Wikipedia editing guideline
"WP:CLASSES" redirects here. For the catalogue of CSS classes, see
WP:CLASS
.
| This page documents an English Wikipedia
editing guideline
.
Editors should generally follow it, though
exceptions
may apply. Substantive edits to this page should reflect
consensus
. When in doubt, discuss first on the
talk page
.
|
|
| This page in a nutshell:
Anyone can add a quality assessment below GA-class, regardless of WikiProjects. Higher ratings require more formal processes and consensus.
|
The following system is used to assess the quality of a Wikipedia article. The system is based on a letter scheme that 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;
some bots
set the
class
tag for assessment based on other Talk tags or based on editor selected values. Editor assistance tools like
Rater
apply automated
ORES
or
Lift Wing
article assessments, offering a prediction based on structural characteristics of the page (e.g. sectioning and references) that correlate with quality, for the class tag. These tags are then
collected by a bot
, which generates output such as a
log
and
statistics
. For more information, see
Using the bot
. In 2023
project-independent quality assessments
were introduced, so editors only have to rate an article once and it applies to all associated projects.
Most grades are assessed by individual editors according to the criteria on this page. Generally speaking, all editors, including editors who have written or improved an article, are encouraged to
boldly
set any quality rating that they believe is appropriate, except for the GA, FA, and A-class ratings. GAs (Good Articles) are generally reviewed by a single independent editor after a nomination at
WP:Good article nominations
. FAs (Featured Articles) are reviewed by several editors at
WP:Featured article candidates
. Be aware that
a few projects
have opted out of the standard quality scale, and use their own variation of the criteria more tuned for the subject area, such as
Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment
.
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. If there is disagreement over the quality rating of an article, then it should be discussed on the article's talk page.
As of November 2022,
over seven million articles
have been assessed. Several other languages are also using this assessment system or a derivative thereof.
| The
assessment ratings
mentioned here have
no relationship whatsoever
to
grading in education
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 on 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
.
|
Class
|
Criteria
|
Reader's experience
|
Editing suggestions
|
Example
|
FA
|
The article has attained
featured article
status by passing an in-depth examination by impartial reviewers from
WP:Featured article candidates
.
|
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.
|
Cleopatra
(as of June 2018)
|
FL
|
The article has attained
featured list
status by passing an in-depth examination by impartial reviewers from
WP:Featured list candidates
.
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.
- 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.
- 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; further improvements to the prose quality are often possible.
|
List of dates predicted for apocalyptic events
(as of May 2018)
|
A
|
The article is well organized and essentially complete, having been examined by impartial reviewers from a 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.
WP:Peer review
may help.
|
Battle of Nam River
(as of June 2014)
|
GA
|
The article meets
all
of the
good article criteria
, and has been examined by one or more impartial reviewers from
WP:Good article nominations
.
More detailed criteria
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
.
|
Useful to nearly all readers, with no obvious problems; approaching (though not necessarily equalling) the quality of a professional publication.
|
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.
|
Discovery of the neutron
(as of April 2019)
|
B
|
The article meets
all
of the
B-Class criteria
. It is mostly complete and does not have major problems, but requires some further work to reach
good article standards
.
More detailed 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 does not need to be
of the standard of featured articles
. 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.
|
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
.
|
Psychology
(as of January 2024)
|
C
|
The article is substantial but is still missing important content or contains 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, or need editing for clarity, balance, or flow.
|
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.
|
Wing
(as of June 2018)
|
Start
|
An article that is developing but still quite incomplete. It may or may not cite adequate reliable sources.
More detailed criteria
The article has a meaningful amount of good content, but it is still weak in many areas. The article has one or more of the following:
- A 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
|
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.
|
Ball
(as of September 2014)
|
Stub
|
A very basic description of the topic. Meets none of the Start-Class criteria.
|
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.
|
Lineage (anthropology)
(as of December 2014)
|
List
|
Meets the criteria of a
stand-alone list
or
set index article
, 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 literary movements
|
Note:
Some WikiProjects omit some of the standard classes, most often A-Class, especially when they lack an assessment team.
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
|
Future
|
A topic for which 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)
|
SIA
|
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)
|
Disambig
|
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)
|
Redirect
|
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
categorized
.
|
American breakfast
(as of October 2016)
|
Needed
|
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)
|
NA
|
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
[
edit
]
Further grades are commonly used by WikiProjects to categorize relevant pages in other
namespaces
. The precise application of these grades may vary depending on their usage by individual WikiProjects.
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
.
| Parts of this Wikipedia page (those related to the fact that
Atom
has been downgraded to B-Class) need to be
updated
. Please help update this Wikipedia page to reflect recent events or newly available information. Relevant discussion may be found on
the talk page
.
(July 2023)
|
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.
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
}}
.
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.
All rated articles by quality and importance
|
Quality
|
Importance
|
Top
|
High
|
Mid
|
Low
|
???
|
Total
|
FA
|
1,565
|
2,472
|
2,386
|
1,908
|
180
|
8,511
|
FL
|
180
|
670
|
775
|
702
|
105
|
2,432
|
A
|
363
|
680
|
787
|
578
|
83
|
2,491
|
GA
|
3,187
|
7,240
|
14,606
|
19,160
|
1,735
|
45,928
|
B
|
16,708
|
32,420
|
53,591
|
66,788
|
21,220
|
190,727
|
C
|
16,689
|
53,488
|
133,533
|
301,289
|
86,076
|
591,075
|
Start
|
18,489
|
92,096
|
413,410
|
1,592,778
|
399,387
|
2,516,160
|
Stub
|
4,211
|
31,596
|
278,445
|
2,786,805
|
758,081
|
3,859,138
|
List
|
4,795
|
16,960
|
53,334
|
189,987
|
67,065
|
332,141
|
Assessed
|
66,187
|
237,622
|
950,867
|
4,959,995
|
1,333,932
|
7,548,603
|
Unassessed
|
124
|
494
|
1,277
|
19,197
|
433,214
|
454,306
|
Total
|
66,311
|
238,116
|
952,144
|
4,979,192
|
1,767,146
|
8,002,909
|
|
Purpose
[
edit
]
- 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
[
edit
]
- 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 be used only 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, go to the article's talk page and 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
[
edit
]
- 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.