User:UWCLStudentSpring2021/Evaluate an Article

Evaluate an article

Complete your article evaluation below. Here are the key aspects to consider:

Lead section

A good lead section defines the topic and provides a concise overview. A reader who just wants to identify the topic can read the first sentence. A reader who wants a very brief overview of the most important things about it can read the first paragraph. A reader who wants a quick overview can read the whole lead section.

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? (It shouldn't.)
Is the lead concise or is it overly detailed?

Content

A good Wikipedia article should cover all the important aspects of a topic, without putting too much weight on one part while neglecting another.

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

Wikipedia articles should be written from a neutral point of view; if there are substantial differences of interpretation or controversies among published, reliable sources, those views should be described as fairly as possible.

Is the article neutral?
Are there any claims that appear heavily biased toward a particular position?
Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented?
Are minority or fringe viewpoints accurately described as such?
Does the article attempt to persuade the reader in favor of one position or away from another?

Sources and References

A Wikipedia article should be based on the best sources available for the topic at hand. When possible, this means academic and peer-reviewed publications or scholarly books.

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?
Are there better sources available, such as peer-reviewed articles in place of news coverage or random websites? (You may need to do some digging to answer this.)
Check a few links. Do they work?

Organization and writing quality

The writing should be clear and professional, the content should be organized sensibly into sections.

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

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?

Talk page discussion

The article's talk page — and any discussions among other Wikipedia editors that have been taking place there — can be a useful window into the state of an article, and might help you focus on important aspects that you didn't think of.

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

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?

Examples of good feedback

A good article evaluation can take a number of forms. The most essential things are to clearly identify the biggest shortcomings, and provide specific guidance on how the article can be improved.

Peer review of this article about a famous painting

Which article are you evaluating?

Online deliberation

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?

I'm interested in this topic. Online deliberation was one of the reasons I initially was interested in taking this class (Building Successful Online Communities). I found this page through the Academic Discipline page. I had never seen the page before taking part in this exercise. I found it to be an interesting topic and the article genuinely captured my interest.

When I read through the Talk page, I saw the last update was from 2014 when there was discussion of removing the page entirely because it needs work. In some ways this may be a really good page to work with then because it is so out of date. But I am concerned I may not interact with any other Wikipedians since so few people are following it.

However, it is a part of three different WikiProjects (WikiProject Internet, WikiProject Politics, and WikiProject Internet Culture)so maybe that helps. And maybe I'm just overthinking that whole aspect and none of that matters for this assignment.

Evaluate the article

The lead section has too much information in it. The first three paragraphs of the lead provides the most concise definition of "Online Deliberation". However, it doesn't flow together in a natural way. It feels very fragmented as though it has been written by very distinct authors. The last paragraph in that section that discusses the international conferences on online deliberation should be in its own separate section.

The first three sections of the article: Definition and Implications for democracy are written well and have an adequate amount of information in them. They are heavily cited and represent a wide diversity of thought.

The first three sections also have a nice amount of links to other articles as well. That's helpful to be able to navigate and expand the reader's knowledge in relevant areas. However, there is one dead link to "online incivility". This needs to be removed.

The section "Quality of Online Deliberation" is not as well written as the preceding sections. The section adequately introduces "Deliberative Norms". But then it doesn't provide any more details of those norms. I think subsections could be created that elaborate on such norms.

This section is also where I noticed the citing start to not represent the same diversity of research as the other sections. This is especially true in the "Factors Influencing online deliberation" section. One source weighted much more heavily than others. This is especially troublesome because some of the claims made in this section can be viewed as particularly partisan. Here is an example:

Discussions surrounding news of health or abortion topics are more relevant but with fewer genuine questions posed than news of topics on education, crimes or guns, and economy. News of education topics has less uncivil and more relevant comments than the other news topics. People provide less evidence in their discourse when discussing news of economy topics as compared to the other news topics^[1]

The integrity of the article falls apart in the last section: Online Political Deliberation. This section only cites two sources. One source is the paper, "Mass Online Deliberation" by Velikanov, Cyril. I cannot determine if this is a peer reviewed paper since such little information has been provided about it. The second source cited is the book, Wiki Government: How Technology Can Make Government Better, Democracy Stronger, and Citizens More Powerful by Beth Noveck. However, it doesn't seem to have the correct formatting of the book in the citation. Overall the entire last section makes some very strong statements with little to no citations to back them up.

Lastly, this article needs to be updated. The citation most recently published is from 2013. And as I mentioned earlier, the last entry on the Talk page is from 2014.

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