User:Michael3468/Evaluate an Article

Evaluating

Which article are you evaluating?
Link to evaluated article

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose this article because I am a hockey fan and viewed the article as an opportunity to practice my evaluation skills on a subject that I find interesting. I chose the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) wikipedia article.

Lead Section
The lead section does include an introductory sentence and even links the name of the federation in multiple languages. Moreover, this section gives a brief overview of the main responsibilities of the IIHF and an overview of important dates in the federation's history. Since this section is directed toward being an overview, I believe that certain details like the appeals process can be left out, while more general information about the federation's purpose in hockey should be included.

Content
The content of the article is explicitly divided into important sections. In the "Functions" section, the main responsibilities of the federation are discussed in detail, as well as the structural organization of the major positions held by individuals in the federation. On the other hand, this section is missing the court appeal process that was briefly mentioned in the Lead Section. Aside from this small gap, I believe this section thoroughly describes the topic at hand. The next section is "History". This section goes into detail about the founding of the IIHF and its development throughout history. Since this is an organization that governs the sport of hockey on an international level, there are political matters discussed in this section. The article successfully takes a neutral approach on each of the situations and presents credible articles outside of wikipedia that further explain the matter at hand. The later sections in the wikipedia article go forth to discuss the "IIHF Hall of Fame". "Tournaments", and the countries that are a part of this federation.

Tone and Balance
The article is written in a neutral point of view and makes certain to present only factual information when discussing any political or historical matters that involve the IIHF. Since there are no biased viewpoints taken in the wikipedia article, the article does not try to persuade the reader to agree with a certain position.

Sources and References
Historical dates presented throughout the article are backed up by links to the main website of the IIHF. The parts of the "History" section involving political or other controversial matter are supported by outside articles from a wide range of sources that further go into detail about the event being discussed. A majority of the sources are dated to the past 6 years. I believe it would be difficult to find peer-reviewed articles for this topic as it is not related to a scientific or educational based idea.

Organization and Writing Quality
The article is well written and uses syntax that is easy to understand, as well as links any terms that need further explanation or are beyond the scope of the subject at hand. Moreover, the article is well-organized into sections that present different aspects relating to the IIHF. Likewise, sections relating to historical information about the federation are easy to follow and present information in a swift manner. Although, I would say that there could be additional sections added to the article to explain the different tournaments that are under the jurisdiction of the IIHF.

Images and Media
The article does include images to show important landmarks and events related to the IIHF. Likewise, the flags of all the participating nations are included. I would include several more images in the "History" section of the article to give the reader an even better picture of the significance of the federation throughout history. All of the images adhere to Wikipedia's copyright regulations, as a link is provided with each image that directs the reader to the source from which the image was taken.

Talk Page Discussion
There are several main conversations occurring in the talk page of this article. Hockey rules are being discussed and how they fit in with the regulations of the IIHF. Several copyright violations were noted throughout the article and subsequently corrected. Moreover, the largest discussion in the talk page was based on the topic of including a "Controversy" section in the article. This article is rated as a B-class article and is part of the "Olympics" and "Ice Hockey" WikiProjects.

Overall Impressions
I believe that the article is in good condition, but could be improved through the addition of more detailed descriptions of the tournaments that the federation overlooks. Likewise, more photos can be added to provide a picture in the reader's mind of the historical events that affected the IIHF. Ultimately, while this article is thorough in its explanation of the main subject at hand, I believe small extensions to topics closely related to the IIHF would only strengthen the article.