User:HMartinez25/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Jesus

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
The main reason that I chose this article was because I was interested in the subject, and it also related to what group I was assigned in class (spirituality). It seemed as though I could contribute to this article.


 * I chose to do my case study on Jesus, surprisingly enough I found the article to come

from a Neutral point of view. Much of what was stated in the article were names, events, places,

customs, dates, etc. I would say that the majority of things that were stated in the article were

information that came from a historical point of view and not so much commentary on the

subject. I will say that I enjoyed the fact that they added input from the Muslim perspective on

Jesus, Judaism perspective on Jesus, and not just the Christian perspective on Jesus. Since we are

looking at a case study about Jesus and not Christianity, which I’m sure has its own Wikipedia

page. The article also pointed out the fact that modern scholars were divided about certain topics

in regards to Jesus’ life. They added input from both sides, which are both valid resources of

information to take into account. Although there were disagreements between scholars, it never

seemed as if they were coming at each other's necks, since the tone of what was being presented

came from a place of fact, backed by reliable information and not just hypothetical. It made it

easier and better to understand both sides. On the other hand, the talk page was a whole different

story. I saw a particular comment: “Did you know that no one actually knows the day Jesus was

born? December 25th was decided in the year 336 because of the winter solstice, and pagans

having a holiday the same day, to help them with conversion”. Someone replied to this post with

some good points: the post didn’t talk about improving the article at all (the user just stated

something). The user then replied to that post: “Specifically where it says December 25th and

January 7th and how his birthday is celebrated then. I can't write it, but maybe put :December

25th was a date decided in the year 336 by (not sure who) to coincide with the winter solstice

and the pagans having a holiday on the same day."” The person wasn’t even sure about his line

of information. At this point the other editor said: “In the Chronology section we state that the

year of his birth is not precisely known”. After that, it kind of becomes a mess. More people join

in on the conversation, nobody gives valid reasons of why the birth of Jesus should be changed

since no-one provides backed information or any type of sources. Users are just throwing in

hypotheticals (hearsay), and no evidence. At the very least it was entertaining to read about, it

made me interested in what each side had to say.


 * Sources that were used in-text were done well. I clicked on various links throughout

reading this article and it always led me to the information that the hyperlink was connected to.

What was being said in the article, an example: link attached to “John The Baptist,” would take

me to the Wiki page that was connected to John The Baptist. Not only that but things that were

stated in the article were not plagiarized, it followed the code of guidelines that “Thinking about

Sources and Plagiarism,” talked about (the little quiz we took on the Wikipedia dashboard). I

cannot say for certain if every claim or argument cited was done correctly since Jesus was a

massive article. As far as there being moments where editors have noted a citation being needed,

I couldn’t find anything on the talk page, since most people on the talk page were just throwing

around hypotheticals (or just trolling) and wanted certain things to be changed without any valid

source to back their claims. I’m not saying there aren’t any, but I myself was not able to find one

since it’s a pretty big talk page.


 * Footnotes are interesting, I’ve actually never used them until now. From the example

ones that I used: 15 (took me to the book), 50 (took me to the book), 337 (took me to the book),

53 (took me to the textbook), 52 (title was correct, I was able to find it on Amazon). I will say

most of these, if not all of these sources were linked great. The problem that I can find with these

footnotes is having access to the actual books that are being used as sources, some of these books

are expensive to get your hands on. Most of them were upwards of $50 which is not cheap,

especially if you just want to read the book to verify things that were said in the Wikipedia page

article. I think a way to solve this would be to make the sources open access so that people can

actually verify the information that is being said in the Wikipedia article. If you post something

on Wikipedia, the sources should also be made accessible (at least whatever you are sourcing

from the actual textbook or reliable source of information). Money could be a barrier for most,

and educating oneself on a topic shouldn’t be that expensive, especially if the government

enforces you to learn from such a young age.