User:Tlaloc0011/Evaluate an Article

Evaluate an article
This is where you will complete your article evaluation. Please use the template below to evaluate your selected article.


 * Name of article: (Gunnison River)
 * I have chosen this article for my Ecotoxicology course at my university since I am interested in how the local geology impacts the Gunnison River.

Lead

 * Guiding questions
 * -The lead from the article does state where the river is located within the state of Colorado. It also give some context of the Gunnison River and how it relates to the Colorado River (a significant water way in the Western United States). The lead itself doesn't really describe the article's topic since it just gives some information about the river in some geographical context.
 * -The lead does not include a brief description of the article's major sections. I believe that the lead should include this information along with some other sections that would be relevant to the article.
 * -The lead also doesn't include any information that is absent from the article as well.
 * -At the moment the lead is pretty concise since it only gives some information about what the river is, where it is located, and how it relates to the Colorado river.


 * Does the Lead include an introductory sentence that concisely and clearly describes the article's topic?
 * Does the Lead include a brief description of the article's major sections?
 * Does the Lead include information that is not present in the article?
 * Is the Lead concise or is it overly detailed?

Content

 * Guiding questions

-The article talks about some of the spatial information in the different sections of the river by describing what lies in the upper and lower sections of this river. This description does provide some context about the importance of the river by talking about how it powers a hydroelectric plant and the water is used for agriculture.

-Since I have started learning about this particular river I have see information from the 1930's to the present that talks about selenium pollution. This element is extremely problematic since it is poisonous and it can cause some significant damage to the local ecosystem and people who use the river's water. So with this information absent from the article I would say that this article is not up to date.

-The description also makes a claim that the Gunnison river is "one of the longest, narrowest, and deepest gorges in the world" without giving any evidence for this claim. Some outside information that   would prove this claim would be useful. When it comes to missing content it also doesn't talk about the extensive efforts of the local and federal government to help remediate the river from selenium contamination.

-Since selenium is an important issue in this part of Colorado I would consider this lack of information a equity gap.


 * Is the article's content relevant to the topic?
 * Is the content up-to-date?
 * Is there content that is missing or content that does not belong?
 * Does the article deal with one of Wikipedia's equity gaps? Does it address topics related to historically underrepresented populations or topics?

Tone and Balance

 * Guiding questions
 * -The article seems fairly neutral since there isn't any conflicting information or any rancor at all.
 * -Since there is no information about selenium contamination in this article at all this could be some biased information. It is most likely just a content/equity gap since this is just on of Earth's thousands to millions of rivers that have Wikipedia articles.
 * -With the lack of information regarding selenium contamination it is under representing that issue and the people who are being impacted by it. Since minority groups often live in areas where pollution is a big issue this could be related to the selenium topic as well.
 * -Since there isn't any information about pollution in this river and plenty of examples of recreation (boating, fishing, traveling, history, etc.) this could be an attempt to make the river look like it doesn't have any problems.


 * Is the article neutral?
 * Are there any claims that appear heavily biased toward a particular position?
 * Are there viewpoints that are over represented, or underrepresented?
 * Does the article attempt to persuade the reader in favor of one position or away from another?

Sources and References

 * Guiding questions
 * -Most of the links in this article are links to other Wikipedia articles and there are some broken links in the references section. This is problematic since these claims are no longer valid since the proof they once had is no longer available (broken link, downed server, etc.)
 * -Since most of the links are to other pages it doesn't really reflect well on the quality of the article at all. Any good article on or off the internet needs to have sources in order to make claims or include information not written by the editor(s).
 * -Because there are a few broken links and some older websites the sources don't appear to be current. There is one link that talks about the length of the river from 2019 but that it all of the most recent information.
 * -Since the sources come from government websites or academic institutions I would assume that the authors of these sources are not very diverse.
 * -Some links don't even work! This information will need new sources or it will be removed for being unsubstantiated.


 * Are all facts in the article backed up by a reliable secondary source of information?
 * Are the sources thorough - i.e. Do they reflect the available literature on the topic?
 * Are the sources current?
 * Are the sources written by a diverse spectrum of authors? Do they include historically marginalized individuals where possible?
 * Check a few links. Do they work?

Organization

 * Guiding questions
 * -The article is fairly concise and easy to read. There are some sentences that appear to be a bit long but I'm not quite sure if they break any grammatical rules.
 * -There aren't any spelling mistakes or grammatical errors.
 * -There is some organization into a description, history, fishing, engineering, and a see also section linking to other rivers in Colorado.


 * Is the article well-written - i.e. Is it concise, clear, and easy to read?
 * Does the article have any grammatical or spelling errors?
 * Is the article well-organized - i.e. broken down into sections that reflect the major points of the topic?

Images and Media

 * Guiding questions
 * -There are two images and they do help with understanding the spatial context of the river. It has a map of the river in a larger context of Colorado. There is also another picture that shows some of the sides of the gorge and the river itself.
 * -The captions are pretty simple but the second caption is missing a period at the end of the sentence.
 * -Both of the pictures are considered "own work" so the people who edited this page before posted their own personal photos. The picture of someone looking down into the gorge makes sense as a personal photograph but the other picture doesn't. The description says that the photo comes from a USGS website but it doesn't provide a link to where the picture originally was posted/found.
 * -Since the picture of the map doesn't have a link to where it was taken from I would assume that it breaks some sort of rule. Both of the pictures are just normal pictures and not anything special at all. I guess that they have some sort of visual appeal due to their simplicity.


 * Does the article include images that enhance understanding of the topic?
 * Are images well-captioned?
 * Do all images adhere to Wikipedia's copyright regulations?
 * Are the images laid out in a visually appealing way?

Checking the talk page

 * Guiding questions
 * -On the talk page the only conversation is from 2006 about someone complaining about the color of the article's font.
 * -The article is rated as "Start-class, low importance" and it is part of three Wikiprojects (Rivers, United States/Colorado, and Fisheries and Fishing).
 * -Since this article focuses mainly on the geographical, historical, recreation, and engineering aspects of the river it doesn't relate to our class discussion at all.


 * What kinds of conversations, if any, are going on behind the scenes about how to represent this topic?
 * How is the article rated? Is it a part of any WikiProjects?
 * How does the way Wikipedia discusses this topic differ from the way we've talked about it in class?

Overall impressions

 * Guiding questions
 * -Overall, I think that the article needs a lot of work since it is missing large amount of information current events surrounding the river (pollution, climate change, invasive species, etc.).
 * -The article's strengths are its simplicity since it isn't convoluted and is easy to understand.
 * -The article can be improved revising the existing sections to include some updated information and including more information about the modern context of the river and how it relates to important topics.
 * -The article is underdeveloped since it is missing a lot of information and it needs to be updated.


 * What is the article's overall status?
 * What are the article's strengths?
 * How can the article be improved?
 * How would you assess the article's completeness - i.e. Is the article well-developed? Is it underdeveloped or poorly developed?

Optional activity

 * Choose at least 1 question relevant to the article you're evaluating and leave your evaluation on the article's Talk page. Be sure to sign your feedback

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