User:Hurricane Noah/Article Assessment Proposal

Article Assessment Proposal

Introduction

The goals of these changes are to make the quality and importance assessment more friendly to our newcomers and refine all steps to make sure they are being used instead of simply existing. New editors have often left after writing their first article and few have actually asked why. It may be because they tried their hardest and saw people rate their article either a start or stub, which indicates subpar work when compared to C-class, or their article's importance was deemed low, which may also be offensive. The changes suggested here serve to decrease the time it will take to assess articles of lower quality in the future while preserving the stepping stones between the current C-class and GA as well as between GA and FA. We need to make sure our newcomers have the help they need to continue writing so they will stick around. It takes time for people to learn how to write up to GA quality and I for one believe having a stepping stone before that will help them on their way to writing excellent content. Another goal of these changes is to try and reduce the burden of peer review on FAC. If a review process exists prior to FAC that is just below that status, then there should be fewer lower-quality nominations coming in that would require significant work in order to pass FAC.

Scale summary chart

Articles

This is a proposed assessment scale to rate the quality of articles; this proposed system would replace the current assessment scale. It consists of two parallel quality scales; one scale is used to assess regular prose articles, while the other is used to assess lists and similar non-prose articles. The progression of articles along these scales is described in greater detail below. For a list of class changes and explanations behind these changes, please see the key changes section.

Prose article				List article
Pre-Article Phase
		Needed				There are two optional, but recommended steps prior to the official creation of an article; the first being Needed-Class. When a topic has been determined to be notable enough to warrant a Wikipedia article, it should be listed as a Needed-class article. This lets other editors know that a topic is notable so work can be tailored to fill in holes in coverage by placing it into a category of needed articles instead of simply being listed as a redirect. Any notable topic that will not have an article created for it in the near future should be listed as needed-class. Per policy, red links can't be assessed as needed because the talk pages of nonexistent pages are deleted.
		Draft				The second optional step is the draft stage. Generally, a draft is a work in progress that may or may not yet satisfy Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion. Drafts can be published directly into the mainspace as stubs once they have enough content to display the subject is notable or they can be worked on further and published as starts or C-class articles depending on structure and level of coverage. Likewise, articles that have been determined to need further incubation in order to satisfy the inclusion criteria may become drafts. Stubs should NOT be moved to the draft space simply because they are incomplete as long as they satisfy the inclusion criteria.
Main Space Phase
		Unassessed				Unassessed will be the default status whenever a class is not specified or an article is marked as unassessed. The color will be red to draw the attention of editors passing by as articles need to be assessed.
Average				Average List		The first rating an article can obtain is Average. This status represents the quality of the bulk of articles experienced across Wikipedia. There are three stages of development within the average quality rating. The first stage of an article's evolution is called a stub. A stub is an extremely short article that provides a basic description of the topic at best; it includes very little encyclopedic content and may be little more than a dictionary definition. At this stage, it is often impossible to determine whether the topic should be covered by a prose article or a list. A stub that undergoes some development will progress to the middle stage. An article at this point provides some encyclopedic content, but is typically incomplete and lacks adequate references, structure, and supporting materials. At this stage, it becomes possible to distinguish between prose articles and lists. At the high-end, the article is reasonably structured and contains substantial content and supporting materials, but may still be incomplete or poorly referenced, but not both. As articles progress to this point, the assessment process begins to take on a more structured form, and specific criteria are introduced against which articles are rated.
Decent				Decent List		An article that reaches the Decent level is complete in content and structure, adequately referenced, and includes reasonable supporting materials; overall, it provides a satisfactory encyclopedic presentation of the topic for the average reader, although it might not be written to the standard that would be expected by an expert. It is recommended that editors new to writing encyclopedic work undergo a Decent-Class review. Any editor, however, can assess their own article or that of another as Decent-Class.
GA				Good List		After reaching the Decent level, an article may be submitted for assessment as a good article. Good articles must meet a set of criteria similar to those required for the decent assessment level, and must additionally undergo the formal good article review process. This assessment level is currently available only for prose articles; a comparable level will be created for lists.
Very Good				Very Good List		A good or decent article that has undergone additional improvement may be considered for the Very Good assessment level. A Very Good article presents a complete and thorough encyclopedic treatment of a subject, such as might be written by an expert in the field; the only deficiencies permissible at this level are minor issues of style or language. To receive a Very Good rating, a candidate article must undergo a Very Good-Class review. A formal Wiki-wide review process will be established to handle these reviews (see below for details).
Excellent				Excellent List		The excellent article and excellent list ratings represent the pinnacle of article evolution and the best that Wikipedia has to offer; an article at this level is professional, outstanding, and represents a definitive source for encyclopedic information. Excellent status is assigned only through a thorough independent review process; this process can be grueling for the unprepared, and editors are highly advised to submit articles for very good review prior to nominating them for excellent status.

Key changes

• Needed-class is added as an official, albeit optional assessment grade in order to facilitate the labeling and categorization of redirects at notable topics. This would make it easier for editors to find topics that need articles and then create them.
• Draft-class is added as an official, albeit optional assessment grade because it is many times the direct precursor to an article existing in the main space and an integral part of the development process.
• The scale is modified to be less BITEY towards newcomers and more simplified. New editors do come across article ratings and may be offended when they see their work rated as either a stub or start and see C-class exists, which alludes their work is subpar. Many new editors leave after writing their first article. The goal here is change the scale to prevent them from being insulted when their work is really not below average.
  • Unassessed will become an official class and will be the default shown whenever the class parameter is left blank or it is marked as unassessed.
  • Stub, Start, and C classes will be folded into Average, which will represent the vast majority of work on Wikipedia. Most articles are rated either Stub or Start, however, C will also be lumped in since there are not specific requirements for it.
  • B-class will be renamed to Decent Class and have the same requirements
  • Good Article will remain the same, however, a similar process for lists will be created and run through the same venue.
  • A-class will be renamed to Very Good Class and gain official, centralized requirements
  • FA/FL classes will be renamed to Excellent Article/List and keep the same requirements
• Decent (B-Class) will now have official Decent-class reviews (not required, but recommended for those new to writing encyclopedic work)
• Very Good (A-Class) will become a centralized process with standardized requirements, which should restore trust in the rating and its function across the encyclopedia. Hopefully, this will also limit the degree to which excellent reviews take on the role of peer review
• Very Good and Decent (A and B-Class) reviews will use the existing Peer Review resources rather than create a whole new review. This is only logical since most peer reviews are prior to GA and FA candidacies. Peer review itself will be transformed in order to handle Very Good (A-Class), Decent (B-Class), and general reviews (for articles of any quality that haven't been reviewed in a while or need extra advice).
• Lists will have their own separate scale, including Average List (AL), Decent List (DL), Good List (GL), Very Good List (VGL), and Excellent List (EL) in order to properly categorize all lists according to their quality. As a result, List class will be deprecated.

Topics

		Good Topic				All articles and lists must be at least good status. Barring the aforementioned change, all other current good topic must be met.
		Very Good Topic				All articles and lists must be at least good status. Either half the articles must be at excellent status or all must be very good status (ie 50% excellent and 50% good or 100% very good). This is a change from the current featured topic criteria because Very Good status (A-class) will have its own formal review process. All other current featured topic criteria must be met.
		Excellent Topic				All articles and lists must be excellent status. All other current featured topic criteria must be met. This would be same as a current featured topic that has every article at FA or FL.

Criteria

Prose articles

Prose Criteria

Class	Criteria	Assessment process
Excellent	The article meets all the featured article 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. It is: well-written: its prose is engaging and of a professional standard; comprehensive: it neglects no major facts or details and places the subject in context; 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; neutral: it presents views fairly and without bias; 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 compliant with Wikipedia's copyright policy and free of plagiarism or too-close paraphrasing. It follows the style guidelines, including the provision of: a lead: a concise lead section that summarizes the topic and prepares the reader for the detail in the subsequent sections; appropriate structure: a substantial but not overwhelming system of hierarchical section headings; and 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. 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. Length. It stays focused on the main topic without going into unnecessary detail and uses summary style where appropriate.	Excellent Article Candidacy
Very Good	VG1. The article is consistently referenced with an appropriate citation style, and all claims are verifiable against reputable sources, accurately represent the relevant body of published knowledge, and are supported with specific evidence and external citations as appropriate. VG2. The article is comprehensive, factually accurate, neutral, and focused on the main topic; it neglects no major facts or details, presents views fairly and without bias, and does not go into unnecessary detail. VG3. The article has an appropriate structure of hierarchical headings, including a concise lead section that summarizes the topic and prepares the reader for the detail in the subsequent sections, and a substantial but not overwhelming table of contents. VG4. The article is written in concise and articulate English; its prose is clear, is in line with style guidelines, and does not require substantial copy-editing to be fully MoS-compliant. VG5. The article contains appropriately licensed supporting visual materials, such as images or diagrams with succinct captions, and other media, where relevant.	Very Good Article Review
GA	A good article is: Well-written: the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct; and it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation. Verifiable with no original research: it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline; 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); it contains no original research; and it contains no copyright violations or plagiarism. Broad in its coverage: it addresses the main aspects of the topic; and it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style). Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio: media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content; and media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.	Good Article Review
Decent	B 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.	Decent Class Review Self-Assessment Third-party Assessment
Average	First Stage (Stub) Article is created and doesn't meet any of the criteria for other stages or higher ratings. Second Stage (Start) Start 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. The article should satisfy fundamental content policies, such as BLP. Frequently, the referencing is inadequate, although enough sources are usually provided to establish verifiability. No Start-Class article should be in any danger of being speedily deleted. Third Stage (C) C The article cites more than one reliable source and is better developed in style, structure, and quality than Start-Class, but it 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. Articles on fictional topics are likely to be marked as C-Class if they are written from an in-universe perspective. It is most likely that C-Class articles have a reasonable encyclopedic style.	Self-Assessment Third-party Assessment

List articles

List Criteria

Class	Criteria	Assessment process
Excellent	The article meets all the featured list criteria. Prose. It features professional standards of writing. Lead. It has an engaging lead that introduces the subject and defines the scope and inclusion criteria. Comprehensiveness. (a) It comprehensively covers the defined scope, providing at least all of the major items and, where practical, a complete set of items; where appropriate, it has annotations that provide useful and appropriate information about the items. (b) statements are sourced where they appear, and they provide inline citations if they contain any of the four kinds of material absolutely required to have citations. (c) In length and/or topic, it meets all of the requirements for stand-alone lists; does not violate the content-forking guideline, does not largely duplicate material from another article, and could not reasonably be included as part of a related article. Structure. It is easy to navigate and includes, where helpful, section headings and table sort facilities. Style. It complies with the Manual of Style and its supplementary pages. (a) Visual appeal. It makes suitable use of text layout, formatting, tables, and colour; and a minimal proportion of items are redlinked. (b) Media files. It has images and other media, if appropriate to the topic, that follow Wikipedia's usage policies, with succinct captions. Non-free images and other media satisfy the criteria for the inclusion of non-free content and are labeled accordingly. (c) Accessibility. It uses proper formating to be accessible to all readers. Bulleted and unbulleted lists and tables are structured correctly. Visual media, if included, utilize alternative (alt) text. Stability. It is not the subject of ongoing edit wars and its content does not change significantly from day to day, except in response to the featured list process.	Excellent List Candidacy
Very Good	VG1. The list is consistently referenced with an appropriate citation style, and all claims are verifiable against reputable sources, accurately represent the relevant body of published knowledge, and are supported with specific evidence and external citations as appropriate. VG2. The list is comprehensive, factually accurate, neutral, and focused on the main topic; it neglects no major facts or details, presents views fairly and without bias, and does not go into unnecessary detail. VG3. The list has an appropriate structure of hierarchical headings, including a concise lead section that summarizes the topic and prepares the reader for the detail in the subsequent sections, and a substantial but not overwhelming table of contents. VG4. The list is written in concise and articulate English; its prose is clear, is in line with style guidelines, and does not require substantial copy-editing to be fully MoS-compliant. VG5. The list contains appropriately licensed supporting visual materials, such as images or diagrams with succinct captions, and other media, where relevant.	Very Good List Review
Good List		Good List Review
Decent	B 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.	Decent Class Review Self-Assessment Third-party Assessment
Average	First Stage (Stub) Article is created and doesn't meet any of the criteria for other stages or higher ratings. Second Stage (Start) Start 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. The article should satisfy fundamental content policies, such as BLP. Frequently, the referencing is inadequate, although enough sources are usually provided to establish verifiability. No Start-Class article should be in any danger of being speedily deleted. Third Stage (C) C The article cites more than one reliable source and is better developed in style, structure, and quality than Start-Class, but it 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. Articles on fictional topics are likely to be marked as C-Class if they are written from an in-universe perspective. It is most likely that C-Class articles have a reasonable encyclopedic style.	Self-Assessment Third-party Assessment

Processes

WikiWorkshop (New PR)

Peer Review would be renamed to WikiWorkshop and provide three different types of reviews. As the name suggests, the goal of the process is to be a workshop for article improvement without strict deadlines and quality expectations. The current purpose of Peer Review is to improve articles so they can reach GA and FA. The WikiWorkshop would host a Decent-class review as a stepping stone for newer editors looking to get an article from Average (Start or C-class) to the GA level. Trying to write a GA right off the bat may be overwhelming for newcomers, so assessing their article for Decent-class would be less intense and allow them to gradually improve their writing skills. The other quality-level review at the WikiWorkshop would be the Very Good Article review. This review would have a workshop phase and an assessment phase. Given that the criteria for Very Good would be between GA and FA, this review would allow an editor to work on completing and fixing their article, leaving only minor issues for a future FAC run. These two reviews would cover most of the existing issues that PR aims to tackle. Since Very Good (A-class) was intended to be between GA and FA, centralizing the process and standardizing the criteria would restore faith in the rating and provide review resources to Wikiprojects that were unable to host their own Very Good (A-class) reviews. This would give a purpose to both Decent-class and Very Good, which were always intended to have reviews (we have icons for B-class review and A-class review). Lastly, there would be the standard peer review for those not wanting to review against Decent or Very Good and for higher quality articles that haven't been assessed for a while. The changes to the current peer review should not increase the review burden since it is only repurposing existing resources.

Decent-Class Review (B-class)

The Decent-class review would only require the involvement of one editor (more are obviously welcome to join in). A person would list the article for review given that it is at the middle stage within Average-class. The reviewer would then review the article in its entirety against the 6 Decent-class criteria and provide advice to the editor to help them get the article to Decent-class. There would be no set time period for the improvement of the article as long as improvements are continuing to take place and both parties wish to continue. It would then be promoted to Decent-class if the reviewer believes the criteria have been satisfied. This would essentially be a less-strict review that would work to improve an article up to Decent-class. I think it would be helpful for newer editors to get them used to writing articles without expecting them to put in GA-level work immediately as is often the case with the current PR. New editors have to work to get their writing up to that level. Having a Decent-Class review would be a sort of stepping stone for newer editors to improve their skills before attempting to go for even higher quality.

Very Good Article Review

The Very Good Article review would require two or more editors to review. A person would list the article as a Very Good Article candidate. Other editors would then review the article against the Very Good Article criteria. The process would be divided into two parts. The first stage would be the initial reviews, kind of a workshop per se, where no support or opposition would be declared given that the article is reasonably close to Very Good status (obviously exceptions would apply). The reviewers would leave comments and work with the editor to improve the article. This workshop would last around 10-14 days or longer if it is constructive. If half of the involved parties (minimum either the two reviewers or one reviewer and the nominator) signal they are ready to move on to the next stage, a coordinator would open a subsection where people could either support or oppose the candidacy with their rationale. Once a sufficient period of time had passed, the coordinator would judge whether or not consensus exists for promotion to Very Good status, similar to how it is done at FAC currently.

Peer Review

The peer review is a review where an editor should list his or her goals for an article so a reviewer can provide feedback in order for the editor to improve the article. Reviews of this nature would be given generally to higher quality articles that haven't been reviewed for a while, however, any article could be listed for review. This review would simply be a workshop since no rating change is taking place. There would also be no time limit as long as multiple parties agree to continue the process.

Excellent Candidacies (Featured)

Excellent Article Candidacies

Excellent List Candidacies

Article Importance Change

Many editors have left after creating their first article. It hasn't been studied much as to why this occurs, but it can be argued that our assessment systems have been a bit BITEy. In the banner templates, |importance= would be changed to |priority=, which would be less offensive to new editors. Rather than saying an article is low importance, which could offend people who have worked hard on it, we could say it is simply low priority for the groups working on it. It can be seen negatively when a group decides an article is of low importance because it may be high importance to others. I think the important thing here by changing this is clarifying it isn't importance that we are deciding, but simply the priority upon which articles should be worked on.