User:SciPhiEv/Evaluate an Article

This article presents information on Philosophical razors, and gives and explains several examples of philosophical razors. The lead section is good for the short length of the article, it is very concise, being only one sentence, and both introduces and defines the main topic of the article. The lead contains no description of the article's sections, as the article has only one section. It does not contain any information not present in the rest of the article. The lead is very concise, and presents an optimal amount of detail, as it essentially acts as a definition of the topic.

The content of the article is all directly related to the topic, and is up to date. There could be information added to the article, but it does not have such deficiencies that it would be described as "missing" information, it more so is lacking elaboration. It addresses only the definition of philosophical razors as an introduction, with the rest of the article discussing the nature of several examples of common razors. It does not put too much focus on any one part, but would benefit from more discussion on each part or from containing additional sections. The only applicable section of the article to an equity gap would be the list of razors and their originators, all of the people whose razors are discussed in the article are white men who lived in the developed western world. This is certainly an equity gap, and likely results from two main areas. One is that this topic is specifically one within the field of western philosophy, and it is likely that philosophers from other disciplines, demographics, and parts of the world are less likely to approach philosophy in a way that necessitates or uses philosophical razors to the same extent or in the same way, and if there is a corresponding concept in that discipline, it may be underrepresented in this article due to the lack of emphasis on and study of non-western philosophy. Additionally, historically, the discipline of western philosophy itself has discriminated against and underrepresented minority groups, and has mostly only given opportunities and influence to white men of higher socioeconomic status. This effect is less pronounced, though certainly still present, in more recent times due to societal progress, which is relevant to the content of this article as it presents concepts that originate over a range of centuries.

The article's tone is entirely neutral, it provides definition of concepts and of specific philosophical razors, and makes no prescriptive or subjective claims. The claims do not bias towards any position, the article makes no argument, and simple reports on the existence and nature of certain philosophical concepts. The extent to which viewpoints are over or underrepresented is in proportion to and due to the previously described equity gap. As for fringe or minority viewpoints, that concept does not exactly apply to this topic, as all of the examples given in the article are concepts originated from individuals yet widely used by philosophers in general, and thus there is not much room for one viewpoint to be more fringe than another. It could be possible to describe the extent to which different philosophical razors are accepted and used by different philosophers in different disciplines, and that could allow a distinction between fringe and mainstream ideas, and that could be a positive addition to this article if it were longer. The article does not attempt to persuade the reader to any position, it only presents definitions, and does not make arguments for the validity or value of anything, it discusses only the existence and nature of its content. The article could benefit by including elaboration that includes the reasoning given by the creators/users of each philosophical razor that backs up the validity, or the counterarguments by those who dispute them, and if it did so it would be important to acknowledge each argument as originating from a certain point of view, and to present them not to persuade the reader but to make them aware of the point of view as it relates to the topic.

Facts in the article are extensively backed up by sources, and the sources are all directly related to the facts and the topic. The sources are appropriately current for the nature of the topic, given that the article discusses several previously invented philosophical concepts, it does not need particularly current reporting on them, as anything that discusses the original definition of the topic or an extension of it is adequate for the purposes of the article. The sources show a similar level of underrepresentation of diverse demographics by way of authors as the content of the article does, though definitely to a less extreme extent. These articles seem to be of good quality for what they being used for, some are the direct sources that initially documented the concepts presented in the article, and others are quality papers analyzing or documenting the relevant direct sources. All of the tested links to the sources were functional.

The article is well written, the diction is easy to understand, clear, and precise. There are no grammatical errors, and the organization is very simplistic, and is well executed, consistent, and easy to understand, and is an efficient way to present the information.

The article does not include images, and they are not necessary for the scope of this article. If the article went more into depth about individual razors, it could make sense to include diagrams to aid explanation of the topics, but that would not be necessary, and there are not many other possible kind of images that could be relevantly added.

There is only one conversation in the talk page, and it is a suggestion of another example of a razor (this one relevant to the field of sociology) that could be included in the article, The response was a suggestion to first look into the general opinion among sociologists to ascertain the validity and popularity of this razor in the field. This article is part of the Philosophy wikiproject, ans also the Spoken Wikipedia wikiproject. It is rated as a stub article, and rated as low-importance by the Philosophy wikiproject.

Overall this article is strong for its size, but is a very short article. The article is strong in its clarity and in the relevance of the content to the topic, it is strong in being impartial and appropriately presenting information. It is weak in its lack of elaboration, and the main place it could be improved is in covering more ground, and presenting more discussion about the nature and use of the examples. The article could benefit from presenting not only the definition of each example, but also covering the creators' justifications and the viewpoints and status of each example in philosophy as it is practiced. It could show examples of the use of various philosophical razors, and the like. This article could benefit from further development, but is not poorly developed, simply underdeveloped. Generally, what the article includes is good, but it would be possible to include more content that would contribute more to a reader's understanding and knowledge of the topic.

Which article are you evaluating?
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Philosophical_razor&oldid=1178028706

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose this article because it is about a topic I am interested in, and is also a somewhat unusual article in how short and concise it is. This article is important because it presents concepts that are used in philosophy and logic to make arguments and understanding these concepts can lead to better understanding of arguments and ability to make arguments. My initial impression of this article was that it was well written but could benefit from more discussion on the examples and sections discussing more about philosophical razors and their use.

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.)