User:CollegeStudent86/Evaluate an Article

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Anti-Catholicism

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?

Anti-Catholicism takes a general, well-known topic of Christianity, and it shows another side to it.

Evaluate the article

Lead Section

In the first sentence of the lead, the article gives a definition of Anti-Catholicism. This is possibly the only good thing about the summary. The content of the article discusses the several countries and their relationship and history with Anti-Catholicism, categorized by their primary form of Christianity (or lack thereof). Although Protestants and a little of Catholic Countries are mentioned, the Orthodox and Non-Christian countries are neglected in this opening. Within this introductory, it mentions the four types of Anti-Catholicism, which would be excellent subcategories to explore further in the content. Unfortunately, the pieces of information are never brought up again. This lead is overly detailed, going on for multiple long paragraphs.

Content

For the most part, the categories appear to be relevant to Anti-Catholicism. The mentioned countries are sorted into its primary religious system, and these subcategories review the history and relationship with Anti-Catholicism. Of course, there are a few outliers that don't fit in this picture. In the Former Yugoslavia section, it informs us on how the Chetniks persecuted Croats, and how those Chetniks destroyed churches, but it isn't explained on how these two points are connected. It isn't explicitly stated that the Croats are of Catholic origin, which will make the reader confused about the reason this ethnicity is brought up. In the Bangladesh portion, it is mention that a church got bombed without any elaboration on the event.

Tone and Balance

Overall, this article is neutral, with no heavily biased claims and refraining from any attempts to persuade the reader. Unfortunately, even though there is a range of countries displayed in the subcategories, there are those that receive less attention and information than others. Thus, the minorities feel underrepresented in comparison, leaving uncertainty on whether they are given accurate description.

Sources and References

A majority of these sites are from at least a decade ago. The handful of articles written more recently are often news pieces, making their credibility more uncertain. There are also some references that are missing or blocked, causing difficulty for validation for the information connected to them. Because of this, checking for back-ups stands next to impossible. One thing I can hand to these references is the range of authors displayed here. Almost every literary piece came from someone different. Furthermore, they do include historical works that come from different periods of time. However, the sources they are mentioned in haven't been updated to the present day. A potential resource that might assist in improvement could come in the form of Banglapedia, a site giving an overview of the country and its history. It has an article discussing its relationship to Christianity, therefore informing further in Anti-Catholicism. Here is the link to check out: https://en.banglapedia.org/index.php/Christianity

Organization and Writing Quality

All of the content is factored into the different types of religions that countries revolve around, then divide said countries as subcategories. Thus, the content gets organized in a consistent manner. Unfortunately, there is so much information that it becomes difficult to perceive what is concise, or comb through it to find grammatical errors.

Images and Media

Most of the time, the images displayed here are well organized and relevant to the general topic. The pictures are regularly placed upon the right side of the article, leading to a consistency in design. Every piece is properly referenced and cited to its original source, so there are no problems there. There are even some good captions that give context behind the visuals, but they usually don't give dumps of information. However, there are still issues to these positives that need to be addressed.

Within the range of media shown here, there is only one particularly overly captioned image. Early on, we see a work known as the Papstspotbilder, or Papstspottbilde, a woodcuts series written by Lucas Cranach and commissioned by Martin Luther. The caption does and should have these details on here, as well as what the words within the cartoon used. However, they go one step too far by adding a sentence describing what is happening in the scene, leaving little room for visual interpretation. Furthermore, this segment makes the caption feel longer than it actually is, which isn't necessarily a good thing. Of course, this error doesn't happen often, but it is certainly an eye sore. Ironically, the other exceptions to the caption balance normally suffers from a lack of information. The Protestant Tutor's cover is depicted in here, but the only context given in the caption is its name and author. This might have been acceptable if this piece of writing was elaborated upon in the wiki itself, but that ties into the other problem with these portrayals. Sometimes, the image's caption would give us information of a person, place, or event that isn't elaborated on in content itself. Lucas Cranach's works are used constantly as images, he never gets even a mention in the paragraphs themselves. This becomes a theme that occasionally pops up throughout this experience.

The organization of the pictures can also be questioned at times. Once more, there is a singular exception to what is normally a solid pattern. Even though most are positioned on the right side of the screen, there are a couple of illustrations that are placed on the left side. This doesn't particularly break the flow, and the paragraphs themselves are adjusted around them accordingly, but it was something worth pointing out. The real inconveniences are when depictions of a certain subcategory aren't paired up together. An early example of this could be noticed in the Gordon Riots. This is another caption that says no more than art's title and author, but, unlike the Protestant Tutor, the Gordon Riots have their own subcategory of context. This is a great effort displayed, until it is noticed that the sketch is two subcategories below the section it is connected to. This makes the placement confusing and the organization questionable. This is a simple fix, by transferring the print slightly higher to coordinate where it is meant to.

Talk Page Discussion

The talk page had a handful of discussions throughout this wiki's existence. Two sections emphasize upon the "self-hating Catholics," or the "Anti-Catholic Catholics," desiring more content for these individuals. A few feedback pieces offer better references, which are more modern and updated than previous sources. There are even a couple individuals that think of developing a few countries' categories. There are five WikiProjects included: Religion/Interfaith, Christianity, Catholicism, History, and Discrimination. All of these groups are rated as C-class, or Mid-importance. It could be inferred that the article itself has a similar rating. Unfortunately, it isn't made particularly clear, and it's not like this topic was discussed in a classroom setting.

Overall Impressions

This is a flawed article, struggling to wrap itself around a topic too complex for its own good. The strengths that do exist can be seen in the Lead Section's first sentence, relevant and decently organized content categories, unconditionally neutral and unbiased tone, the author range, image utility, and occasional balance. The talk page seems to have a fair amount of discussion and analysis to work on improvement. However, what few things done right are shadowed by the messes littered in this issue. The Lead is overly detailed, context is commonly missing, representation is imbalanced, sources are outdated and often inaccessible, and image format can be sloppy and inconsistent sometimes. This article is not well-developed, but it certainly isn't underdeveloped either. In fact, it feels like the exact opposite problem. This topic has so many details put into it that comprehension is made into an improbability. Hypothetically, one could attempt to fix this subject, but discovering where to start is the least of the worries that would follow.