User:KABerglund/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Downtown Eastside

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
After reading parts of Keetsahnak: Our Missing and Murdered Indigenous Sisters, I thought that this topic was important and valuable to add to, and evaluate. Especially in relation to things like the overdose crisis and survival sex, that indigenous peoples are disproportionately affected by.

Evaluate the article
Lead Section:

The lead sentence provides a concise explanation of what the article is about. The lead section provides a good overview of the main topics of interest related to the DTES, including gentrification, housing insecurity, poverty, substance use, overdose crisis, as well as Indigenous peoples and their over representation in relation to some of these issue areas. At parts it is a bit wordy, and could be readjusted to be a bit more concise. Otherwise, it is a good lead and provides a basis to the article.

Content:

All of the content is relevant to the article, there is a bit of a police-heavy tone in some places. The most recent content I've seen cited and sourced is from 2016ish, so that could be updated. There is content related to the ongoing overdose crisis that could be expanded upon, as it continues to be relevant and a common struggle in the DTES. In addition, there could be more information added about social activism groups that have helped with harm reduction ( VANDU, WAHRS, Downtown Eastside Women's Centre ). This article deals with historically underrepresented groups, such as: sex workers, the unhoused community, substance users etc.

Tone and Balance:

Article remains neutral throughout, some claims could be reworded and updated with language more widely accepted: Aboriginal (this is generally only used to refer to Canadian legislation) -> Indigenous peoples, Homeless peoples -> The unhoused community, or people living with homelessness, drug addicts -> people with substance use disorders, or substance users. The article does a good job a presenting a fair and balanced tone, otherwise.

Sources and References:

Although many of the sources are reputable, a lot of the sources are from 2016 and earlier, and there have been many new publications with good information since then, especially on the overdose crisis which has reached new. There could be more diversity in the sources, from authors than are from marginalized groups. There are many peer reviewed articles that could replace some news sources. "Campbell 2009 2009, Preface" is cited a lot, but I can't find the original work it's from. Other links do work.

Images and Media:

I'm not sure if this is my own personal biases, but it feels a bit exploitative to have photos of people using substances (with their faces blurred out, where it's dubious if they've consented to it). Outside of those pictures, most are enhancing and well laid out.

Talk page Discussion:

There has been discussion around what is and isn't in the scope of this project. It is a class C article, low importance in WikiProject Canada, and a class C article, high importance in WikiProject Vancouver. Wikipedia, of course is a lot more neutral, and doesn't necessarily go to into detail about the reality of people who live in the DTES.

Overall:

This article is detailed, looks good and informed. has a comprehensive overview of the history and struggles of the DTES. It could be improved by adding more current sources, highlighting more information about the opioid and overdose crisis (maybe something about the currrent impact of covid-19, and the temporary ruling of the government to provide drugs w/ perscriptions to users), I think it's overall, quite complete.