The Wikipedia page for the Cuban Literacy Campaign is poorly organized, biased, and in need of more concrete sources of information. The article provides some useful information about the movement’s overall organization and effect, but said information is not presented in a straightforward manner. The section titled “Challenges” contains information that is either irrelevant to the title of the section or irrelevant to the article as a whole. Some of the information is useful to understanding the topic being presented, but it makes up only a couple sentences of the section and is presented in a sensationalized way with poor sources.

The article appears to be biased in favor of the Cuban government, containing many claims that the movement described is the greatest in history. It makes a controversial (if believable) claim regarding U.S. interference in Cuba, but fails to reinforce that claim with concrete evidence. In addition, the article uses several inspirational yet vague quotes from Fidel Castro and other notable leaders in lieu of unbiased description of the topic. This article is representative of only Cuban viewpoints on the movement and its related movements; given that one of the related topics mentioned is expansion of the literacy campaign to other underdeveloped countries, it would be interesting to see the viewpoints of those countries on the subject.

Several of the links do not work; those that do work lead to sources that seem biased or not useful as a scholarly source for an article written in English for English speakers; examples include a couple of poorly translated articles from Cuban news sites and articles published by the Cuban government. The biases of these sources are not noted in the article. The vast majority of claims are cited, but it is hard to analyze the quality of their sources as they are generally books or articles that cannot be accessed online. None of the sources used were published after 2010. This means that any recent developments on the topic of literacy in Cuba have not been added as they occur.

There are only a few conversations on the talk page; two are civil discussions about ensuring the article is linked to versions of it in other languages and making sure statistics are correct, while another is a poorly phrased critique about the article’s bias. The article is rated C-class and low importance, and is included in WikiProject Cuba (inactive) and WikiProject Linguistics.

This Wikipedia article makes little to no effort to present information in an unbiased way, only represents one viewpoint, and does not acknowledge its biases. We have not discussed this topic in depth in class, but if we had one would assume that we would do so in as unbiased and factual a manner as possible.

The writing style is ambiguous at times too many pronouns are used and it is difficult to keep track of what the Wikipedia editors are referring to. The article also overuses passive voice, which makes the content even harder to grasp. Additionally, the article provides many detailed statistics to describe the size of the armies that fought in the War of Canudos, which makes it quite difficult to keep track of the rest of the information that is being presented.

While the article is neutral in tone, it seems to make claims that are not supported by any evidence. For instance, it claims that Canudos’ “spiritual leader and towering figurehead, Antonio Conselheiro, had died on September 22, probably of dysentery and malnutrition provoked by fasting for penance” without referring to any credible source that would support this piece of information.

The article over-represents the misery and poverty in which the people of Canudos lived, but fails to address the characteristics that would have pushed the villagers to fight with Antonio Conselheiro. That is, the article fails to provide any background information on the ideological reasons and beliefs that may have allowed Counselheiro to find supporters in the settlement of Canudos.

All of the links in the bibliography and the references sections of the article work, but only two of them provide access to the content the source in question. The rest of the links only link to Wikipedia pages that provide general descriptions of the sources that are cited within the article. Therefore, it is impossible to check the accuracy of claims that are made in the article unless a physical or an e-copy of the source is obtained.

Most of the sources that are cited in the article are in Spanish, which, added to their inaccessibility, made it impossible for me to check whether the article conforms to the claims that are made in the sources that are cited. However, the talk section suggests that the article seems to rely heavily, and almost exclusively, on a single work of fiction that was written about the War of Canudos. This undermines the credibility of the claims that are made in the article not only because works of fiction do not, by definition, conform to reality, but also because diversifying sources is necessary to avoid biases and the reproduction of misleading information. Furthermore, the body of the article exhibits the label “[citation needed]” twice, which casts even more doubt on the credibility of the piece as a whole. And while some peer-reviewed sources are included in the biography, they are not referred to anywhere in the article itself, which means that the article never references a “credible” source directly and explicitly.

Most of the sources date back to the 20^thcentury, which leads me to believe that it may be interesting to incorporate information from more recent sources. Additionally, it would be interesting to add information on the villagers’ ideology and beliefs that led to rally under Counselheiro, race, gender, class differences and involvement, and the role that the catholic church played in the debacle.

The talk section first blames the article for not addressing how the War of Canudos was a “monarchist rebellion.” The author of this comment states that “Antonio Counselheiro blamed the rich landowner who once owned slaves for overthrowing the monarch who kept the people under their grasp,” which points to a piece of information that seems essential to the understanding of the motives lying Counselheiro’s rebellion. Another Wikipedia user suggests incorporating more direct citations rather than relying on a bibliographic summary and underlines the article’s overreliance on a work of fiction. A third Wikipedia user suggests merging a Wikipedia article titled Canudos with the article on the War of Canudos given that the former mostly talks about the history of the War rather than the town itself. A fourth Wikipedia user suggests addressing the catholic church’s involvement in the War. Finally, a fifth Wikipedia user addresses a resolved issue which concerned the use of the words “fanatics” to refer to the people of Canudos. The problem with using these terms, said Wikipedia user claims, was that it constituted “an unsubstantiated value judgment that coincides with the government and media propaganda used during the period concerned to justify the government’s actions.”

The article is within the scope of WikiProject Brazil and is rated as B-class on the project’s quality scale. The article is also within the scope of the military history WikiProject and is rated as C-class on this project’s quality scale.

We have not discussed the War of Canudos in class, but I would imagine that our discussion of such a topic would include a careful examination of how race, gender, class, and ideology have shaped the conflict.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_Canudos

     This article has good information regarding how the FMC has been involved in other movements and politics in Cuba. However, it does not go into great detail about what the FMC stands for or how it was established. It gives a general overview of the FMC, including its goals, but it does not explain how the FMC was established or its history as an organization in general. There are no distractions in the article. Each section is clear and understandable. However, the sections are also very short which may contribute to this lack of confusion. The article is also very neutral. It is not biased and presents the information about the topic without making an argument. 

     There are some under-represented viewpoints for this article. This article focuses on Vilma Espin and her involvement with the FMC. However, as we discussed in class, Asela de los Santos was also involved with the FMC and helped to found the organization. She was also very involved in education, which is mentioned in this article in the form of the Cuban Literacy Campaign. Thus, the article completely ignores de los Santos involvement and influence on the FMC. 

     This article does not include links to any sources as all of the sources are cited as being print sources. There is not a good way to check whether or not the sources support the claims made in the article. These sources appear to be reliable as they come from different journals. However, they may be biased towards the typical readers of the journals where the sources are taken from. There is no bias noted in the Wikipedia article if one exists. There are also only three sources included in the article so there is not a wide range of information for the source.

     The sources included in the article are out of date. There are only three sources included in the article, and they date to 1975, 1987, and 1995 respectively. There could be more recent sources added to give a better perspective regarding how the organization has evolved and grown since it was first established. Adding newer sources would also allow for information on de los Santos to be added as well as other contributors to FMC who may have been overlooked. 

     The Talk page mentions that the article is part of the WikiProject Cuba which is considered inactive. There are no other conversations regarding the project or how it should be presented on this page. The Talk page is noted as last being edited in 2010. This page would probably be categorized as a start page as there is not a whole lot of information, but what information is presented has reliable sources to inform it. 

     We did not really focus on the FMC in class. However, this does differ from our discussion of Asela de los Santos and the role she played regarding the FMC. We did not discuss Vilma Espin or the role she played in the FMC, rather we focused on de los Santos and her work. Thus, it is interesting that the Wikipedia article has no mention of de los Santos at all.

Link to Wikipedia Page