User:Marisakim/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.


 * Name of article: Fatah–Hamas conflict
 * Briefly describe why you have chosen this article to evaluate.
 * It is a topic I previously had no knowledge of and wanted to learn more about it once i saw it listed in the suggested articles on the handout

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 includes an introductory sentence that clearly and succinctly describes the topic. As someone with no previous experience with the topic, I felt it gave a good single-sentence summary of the basic overview of the topic. On a more critical note, the Lead does not explicitly include a description of the articles layout of major sections, but a brief description of the sections does not seem too necessary to the integrity of the topic because the layout of the article is primarily chronological detailing crucial preceding events and specific stages of the conflict itself, which it relatively standard and expected for a historical overview. The Lead does not include any information not present throughout the article but rather does not give any sort of introduction briefly discussing the sections of the article. However, the Lead is brief and concise without being too overly detailed.

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
The article is laid out in chronological order beginning with events that lead to the conflict (eg. Israeli disengagement from Gaza and the 2006 elections) then moving on to dividing the overall conflict into distinct sections by time period (eg. March 2006- December 2006) with each of the events and time periods integral to the conflict's description. On the other hand, the content it not completely up to date. The final section has information as recent as 2014, but it links to a more detailed article regarding the specific events of the conflict reconciliation process that has information up to 2017. Upon some brief research, it became apparent that a relatively significant event in an escalation of tensions when Fatah accused Hamas of detaining over 500 of its men in the Gaza strip, which was written about in the Jerusalem Post in January 2019. This event was not updated in the article.

Tone and Balance

 * Guiding questions


 * Is the article neutral?
 * Are there any claims that appear heavily biased toward a particular position?
 * Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented?
 * Does the article attempt to persuade the reader in favor of one position or away from another?

Tone and balance evaluation
The article is presented in a neutral tone not hinting at any relative bias to either of the sides of the conflict. The conflict is presented detailing the events in relation to the conflict with no single viewpoint being either overrepresented or underrepresented. The article does not attempt to the persuade the reader in favor of one position or away from another.

Sources and References

 * Guiding questions


 * Are all facts in the article backed up by a reliable secondary source of information?
 * Are the sources thorough - i.e. Do they reflect the available literature on the topic?
 * Are the sources current?
 * Check a few links. Do they work?

Sources and references evaluation
The facts of the article are, for the most part, not backed up by secondary source information. Many of the references are primary documents as a majority of the referenced materials are news articles written from the time described. Many of the facts are supported by other articles written by the Jerusalem Post, BBC, PBS, The Guardian, and other news broadcasting services. Although they may not be secondary sources, the sources reflect the extent of the literature available on the topic, which primary exist as news articles, and the sources themselves are current with working links.

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 clear, concise, and relatively easy to read and provided an easily comprehensible understanding of the Fatah-Hamas Conflict. It was easy to understand the progress of events leading to and occurring throughout the conflict. The article has only a couple of grammar errors like using "were" instead of "was" or a few unecessary commas. The article seems well organized and relatively standard for a historical recount of an event.

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
The article contains no images regarding the topic, but images do not seem crucial to enhancing the overall understanding of the topic.

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
On the Talk Page, the main discussions are regarding the tone of the sections. For example, one of the users discusses changing the section of the article, which is now changed, from "Fatah Strikes Back" because the user felt it was not neutral. There are also multiple discussions regarding the addition of information to sections as information becomes more available through news sources. The article is deemed of interest to two separate WikiProjects, WikiProject Palestine and WikiProject Military History. Given the topic's relation to Arab-Israeli Conflicts, the article and talk page is subject to specific restrictions resulting from arbitration remedies.This is a topic not previously discussed in class.

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 article is primarily categorized as a B-Class article. The article's strengths involve the concise and easy to understand nature of the reading. However, its brief nature also became its pitfall because while the vocabulary and structure itself was logical and simple, numerous events were mentioned in each section without a brief appositive or overview and involved clicking a link to the subsequent Wikipedia page in order to understand the gist of the event referenced. This grew tedious as the article was read given the number of times it occurred. In this way, the article could be improved by adding a couple words that give a very brief understanding to an event to make it easier on the reader to understand the full scope of the events while still including a link if the reader wanted to know more in-depth knowledge of the subject. The article itself feels relatively complete in that way that the timeline of the conflict is relatively comprehensive, but the timeline could be updated a bit more.

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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