Wikipedia:WikiProject California/Assessment

California articles by quality and importance
Quality	Importance
	Top	High	Mid	Low	NA	???	Total
FA	5	15	24	69		3	116
FL	1	2	6	67			76
FM					57		57
A				1			1
GA	2	18	69	257		20	366
B	26	113	285	604		336	1,364
C	19	142	495	1,787	1	685	3,129
Start	17	218	1,378	9,838	62	5,428	16,941
Stub		38	396	11,570	242	6,711	18,957
List	4	12	87	622	2	246	973
Book					53		53
Category					8,656		8,656
Disambig					307		307
File					214		214
Portal					109		109
Project					89		89
Redirect		1	2	27	1,228	1	1,259
Template					1,153		1,153
Assessed	74	559	2,744	24,843	12,199	13,430	53,849
Draft			2	1	26		29
Unassessed			45	171		3,119	3,335
Total	74	559	2,789	25,014	12,199	16,549	57,184
WikiWork factors (?)		ω = 7005215843000000000♠215,843			Ω = 5.28

Welcome to the assessment department of the WikiProject California! This department focuses on assessing the quality of Wikipedia's California articles. While much of the work is done in conjunction with the WP:1.0 program, the article ratings are also used within the project itself to aid in recognizing excellent contributions and identifying topics in need of further work.

The ratings are done in a distributed fashion through parameters in the {{WikiProject California}} project banner; this causes the articles to be placed in the appropriate sub-categories of Category:California articles by quality, Category:California articles by importance, Category:California articles needing attention, Category:California past collaborations, and Category:California past selected articles. The quality and importance ratings serve as the foundation for an automatically generated worklist. There are also Non-article categories (Category:NA-Class California articles), as well as specific categories for things like redirects, templates, categories, images, etc.

Frequently asked questions

How can I get my article rated? 

As a member of the WikiProject California, you can do it yourself. If you're unsure, place a notice on the project talk page.

Who can assess articles? 

Any member of WikiProject California is free to add—or change—the rating of an article, but please follow the guidelines.

Why didn't the reviewer leave any comments? 

Unfortunately, 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.

Where can I get more comments about my article? 

Contact Wikipedia:WikiProject California who will handle it or assign the issue to someone. You may also list it for a Peer review.

What if I don't agree with a rating? 

Relist it as a request or contact Wikipedia:WikiProject California who will handle it or assign the issue to someone.

Aren't the ratings subjective? 

Yes, they are (see, in particular, the disclaimers on the importance scale), 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!

If you have any other questions not listed here, please feel free to ask on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject California.

Instructions

An article's assessment is generated from the class and importance parameters in the {{WikiProject California}} project banner on its talk page. You can learn the syntax by looking at the talk pages in edit mode and by reading the info below.

This is the rating syntax (ratings and dates are samples, change to what applies to the article in question):

{{WikiProject California}}

• displays the default banner, showing the project info and only ??? for the quality and importance parameters.

{{WikiProject California|class=FA|importance=Top}}

• all assessed articles should have quality and importance filled in. Leaving the other parameters off does not hurt anything.

{{WikiProject California|class=Start|importance=Mid|attention=yes}}

• if an article needs immediate attention, add the attention tag and please leave talk notes as to why. "yes" is the only valid parameter here. If it doesn't need attention, leave the parameter off.

{{WikiProject California|class=B|importance=High|attention=yes|past-selected=[[July]] [[2006]]|past-collaboration=[[April]] [[2006]]}}

• if an article has been the SATM or COTM, these tags get added in this format. This is the actual project tag of Philmont Scout Ranch.

The following values may be used for the class parameter:

• FA (adds articles to Category:FA-Class California articles)
• A (adds articles to Category:A-Class California articles)
• GA (adds articles to Category:GA-Class California articles)
• B (adds articles to Category:B-Class California articles)
• Start (adds articles to Category:Start-Class California articles)
• Stub (adds articles to Category:Stub-Class California articles)
• NA (for pages, such as templates or disambiguation pages, where assessment is unnecessary; adds pages to Category:NA-Class California articles). This means "non-article", NOT non-applicable.

Articles for which a valid class and/or importance is not provided are listed in Category:Unassessed California articles. The class should be assigned according to the quality scale below.

The following values may be used for the importance parameter:

• Top (adds articles to Category:Top-importance California articles)
• High (adds articles to Category:High-importance California articles)
• Mid (adds articles to Category:Mid-importance California articles)
• Low (adds articles to Category:Low-importance California articles)

The parameter is not used if an article's class is set to NA, and may be omitted in those cases. The importance should be assigned according to the importance scale below.

Quality scale

Note: A B-class article should have at least one reference.

WikiProject article quality grading scheme

Class	Criteria	Reader's experience	Editing suggestions	Example
FA	The article has attained featured article status by passing an official review. More detailed criteria The article meets the featured article criteria: A featured article exemplifies our 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; and 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. 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 either footnotes (<ref>Smith 2007, p. 1.</ref>) or Harvard referencing (Smith 2007, p. 1)—see citing sources for suggestions on formatting references. The use of citation templates is 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.	Professional, outstanding, and thorough; a definitive source for encyclopedic information.	No further content additions should be necessary unless new information becomes available; further improvements to the prose quality are often possible.	San Francisco (as of June 2008)
A	The article is well organized and essentially complete, having been reviewed by impartial reviewers from this WikiProject or elsewhere. Good article status is not a requirement for A-Class. More detailed criteria The article meets the A-Class criteria: Provides a well-written, clear and complete description of the topic, as described in Wikipedia:Article development. 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 submission as a featured article candidate. See the A-Class assessment departments of some of the larger WikiProjects (e.g. WikiProject Military history).	Very useful to readers. A fairly complete treatment of the subject. A non-expert in the subject would typically find nothing wanting.	Expert knowledge may be needed to tweak the article, and style problems may need solving. Peer review may help.	Battle of Nam River (as of June 2014)
GA	The article has attained good article status by passing an official review. More detailed criteria The article meets the good article criteria: A good article is— Well written: the prose is clear and concise, and the 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; all in-line citations are from reliable sources, including those for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons—science-based articles should follow the scientific citation guidelines; it contains no original research; and it contains no copyright violations nor 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 images: images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content; and images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.	Useful to nearly all readers, with no obvious problems; approaching (but not equalling) the quality of a professional encyclopedia.	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.	University of California, Santa Cruz (as of Feb 2010)
B	The article is mostly complete and without major problems, but requires some further work to reach good article standards. More detailed criteria The article meets the six B-Class criteria: 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 and 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. Although Wikipedia is more than just a general encyclopedia, the article should not assume unnecessary technical background and technical terms should be explained or avoided where possible.	Readers are not left wanting, although the content may not be complete enough to satisfy a serious student or researcher.	A few aspects of content and style need to be addressed. Expert knowledge may be needed. The inclusion of supporting materials should be considered if practical, and the article checked for general compliance with the Manual of Style and related style guidelines.	Apple Inc. (as of August 2014)
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. More detailed criteria 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.	Useful to a casual reader, but would not provide a complete picture for even a moderately detailed study.	Considerable editing is needed to close gaps in content and solve cleanup problems.	Bishop (chess) (as of August 2014)
Start	An article that is developing, but which is quite incomplete. It might or might not cite adequate reliable sources. More 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. 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.	Provides some meaningful content, but most readers will need more.	Providing references to reliable sources should come first; the article also needs substantial improvement in content and organisation. Also improve the grammar, spelling, writing style and improve the jargon use.	Interval vector (as of February 2014)
Stub	A very basic description of the topic. However, all very-bad-quality articles will fall into this category. More 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. Although Stub-class articles are the lowest class of the normal classes, they are adequate enough to be an accepted article, though they do have risks of being dropped from being an article all together.	Provides very little meaningful content; may be little more than a dictionary definition. Readers probably see insufficiently developed features of the topic and may not see how the features of the topic are significant.	Any editing or additional material can be helpful. The provision of meaningful content should be a priority. The best solution for a Stub-class Article to step up to a Start-class Article is to add in referenced reasons of why the topic is significant.	Crescent Falls (as of February 2013)
FL	The article has attained featured list status. More detailed criteria The article meets 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) 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 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.	Professional standard; it comprehensively covers the defined scope, usually providing a complete set of items, and has annotations that provide useful and appropriate information about those items.	No further content additions should be necessary unless new information becomes available.	List of birds of California (as of Feb 2007)
List	Meets the criteria of a stand-alone list, which is an article that contains primarily a list, usually consisting of links to articles in a particular subject area.	There is no set format for a list, but its organization should be logical and useful to the reader.	Lists should be lists of live links to Wikipedia articles, appropriately named and organized.	List of Guggenheim Fellowships awarded in 1947 (as of January 2013)
Book	A collection of Wikipedia articles arranged as a book (see Wikipedia Books). More detailed criteria Collections typically cover a topic and related subjects. These can be downloaded electronically (in PDF or OpenDocument formats), or ordered in print.	People who would like to read Wikipedia offline, or in print.	It is a good idea to team up with a relevant WikiProject to gather feedback on books.	Book:California History
Category	Any category falls under this class.	Categories are mainly used to group together articles within a particular subject area.	Large categories may need to be split into one or more subcategories. Be wary of articles that have been miscategorized.	Category:Actors from California
Disambig	Any disambiguation page falls under this class.	The page serves to distinguish multiple articles that share the same (or similar) title.	Additions should be made as new articles of that name are created. Pay close attention to the proper naming of such pages, as they often do not need "(disambiguation)" appended to the title.	Paradise, California (disambiguation) (as of Mar 2010)
FM	Featured pages in the file namespace falls under this class.	The page contains a featured image, sound clip or other media-related content.	Make sure that the file is properly licensed and credited.	File:SanFrancisco1851a.jpg
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.	File:Gull ca usa.jpg
Portal	Any page in the portal namespace falls under this class.	Portals are intended to serve as "main pages" for specific topics.	Editor involvement is essential to ensure that portals are kept up to date.	Portal:California
Project	All WikiProject-related pages fall under this class.	Project pages are intended to aid editors in article development, and are probably not useful to readers.	Develop these pages into collaborative resources useful for improving articles within the project.	Wikipedia:WikiProject California
Redirect	Any redirect falls under this class.	The page redirects to another article with a similar name, related topic or that has been merged the original article at this location.	Editor involvement is essential to ensure that articles are not mis-classified as redirects, and that redirects are not mis-classified as articles.
Template	Any template falls under this class. The most common types of template include infoboxes and navboxes.	Different types of template serve different purposes. Infoboxes provide easy access to key pieces of information about the subject. Navboxes are for the purpose of grouping together related subjects into an easily accessible format, to assist the user in navigating between articles.	Infoboxes are typically placed at the upper right of an article, while navboxes normally go across the very bottom of a page. Beware of too many different templates, as well as templates that give either too little, too much, or too specialized information.	Template:Los Angeles Radio

Importance scale

The criteria used for rating article importance are not meant to be an absolute or canonical view of how significant the topic is. Rather, they attempt to gauge the probability of the average reader of Wikipedia needing to look up the topic (and thus the immediate need to have a suitably well-written article on it). Thus, subjects with greater popular notability may be rated higher than topics which are arguably more "important" but which are of interest primarily to students of hagiography. Importance does not equate to quality; a featured article could rate 'mid' on importance. Importance is only part of several factors used to determine inclusion in release versions of Wikipedia content, see Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/SelectionBot for more information on how articles are scored for inclusion.

WikiProject article importance scheme

Importance	Criteria	Example
Top	Subject is extremely important, even crucial, to its specific field. Reserved for subjects that have achieved international notability within their field.	Economy of California
High	Subject is extremely notable, but has not achieved international notability, or is only notable within a particular continent.	Gray Davis
Mid	Subject is only notable within its particular field or subject and has achieved notability in a particular place or area.	Rancho Buri Buri
Low	Subject is not particularly notable or significant even within its field of study. It may only be included to cover a specific part of a notable article.	Oberg, California
NA	Subject importance is not applicable. Generally applies to non-article pages such as redirects, categories, templates, etc.	Template:LA Freeways