User:Mbb5c/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
(Provide a link to the article here.)

Dyatlov Pass incident

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
(Briefly explain why you chose it, why it matters, and what your preliminary impression of it was.)

I chose this article because new evidence has been discovered, and I wanted to know if Wikipedia kept up to date with it. This case matters because it is the subject for a lot of conspiracy theories and hold many questions about an avalanche's affect on people. I was initially impressed with the amount of detail included in the explanations.

Evaluate the article
(Compose a detailed evaluation of the article here, considering each of the key aspects listed above. Consider the guiding questions, and check out the examples of what a useful Wikipedia article evaluation looks like.)

In the lead section, the topic of the article is described as well as the people involved. Since the Dyatlov Pass incident is an event, many of the minor details that make this event a mystery are not included. However, it makes the section concise and includes only information that is later covered in the article. Also, I could easily tell that this article will heavily emphasize that investigation into the incident and to the people who died. As far as the rest of the article is concerned, the content follows the topic and provides very detailed information about the investigation itself. There are some points that are in need of improvement.


 * A section on the geography of the location would make the reader more aware of the danger of hiking there. Many native dialects called the area "do not go there". Making this a section of its own would be better for the reader instead of including it in a couple sentences in the Expedition section.


 * While the article does mention the newest advancements in the case, it does not explain how the study was able to tell it was possibly an avalanche that killed the hikers.

Despite missing some new information, the current information is very organized and keeps a nearly neutral tone about the investigation by including primary sources. The article progresses to through an easy to understand order of expedition, incident, investigation, what the investigation found, more reports on the incident, the aftermath, explanations, and popular culture. This information is easy to read through bullet points and tables of each of the deceased members. There are some part of the article's tone that could improve


 * While the conspiracy of aliens is not strong, it should still be included alongside other possibilities. This conspiracy is a reflection of the culture at the time of the investigation and including it to the same degree as the military testing would give the reader an insight into the culture of Russia at this time.
 * I would not have said "Anatoly Gushchin (Анатолий Гущин) summarized his research...", but that is just because this name is not mentioned before this point.

However, I did not feel persuaded toward one opinion. The sources for each section were up to date, and original source from the first investigation were all from primary sources including the medical examiners notes and the notes of the investigators. The links worked and, surprisingly, many of them were from peer reviewed articles. Due to the fact so many sources are in Russian, it was very difficult to see if there are better sources to use. But, sixty seven citations with eighteen other sources is a good amount to cover a mysterious death of a hiking group. These sources were well developed and from a range of people who covered this incident.

Lastly, the media was lacking in some places. The images all adhered to the copyright guidelines, but they were few and far between.


 * The maps are helpful, but I think it is useless to include to images of a gravestone and only one of the collapsed tent. More images of the site covered in snow would help the reader visualize how deadly the incident was.
 * Also in the popular culture or aftermath I would include some newspaper covers of the incident to give the reader a better understanding of how important this was to popular culture.

The talk page had far less posts on it than I expected, since this is such a well-known case. I think the talk page was trying to keep the page updated with the latest reports, which is very necessary.

Overall, the language was easy to understand and the organization was easy to read. The article is very well developed and I feel like the article is very complete so that any interested in mysterious cases can understand the details and conspiracies of this incident.