Wikipedia:WikiProject Phoenicia/Assessment

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The core mission of this sub-project is to evaluate Phoenician-related articles, both in terms of their quality and their importance (or priority). These assessments serve several crucial purposes within our project. Our primary objectives include tracking the progress of WikiProject:Phoenicia, pinpointing areas where our coverage may be lacking, and identifying articles with the potential to achieve "Good Article" or "Featured Article" status. These assessments are an integral part of the Wikipedia 1.0 project, contributing to the creation of to offline knowledge collections.

Current status [edit]

The table presented on this page provides a summarized overview of essential information about articles that have been assigned ratings within the scope of our project.





Articles by quality and importance

 Top  High  Mid  Low  NA  ??? 
  42    103    214    609    583    7  
 FA A GABCStartStub FLListCategoryDisambigDraft FMFilePortalProjectRedirectTemplateNA???
313261523812709401223730128571913231
  • 1.2% List-Class
  • 9.7% Stub-Class
  • 27.9% Start-Class
  • 39.3% C-Class
  • 15.7% B-Class
  • 2.7% GA-Class
  • 0.3% A-Class
  • 3.2% FA-Class

Frequently Asked Questions[edit]

This section summarizes article assessment instructions. If you do not find what you were looking for, check the detailed instructions in the next section. If you have any other questions not listed here, please feel free to ask them on the Talk page.

1. What is the purpose of the article ratings?
The rating system allows us to monitor the quality of articles in our area, and prioritize editor time for working on these articles. It is also used by the Wikipedia 1.0 program for static releases of Wikipedia content. These ratings are intended for internal use within the project, and do not necessarily constitute an official rating in any meaningful sense.
2. How do I add an article to the WikiProject?
Just add {{WikiProject Phoenicia}} to the top of the article's talk page.
3. Who can assess articles?
Any editor or member of the WikiProject is free to add or change the rating of an article between stub, start, C and B classes. Editors do not need to be specialists nor members of WikiProject Phoenicia to assess articles within this range of classes. However, quality assignments higher than B-class cannot be made outside the formal review process; this is because the GA, A, and FA-class designations require significant attention to detail and consensus.
4. How do I rate an article?
Select from the quality scale, after reviewing in detail, the level that best matches the state of the article. Then follow the #Assessment instructions to convey the rating onto the article, through the article's talk page project banner. Remember that quality ratings above B-class cannot be made unilaterally.
5. Can I request that someone else rate an article?
Absolutely. Simply request it at our Talk page.
6. Why didn't the reviewer leave any comments?
Unfortunately, due to the volume of articles that need to be assessed, we may be unable to leave a detailed rationale. 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. If you require written, detailed feedback on your article, you may like to consider using peer review.
7. What if I don't agree with a rating?
List it at #Requests for assessment and someone else will evaluate the article. Or, ask the original reviewer or any other member of the project to re-rate the article.
8. 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!

Instructions[edit]

How To Assess an Article[edit]

An article's assessment is generated from the class parameter in the WikiProject Phoenicia project banner on the article's talk page. Articles for which a valid class is not provided are listed in Category:Unassessed Phoenicia articles. At present, there are 0 articles that need assessment (e.g., that need to have a class inserted in the class parameter of the template).

Phoenicia articles to be assessed have some aspects of the template on their talk page, but the template may be incomplete. First, select an article from the list at Category:Unassessed Phoenicia articles. Then, look over the article in preparation to filling out the parameters of the Phoenicia template. Next, replace the WikiProject Phoenicia template on the article talk page with the following:

{{WikiProject Phoenicia
 |class=
 |importance=}}

The above {{WikiProject Phoenicia}} template has all the answers that you will need for most situations. From your review of the article, delete those answers and parameters that do not fit the article. Then, fill in the listas parameter (e.g., last name, first name), then save. And, you are done!

Class parameter[edit]

An article's quality assessment is generated from the class parameter in the {{WikiProject Phoenicia}} project banner on its talk page:

{{WikiProject Phoenicia|class=???}}

The following values may be used for the class parameter to describe the quality of the article (see Wikipedia:Content assessment for assessment criteria):

FA (for featured articles only; adds articles to Category:FA-Class Phoenicia articles) FA
A (adds articles to Category:A-Class Phoenicia articles) A
GA (for good articles only; adds articles to Category:GA-Class Phoenicia articles) GA
B (adds articles to Category:B-Class Phoenicia articles) B
C (adds articles to Category:C-Class Phoenicia articles) C
Start (adds articles to Category:Start-Class Phoenicia articles) Start
Stub (adds articles to Category:Stub-Class Phoenicia articles) Stub
FL (for featured lists only; adds articles to Category:FL-Class Phoenicia articles) FL
List (adds articles to Category:List-Class Phoenicia articles) List

For pages that are not articles, the following values can also be used for the class parameter:

Category (for categories; adds pages to Category:Category-Class Phoenicia articles) Category
Disambig (for disambiguation pages; adds pages to Category:Disambig-Class Phoenicia articles) Disambig
Draft (for drafts; adds pages to Category:Draft-Class Phoenicia articles) Draft
FM (for files; adds pages to Category:FM-Class Phoenicia articles) FM
File (for files and timed text; adds pages to Category:File-Class Phoenicia articles) File
Redirect (for redirect pages; adds pages to Category:Redirect-Class Phoenicia articles) Redirect
Portal (for portal pages; adds pages to Category:Portal-Class Phoenicia articles) Portal
Project (for project pages; adds pages to Category:Project-Class Phoenicia articles) Project
Template (for templates and modules; adds pages to Category:Template-Class Phoenicia articles) Template
NA (for any other pages where assessment is unnecessary; adds pages to Category:NA-Class Phoenicia articles) NA
??? (articles for which a valid class has not yet been provided are listed in Category:Unassessed Phoenicia articles) ???

Importance parameter[edit]

An article's importance assessment is generated from the importance parameter in the {{WikiProject Phoenicia}} project banner on its talk page:

{{WikiProject Phoenicia|importance=???}}

The following values may be used for the importance parameter to describe the relative importance of the article within the project:

Top (adds articles to Category:Top-importance Phoenicia articles) Top
High (adds articles to Category:High-importance Phoenicia articles) High
Mid (adds articles to Category:Mid-importance Phoenicia articles) Mid
Low (adds articles to Category:Low-importance Phoenicia articles) Low
NA (adds articles to Category:NA-importance Phoenicia articles) NA
??? (articles for which a valid importance rating has not yet been provided are listed in Category:Unknown-importance Phoenicia articles) ???

The importance parameter should be assigned according to the importance scale below.


Criteria[edit]

As do most WikiProjects, we assess our articles for Quality and Importance. Quality designations are made according to a set of generally-accepted criteria, which are summarised below. Lower quality designations are conferred by individual project members. Higher quality designations are conferred once the article has passed a peer review by a group of Classics editors (for A-class status) or the relevant Wikipedia-wide assessment systems (for GA-class or FA-class status).

Requests for assessment of an article into B-class or any lower rank may be made at #Requests for assessment. You should not assess an article you have made substantial contributions to, because – self-evidently – it is less likely you will be able to fairly and accurately judge your own work.

It is vital that people do not take these assessments personally. We each have our own opinions of the priorities of the objective criteria for a perfect article. Different projects may use their own variation of the criteria more tuned for the subject area.

Criteria for assessing quality on prose articles
Class Criteria Assessment process Example
FA The article meets all the featured article criteria.
Detailed criteria

A featured article exemplifies Wikipedia's very best work and is distinguished by professional standards of writing, presentation, and sourcing. In addition to meeting the policies regarding content for all Wikipedia articles, it has the following attributes.

  1. It is:
    1. well-written: its prose is engaging and of a professional standard;
    2. comprehensive: it neglects no major facts or details and places the subject in context;
    3. well-researched: it is a thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature; claims are verifiable against high-quality reliable sources and are supported by inline citations where appropriate;
    4. neutral: it presents views fairly and without bias;
    5. stable: it is not subject to ongoing edit wars and its content does not change significantly from day to day, except in response to the featured article process; and
    6. compliant with Wikipedia's copyright policy and free of plagiarism or too-close paraphrasing.
  2. It follows the style guidelines, including the provision of:
    1. a lead: a concise lead section that summarizes the topic and prepares the reader for the detail in the subsequent sections;
    2. appropriate structure: a substantial but not overwhelming system of hierarchical section headings; and
    3. consistent citations: where required by criterion 1c, consistently formatted inline citations using footnotes—see citing sources for suggestions on formatting references. Citation templates are not required.
  3. Media. It has images and other media, where appropriate, with succinct captions and acceptable copyright status. Images follow the image use policy. Non-free images or media must satisfy the criteria for inclusion of non-free content and be labeled accordingly.
  4. Length. It stays focused on the main topic without going into unnecessary detail and uses summary style where appropriate.
Reader's experience
Article is professional, outstanding, and thorough; a definitive source for encyclopedic information.
Featured article candidacy (FAC) Roman temple of Bziza (January 2020)
Suggestions for moving rating upwards: Expert knowledge may be needed to tweak the article, and style problems may need solving. Peer review may help.
A The article meets all of the A-Class criteria.
Detailed criteria

Provides a well-written, clear and complete description of the topic, as described in Wikipedia:How to write a great article. It should be of a length suitable for the subject, appropriately structured, and be well referenced by a broad array of reliable sources. It should be well illustrated, with no copyright problems. Only minor style issues and other details need to be addressed before the article would be suitable for submission as a featured article candidate.

An A-Class article should approach the standards for a Featured article (FA), but can fall short because of minor style issues. The article may need minor copyedits, but it should be comprehensive, accurate, well-sourced, and well-written. A peer review by project editors should find the article to be a viable candidate for FA status. Assessing an article as A-Class requires more than one reviewer.

Reader's experience
Very useful to readers. A fairly complete treatment of the subject. A non-expert in the subject would typically find nothing wanting.
A-Class review at [[WT:]]. Late Roman army (as of September 2008)
Suggestions for moving rating upwards: Some editing by subject and style experts is helpful; comparison with an existing featured article on a similar topic may highlight areas where content is weak or missing.
GA The article meets all the Good article criteria and has been externally reviewed against them.
Detailed criteria

A good article is:

  1. Well-written:
    1. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct; and
    2. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.
  2. Verifiable with no original research:
    1. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline;
    2. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose);
    3. it contains no original research; and
    4. it contains no copyright violations or plagiarism.
  3. Broad in its coverage:
    1. it addresses the main aspects of the topic; and
    2. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).
  4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.
  5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.
  6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
    1. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content; and
    2. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.
Reader's experience
Useful to nearly all readers, with no obvious problems; approaching (but not matching) the quality of a professional encyclopedia.
Good article nomination National Museum of Beirut (as of August 2020)
Suggestions for moving rating upwards: A few aspects of content and style need to be addressed. Expert knowledge may be needed. The inclusion of supporting materials should also be considered if practical, and the article checked for general compliance with the Manual of Style and related style guidelines.
B The article is mostly complete and without major problems, but requires some further work to reach good article standards.
Detailed criteria
  1. The article is suitably referenced, with inline citations. It has reliable sources, and any important or controversial material which is likely to be challenged is cited. Any format of inline citation is acceptable: the use of <ref> tags and citation templates such as {{cite web}} is optional.
  2. The article reasonably covers the topic, and does not contain obvious omissions or inaccuracies. It contains a large proportion of the material necessary for an A-Class article, although some sections may need expansion, and some less important topics may be missing.
  3. The article has a defined structure. Content should be organized into groups of related material, including a lead section and all the sections that can reasonably be included in an article of its kind.
  4. The article is reasonably well-written. The prose contains no major grammatical errors and flows sensibly, but it does not need to be "brilliant". The Manual of Style does not need to be followed rigorously.
  5. The article contains supporting materials where appropriate. Illustrations are encouraged, though not required. Diagrams, an infobox etc. should be included where they are relevant and useful to the content.
  6. The article presents its content in an appropriately understandable way. It is written with as broad an audience in mind as possible. The article should not assume unnecessary technical background and technical terms should be explained or avoided where possible.
Reader's experience
Readers are not left wanting, although the content may not be complete enough to satisfy a serious student or researcher.
Individual review Phoenician alphabet) (as of August 2020)
Suggestions for moving rating upwards: Considerable editing is needed to close gaps in content and solve cleanup problems.
C The article is substantial, but is still missing important content or contains much irrelevant material. The article should have some references to reliable sources, but may still have significant problems or require substantial cleanup. It meets B1 or B2 and all of B3 and B4 and B5 of the B-Class criteria.
Detailed criteria
The article is better developed in style, structure and quality than Start-Class, but fails one or more of the criteria for B-Class. It may have some gaps or missing elements; need editing for clarity, balance or flow; or contain policy violations such as bias or original research.


  1. The article is suitably referenced, with inline citations. It has reliable sources, and any important or controversial material which is likely to be challenged is cited. Any format of inline citation is acceptable: the use of <ref> tags and citation templates such as {{cite web}} is optional.
  2. The article reasonably covers the topic, and does not contain obvious omissions or inaccuracies. It contains a large proportion of the material necessary for an A-Class article, although some sections may need expansion, and some less important topics may be missing.
  3. The article has a defined structure. Content should be organized into groups of related material, including a lead section and all the sections that can reasonably be included in an article of its kind.
  4. The article is reasonably well-written. The prose contains no major grammatical errors and flows sensibly, but it does not need to be "brilliant". The Manual of Style does not need to be followed rigorously.
  5. The article contains supporting materials where appropriate. Illustrations are encouraged, though not required. Diagrams, an infobox etc. should be included where they are relevant and useful to the content.
  6. The article presents its content in an appropriately understandable way. It is written with as broad an audience in mind as possible. The article should not assume unnecessary technical background and technical terms should be explained or avoided where possible.
Reader's experience
Some aspects of content and style need to be addressed. Expert classicist knowledge may be needed. The inclusion of supporting materials should also be considered if practical, and the article checked for general compliance with the Manual of Style and related style guidelines.
Individual review Carthage (as of August 2020)
Suggestions for moving rating upwards: Providing references to reliable sources should come first; the article also needs substantial improvement in content and organisation.
Start A classics article that is developing, but which is quite incomplete and, most notably, lacks adequate reliable sources.
Detailed criteria
The article has a usable amount of good content but is weak in many areas. Quality of the prose may be distinctly unencyclopedic, and MoS compliance non-existent; but the article should satisfy fundamental content policies such as notability and BLP, and provide sources to establish verifiability. No Start-Class article should be in any danger of being speedily deleted.

The article has a meaningful amount of good content, but it is still weak in many areas, and may lack a key element; it has at least one serious element of gathered materials, including any one of the following:

  • Recent, reliable scholarship (from a classics journal or other relevant source)
  • A particularly useful picture or graphic
  • Multiple links that help explain or illustrate the topic
  • A subheading that fully treats an element of the topic
  • Multiple subheadings that indicate material that could be added to complete the article
Reader's experience
Provides some meaningful content, but most readers will need more.
Individual review Lamedh (as of August 2020)
Suggestions for moving rating upwards: Any editing or additional material will be helpful. The provision of meaningful content should be prioritised. Bear in mind that some topics may simply not have anything more than rudimentary data available on them – for example, many topics from the early Roman Republic and the Roman Kingdom.
Stub A very basic description of a topic clearly related to classics.
Detailed criteria
The article is either a very short article or a rough collection of information that will need much work to become a meaningful article. It is usually very short; but, if the material is irrelevant or incomprehensible, an article of any length falls into this category. The article may be so short because information on the subject is simply not available to anybody, because it has been lost or not re-discovered.
Reader's experience
Provides very little meaningful content; may be little more useful than a dictionary definition.
Individual review Bodashtart (as of August 2020)
See also: Category:Phoenicia articles by quality and the generic criteria.

Assessments of importance do not, and should not, reflect the importance of the subject within academia or classical studies, but rather its importance to an average reader with no background in the subject.