User:He4150/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Digital obsolescence

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.)

The primary reason that I have chosen to evaluate this article is due to its need for updating. As is is marked on the page for need of updating dating January of 2015. Other than that there have been a couple of adjustments over the years, but because of the rate of growing technology and the growing rate of digital obsolesce in response the need for digital curation and preservation in this area has increased immensely. This increase has created new data and research in this area that should be contributed to this article. The possibility of the addition of more examples of digital obsolescence could also aid this article.

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.)

Lead section
Overall the lead section is okay. The first sentence does a good job of simply stating what digital obsolescence is followed by how it breaks down. The article does lead in to the three sections but mentions things that are not present in the rest of the article. Overall, it needs some fine tuning, restructuring, and overall updating to be more beneficial to the subject matter.

Content
•            Is the article's content relevant to the topic?

Yes, the article’s content is relevant to the topic

•            Is the content up-to-date?

No. The article’s content is not up to date. It was flagged in 2015 for needing to be updated.

•            Is there content that is missing or content that does not belong?

There could definitely be more content about this topic as updating its content would include. Also a full section on file format and example of digital obsolescence would be beneficial.

•            Does the article deal with one of Wikipedia's equity gaps? Does it address topics related to historically underrepresented populations or topics?

No, it does not.

Tone and Balance
•            Is the article neutral?

Yes, it is neutral.

•            Are there any claims that appear heavily biased toward a particular position?

No, there are not any that I have notices

•            Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented?

Not really, besides the need for updated material needing representation.

•            Are minority or fringe viewpoints accurately described as such?

Yes.

•            Does the article attempt to persuade the reader in favor of one position or away from another?

No, this article is pretty neutral. But does strong ties to digital preservation.

Sources and References
•            Are all facts in the article backed up by a reliable secondary source of information?

Yes.

•            Are the sources thorough - i.e. Do they reflect the available literature on the topic?

Yes. Could be more sources and information overall due to need for updating.

•            Are the sources current?

Yes and no. Some definitely could use some updating.

•            Are the sources written by a diverse spectrum of authors? Do they include historically marginalized individuals where possible?

Yes.

•            Are there better sources available, such as peer-reviewed articles in place of news coverage or random websites? (You may need to do some digging to answer this.)

Since there are a couple articles on subject matter that has evolved since this article was written, there is definitely better sources that could replace this subject’s sources. Like the inquirer article from 2007, which could be replace by a more up to date and overall more reliable source on the subject of open source and its relation to digital obsolescence.

•            Check a few links. Do they work?

Yes.

Organization and writing quality
•            Is the article well-written - i.e. Is it concise, clear, and easy to read?

Yes, there could definitely be some improvement though.

•            Does the article have any grammatical or spelling errors?

Not that I have found.

•            Is the article well-organized - i.e. broken down into sections that reflect the major points of the topic?

Yes, could be additional sections included though.

Images and Media
•            Does the article include images that enhance understanding of the topic?

Yes, but could be more specific to the topic of digital obsolescence rather than the topic of the doomsday project machine.

•            Are images well-captioned?

Yes.

•            Do all images adhere to Wikipedia's copyright regulations?

Yes.

•            Are the images laid out in a visually appealing way?

Yes.

Talk page discussion
•            What kinds of conversations, if any, are going on behind the scenes about how to represent this topic?

There are topics about updating, broken links, and examples of floppy disks relating to digital obsolescence.

•            How is the article rated? Is it a part of any WikiProjects?

This article is a part of Wiki Education Foundation and is a part of three WikiProjects.

•            How does the way Wikipedia discuss this topic differ from the way we've talked about it in class?

Wikipedia discusses this topic in a more basic way than we have discussed it in class.

Overall impressions
•            What is the article's overall status?

The overall status of this article is that it is out of date.

•            What are the article's strengths?

Its strength is that it expresses what the subject is in a well formatted and well written way.

•            How can the article be improved?

The main improvement this article needs is an overall updating of content and sources.

•            How would you assess the article's completeness - i.e. Is the article well-developed? Is it underdeveloped or poorly developed?

The article is well-developed but due to continual growth in technology and digital preservation the article needs to be updated in order to accurately portray the topic of digital obsolescence.