User:Mike Martinelli/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Law of the sea

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I've always heard different things and rumors about international waters having no law and I was just curious how true that was or if was still true to this day.

Evaluate the article
The lead section of the article followed Wikipedia's guidelines and rules for being concise and clear without any extra information or details. It also stated what each of the sections of the article were about and did so in a neutral tone. The nature of the article had some potential for ambiguity and may have had somewhat of a slant favoring western powers and history. However, the authors did a very good job of not including any non-factual folklore, rumors, or digressing down any one of various lines of evidence supporting the progression and formation of the modern day Law of the sea. That was actually a little bit disappointing for me as I love little tidbits of random and innocuous, but interesting, side notes. The article is easy to read and follow and there is not any one person or country who is given more weight or prominence in the formation of the Law of the sea than any other entity, except what was reasonably so. For example, Hugo Grotius who was generally considered the father of international law, was quoted and notated as being a prominent player in the formation of this subject, but it was still done with a neutral tone and unbiased voice. The tone and balance of the article was very well written.

There were some images that were helpful in understanding the subject such as the image denoting different maritime zones and clauses and exceptions. Some of the images were not helpful and while seemingly interesting and adding some apparent substance to the page, were actually not helpful at all in making certain subject matters clearer, such as the map of Mare Clausum Claims. The organization, clarity, and writing quality was also very good in my opinion, however the quality of the article was rated somewhat low at "Start". I think this was because more information is needed to fill in some holes and gaps in the timeline.

I felt that the article was overall well-written, but it was rated Start and I did get a sense of incompleteness and felt that there were some gaps to be filled in or explained more thoroughly. The writers did a very good job of staying neutral and unbiased throughout the article and used strong references. The talk page seems to have some controversy with some edit wars happening, but lately there were some jokes and goofing off, so I suppose everything was worked out. I enjoyed learning about the Law of the Sea and it's origins and shaping.