User:Togata27/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Breakdancing

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I have chosen to evaluate and comment upon the Wikipedia article titled “Breakdancing.” I found this article from Wikied’s C-class articles link in the “Evaluate Wikipedia” activity. C-class articles are categorized as Wikipedia articles that require editing as they do not meet the standard of a proper, good quality Wikipedia article. This is part of the reason why I wanted to explore this article. From a quick scroll, my preliminary impressions was that I could tell it was lengthy and the talk page discussion was long so I felt as though I could jump into good conversations and debriefs about a topic I desire to learn more about. I am passionate about Hip Hop dance and breaking is a style that I have yet to try, so learning about its background and pioneers inspires me to try to take a class one day.

Evaluate the article

 * Overview: This article is quite lengthy, but it gives concrete, informative, and descriptive information about breaking. Everything in the article is relevant to the topic, intermixing other styles of dance and how breaking revolutionized the dance industry both domestically and internationally. The article breaks down the elements (both physical and political) of this dance style, its history, and its expansion.
 * Balance + Organization: The thoughtfulness of the order of sections gives it a clear structure with subheadings and arranged by theme. The “History” section is one of the more composed sections with clean subsections like “Uprock.” Beyond this part of the article, I thought it was clever that “Worldwide expansion” followed “History.” While there could have been a great transition between its international expansion and the “competition” section since it mentions popular international competitions and groups that shaped breakdancing worldwide, its current order makes sense since international influence has shaped its history since the 1900s. My suggestion would have been to incorporate “Dance elements,” “Style,” and “Music,” after the “History” section and moved its “Worldwide expansion” section beneath these, but I understand the editor’s point of view.
 * Lead section: I admire that recent news is included within the lead section such as this style’s appearance in the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics. Its debut at the Olympics is groundbreaking for dance in general since it will be the very first dance sport ever to compete in the Olympic Games. While I believe this piece of information would have given breaking more importance if it was mentioned in a sentence within the lead to exemplify breakdancing’s trajectory as a known sport, music, and art style, its mention brought detail that flows into the rest of the content. I noticed that one of the sources cited is from Yahoo which is not the most reliable source. Nevertheless, this Yahoo article was from January 19, 2023 and the official Paris Olympics website as well as the World Dance Sport website both contain the same information, so I would suggest that the citation be changed but the information be kept the same.
 * Content + Tone: I also applaud the writer who included its similar origin dance styles such as popping and locking. They wrote in an inclusive and appraising yet informative tone as if making sure to highlight all dance not just its breakdancing as an individual. They are also properly linked to the Wikipedia sites.
 * Content + Organization: When learning about bad-quality Wikipedia articles from Wikimedia’s “Evaluating Wikipedia,” the usage of the words “some” or “others” is less descriptive and so my suggestion is to list named groups of people. In this article for example, one of the writers wrote “others use the term ‘breakdancer’ to disparage those who learn the dance for personal gain…” Statements like these in the fourth paragraph of the “Terminology” section are too general and should be replaced with specific quotes and groups of people that have used this terminology in different contexts. For example, the article could say, “The Electric Boogaloos, a street dance crew, claimed the media was using the term ‘breakdancing’ incorrectly where sub-cultures existed and should have been identified.”
 * The article tries to support its claims under the “Terminology” section by including a table underneath to list the source and their quote using the terms “b-boy” or “breakdancing.” While I can understand how a table format for quotes can keep information nicely organized, I think the placement and content is slightly distracting. In my opinion, this would be an example of a section that seems overly long in proportion to its importance. There is much debate, especially in the talk page, about the uses and interchangeability of terms like “b-boying,” “breakdancing,” and “breaking,” however the references are too long. My overall concern with a large table with quotes is its length in relation to these quotes’ value in the article.
 * Sources: The sources and references overall look sufficient. There are a couple of places within the article that are labeled “citation needed” which I can infer is the reason it was given a “c-class” rating. I evaluated this article closely and I found that in the section, “Female presence,” the article has an external link of the phrase “females in hip-hop culture” to a Wikipedia page of a “video vixen.” Although this may be an example of such, I found another article called “Hip Hop Feminism” that I believe is more closely related to the context of this paragraph of empowering women’s roles in the modern hip-hop scene. I would change these links.
 * Images: The images and media used on this page consist of 11 pictures of breakdancers and three videos linked on the right side of the page. These are good representations of breakdancing and should be kept in the article. They align with the content placed to the left of the images as well. For example, when discussing breakdancing’s international reach, it contains a picture from 1986 of a breaking performance in Riga, Latvian SSR.
 * Talk page discussion: Since this “Breakdancing” Wikipedia article is rated “c-class,” I believe many have tried to contribute feedback for how to improve it. The talk page appears productive as users have been catching each others’ errors such as repetition of information from different sources. For example, one user commented that the reference to “power moves” needs to be specified since it is unclear what specific dance movements are incorporated under this element. One discussion that stood out to me was an accusation of plagiarism. User Anyante1 mentioned that the first paragraph of the section “Music” is “completely plagiarized” from an article on wordpress.com, however, another user MrOllie questioned which information came first. Did wordpress.com copy information from Wikipedia with no citation or vise versa. They make a good point that it is important to check the edit history as well as cite proper sources. Another discussion that stood out to me that actually prompted change on the article page was when Sage Cadence mentions that females should be given more recognition. Thus, the section “Female presence” was added. The section heading was changed from “Gender Inequality” to “Female presence.” This shows that titles of headings matter.
 * Overall: I contributed minor suggestions, but the article itself is descriptive, contains a consistent tone, and is written in a neutral and reliable way. My only question pertains to its stance as a “C-class” article.