User:JHolman43/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Evaluating Nīþ

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
It describes the various stigmas and old laws against specifically male bottoms and gay women, relating to sorcery, insanity, criminality and disability, and how "scolding" would drive away this behavior ("spell") from a person. The Norse term for effeminacy is noted to be the most offensive word, and violent response expected on accusation. This demonstrates how deep a stigma being queer was and could be helpful in understanding historic Germanic perspectives of queer people, as opposed to the more familiar US/Christian histories. I chose this because I was interested in how another history may have perceived queer people. My first impression was that the article seemed short, compared to maybe more popular ones, and I was weary of whether it would be a good article, especially since it was the only option under the category "Sexuality by culture."

Evaluate the article
The lead section is very short, but contains enough information (first sentence to whole lead structure) to get an extremely basic understanding of the topic. However, it does not contain introductory information for each subheading, so a fuller basic understanding needs to be supplied.

The content of the article is all relevant and seemingly well balanced (aside from the lead), well referenced, and up to date, but only has one source I could determine is by a woman, and I could only find one editor who is maybe not a man; no "gap" is exactly being addressed for this article.

The tone and Balance appear fine and somewhat neutral, aside from a recent comment on the talk page pointing out the root "Nīþ" meaning something different than the article presents... so this could be a major concern.

Only three sources are after the year 2000, which is understandable given the topic, but still worrying in terms of likely bias affecting editors and the credibility of many of the sources. The topic is fairly special, and it is very difficult to find any other sources. The sources are not as diverse as is ideal. The links do work, but some unknown words are not linked or defined clearly.

The organization is mostly good, although occasionally set up a bit odd within a subheading. The writing is good and easy to understand.

Only one image is included, it is an editor's own photo, visually appealing, and helps the reader's understanding (well captioned). More pictures would be nice, but, again, the low number is understandable given the topic.

The talk page discussion is argumentative in places (it seems like an edit war or two took place), and the root "Nīþ" meaning (mentioned above) still needs to be addressed. The article is part of three WikiProjects: LGBT studies (Rated B-class), Norse history and culture (Rated B-class, High-importance), and Ancient Germanic studies (Rated C-class). The editors mainly argue about where mentioned terms come from and whether something is appropriate based on the language it comes from (which makes sense here), but our class would probably consider the intersectionality of the different meanings associated with people who were categorized under this topic, and how the understanding of queer in this Germanic culture differs from our own perspectives and taught histories. There are no comparisons like that in the article, so the reader is left to understand the unique context and meanings behind this term somewhat unaided.

Overall, the article feels unfinished, mainly in the lead, and a bit underdeveloped in terms of putting terms and thought-processes further in context. The lead could use more introductory information for each subheading, and certain subheading could use clearer ordering of information or perhaps more transitions to help the flow (especially under "Nīþ and criminality"). The article's strengths are that it is mostly very digestible and easy to understand, with helpful subheadings, mainly solid writing, and no noticed spelling/grammar errors.