User:MaryellenIG/Evaluate an Article

Examples of good feedback
A good article evaluation can take a number of forms. The most essential things are to clearly identify the biggest shortcomings, and provide specific guidance on how the article can be improved.


 * Peer review of this article about a famous painting

Which article are you evaluating?
(Provide a link to the article here.) Social Mania

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
(Briefly explain why you chose it, why it matters, and what your preliminary impression of it was.)

I chose Social Mani as an article to evaluate because I had not heard of it before and therefore felt I could bring an unbiased critical view to the article. Given that moral panic is linked to this article, I felt that having an opposing phenomenon to moral panic is an interesting and important topic to explore. Often, we are more willing to explore negative social phenomenon and not look critically at what we may consider "positive" social movements and when those movements may be considered "mania". This article also has had some historical issues as seen through the Talk Page which I think is important to address.

Evaluate the article
(Compose a detailed evaluation of the article here, considering each of the key aspects listed above. Consider the guiding questions, and check out the examples of what a useful Wikipedia article evaluation looks like.)

Evaluate an article--> Social Mania

The lead section provides some overview but could be expanded to be more clear and provide a relation to other similar phenomenon. The lead section does not include information on the article's major section. This section also does not include any specific thinkers or movements from which this phenomenon can be traced (need for more research on the topics).

The content is very minimal and is written in a somewhat prejudicial way. There is a need for more unbiased examples and perhaps more details about those specific examples to better explain the phenomenon. There may be a need to discuss varying view points on this topic as the Talk Page explains there has been issues in the past about negative reflections on certain political movements.

Tone and balance needs to be reviewed and a more balanced perspective needs to be provided. Currently the article focuses on religious movements and while this may be relevant, there is a need for other examples and discussions so religion is not the only representation on this topic as it feels unbalanced. Further, more emphasis is placed on this topic experienced in oppressed populations which may create a ton of white supremacy or cultural dominance. I would also be interested to see if there are more positive representations of this topic rather than only negative destructive representations if that is deemed relevant by sources.

There is a significant dearth of references for this article and more are needed to build robustness of this article. Only one further reading book is provided and no references are used in the article.

This article is minimal and does not include the use of any figures or photos.

The Talk page for this article shows a major concern from November 2021 where a large section of the article was removed due to prejudice. The editor even suggests deletion of the article if there is not substantial remodeling. Also, editors have questioned the relevancy of the topic in modern sociology so there is need for more intensive research to be done to support this page or file of deletion if no longer relevant to the field.

Overall, I find this article to be incomplete and more confusing that educational. There is a need for a deeper dive into literature to support the topic. A strength of this article is the use of examples which provide a starting off point for an editor to explore. Specifically, this article requires a review of the literature to determine if the topic is firstly relevant and still in use, then if yes, a more thorough and evidence-based exploration of the topic needs to be created.