User:Robertp41/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
I am evaluating the article Gulf of Tonkin Incident.

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I have chosen this article because it is a documented historical event that later became controversial as more information was found out. I want to see what consideration were taken into account when dealing with alternative narratives about what happened during the Gulf of Tonkin incident. Controversial events, like incidents that are used as a casus belli, could easily be documented in a biased way- especially if there are competing narratives floating around.

Evaluate the article
My first impression of this article was the text box at the top of the page that states, “This article’s lead section may not adequately summarize its contents.” So right out the gates I am second that the article may not hold up to Wikipedia’s standards for reliability. The lead consists of four paragraphs and each covers the main points of the article. In order, to have a cohesive article about the Gulf of Tonkin Incident itt has to include a timeline of the incident, the immediate political and diplomatic outcome of the incident, and finally previously unknown information that was only released years later. The article efficiently organizes that articles according to that sequence of events. The contents of the article consist of 11 headers, however the main body of information lies only in 7 of them. Just about every sentence in the article is anointed with a hyperlink at the end. It appears that the facts in the article are back up up by reliable sources such as first person accounts, documentaries, government inquiries and investigations. However, many of the hyperlinks for sources were archived but I do not think that this negatively effects the quality of the article. Another positive quality of this article is the amount of images that are included in it. The article has 16 relevant images that show the readers, what ships and aircraft were involved in the incident, maps showing the positions of the units engaged, relevant political figures and documents, as well as, photographs taken during the incident. I do not think the article deals with one of Wikipedia's equity gaps, particularly because the topic of the article if about military history and strategy and not social issues or history I general. Those aforementioned topics are ones that typically concern historically underrepresented populations. After my evaluation of this article I would rate its quality as being pretty spot on.