User:Zospence3/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Streetcars in New Orleans

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose it because as apart of the XCOR class "The City as Text", we are deeply exploring the history of New Orleans through the meaning behind its street's names and other monuments. Although street cars are not physically streets themselves, they are like a moving monument. They are a prized possession and place of significant history in New Orleans. Initially, the article was very well rounded, and had a lot of detail not only on the history of how street cars in New Orleans have evolved, but also how they came to be, from discovering electricity to revision of their structure after Hurricane Katrina.

Evaluate the article
The lead section provides a very concise overview, with a very catching lead sentence. The article could have done better about summarizing the articles that is is going to talk about, it left out the important topic of segregation within street cars and the important role electricity had on their completion. The lead is a bit over detailed, it could have been better if they spent more time talking about the general purpose of the article and general topics rather than the specific names and numbers, which should have been their own paragraph.

The article does a good job on covering content relevant to the topic. However, the information seems to be out of date and could use some updated information on how street cars are still prevalent in New Orleans 2020-2021. It seems to be focused heavily on the Long history of street cars, while leaving the modern relations of street cars out.

The article has a multitude of thorough references from credible sources, written by a wide array of authors and scholars.

The article is very well written and easy to read.

The article does an excellent job of including lots of pictures of street cars, not only modern ones but also ones from their early history in the 19th century. However, they could have used more vivid and exciting pictures such as street cars decorated colorfully for Mardi Gras etc; which would tie in the city's holiday history with street car history.

There is a thorough amount of discussion going on I the talk pages not only about the verifiability of the facts stated, but also things simple as the organization of the passage and the amount of inboxes on the article page; which is very reassuring to know that many minds contributed to its creation and updating.

The articles overall status is good and well developed. In order to be great or excellent, it could improve in many areas such as updating with modern history or adding more appealing vivid pictures. But the article did a good job of explaining the history of street cars in New Orleans and giving detailed stories on how exactly they became so prevalent in the city's society.