About me

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I am a student from Washington, and I enjoy music and cars. I spend lots of my time listening to and learning about music. While I don't play any instruments, I still spend a few hours every day looking for and listening to new and interesting bands. Another thing about me are I have 2 dogs and a cat, but they don't really get along all too well. The dogs like the cat, but those feelings aren't reciprocated. But to be fair that isn't really the cat's fault, Cats historically don't enjoy being chased or having up close and personal contact with their little friends.[1]

My Wikipedia Interests

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My interests involving Wikipedia mainly revolve around my class that I'm enrolled in. But I believe that I can find use on the website outside of school as well. I can think of a few bands off the top of my head that deserve recognition in having a Wikipedia page, but don't seem to have one. In the Longterm, I'm looking to try and find out more information about some of these bands/members and adding them onto Wikipedia. Or, if they already have a page, maybe try and add on to it and make small improvements here and there. I'm really just looking to accomplish trying to not only improve some of these pages, but also to give recognition to these great groups. And maybe by adding more to their sites, others will find out about them too.

Article Evaluation

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I've always been interested in cars for as long as I can remember. It doesn't really matter what type or brand it is, no matter what I find them fascinating. While searching through random articles I've stumbled upon a "type" of car that doesn't really seem to get too much attention and doesn't have much information. I visited the microcar article on Wikipedia and found three aspects of it worth commenting on: a lack of citations, their historical relevance, and their practicality.

Citations

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While looking throughout the page I tend to notice that there is some information that is not cited. While much of the page is, a few important parts have no source to prove their accuracy. In the section titled "Europe 1940-1970: Microcars" there is not a single citation to be found. While this information seems accurate, and I have no real reason not to believe the editor, it nonetheless has no citations. I've also noticed holes within the "Quadricycle Legislation" section. With once again, no sources. I feel like the information found in these sections is well written and useful towards the overall goal of the article, but they just need some citations to prove their accuracy.

Historical Relevance

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There actually is a History section within the Microcar article, and it explains some pretty interesting points about where they came from and when they began to lose popularity. But I feel as if it's missing an important piece of history as to why these cars became popular in the first place. The article says that they became popular in Europe because of the demand for cheap transportation. This is true, but doesn't explain in much detail. After WW2, many European economies were destroyed (including their car markets). The demand for a cheap to manufacture/cheap to purchase vehicle was high.[2] Hence when and why microcars were born. Surprisingly there was not a mention of this more in-depth history in the article. I feel like this broader viewpoint of their history would add much more depth into the article.

Practicality

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The article does not at all mention the practicality of one of these micro cars. While they are small and easy to maneuver, they really aren't practical for any other setting then that of a big city. They're fuel efficient, but can't go very fast. Most older ones couldn't even top 60 miles per hour.[3] . Attempting to drive a microcar on a US freeway or highway would be a disaster, and likely a one-way trip. I feel like this information is important to the understanding of the vehicles and there is no mention of this in any part of the article.

Conclusion

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Overall, I think that this page is pretty good. It has great details and interesting facts all about microcars and what ever happened to them. While there are some missing pieces, the overall scope of information that can be found on this article is reasonably believable, even though there are some sources missing. I think with the addition of a more in-depth history section, and some added citations this article could be top notch.

References

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  1. ^ Bailey, Angie (2018-02-09). "Why Do Cats Hate Dogs? We've Got Some Answers (and Advice!)". Catster. Retrieved 2022-09-28.
  2. ^ "The Tiny Weird World of Microcars". Discovery Com. Retrieved 2022-10-12.
  3. ^ Staff, H. C. (2018-05-24). "17 Microcars No Human Should Ever Drive...Because They're Bad". HotCars. Retrieved 2022-10-12.