User:Mau0074/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: (link): Baghdad Pact
 * Briefly describe why you have chosen this article to evaluate:
 * I wanted to choose a specific event in order to analyse the whole article in depth, and to facilitate the evalutation of the article.
 * I also wanted to choose a relatively recent event concerning what we can call the "Arab world" in order to see how the Wikipedians deal with sensitive content.
 * Finally, I wanted to choose a "bad" article in order to underline all the mistakes we should try to avoid.
 * I think the anglo-saxon article of the Baghdad Pact matches those criterias, and is all the more interesting that I could compare it to the French version on the same topic (that seems to be better).

Lead
Guiding questions:


 * Does the Lead include an introductory sentence that concisely and clearly describes the article's topic? Yes but the introductory sentence is vague, it talks about a "military alliance of the Cold War", as if it was evident that "of the Cold War" meant "in order to contain the expansion of sovietism". In the French version, the article explain that the Pact takes place in the context of the containment policy of the USA (and thus talk about the US imperialism in the region).
 * Does the Lead include a brief description of the article's major sections? NO, because the sections are not well-organized in a logical order. It is just a serie of descriptive informations, that are not always relevant, not always analyzed, and the selection of informations is based on unknown reasons (some specific events are mentioned, we don't know why).
 * Does the Lead include information that is not present in the article? Yes, the headquarters. This information should not be in an introduction, but as I said the article is not well-organized.
 * Is the Lead concise or is it overly detailed? Concise but with some specific detail that are not relevant in a Lead (like the headquarters).

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

 * An article focused on the USA

It depends on what we want to analyse, but in my opinion the content is not relevant because it is really focused on the USA, on their concerns about this area in the sensitive context of the Cold War. After the introductory sentence, the first information is about the role of the US in the negociations and why they could not be a part of the pact.

If we take a look at the timeline (a tool that can tell a different stories depending on the chosen dates, just like a map can show different realities depending on the chosen legend), it is really short (whereas the Pact lasted 20 years), and focused on events that can interest the US government: the withdrawal or Iran, the withdrawal of Irak, the Indian-Pakistan war...

On the other hand, there is not a word about the local and political implications on the countries that are members of the Pact (Iran, Irak, Pakistan, Turkey). The French version of the article show how the Pact generated a great opposition in the Arabic world with leaders like Nasser that did not want to be a part of the Western block and feared to lose its leadership in the area.


 * Unjustified choice of informations - lack of informations

For example, in the section "Membership" the article mentions only Turkey


 * Global lack of analysis

Series of informations such as the locations of the heaquarters, the secretaries general, or the research institutions, with no analysis (but then we should wonder, what is the role of Wikipedia? To give an important amount of informations or to offer an analysis of the event?).

The bad organization of the article is also a consequence of the lack of analysis: for example, the historical part starts by explaining the military command structure whereas it should have started by explaining why and how the Pact was created in the first place.

With this article, it is really difficult to understand the stakes of this Pact, the context of creation, and the concrete consequences.

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
As I said, it is US-focused and US-oriented as it does not mention the US-imperialism and the local oppositions that occured after the creation of the Pact. The French article is way more critical about the US.

Moroever, it seems to me that the article try to show how the Arabic countries (especially Iraq and Iran) have been "bad and unpredictable allies". See the quotes below:

"It is generally viewed as one of the least successful of the Cold War alliances"

"CENTO did little to prevent the expansion of Soviet influence to non-member states in the area." --> No sources or examples added to support that information. No explanation about the "why": why were they not helpful? Because not capable of being helpful or because not willing to help an imperialistic country such as the USA?

"Turkey's role in the Baghdad Pact was one of a unique and elevated nature compared to other nations such as Iraq." --> No sources added.

Sources and References
Guiding questions:


 * Are all facts in the article backed up by a reliable secondary source of information? NO
 * Are the sources thorough - i.e. Do they reflect the available literature on the topic?
 * Are the sources current? NOT REALLY, almost all between 1960 and 1990.
 * Check a few links. Do they work? YES

Sources and references evaluation
We can see that the sources are about US-oriented informations as well : "Encyclopedia of the Cold War"(= US concern) "American Presidents and the Middle East" (= about the US) ""Iran and Nuclear Weapons", "Iran's Nuclear Decision-Making Calculus" (=US BIG concern).

A lot of websites and encyclopedies but not much analytical articles (Only one seemed interesting but is not used in the article : "Jasse, Richard (Winter 1991). "The Baghdad Pact: Cold War or Colonialism". Middle Eastern Studies. 27 (1): 140–156.)

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
As I already explained, the organization is really bad and not logic.

Images and Media
Guiding questions:


 * Does the article include images that enhance understanding of the topic? Not really
 * Are images well-captioned?
 * Do all images adhere to Wikipedia's copyright regulations? I DON'T KNOW
 * Are the images laid out in a visually appealing way?

Images and media evaluation
3 images:

- A map that is pretty clear and helpful.

- A picture of a US aircraft in Iran --> again, it show the political interests of the USA in the area. However, the picture is well-captioned and it can be helpful as it shows a concrete implication of the Pact.

- A picture of a Universal Newsreel about the Baghdad Pact --> it is not mentionned in the article so it is not really helpful. It could have been relevant if the article had talked about the local implictions of the Pact. The quality of the picture is not good.

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
Baghdad Pact has been listed as a level-5 vital article (the highest level) in Society --> It confirm my though that the subject is sensitive.

It is rated as a "Start-class", meaning "An article that is developing but still quite incomplete. It may or may not not cite adequate reliable sources." "Providing references to reliable sources should come first; the article also needs substantial improvement in content and organisation. Also improve the grammar, spelling, writing style and improve the jargon use." "Provides some meaningful content, but most readers will need more" --> I think this rate matches pretty well my evaluation of the article.

It is a part of 4 WikiProject: 'International Relations", "Cold War", "Organizations", "Military Organization".

Not much discussions, just one (really short) about Egypt's feeling (did it feel excluded?). We can see the lack of interest about the local consequences.

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 overall status of the article is quite unsatisfactory.

I would recommand:

- To add a serious historical context to explain the stakes of Pact in the introduction

- To do a real historical part explaining the implications of the Pact in the local area.

- To reorganize the informations of the article, not delete the descriptive one but put them in different categories and dedicate some items to deeper analysis.

- To add new analytic sources such as acamedic articles

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 with four tildes ~


 * Link to feedback: