User:Kmathews1009/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Holocaust on your Plate

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose this article because I was interested in the WikiProject of Animal Rights. Within this project's overview and discussion page, I found the article, "Holocaust on your Plate," listed as a 'hot article,' or currently being discussed for its content's controversial and thus being heavily edited/revisited. This article matters because it discusses an analogy that is problematic for marginalized individuals: equating Jewish people to animals. Likewise, my preliminary impression of the article's content—to clarify, this is my impression and opinion on the content, not on the article's features—is that although PETA seems to have been attempting to make a statement about the horrific conditions of animals in factory farms, the exhibit further dehumanizes Jewish victims of the Holocaust by comparing them to animals, and simultaneously makes the argument that animals are only worth saving if they can be found to be similar to humans, inadvertently continuing systems of speciesism that make animal consumption and inhumane treatment a continuous problem of our human-nonhuman society. I think this topic is highly interesting because I hope to pursue animal studies scholarship in my academic career, so the intersection of oppressed people and oppressed animals, and how to communicate the overlaps of oppression (effectively) in media, is worth further study. Working on this topic in Wikipedia, where a neutral presentation of information is paramount, will indeed provide an additional challenge in conjunction with the strong beliefs I hold on the topic(s).

Lead Section
The article does not have a designated Lead Section because of its short length. Likewise, there is no Table of Contents, which could indicate the article's content is not a large enough scope for multiple sections OR that the article does not give a thorough review of the content's variety.

The article begins with the sentence, "The Holocaust on your Plate was an exhibition mounted by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) in 2003" (par. 1). If, according to the guidelines for evaluating an article, the lead section (or, in this case, the introductory text) should have a "an introductory sentence that concisely and clearly describes the article's topic," the introductory sentence could be improved if it communicated—with concision—the nature of the exhibit. That is, the introductory sentence could explain immediately (as the article does in subsequent sentences) that the exhibit was a visual representation of the similarities between Jewish captivity and genocide in the Holocaust and animal treatment in the modern meat and goods industry. Additionally, the group PETA might be clarified, beyond the WikiLink, with a quick aside identifying the group as an animal rights activism group. Also, within the lead section is the following description: "Captions alleged that "like the Jews murdered in concentration camps, animals are terrorized when they are housed in huge filthy warehouses and rounded up for shipment to slaughter. The leather sofa and handbag are the moral equivalent of the lampshades made from the skins of people killed in the death camps"" (par. 1). To me, this sentence reads as misleading because if the author indicates they will be giving a summary of captions, emphasis on the plurality, then readers should be given examples of multiple captions at the exhibit, not what I guess to be a singular example chosen for its political controversy/shock value.

Content
Although the article does deal with historically underrepresented groups—Jewish people and animals—and is therefore serving what I would presume to be a Wikipedia equity gap—the article's content seems, upon first impression, to be limited; indeed, the article consists of only 5 paragraphs. The exhibition occurred in 2003, and the most recent information regarding the exhibition included in the article occurred in 2005. I suspect that this exhibition has had a resurgence of public attention/scrutiny/controversy since 2005, considering that almost 20 years have passed since the art installation. In fact, the article's content is not up to date in that it excludes the 2009 decision by the European Court of Human Rights to confirm the German Supreme Court decision to not allow PETA to utilize photographs of Holocaust victims in animal abuse advertisements/campaigns for animal rights. Should I edit this article, this recent development would need to be included.

The article accounts for the response of ADL (Anti Defamation League) to the art exhibit, providing direct citation of Foxman and the organization's public statement. Though a link is made to Foxman's WikiPage, a contextual aside for the lawyer would be relevant. The article also accounts for PETA's defense of the exhibit, detailing the organization's reliance on author Singer. Surprisingly, the article then reveals that Prescott was the "creator of the campaign," a detail that would be better placed in the lead section (par. 3). The article then visits previous PETA campaigns that have centered on the analogy between the Holocaust and animal cruelty; these details, though interesting, take up a significant portion of the short article, making the content seem unbalanced. Finally, the article concludes with a description of the events that followed the backlash to the exhibit, with the author stating "the group [PETA] later issued an apology for the campaign," but more clarification as to what that apology entailed, when it was given, and by whom specifically, would be beneficial (par. 5).

Tone and Balance
The article is relatively neutral in its detailing of both sides of a controversial issue. The first three paragraphs give equal weight to both the argument PETA presents in the exhibit, with the comments made by supporters, alongside the backlash to the exhibit that viewed the art to be AntiSemitic and insensitive. However, the fourth paragraph of the article detours into peripheral content—a previous PETA campaign—and slightly disrupts the balance between the consideration from both sides on the particular article's content focus: the Holocaust on Your Plate exhibit. It would be interesting to consider how the article presents these sides as equal in membership/popular support; it is unclear from the article if PETA's supporters are a fringe/outlying minority in contestation with a majority of individuals who stand with Jewish interest groups.

Sources and References
A striking number of sources for this article come from The Guardian, a site I would usually not consider an academic/peer-reviewed source. Additionally, some of the information comes from clearly biased sources: PETA's and ADL's websites, respectively. (However, when using these sources, the author does seem to attempt to present information in a neutral tone.) If I were to rewrite this article, I would hope to include peer-reviewed scholarship, for instance: Delevie and Ingham's "Unconscionable or communicable: the transference of Holocaust photography in cyber space" or King's "PETA’s “Holocaust on Your Plate” and the Limits of Image Events." The articles utilized range in publication date from 2003 to 2005, which corresponds to the reveal of the exhibit in 2003. However, as I mentioned in my discussion on Content, the article's topic continues into 2009, so sources from these later repercussions/public discussions/legal decisions would be invaluable.

Organization and Writing Quality
Overall, the writing is not marked with noticeable grammatical or language usage errors, yet there are some sentences that lack final punctuation. However, the quality of the writing is affected by a disorienting organization and unclear references. To better organize the article, topic headers would be appropriate; as of now, the article has only a title with no additional headers. To improve writing quality, I would consider minor adjustments, including a more specific topic sentence for paragraph 2 and a description of the individual "Newkirk" (perhaps also a WikiLink) mentioned in paragraph 4. At times the article reads with disrupted flow, specifically in the incredibly concise topic sentences provided for paragraphs 3 and 4: "PETA defended the campaign" and "PETA has used Holocaust imagery before."

Images and Media
Currently, the article contains no images/media. Edits to this article should consider visual representations of the PETA campaign "Holocaust on Your Plate."

Talk Page Discussion
This article has been discussed for its neutrality and its need for a separate textual placement outside of the WikiArticle on PETA. That is, users have discussed how to make the article more neutral—in efforts not to negatively depict PETA efforts—as well as if the article warrants its own discussion outside of the main article concerning the organization. Most recently, users have decided the article is specific enough to be stand-alone; this recent debate may account for the lack of content in the article, since it was lately determined to be content worth separating from PETA. As I mentioned in my discussion of why I chose this article, this article is connected to the WikiProject Animal Rights. Additionally, it is connected to WikiProject Veganism and Vegetarianism, as well as WikiProject Jewish history.

Overall Impressions
The article is currently underdeveloped and requires edits to existing content as well as contributions of more recent developments in the topic area. Furthermore, the article would benefit from more neutral, peer-reviewed, academic sources and the addition of images. The strengths of the article lie in its efforts to neutrally communicate the controversy of this topic and the attempts to present the arguments of both sides without bias. To be sure, the article is currently in need of revision and is a likely candidate for my work this semester.