User:Stanxdk

About me
Hello everyone, my name is Stan. Most of my hobbies are in the sport category, this ranges from playing sports to watching and learning them. I have played soccer since I was three years old, and do not plan on giving it up anytime soon. In 2017, I went to my first Formula 1 race and I haven't stopped loving the sport since. I am not the only one who has gotten into the biggest stage for single seater racing, as attendance for the sport has increased by 36% since 2019 (the last full year of racing before the pandemic). Other then sports, I enjoy good food, spending time with friends and family, and going to the movies.

My Wikipedia interests
I've been taught all my life that Wikipedia is a bad source of information, meanwhile if you use it right, it can be one of the best. It is important to look at important information and realize that everything you read might not be true. Wikipedia insists on using citations from credible sites when editing a page on their website. This is why I plan to volunteer to make Wikipedia as accurate and dependent of a source it can be, by adding information from other credible websites as citations. Other then just citing preexisting text, I also plan to add information to other pages, which will be supported by credible sources.

Why Bergen op Zoom
The first 11 years of my life were spent across the pond, also known as the pacific ocean. I grew up in Noord-Brabant, a province in the south of the Netherlands. “Brabanders,” which is how the citizens of this province are referred to, are known for their pride in their province’s traditions and community. This went to an even further extent with the actual city I was born, Bergen op Zoom. With a population of 67,514, it has a feeling of togetherness like a town of 300 people. I visited the Bergen op Zoom article on Wikipedia, and found three aspects of it worth commenting on: a lack of facts being cited, grammar errors, and not enough current information.

Lack of Cited Facts
Although there is a high percentage of the sections of the article where facts are appropriately cited with up to date articles, there are about two or three sections containing a paragraph each where there are no or barely any citations to be found at all. The first of these is the Etymology section, where it talks about how Bergen op Zoom got its name. It talks about how the city is built on two different soils, but fails to provide a source where this information is from. Another section with barely any citations is the “Trading Town” section.

Out of Date Information
As I was reading the article I noticed some very simple but odd grammar errors that were taking away from the experience. The very first sentence of arguably the most important section, the history section, was an unhandy one. It read that “Bergen op Zoom was granted city status probably in 1212.” I personally would not have used the word probably in that way, and would have thought of another way to phrase this sentence. Such as, “It is estimated that Bergen op Zoom was granted city status in 1212.” Some other grammar mistakes included the use of too many commas, and run-on sentences.

Grammar Errors
Lastly, too much of the article was focused on the origin and history of Bergen op Zoom. I especially noticed this on the list of memorable and impressive people that are from the city, where there are nearly none recently added. The most recent person on this list is Rico Verhoeven, who has been very well known for a while now. I would add more people who have recently risen to fame like star footballer Oussama Idrissi. Besides this, there should be more information and facts about what the city is like today. There is a huge section about how important the port was in history but had unfortunately been flooded, but no information on how the port has been rebuilt and is back to being a major part of the city.

What to Improve On
In conclusion, the article about Bergen op Zoom was out of date, with too much information that is not valid or relevant anymore. This was attributed to the fact that there was no current information about what has been going on in the city. Besides these two issues, the last one is the fact that there are a couple spelling/grammar errors that made the article difficult to read.