Wikipedia:Content assessment

This page documents an English Wikipedia editing guideline.

It is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply. Any substantive edit to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page.

Shortcuts

The following system is used by the Wikipedia community to assess the quality of an 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 Wikipedia editors, 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.

Grades

The assessment ratings mentioned here have no relationship whatsoever to academic grades or review scores like A/B/C/D/F or other rating systems (10-point scale, 5-star system, etc.) that you might see on homework and product reviews. They represent the amount of work needed to bring the article to the next rating, which depends on both the quality of the writing and the depth of coverage of the topic, which greatly varies by subject.

Note that the differences between Stub, Start, and C classes are fairly subjective; at those ratings, the best way to improve the article is to look at the specific criteria for B-class and aim to satisfy those. Specific feedback can often be obtained on a relevant WikiProject's talk page. Those can usually be found the talk page of the article, but searching for them can often reveal more topical projects. For instance, if you wrote about a Kenyan astronomer, you might want to search for "Biography", "Kenya", and "Astronomy" to find WikiProject Biography, WikiProject Kenya and WikiProject Astronomy.

Tɛmplet:Grading scheme Note: Some WikiProjects omit some of the standard classes, most often A-class, especially when they lack an assessment team.

Non-standard grades

Shortcut

WP:NONSTANDARDCLASS

Some WikiProjects use other assessments for mainspace content that do not fit into the above scale:

Other WikiProject assessments
Label	Criteria	Reader's experience	Editing suggestions	Example
Current	A topic where details are subject to change often. The article covers an event or topic that is currently ongoing, such as a natural disaster or sports season.	Amount of meaningful content varies over time as the projected event goes on.	Material added might quickly become obsolete.	2019–20 South-West Indian Ocean cyclone season (as of August 2019)
Tɛmplet:Future-Class	A topic where details are subject to change often. The article covers a future topic, e.g. a forthcoming election or album release, and article content may change as new information arises.	Amount of meaningful content varies over time as the projected event draws near.	Material added might be speculative and should be carefully sourced.	Next United Kingdom general election (as of October 2019)
Tɛmplet:SL-Class	A list article that would otherwise be regarded as a stub. Used only by a few WikiProjects.	May be incomplete or provide little context.	Any editing or additional material can be helpful. The provision of meaningful content should be a priority.	Pink flowers (as of July 2019)
Tɛmplet:SIA-Class	Any set index article (SIA) page falls under this class. These are list articles about a set of items of a specific type that also share the same (or similar) name.	The page lists related items of the same name.	An SIA need not follow the formatting rules for disambiguation pages	USS Yorktown (as of May 2018)
Tɛmplet:Disambig-Class	Any disambiguation page falls under this class.	The page directs the reader to other pages of the same title.	Additions should be made as new articles of that name are created.	Jackson (as of August 2019)
Tɛmplet:Redirect-Class	Any redirect falls under this class.	The page does not display any article content and redirects to a related topic.	Ensure that the redirect is appropriately categorised.	American breakfast (as of October 2016)
Tɛmplet:Merge-Class	Any redirect that is the result of a page merge and has non-trivial history. Used only by a few WikiProjects.	The page does not display any article content and redirects to a related topic.	Tag the redirect page with {{R from merge}}	Tamara (Dungeons & Dragons) (as of August 2018)
Tɛmplet:Needed-Class	May be used to identify redirects that could be expanded into articles, or articles with content that could be split off to form a new page.	Content may not yet exist for the desired topic.	Editors are encouraged to be bold when updating the encyclopedia.	Free City of Mainz (as of March 2018)
Tɛmplet:NA-Class	A page that does not fit into any other category. Used as a "catch-all" by all WikiProjects.	Depends on the type of page.	Depends on the type of page.	N/A

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.

Non-mainspace assessments
Label	Criteria	Example
Tɛmplet:Category-Class	Any category falls under this class.	Category:George Orwell
Tɛmplet:Draft-Class	Any draft falls under this class. These are typically found in the Draft namespace, but may also be in the User namespace.	Draft:Example
Tɛmplet:File-Class	Any file falls under this class; may also include timed text pages.	File:Flag of Australia.svg
Tɛmplet:FM-Class	Any file which has attained featured picture or featured sound status.	File:Felis silvestris silvestris.jpg
Tɛmplet:Portal-Class	Any portal falls under this class.	Portal:Biography
Tɛmplet:Project-Class	Any project page falls under this class; may also include help pages.	Wikipedia:WikiProject Japan
Tɛmplet:Template-Class	Any template falls under this class; may also include modules or userboxes.	Template:Magnapop
Tɛmplet:User-Class	Any user page falls under this class.	User:Legoktm/afcnew.js

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.

Evolution of an article – an example

Tɛmplet:Outdated 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.

Importance assessment

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}}.

Statistics

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.

Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Statistics

FAQ

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.