User:Travis Szabolcs/sandbox

Article Evaluation
I have decided to evaluate the article on Big Bear, a powerful Cree chief who lived during the 1800s in Western Canada. The article covering Big Bear's legacy was very well written, neutral, and provided necessary information about other aspects of his life that were vital in forming his character (much like the introduction of Black Powder, his father who molded Big Bear's life and leadership styles). I found the article to be well divided, with longer sections providing the necessary links to other articles that will help provide further information that is vital to understanding Big Bear.

However, I found many sections to lack proper citation and this was a problem that was mentioned within the Talk Page of the article. There are multiple categories that end in a sentence with a lack of reference. This not only takes information from a source without proper credit, but also causes readers to question the validity of what they are reading. There is also an entire category labelled "Legacy" that has no citations whatsoever. Another issue I had with regards to referencing the work of others was the reference section itself. There were many categories that were cited using only one article without supporting sources to back up the argument or validate the information. This can become a problem as well because anyone can read one article and make claims but it requires multiple sources to accurately support what you are claiming. Also there were only 30 references.

The Talk Page of the Big Bear article was very helpful because it provided information about the changes that have been made by other editors. For example, the "Vandalism" category of the Talk Page provided information about false changes that were made in previous years and the efforts of editors to revert the information back to its credible beginnings. This recognition allows myself, a new user, to recognize previous changes which therefore allows myself to not try and repeat the efforts of others to repair the damaged article. I also found information that the Big Bear article was used by Trent University in 2015 in the History of Western Canada course as an educational assignment. Other information and peer editing categories give insight to possible changes, reactions to the article, and other key information that will help many editors to contribute to the accuracy and the expansion of the article itself.

Overall, the Big Bear article has room for improvement. This is especially the case concerning adding references and properly citing the sections that require it. This will make the information being consumed by the reader more credible, make the article more accurate, and allow editors to properly and more easily expand on previous additions made. With some fine tuning and contributions made by other editors, the Big Bear article could become a much more reliable source very quickly.