User:Lynnpj29/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
History of Lego

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I have a personal interest in Lego and enjoy reading histories of products. The article was classified as high importance and rated with a C quality. The article has multiple issues, including a lack of citations, an inadequate summary, and sections that are written like advertisements. I think the article has a lot of strong information, but I'm curious if there's more and I would like to see how the company was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Evaluate the article
Lead section

The lead is concise and defines the topic, however it does not adequately summarize the article's major sections or contents.

Content

The article strikes a good balance of Lego's history, breaking it down by major decades of importance. It talks about the evolution of the company’s products, leadership, production issues, and related films and theme parks. The section that seems lacking is the latest one, which doesn't mention the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the company, production, or sales.

Tone and balance

Although the notification at the top of the page mentions that parts of the article are written like advertisements, I found the information to be fairly neutral in tone. The article presented both successes and failures of the product, such as a period of product decline in the 1990s, as well as controversial events surrounding the product, such as the company's refusal to send a bulk order to Chinese activist Ai Weiwei. Lego’s stance was that it would not sell to users with political intentions, which was met with both praise and criticism.

Sources and references

The article references several magazine and newspaper articles, as well as The Lego Company’s website. Many are current sources of information. There didn’t appear to be many peer-reviewed articles, which is an area to work on for this Wikipedia article.

Organization and writing quality

The article is well-written, however it does have some style consistency issues. For example, the word “Lego” is sometimes written in all capital letters and sometimes written with only the first letter capitalized. Breaking the article down by major periods in the product’s history makes some sense, although the headings could be more descriptive than “Beginnings” and “Decline.” Perhaps a better way to break the article down could be by such topics as: founder, products, company, leadership, controversies, movies, and theme parks.

Images and media

The images for this article could be improved. There are a handful of images, ranging from photos of its early products to more recent Lego designs by enthusiasts. Not all of the photos have dates, which they probably should have in a history article. Pictures of the founder and other key leadership, company headquarters, movie posters, and theme parks could be added.

Talk page discussion

There are some good discussions on the talk page. It seems like users struggled with how to organize the article. Other users called out the lack of citations and biased-sounding information. The article is rated C-class, meaning it still needs editing for clarity, balance, and/or original research. The article is part of the WikiProject Lego.

Overall impressions

Overall, the article is a good start to the history of Lego. There is a significant amount of information from the founder and evolution of the product, to some controversies and its expansion. The article could be improved with better organization and editing, an update on events since 2020, the inclusion of peer-reviewed sources, and additional images. Its C-class rating is appropriate since it has substantial information, but may require additional cleanup.