the article itself dealt with describing an underrepresented population/topic, I do not think there was much of an equity gap present. However, there were some nuances and ways in which information was presented that did not present the indigenous people in a truthful and neutral fashion. I will elaborate on this in the next section.


 * Is the article's content relevant to the topic?
 * Is the content up-to-date?
 * Is there content that is missing or content that does not belong?
 * Does the article deal with one of Wikipedia's equity gaps? Does it address topics related to historically underrepresented populations or topics?

Tone and Balance
As aforementioned, I think the article could do a better job in being more neutral. There were instances where the article did a great job in illustrating how the Squamish People were developed and sophisticated. For example, there is a section on property where the article delves into how the Squamish had an advanced version and understanding of property that would be comparable to our modern intellectual property laws. However, there were instances where the article could definitely have expanded further and shed light on the Squamish perspective. An example would be in the "European colonization and the Indian Reserves" section which covered the first relations between the Squamish and Europeans. While this section talks about events such the fur trade, gold rush, and Indian reserves, there is little discussion on the displacement or reeducation of the Squamish. The viewpoint of the Europeans is not overbearing and a reader would not be able to clearly identify that the European viewpoint is overrepresented. However, I do think that the absence of elaborate discussion on the reeducation of the Indigenous people is odd. It does not seem that the article is attempting to persuade the reader in favor of one position or the other, however I think that greater work could be done to balance out the perspectives and viewpoints.


 * Is the article neutral?
 * Are there any claims that appear heavily biased toward a particular position?
 * Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented?
 * Does the article attempt to persuade the reader in favor of one position or away from another?

Sources and References
Most of the facts in the article seemed to be backed up by secondary sources of information. The greater matter at hand is whether they are reliable. Upon examining the footnotes, it looked like the article extracted the majority of its material from reliable sources. The sources listed are from government documents or PhD theses or interviews with Squamish people. However, there are a couple that do not seem as reliable and seem to be just a blog post. With that being said, most of the sources do seem to reflect the available literature on the topic today as there are not too many recent published works on the Squamish (the ones that are recent discuss land development plans or pushing current Squamish kids to go to college – still very important but it would be difficult finding a place to place it on the Wiki article). The sources are not pulled from a diverse spectrum of authors. As aforementioned, some of the sources are interviews with Squamish people and so while there is representation of the indigenous people, it is still lacking as the other sources were written by non-indigenous people. Lastly, the biggest issue with the sources and references is that most links did not work. I was able to verify the work by looking the different published works and authors online but I did not have too much success in being taken to different places with the links. Also, some sources did not have links at all.


 * Are all facts in the article backed up by a reliable secondary source of information?
 * Are the sources thorough - i.e. Do they reflect the available literature on the topic?
 * Are the sources current?
 * Are the sources written by a diverse spectrum of authors? Do they include historically marginalized individuals where possible?
 * Check a few links. Do they work?

Organization
The article is generally well-written. There are not blatant errors in spelling or grammar and the contributors did a good job in making it concise and easy to congest. The organization of the article made a lot of sense and the article as a whole was easy to follow along.


 * Is the article well-written - i.e. Is it concise, clear, and easy to read?
 * Does the article have any grammatical or spelling errors?
 * Is the article well-organized - i.e. broken down into sections that reflect the major points of the topic?

Images and Media
The article does include several images to help its readers enhance their understanding of the topic. Every image was very captioned and allowed the readers to gain a better understanding of the picture, and in turn the article itself. Most of the images seemed to exist under the public domain while some where licensed under the Creative-Commons license, but in general they adhered to Wikipedia's copyright regulations. Lastly, the images are laid out in a visually appealing way that helps guide the reader along the way and does not distract the reader at all. However, I do think that some images of Squamish people in a more modern setting could be added.


 * Does the article include images that enhance understanding of the topic?
 * Are images well-captioned?
 * Do all images adhere to Wikipedia's copyright regulations?
 * Are the images laid out in a visually appealing way?

Checking the talk page
The talk page actually shows quite a bit of dialogue on how to represent this topic. What was interesting was that a recurring and popular conversation was how the title of this page should be displayed. There were many that debated whether the article should be titled "Sḵwx̱wú7mesh", which is how the name is spelt in the Squamish language, as opposed to "Squamish", which is the English language version. The debate was largely split between people who expressed how "Squamish" was not accurate and possibly offensive to the Squamish people while other wrote that "Sḵwx̱wú7mesh" does not adhere to the Wikipedia naming conventions which calls for everything to be spelt in the language of the users, which in this case would be English. The article was part of WikiProjects such as "Indigenous Peoples of North America", "Vancouver", and "British Columbia". The way in which this article was discussed was actually quite similar to the discussions we have had ourselves in class. The dialogue pertaining to "Squamish" vs "Sḵwx̱wú7mesh" was very interesting and bore semblance to the our class discussions.


 * What kinds of conversations, if any, are going on behind the scenes about how to represent this topic?
 * How is the article rated? Is it a part of any WikiProjects?
 * How does the way Wikipedia discusses this topic differ from the way we've talked about it in class?

Overall impressions
The article is in good standing. It is laid out in an organized fashion and discusses pertinent material. Some strengths of the article are how it does a good job in encapsulating the Squamish people and their lifestyle. Additionally, the article seems to have been visited by contributors that are heedful and care about the accuracy of the article. Lastly, the article was extracted from sources that are reliable. Some areas of improvement are balancing out the perspective of the article to ensure that the viewpoint of the Squamish People has a stronger presence. This could be through a deeper dive into the reeducation or displacement process. Another area of improvement could be to add some more pictures of the Squamish People in a more modern setting. Lastly, the article could make sure that more of the links lead to new pages instead of error results. In general, I think the article is pretty complete. It is on its way to being well-developed but there are a few areas that need a little bit of touching up.


 * What is the article's overall status?
 * What are the article's strengths?
 * How can the article be improved?
 * How would you assess the article's completeness - i.e. Is the article well-developed? Is it underdeveloped or poorly developed?

Optional activity

 * Choose at least 1 question relevant to the article you're evaluating and leave your evaluation on the article's Talk page. Be sure to sign your feedback

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