User:Libegin/Evaluate an Article

User:Libegin/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Talk:2013 Madagascar locust infestation - Wikipedia

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose this article because I had recently completed a project on the topic, and it piqued my interest. Also, I was interested to see the different C-class articles.

Evaluate the article
The lead is very detailed and does not go over the different sections of the articles. The first sentence talks about the buildup to the infestation in 2012 when the whole article is about 2013. The lead is extremely detailed giving quotes and statistics. This article would be better if this paragraph (the 1st) was used as a supplemental paragraph not the lead.

The content of the article is up-to-date and relevant. However, I feel like more information could be added to enhance the article and explain how the infestation affected Madagascar as a whole, the environment and the people. The article briefly mentions how a lot of the population lives in poverty off of famine conditions. I think more content needs to be added on how the infestation affects the many briefly mentioned aspects of life in Madagascar.

The author does a pretty good job of staying neutral and simply presenting the facts.

The sources are relevant to the topic, the event occurred in 2013 ,and all the sources are from 2013 however ,all the sources and references are news articles. Some of the links work ,and some of them are out of date and do not work. For this specific article, I could not find any better sources because of the nature of the subject, an event that occurred.

The organization could be better, as I mentioned before; the added content could then be separated into sections to better address and reflect the 2013 Madagascar locust infestation. Sections would include: the lead, effects on the population, effects on the environment/ native populations, and pest control. The writing is relatively concise and grammarily correct; my main concern is better organization of content to address the issue.

The article includes one image of a locust however, the caption is poor as it does not name the species of locust pictured. The picture could be placed in the first section and then include more pictures maybe of pest control or how locusts were affecting the community and environment around them. The picture included did follow Wikipedia regulations and include the credit, picture, and license to share the picture.

On the talk page, some Wikipedians suggest adding the species name, rearranging the article organizationally, and changing the article title to be more neutral and better reflect the event. The article is a wikiproject, C- class of low importance.

My overall impression of this article is that it definitely needs more work, and as Wikipedia labeled it, it is a C-class article. One of the article's strengths is that it has a good amount of data and statistics. However, the article needs to improve in summarizing the event and having more information about its effects on life in Madagascar. The article is simply underdeveloped, if more time and information were put into this article, it has great potential to be one of the best unbiased sources of information on the subject.