User:KingDome3434

Bio

About Me

I'm a high school student who is enrolled in college courses via a program at my school. Through said program, I hope to graduate with an associates degree. I believe this is important for my future, as the courses within an associate program are often similar to early courses taken to obtain a bachelor's degree. Outside of academics, I enjoy watching movies, rock climbing, going on hikes, and spending time with my friends and family. I moved around a lot as a child, and through having to change locations and meet new people, I found myself to become very outgoing as a person. I also have four dogs.

My Wikipedia Interests

Although I'm not very familiar with Wikipedia, I have often used it to find resources. I don't see myself editing much yet, as there isn't a particular avenue that I am very knowledgeable in. However, I am a stickler for grammatical and punctuation errors, so that may be my only commitment to Wikipedia as a volunteer for now.

Article Evaluation

Previously I, like many, believed Wikipedia was a largely untruthful source. Created as the editable encyclopedia, I had been told throughout my years of school that it was largely unreliable. However, I found myself curious about the validity of the website. There was a point in my life where I lived in the state of Michigan, and because of where I lived in my city I had the high school that I was going to planned; Skyline. I was hoping Wikipedia's page of the school had some history, so I visited the Skyline High School article on Wikipedia, and found three aspects of it worth commenting on: its relevant information, if the sources were up to date, and if there was information that was left out of the article that would aid it's usefulness

Relevant Information

Since my preexisting knowledge of this school knows it to be very large, I find it troubling that the article on it is so concise. Within the first of only two sections entitled "History", the final 3 sentences of the 5-sentence paragraph are about a population of salamanders that were a temporary pause in the construction of the school. This information is hardly relevant to the history of the school and gives no information relevant to things like the layout or intentions with building that would be much more relevant within the topic of construction.

Recency of Citations

This could be due to the shortness and lack of variety in the article, but majority of the articles are from before the year 2010, or there is a lack of them overall. However, with simple research is much more current published information with detailed history on the school than 2005-2007 which most of the sources are from. This also seems even more dated considering the fact that the school was built in 2008. The article would be much better equipped with sources more current.

Absent Information

The article only briefly discusses the history of the school, and then has a section titled "Extracurricular Activities" which only discusses the sports that the school offers. Then, the article concludes. However, there is a side panel with basic info about the school like test scores, address, and basic google-able information about the school. There could easily be sections about the unique academic opportunities, the facilities of the building, notable achievements of the school, famous alumni or notable staff members, community interactions/outreach, and many more. The article has a lot of opportunities for expansion and improvement overall.

Conclusion

In all, I feel this page is largely inadequate. It provides a very minuscule portion of the history of the school that mostly discusses irrelevant topics. Additionally, almost all of the references in the actual content of the article are over a decade old, and the actual content of the article does not provide even the average amount of information on the school and what it envelops. This article could be edited and improved greatly to fit Wikipedia's guidelines and be more useful.