User:Kvent09/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Comancheria

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
This was a topic from class that was of interest to me.

lead section

 * The lead section is short but provides a definition of the Comancheria but does not include dates. Instead it states that the Comancheria existed before the 1860s. There is no overview of the page's sections.

Content

 * There is a lot of information in the article that is mostly relevant.
 * It is lacking concrete descriptions of how the Comancheria was established, including when it started and ended.
 * Its not really clear how the Comancheria got as big as it did. It could include a timeline of growth, tribes conquered, battle tactics, or methods other than war used to grow the empire.
 * It also could use more historical context around the european contact that was taking place in the americas at the time of the comancheria. For example, the article mentions that the Comanche avoided disease that many other tribes were suffering from, but it does not explain where these diseases came from.
 * The article helps close the equity gap of underrepresentation of indigenous tribes on wikipedia.

Tone and Balance

 * The article appears to be in a neutral tone.
 * There was discussion on the talk page about historian's conflicting views over whether the Comancheria can be considered an empire. The article overall is from the viewpoint that it was not an empire, but I think that a small section could be dedicated to those historian's opinions, but there is only two sentences mentioning the possibility of the Comancheria being considered an empire.

Sources and references

 * There are some statements that are marked with "citation needed."
 * The links that are provided still work.
 * Given that the Comanche History and Comanche People pages have huge amounts of information, there is likely more sources to be drawn from about the Comancheria.

Organization and writing quality

 * In my opinion, the article does not practice good academic writing. There are grammar errors and unconcise sentences.
 * The background section isn't really a background of the Comancheria, but just a fact about the early history of it. I think the background section could include historical context regarding relevant Comanche culture, relations to other tribes, and European contact.
 * The history section should be broken up into at least a couple sub sections. I dont think it should be called history either considering all information on the Comancheria is history.

Images and media

 * There is a map of the area that is considered the Comancheria. There could be information added on how this border was drawn and when.

Talk page discussion

 * There was an intense discussion within the last year over whether or not to include the points of view of historians that consider the Comancheria an empire. This is the main difference of how we discussed the Comanche in class; we considered it an empire but the writing with the opposing opinion provides convincing evidence that the Comanche do not consider this time of conquest as their empire.
 * The article is rated Start class by the wikiprojects Indigenous Peoples of North America and United States/ American Old West/ New Mexico/ Texas.

Overall Impressions

 * The article provides useful information on the Comancheria but could benefit from more concise details.