User:Tdmillington/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Vinča symbols

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose this article as it was one of the only Neolithic written languages to have an independent Wikipedia page. Vinca symbols matter because there is a possibility that the symbols are an early writing system. I found the article to be interesting, but badly cited in some sections.

Evaluate the article
The lead does include an introductory sentence, which concisely summarizes the article's topic, providing alternative names for the topic and explaining the importance of the topic. The lead does not provide extra information not included in the article nor a brief description of the major sections of the article.

The article's content is all relevant to the topic, but it is not up to date- the last cited source is nearly a decade old.

The article is neutral, providing multiple interpretations for the meaning of the symbols. Religious symbolism is slightly overrepresented, with more elaborate arguments given for the topic than other explanations. However, the article does not try to persuade the reader towards a position.

Not all facts in the article are backed up reliable sources; there are multiple sections with citations asking for more information. The sources appear to be thorough, but are not very current, as the newest cited source is nearly a decade old. The sources are written by a diverse spectrum of authors, with some sources even written in German, and all of the links work.

The article is well-written, with no grammatical or spelling errors, and is well-organized into three major sections: discovery, corpus, and meaning/interpretations.

I would say that only two of the four images in the article are relevant, as one's authenticity is disputed while another is simply a drawing of a clay vessel that was unearthed. Despite this, the images are well-captions, adhere to Wikipedia's copyright regulations, and are laid out in a visually appealing way.

The most recent conversation in the "Talk" page concerned the usage of "prevailing" when referring to the religious theories that surround Vinca symbols. Besides this, there has been very little activity on this page. The article is rated C-Class in all of the following WikiProjects: writing systems, archaeology, European history, Serbia, and Romania. We have not yet talked about this topic in class.

Overall, the article is well-written, but is slightly underdeveloped. I would argue that the article needs to improve on its citations and maintaining a neutral tone.