Wikipedia:Help Project/Assessment
You can help assess help pages! Here is how:
- Familiarize yourself with the quality and importance scales below.
- Choose a help page from one of the categories listed below.
- Add an assessment to the help page using
{{Wikipedia Help Project|class=A|importance=High}}
Class options are: A, B, C, Start, File, Category, Template or NA (Note: no Stub!)
Importance options are: Top, High, Mid, Low, Bottom or NA.
Quality scale[edit]
| Class | Criteria | Reader's experience | Editing suggestions | Example |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 A |
The help page is well organized, accurate, complete, and up to date. It follows the Help Project Guidelines. It has been reviewed by impartial reviewers from this WikiProject or elsewhere. | Very useful to readers or editors. The page is complete within its scope, yet key information is accessible. | Keep an eye on the page, and on any feedback if Article feedback is enabled. There may still be room for improvement. Make sure the page is linked from appropriate places. Be sure to update the page to reflect any software/process changes. | Wikipedia:Contact us (and subpages) |
| B | The page is accurate and up to date. It is mostly complete and without major problems, but could benefit from further work. It is reasonably well organized and attempts to follow the Help Project Guidelines, though there may be some failings. | Most reader or editor questions about the topic will be answered, although they may take some time to find. | Take a close look at the page, and see how it could be improved in line with the Guidelines. Particular things to look out for: overlinking, lack of step-by-step instructions, extra information that could be moved into footnotes or a collapse box. | Help:Merging |
| C | The page is mostly accurate, but may have small amounts of outdated information which could be easily fixed. The page may be overly long and poorly structured, so that it is hard to find information. Some of the Help Project Guidelines are followed, but the majority are not. | Readers/editors may struggle to find answers to their questions. | If the page is long, its structure may need to be revised. Be sure to use bold, descriptive section headings. | Help:Searching |
| Start | The page has significant issues. It may provide inaccurate, or out of date information. It largely fails to follow the Help Project Guidelines. | Readers or editors will not find answers to their questions, or are likely to give up before they do. | Update any information. Think hard about the structure and approach of the page. A few of these pages may benefit from merging or deletion. | Wikipedia:Browser notes |
| File | Any page in the file namespace falls under this class. | The page contains an image, a sound clip or other media-related content. | Make sure that the file is properly licensed and credited. Screenshots should be in .png format, and checked to ensure they are up to date. | |
| Category | Any category falls under this class. | Categories are mainly used to group together pages within a particular subject area, or for maintenance purposes. | Categories are not often used for navigating the help system, but can help in maintaining it. Large categories may need to be split into one or more subcategories. | Category:Wikipedia help |
| Template | Any template falls under this class. The most common types of template include infoboxes and navboxes. | Different types of template serve different purposes. Navboxes should group together related subjects into an easily accessible format, to assist the user in navigating between articles. | Beware of too many different templates, as well as templates that give either too little, too much, or too specialized information. | {{Help navigation}} {{Referencing help}} |
| NA | Any page that fits no other classification. For example meta pages which are part of the Help Project itself. | n/a | n/a | Wikipedia:Help Project Wikipedia:Help desk |
| ??? | Quality has not yet been assessed. | n/a | n/a | -- |
Note that the project does not use a "Stub" classification!
Importance scale[edit]
There is information on number of page views at Wikipedia:Help Project/page statistics which may be helpful in judging importance.
| Importance | Criteria | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Top | Pages which are very frequently consulted, which provide entry points into the help system. | Help:Contents Wikipedia:Contact us Wikipedia:About |
| High | Pages which are frequently consulted, or which provide information critical to using/editing Wikipedia. | Wikipedia:Media help Help:Wiki markup Help:Introduction to referencing |
| Mid | Pages which are useful, but not essential to using/editing. | Wikipedia:Rollback Help:Archiving a talk page |
| Low | Pages which may be useful to consult on occasion, but generally not required in everyday editing. | Help:Barchart |
| Bottom | Pages which give help on very infrequently used features/processes, outdated features, or help for a niche audience. | Wikipedia:Guide for h2g2 Researchers |
| NA | Importance is not applicable e.g. templates, categories, pages part of the Help Project itself. | Template:Help category Wikipedia:Help Project |
| ??? | Importance has not yet been assessed. | -- |