User:S.F.ARE3030/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
(Provide a link to the article here.) Ancient Greek architecture

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 because it was a topic that we have covered in class so I would be familiar with its content. It matters because Greek architecture was very influential and we see it even in modern architecture in different parts of the world. My first impression was that it was a long article covering a lot of topics but it seemed to have a lot of sources.

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 topic sentence does provide information about the article and, while the information given through it is still important, it does focus a bit more on the places and times the architecture originates from rather than something about the architecture itself. However, I think the sentence currently there is still a good piece of background information in order to jump into the rest. The lead does give a brief description of the major sections but if I didn't know the sections already I don't know if I would have been able to pick out what they were. I did not notice any information in the lead that wasn't also in the article. There were some parts that perhaps got more detailed than necessary considering that that information would also be down below.

I thought all of the content was relevant to the topic. It went in some different directions by covering both the history of it and the actual styles but since it still falls under the same umbrella I think it works. In regard to being up to date, a lot of the sources did seem quite old (the most recent one I saw was from 2012 while others were from the 19th century (not to say that those can't be informative, of course)) and it was last edited eight months ago. I think, while there are sections wherein some specific techniques is described, it could perhaps be beneficial if there was more in-depth information about techniques and tools used for the architecture. Also, the section on proportion and optical illusion is informative but considering how large of a role that played it could likely be expanded. I don't see any areas of this article that cover any of Wikipedia's equity gaps.

The article appears neutral to me. There is a sentence in the lead where it says this architecture is best known for its temples. It doesn't seem to me that that would be a problem but I remember the training saying to avoid saying things were the best and such. However, I'm not sure if that fits here since it does seem like it can be objectively true that the temples are the most well known aspect of this architecture or that it might seem that way but not be true. There don't seem to be a wide variety of viewpoints expressed in the article. In general, I don't think the article is attempting to sway anyone in a certain direction.

It does seem that all the facts are backed up by sources. Every paragraph has at least one citation except the section called entablature and pediment, which strangely does not have any (the only place in the article that is like this). As previously mentioned it seems like a lot of the sources are not very current. Most of them are from the 20th century with only one source from the last decade. The authors do not seem to be very diverse. Considering that Greek architecture has been an area of interest for a very long time I imagine there are many articles and sources that would provide good information and that are perhaps more recent as well. The couple of links that I clicked on all worked.

I thought that the article was written clearly. There weren't any spelling or grammar mistakes that I found. I thought generally the article was organized in a way that made sense but there were some areas that I thought could be adjusted or did not match up. For instance, the lead introduces structure and decoration side by side but they are not placed that way in the article. I think if the writer just amended that sentence and introduced structure and style as this architecture's distinguishing features (so long as it is still accurate, of course), that that would be better since it is how they actual appear in the article (granted structure is a subsection and style is a major section).

The article does include useful images. Since this is such a visual topic the images were really important for enhancing understanding and I think the ones currently in there are good. All the images have decent descriptions and are placed on the page in an appealing way.

There is quite a bit of messaging going on behind the scenes, but not very recently (the latest message is from October 2021). Some of the discussions honestly seem a bit hostile toward other editors (saying things were annoying, going over some major editing disagreements that were not handled professionally or politely, ect.). There are other messages though that are perfectly professional. The article has a B rating and is a part of six Wikiprojects. Some of the discussions different because they get into sources and how to handle the less surface level information but ones that are still important.

The article is at a level-4 vital status. I think the article's strengths come from the variety of topics covered under the umbrella of Ancient Greek architecture. Also, there are a lot of citations within the text. However, that also leads to some weaknesses. I think there could be more variety of sources and more current ones mixed in with older ones that still provide important information. I also thought, while I can't exactly figure a better way to do it at the moment, there could be improvements with the organization. There are some sections that are disproportionately smaller or larger to perhaps more information could be needed in the smaller ones to give them the same amount of attention. I think overall the article is well developed and that there are only a few areas that I would consider needing more development.