User:Jvoeste/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Manuel Palaiologos

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
Because this article is written on a human who's life is not incredible eventful, but is part of a family who's fate was tied to that of the Byzantine Empire. With Manuel's own fate tied to the aftermath of it's conquest by the Ottoman Empire. I wanted to see how Wikipedia covers the life of someone who isn't a central character to such a narrative.

Evaluate the article
The introductory summary is done well and gets all important information out in a concise manner. The birth of Manuel was covered well with the context of what his parents were doing and why they were doing it included. They detailed the Palaiologos fleeing their status as Ottoman vassals without showing bias to either the Byzantine restoration efforts or the Ottoman Empire's continued rule. The neutral tone is continued through the entire article, not demonizing or praising any given figure for their actions. The one instance that could be considered bias was by describing Sultan Mehmed II accepting Manuel's service as "Graceful", but if so it is very minor. The sources age ranges from 1908-2015, where the vast majority of them were published after 1980. Still, if this article were revisited for revisions, the sources would certainly be up for re-evaluation as half of them were written by the same two people. There also need to be more sources as the article is missing information such as the date Manuel died; though this is likely due to the fact such information is unknown. Despite the information that is missing, the low number of sources and the fact half of them were written by the 2 same people, what is there is good. All books or articles either in databases or published in journals. Despite this critique Wikipedia has marked it as a Good Article. The talk page largely includes editors providing grammatical suggestions and questions about why certain dates were not included. Many in the talk page comment about how the article is brief but good for the lack of information provided.

My overall impression is that this article is serviceable. Obtaining more sources and finding the date of Manuel's death stick out to me as being the most important improvements that could occur on this page. As well as establishing whether or not his sons were born from his concubine or a wife; as well as the relevant mother's name. But if this information simply is not recorded, then Wikipedia marking the title as good is accurate.