User:SlipperySpinner/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
I decided to evaluate the article about Film for this evaluation.

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose it because I am in the film group in our class and will be focusing on a film-related topic for the final assignment, so I thought it would be good to go over film. My preliminary impression of it is a good one. I'm seeing a brief overview of film, history of it, the whole filmmaking process, and different types of films. I think it gives a good and quick insight into film without being too heavy or dense in a specific area.

Lead Section
The lead section on this article is short and sweet and gets to the point. It gives a detailed definition of film. I don't think it's overly detailed. In fact, I wonder if more can be put in it. I know it's meant to be a brief, but there's a lot about film. Too much may be distracting, so this I think in the end works.

Content
The content in this article appear to be up to date. According to the talk page, the last edit was made just over a week ago, on February 13th. It includes film theory, history, terminology, production, and the role of film in culture. Ranges from past, currently about film, and how it has influenced others.

Tone and Balance
To me, the tone and balance of the article looks neutral. It mentions different sides, but doesn't lean more towards one or the other. The Industry section talks about film industry beginnings and locations with heavy film presence, including Hollywood, Bollywood, and the Babelsberg Studio near Berlin.

Sources and References
Some of the sources and references don't seem to be from highly reputable places. I clicked on one source and it took me to The Straight Dope Message Board, which sounds weird already. Looking at it, it had a Reddit-like style to it, where anybody online can just comment and answer, or claim they have the answer. There are a few links to IMDb, CNN, and Variety, to name a few. I also noticed a lot of [citation needed] notes, especially in the last four sections under the History category.

Organization and Writing Quality
I think it has a great organization, and the quality of writing is good. It just makes sense. History, Film theory, Industry, Terminology, Production. You learn more and more about film, similar in ways to the order we learned about it in school. Chronologically, it works well. The writing also was done in a way to provide good information, detailed info, in a way that is easy to digest, using common wording.

Images and Media
Images and media are placed throughout the article in an organized manner. The History section has gifs of the different types of film throughout the years. It also includes a link to the full version of "A Trip to the Moon", an important piece of film history. One image that seems out of place is a portrait of Salah Zulfikar, an Egyptian Cinema actor. It sits at the end of the History section and the beginning of the Film Theory section, so the location of it doesn't really work. It's super specific, an actor in the golden age of Egyptian cinema. I've never heard of him before. This may work better in an article about Egyptian Cinema, but I don't think here. There's another picture of him and I believe his wife at the very bottom of the article, by the Animation section. Again, not relating to the topic it's near. In the entire article, there's only two mentions of Salah's name, and it's in the caption of these two photos.

Talk Page Discussion
There's not really much discussion in the Talk page. There's one discussion about 2 months ago explaining how "film is not an exclusively American thing", and someone responded thanking him for the pickup. It's part of three WikiProjects: WikiProject Film / Core / Filmmaking, WikiProject Media, and Wikipedia Version 1.0 Editorial Team / v0.5 / Vital / Core. In this Talk page, a lot of the talks seem to be more factual, smaller detail things, not whole pictures or big ideas about film. Not much about it in society, social aspects of it.

Overall Impressions
I think this Film article is overall well written and provides great detail about many aspects of film. I think adding some societal influences of film can help to show the impact it can have. Talking more about it's connection and assistance in todays cultures with current events. Also, changing those pictures of Salah would just make me feel better!It is well developed, but can use just a bit more info on some topics.

(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.)