Wikipedia:Content assessment (WP:ASSESS)

The following system is used by the Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team for assessing how close we are to a distribution-quality article on a particular topic. The system is based on a letter scheme which reflects principally how factually complete the article is, though language quality and layout are also factors.  The quality assessments are mainly performed by participants in WikiProjects, who tag talk pages of articles. These tags are then collected by a bot, which generates output such as a log and statistics.  For more information, see Using the bot. (Note that when more than one WikiProject has rated an article, the bot will take the best rating as the rating of the overall article.) The WP:1.0 team is planning to set things up to use a second bot to select articles, based on the assessments performed by WikiProjects. Two levels, GA (Good Article) and FA (Featured Article), are assessments made by independent editors, rather than by WikiProjects.  GAs are generally reviewed by a single editor, and FA by several editors. Candidates are nominated by listing them at WP:Good article nominations and WP:Featured article candidates. Judgments are made according to the criteria at WP:Good article criteria and WP:Featured article criteria, and the results are listed at WP:Good articles and WP:Featured articles. It is vital that editors not take these assessments of their contributions personally. It is understood that we each have our own opinions of the priorities of the objective criteria for a perfect article. Generally an active project will develop a consensus, though be aware that different projects may use their own variation of the criteria more tuned for the subject area, such as this. More active WikiProjects have an assessment team. If you contribute a lot of content to an article you may request an independent assessment. At present this assessment system is in use in the Wikipedia 1.0 project, and in several hundred WikiProjects on the English Wikipedia. As of November 2022, over seven million articles have been assessed. Several other languages are also using this assessment system or a derivative thereof.  Note: Some WikiProjects omit some of the standard classes, most often A-class, especially when they lack an assessment team.  Some WikiProjects use other assessments for mainspace content that do not fit into the above scale:  See also Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment which utilises a parallel scheme of "CL-Class", "BL-Class" and "AL-Class" for list articles.   === Non-mainspace content === Further grades are commonly used by WikiProjects to categorise relevant pages in other namespaces. The precise application of these grades may vary depending on their usage by individual WikiProjects.  Note that some WikiProjects deal exclusively with non-mainspace content and may use their own customised assessment schemes tailored to a specific purpose: see Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals/Assessment for one such example. For an index of all WikiProject assessment pages, see Category:WikiProject assessments.  This clickable imagemap, using the article "Atom" as an example, demonstrates the typical profile for an article's development through the levels. Hold the mouse over a number to see key events, and click on a number to see that version of the article. Please note that until 2008, a C-class rating did not exist on the project, and as such this grading is retroactive. Also, in 2006 references were much less used, and inline references were quite rare; a barely-B-Class article today would typically have many more references than this article did in late 2006.  There is a separate scale for rating articles for importance or priority, which is unrelated to the quality scale outlined here. Unlike the quality scale, the priority scale varies based on the project scope. See also the template {{importance scheme}}.  The WP 1.0 bot tracks assessment data (article quality and importance data for individual WikiProjects) assigned via talk page banners. If you would like to add a new WikiProject to the bot's list, please read the instructions at Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Using the bot. The global summary table below is computed by taking the highest quality and importance rating for each assessed article in the main namespace.   === Purpose === What is the purpose of article assessments? The assessment system allows a WikiProject to monitor the quality of articles in its subject areas, and to prioritize work on these articles. The ratings are also used by the Wikipedia 1.0 program to prepare for static releases of Wikipedia content. Are these ratings official? Not really; these ratings are meant primarily for the internal use of the project, and usually do not imply any official standing within Wikipedia as a whole.   === Assessing articles === Who can assess articles? In general, anyone can add or change an article's rating. However, assessing an article as "A-Class" generally requires the agreement of at least two editors, and the "GA" and "FA" labels should only be used on articles that have been reviewed and are currently designated as good articles or featured articles, respectively. Individual WikiProjects may also have more formal procedures for rating an article, and please note that the WikiProject bears ultimate responsibility for resolving disputes. How do I assess an article? Consult the quality scale above; once you have chosen the level that seems to be closest to the article, set the class parameter in the WikiProject banner template to the level's name (omitting "Class" from the end).  For example, to rate an article as "B-Class", use |class=B in the banner. Again, the "FA" and "GA" labels should not be added to articles unless they are currently designated as such. Tools in the See also section can help with the assessment process. How can I ask for an article to be assessed? To have an independent editor review an article, post a request at Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikipedia/Assessment#Requesting an assessment.   === Common concerns === Someone put a project banner template on an article, but it's not really within the WikiProject's scope.  What should I do? Because of the large number of articles we deal with, we occasionally make mistakes and add tags to articles that shouldn't have them. If you notice one, feel free to remove the tag, and optionally leave a note on the article's talk page (or directly with the person who tagged the article). See Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide#Article tagging for more information. What if I don't agree with a rating? Feel free to change it—within reason—if you think a different rating is justified; in the case of major disputes, the WikiProject as a whole can discuss the issue and come to a consensus as to the best rating. Aren't the ratings subjective? Yes, they are somewhat subjective, but it's the best system we've been able to devise. If you have a better idea, please don't hesitate to let us know! Why didn't the reviewer leave any comments? Due to the volume of articles that need to be assessed, we are unable to leave detailed comments in most cases. If you have particular questions, you might ask the person who assessed the article; they will usually be happy to provide you with their reasoning. Wikipedia:Peer review is the process designed to provide detailed comments. Wikipedia:Article assessment (historical), the previous version superseded by this version. Wikipedia:Assessing articles, an essay on the criteria and purpose of article assessments Wikipedia:Metadata gadget, a script (and gadget) that finds articles' assessment information from the talk page and puts it in the article's header. User:Evad37/rater, a currently maintained tool that helps fill in assessments and other parameters for WikiProject banners. A complete remake of  User:Kephir/gadgets/rater, a script for tagging articles' talk pages with assessment information. User:N8wilson/AQFetcher, a script that stylizes links on Wikipedia according to the assessed quality of the target article. mw:Article feedback, an initiative of the Wikimedia Foundation to engage Wikimedia readers in the assessment of article quality, one of the five priorities defined in the strategic plan Wikipedia:Data mining Wikipedia, a potential use of WikiProject assessments Category:Articles by quality - List of articles by their quality