User:Kmcivor/Evaluate an Article

Evaluate an article
This is where you will complete your article evaluation. Please use the template below to evaluate your selected article.


 * Deplatforming: Deplatforming
 * I chose this article because it is a term that comes up a lot when we are talking about social justice. This is a term that comes up when we are talking about how social justice is dealt with online and if this is a trend that should continue, or if there needs to be changes to the dialogue. Do we need to make more of an effort to reform and educate those who have done wrong or do we just cancel them completely?

Lead

 * Guiding questions


 * Does the Lead include an introductory sentence that concisely and clearly describes the article's topic?
 * Does the Lead include a brief description of the article's major sections?
 * Does the Lead include information that is not present in the article?
 * Is the Lead concise or is it overly detailed?

Lead evaluation
The Lead does end up defining and introducing the topic well and in an informed way. There are links to other related topics that you can click to and read about. The Lead is concise and allows you to explore other versions of this term in the "See Also" section. You are able to get a description and there are many articles that link to this topic in the reference section of the article. The Contents of the page are laid out the way they are meant to and allow the user to click to go right to the section they want to see.

Content

 * Guiding questions


 * Is the article's content relevant to the topic?
 * Is the content up-to-date?
 * Is there content that is missing or content that does not belong?

Content evaluation
This Wiki-page was last edited back in January of 2020, so, the content and all of the sources are relevant to the content on the page. There are no glaring errors or things that are not related to the article at hand. The content is relevant to our topic on social justice, because this is a conversation that is happening a lot with political pundits. There are a lot of questions on whether or not there are better ways to go about this and I find that this could be an interesting discussion in the class.

Tone and Balance

 * Guiding questions


 * Is the article neutral? Yes.
 * Are there any claims that appear heavily biased toward a particular position? The resources that talk about de-platforming tend to lean to the political left and should have a few more articles that sway the other way. Just to ensure that you are getting all sides of the argument.
 * Are there viewpoints that are over represented, or underrepresented? I find that the political left is definitely in the majority when you look at the other resources displayed on the webpage. However, the content and what is written is neutral and is stating what happened.
 * Does the article attempt to persuade the reader in favor of one position or away from another? Not that I can tell.

Sources and References

 * Guiding questions


 * Are all facts in the article backed up by a reliable secondary source of information? Yes, there seems to secondary sources of information via other linked Wikipedia pages, which have sources linked at the bottom of their pages as well.
 * Are the sources thorough - i.e. Do they reflect the available literature on the topic? There are over 44 sources available to the reader of this Wiki-page. They do reflect some of the literature available on this topic, however, I believe they need to be more balanced in the opinion pieces on this topic.
 * Are the sources current? Yes.
 * Check a few links. Do they work? Yes.

Organization

 * Guiding questions


 * Is the article well-written - i.e. Is it concise, clear, and easy to read?
 * Does the article have any grammatical or spelling errors?
 * Is the article well-organized - i.e. broken down into sections that reflect the major points of the topic?

Organization evaluation
The article is broken down into sections and gives a clear Contents table. It is a easy-to-read article and does not have any glaring spelling or grammatical errors. As mentioned, this article was recently edited back in January. If there are any glaring errors, then they have been corrected by the editor.

Images and Media

 * Guiding questions


 * Does the article include images that enhance understanding of the topic?
 * Are images well-captioned?
 * Do all images adhere to Wikipedia's copyright regulations?
 * Are the images laid out in a visually appealing way?

Images and media evaluation
There are no images available on the page, therefore, there is nothing to evaluate.

Checking the talk page

 * Guiding questions


 * What kinds of conversations, if any, are going on behind the scenes about how to represent this topic?
 * How is the article rated? Is it a part of any WikiProjects?
 * How does the way Wikipedia discusses this topic differ from the way we've talked about it in class?

Talk page evaluation
The page represents what edits are being recommended to the page. There are several more examples that those on the Talk page want to include within the article. They are also recommending that the definition be changed from what it currently is. They are citing that there needs to be better sourcing for this definition because it's only coming from an opinion article. However, the Lead in was changed and many users agree that it was a better way to express the definition than before. There was no clear rating for the site; however, it is apart of Wiki Project Freedom of Speech, Internet Culture, Internet, and Media.

Overall impressions

 * Guiding questions


 * What is the article's overall status?
 * What are the article's strengths?
 * How can the article be improved?
 * How would you assess the article's completeness - i.e. Is the article well-developed? Is it underdeveloped or poorly developed?

Overall evaluation
The articles strengths definitely have to deal with how they present examples to the reader. They are able to define the topic in a neutral way and present examples to the reader. It also has the strength of being edited to make improvements to word choice and grammar. I would say one of the weaknesses would have to be the bias in the resource section about this topic. If you are going to include opinion pieces from the left, then you should find some articles that are not for this kind of thing. If Wikipedia claims itself to be neutral, then it needs to show that it is making that effort. Much of the article was informative in examples of how this works and does not give an opinion. However, the resources do and that should be a wide range of opinions. However, the article was thorough, because it linked to several other articles about the topic (or related to). The talk page was thorough in the edits they designed and clearly, this page is on its way to becoming a success. This article, overall, does a really good job at explaining what this is and allows us, as librarians, to have an open discussion about if this is the best way to perform social justice.

Optional activity

 * Choose at least 1 question relevant to the article you're evaluating and leave your evaluation on the article's Talk page. Be sure to sign your feedback

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