User:James Goodyear/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
(Provide a link to the article here.)

Fruit machine (homosexuality test)

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.)

I chose this article because the Fruit Machine is relevant to the history of unjust homosexual prosecution in Canada, severely impacting the lives of many RCMP members. It seems rarely talked about in contemporary popular discussions of 2SLGBTQ+ discrimination. The article in question is rated by the Article Finder as "S" or "Start-Class," the lowest tier in terms of completeness, meaning there is plenty of room for improvement. My first impression of this article was that it is underresearched and not given much attention -- for instance, there is no image of the Fruit Machine, nor is there any number, approximate or exact, given to how many RCMP, civil service and military Canadians were impacted by its use.

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.)


 * 1) Lead Section

The lead section contains a moderately effective introductory sentence that concicely describes and identifies the article's subject but could have benefitted from indicating what the device was primary used for -- namely, the persecution of allegedly homosexual civil service members during the Cold War.

There are few "major sections" to speak of and the lead section does not really introduce them. For instance, nowhere in the lead section does it mention that the fruit machine did not work and was pseudo-scientific despite the only major section being about how the fruit machine could not in reality identity someone's sexuality.

The lead section does include information not present in the article, but that is because the article is so small that the lead section contains the bulk of the information. The article could benefit from outsourcing some things mentioned in the lead section, like its design and how the machine functioned, but this depends on how much additional information is avaible to research.

Considering the lack of overall information presented, the lead section is not overly detailed.

2. Content

All the content is relevant to the topic.

The article was last edited in August 2023 and is therefore reasonably up-to-date.

The article lacks a discussion of the reasons behind the machine's use and why a purge of the civil service, RCMP and military was conducted in the first place. The lead section mentions the use of pictures to stimulate responses among subjects under investigation - these images were sometimes mundane, and thus the article might benefit from an example of one of these photos if it is publicly accessible.

The article does at least begin to address one of Wikipedia's equity gaps in that it provides surface level information on a machine used to persecute and discriminate against a minority group - actual and accused homosexual Canadian civil service members.

3. Tone and Balance

The article is neutral.

That are no claims that appear biased toward a particular position.

There are no viewpoints overrepresente or underrepresented because there are not really any viewpoints discussed. The article may benefit from the discussion of various viewpoints on the fruit machine and its legacy as a tool of homophobic discrimination and criminilzation.

4. Sources and References

No. The article cites another Wikipedia article and mostly uses news articles in place of academic peer-reviewed journal articles, books and other reputable sources.

Neither are the sources used current. They are mostly from the early 2000s or the late twentieth century.

5. Organization and Writing Quality

No significant grammatical errors on first inspection.

6. Images and Media

No images

7. Talk page Discussion

The fruit machine, according to some of the discussion, may be in a museum. Others are in agreement that the article is ambiguous and the sources are poor in quality. The article is of interest to a few LGBTQ-related WikiProjects but is listed as "low importance."