User:PiratePale/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Red Lake shootings

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 am currently taking a Native American History class. On the first day of class, we watched a movie called the Canary Effect, which talked in depth about suicide and violent crime rates on reservations. One of the cases of violent crime was the Red Lake shootings, which was the second worst school shooting in history at the time. However, unlike the shooting that had taken first place, the Red Lake Shootings got very little publicity in comparison. (The Columbine shootings, which was at the time the worst school shooting in history, has almost 300 sources on its wikipedia page. The Red Lake shootings has less than 30.) It matters to me because of the media indifference towards cases that happen in poor areas compared to the sheer amount of coverage on cases that happen in rich areas makes me incredibly angry. There is no reason to not cover cases in poor areas, other than that they may not bring in as much revenue and attention to the big media companies.

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.)

Lead Section:

-In the Lead Section there are only two paragraphs, and no references.

-There should be some mention of the killer's motives and living conditions on the reservation.

Content:

-There is no mention of (alleged) Neo-Nazi'ism from the killer

-There is very little mention of the affects of Prozac on children, even though the killer had a Prozac prescription.

-The article mentions a lot about the killer being mildly goth, even in the motive section of the article.

-In the Funeral section of the article, there are only a few references and there should be many more.

-There should be more mention of the references the killer made to the Columbine School shooting throughout the article.

-This article does not directly address the underrepresented population, but it should. The article is about a School Shooting that lacks coverage based on the ethnicity and economic situation of the victims and the killer.

-The content is as up to date as possible with the age of the case.

-There is some content that is missing, like previously stated. Alleged Neo-Nazi'ism that could have been a part of the motive, and the problem with Prozac and children.

-There is far too much mention of the alleged Goth nature of the killer, as the music one listens to does not make them a killer, nor does the way they dress.

Tone and Balance:

-The tone is mostly neutral. There is a lot of mention about the killer being mildly Goth, which seems prejudiced. Being Goth does not lead someone to commit mass murder.

-Other than the over-mentioning of the killer's supposed Goth-ness, there are no over represented view points that I can find.

-There is no attempt in this article to sway the reader one way or another, it simply tells about the case.

Sources and References:

-There are very few sources on this page compared to other articles on similar events.

-The sources are as current as possible with the age of the case.

-Many of the articles are written by news networks, not by members of the affected community.

-As of right now, there are not many alternative sources, due to the lack of media coverage directly after the event took place.

-The links do work, but some are to less reputable news networks and blogs.

Organization and Writing Quality:

-The article is well-written and easy to read

-The article's sections could use refining, they aren't as concise as they could be.

-There are no spelling or grammatical errors (as far as I can tell)

Images and Media:

-There are no images in the article at all.

Talk Page Discussion:

-The conversations going on behind the scenes are mainly about what should be included in the article. Many in the Talk section believe that there is too much background information on the killer, especially because he has his own page that is being edited.

-The article is rated at C for most categories, but there are many that are rated at Start-class.

-We have not talked about this topic in class.

Overall

-The article can be improved with more sources and better quality sections.

-The article is slightly underdeveloped, but that can be fixed with more sources as mentioned several times above.

- While the article is well written, there are very few references and some things that could be prejudiced are mentioned throughout the article. There is also room for improvement in the writing when you look closely.

-Needs many more references to be accurate and helpful.