User:Norajbhan/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Dis (Divine Comedy)

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose to evaluate this article because I find Dis to be the most interesting character. However, I was surprised to see that I could find no mention of "Dis" in Wikipedia that wasn't in relation to the City of Dis. There was no mention of Dis as referring to Lucifer in the above mentioned article, or the article on Dante's Satan, or even on Pluto -- as Dis is the Roman name for Pluto. And this absence made me want to evaluate this article.

Evaluate the article
This article isn't very useful if one wants to know about Dis, as it only mentioned the city and not Dis as another name for Satan. The article has a concise lead, which is commendable. However, the lead fails to mention that Dis is also another name for Lucifer in the Inferno. The lead, and the article, also does not name the book Inferno. The lead mentioned that the City of Dis encompasses the “sixth through ninth circles of Hell,” but perhaps it would be easier for the reader if the reader was told how many circles in total hell has. Similarly, the sins that are punished in lower hell should be mentioned.

The article focusses entirely on the city aspect of Dis. In the background, the reader mentioned “Dis Pater” as the character that the city is named after— but does not mention it being the Roman name for Pluto, kind of the underworld. In another wiki articles on Dante’s Satan, the word Dis is still not mentioned. To improve the article, or make it accurate, it should be mentioned that Dis is referred to Satan, and the background should also include why Dis is Satan in the Inferno. The article would benefit from mentioning Dis being at the center of the city.

The Talk section of the article seemed a lot more compelling than the article itself. The comment on the presence of Muslims and Jewish people in hell was a correction. Including the presence of Mohammad and Ali in the main article would be beneficial, as it would cover more social issues.

The writing quality of the article is sub-par. There are grammatical errors: In the sixth book of Virgil's " Aeneid, (one of the principal influences on Dante in his depiction of Hell), the hero Aeneas enters the "desolate halls and vacant realm of Dis”. And there are also sentences that are unclear: “His guide, the Sibyl, corresponds in The Divine Comedy to Virgil, the guide of "Dante" as the speaker of the poem.” Similarly, in the background especially, there are two paragraphs and the topic sentences are unrelated to the rest of the sentences in the paragraph, making the whole section seem disjointed and sparse. There are also sentences that seem like value judgements: "The presence of mosques probably also recalls the reality of Jerusalem in Dante's own time, where gilded domes dominated the skyline,” and “There is perhaps a distinction between malizia as the characteristic of circles seven and eight, and the matta bestialitade, "inhuman wickedness", of circle nine”. Words like “perhaps” and “probably” decrease the credibility of the article.

Those not neutral seeming sentences are cited, which is something this article does well. It cites the Dante Encyclopedia, and a number of reliable seeming academic sources. Unfortunately the article makes claims made my academic articles seem like “facts” or the Wiki article’s opinion, the benefit of citing these papers gets lost. These minority view points should be described as such.

The picture of Lower hell could perhaps benefit being shown with another picture where the “Gate of Dis” is shown. Satan’s image would also be a good addition to the article once he gets mentioned.

There is a section after the “description” section called “Tiers of Hell.” If focusing on the city, the section might be better called “Tiers of lower hell.” There are two long paragraphs talking about the the sinners. However, it might be effective to list in bullet points the tiers of hell within the City of Dis, the circles within those tiers, and the types of sins that get punished within. This section would benefit from a map of Dante’s hell showing all the circles and the place of Dis and the Gate of Dis in it. After the description I would add when “Dis” is first mentioned in the Inferno, and when Dis, referring to Satan, is mentioned.

Overall, the article does an okay job of talking about the city of Dis, but there should be a second article or a larger subsection about Dis as Satan.

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