User:MinialuceRuiz/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
(Provide a link to the article here.)war on drugs

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 this article with the topic of cannabis in mind, especially the fact that this substance is classified as a Schedule I drug. Because the War on Drugs is concerned with decreasing and/or preventing entirely the sale and consumption of harmful substances, I was interested in learning more about the campaign in general as a means of better understanding how history has worked to mold the present in relation to cannabis and the legal terms of it's presence in American society.MinialuceRuiz (talk) 18:09, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

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.)

The article has an informative introductory sentence, it is concise and gives a good overview of the topic. However, there is no brief description of the major topics covered in the article which might make it confusing to understand the structure. The article is first divided by century and then by country and while it is noted that the war on drugs is globally recognized, an explanation for why the article is structured in this way might help readers to more easily understand the article. The article deals with equity gaps, maybe too much? The talk page expresses the concern that the war on drugs painted in this light makes it seem like this was a war against black communities in the US primarily, part of me can see the importance of framing the war on drugs in this light. However, I recognize the abundance of information about the effects on the black community that this War on Drugs caused and think there is surely other related information that could be added to broaden the view. I agree with the talk pages critique that there is some information oddly placed making it more or less irrelevant and I noticed that there are disproportionate amount of information provided between the different sub topics. That being said, the overall structure is good, but there is definitely room for improvement. One way to improve this article could be to decrease this difference by adding more information in the areas lacking. In 21st century section of the War on Drugs article it is noted that Obama used "though but smart". Perhaps this quote should be removed because it is not neutral. I would say the article is more or less up to date until 2020, but there could be more added from 2021-2022. The tone is overall neutral, the article is very fact based which gives the impression that the goal is not so much to convince the readers to take one stance or another, but more so to help readers deduce their own informed opinions. The sources are diverse, referring back to the past and addressing up to the present. The article is well structured and easy to follow, some of the transitions from topic to topic could be smoothed, maybe an ending sentence that draws the two more closely together in the previous topic before diving into the new one. The article jumps from a time frame structure to more regionally based one and I think it could be helpful to draw the two closer together before transitioning. The article has images that are well captioned, while they are all relevant to the topics, I think some are not necessary as they do not help to clarify the topic. The images are easy to follow, they are all placed on the right hand of the page. The links work and the images follow Wikipedia guidelines. This article is rated level-5, C-Class, and part of multiple wiki projects.

My main critique is of the third to last paragraph in the 21st Century portion of the article, it says that a bill was passed in 2020 to remove cannabis from scheduled substances list, but cannabis is still categorized as a schedule I drug, it's important this is changed because otherwise it gives an unrealistic impression of the present regulations .https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IN/IN11204 MinialuceRuiz (talk) 18:09, 24 April 2022 (UTC)