User:Kennethshyle/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Indigenous Peoples' Day (United States)

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
There are several reasons I chose this article, the main reason being the importance of holidays in bringing awareness to issues at hand. I also wanted to determine the perception of Native Americans in the general populous and the ways in which the holiday emphasizes or attempts to rectify potentially outdated stereotypes related to indigenous people within the Americas.

My Preliminary impressions of the article was that it heavily focussed upon the history of the day and didn't particularly tackle its significance in the introduction. I also thought it was lacking in images representing key events in the timeline that might help improve the readability of the article. On a positive note however, did have seemingly extensive sources and citations throughout.

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 SectionGenerally the lead section fulfills all of the basic requirements in introducing the topic succinctly in the first few sentences and includes appropriate citations regarding the holiday's definition. However, one criticism that I could raise is the seemingly tangential point of Biden's recognition of the holiday as it is not mentioned anywhere else during the article and seems to just be an added tidbit tagged on. The lead section also doesn't seem to cover the criticism that exists and pushback that exists which is further down within the article.

Content + Tone + Media

Content related to the historical context of the holiday is quite comprehensive providing an overview of the holiday's origins in a neutral and factual tone. The content is quite up to date with data points on states that have adopted the holiday up to as recently as 2021. It also, while briefly, tackles the criticisms that exists against the establishment for the holiday providing an unbiased counterpoint to the historical precedence for the holiday. The image of celebration in the infobox is well labeled and appropriate.

There are several content improvements that could be made to the article. It lacks context into how indigenous people celebrate the holiday and the manners in which they uphold their traditions in different contexts and tribes. The article could also use the sprinkling of more appropriate images to enhance the overview for the history of the holiday as it only has a total of 2 images including the image in the infobox. I also believe the history section could also be split up further given it's length and significance to the overall article into initial developments and establishment of the holiday and more recent developments and alterations.

Citations

Overall there are sufficient citations throughout the article with mainly unbiased sources however there are a few citations that are missing and some citations that are slightly biased or of questionable relevance and importance. One such example being the Washington Examiner citation which has had some dubious articles in the past however with such a contentious issue this may be acceptable.

Talk page

There does not seem to be a lot of activity within the talk page with only minor updates relating to citations and externals links being mentioned. The largest change just seems to be about updating the states that support and have adopted the holiday. The article is a part of multiple Wikiprojects but doesn't seem to have the most traction as it has been labeled as mid-importance in all of them.