Wikipedia:WikiProject Aviation/Assessment/B-Class

Process: B-Class may be assigned by any editor. By convention, aviation articles should be assessed by an editor who has not been involved with the article; this is to avoid bias and to help keep standards high.

Frequently asked questions

B-Class assessment

How to nominate articles?

Q. I want an article to be reviewed for the B-class. How do I do it?

A. List it here.

How suitable am I?

Q. I'm not certain I am capable of assessing B-class articles, particularly for criteria 2 and 5. What degree of familiarity/expertise would you say this new drive requires?

A. If you've been around for a few months, got your wits about you, and have a "feel" for what B-Class is about, you'll be fine. If you have lingering doubts, try assessing some of the articles at Category:Aviation articles with incomplete B-Class checklists. They'll give you a good idea of what to expect.

B-Class not appearing on the banner

Q. What's wrong with the banner? I added and filled in the B-class checklist but B-class is not appearing on the Milhist banner on the talk page when I saved.

A. Nothing's wrong with it. The template now only shows the checklist for Start and B-class articles. As this article is a Stub, the checklist isn't displayed. (If you change the class from Stub to Start and "preview", you'll see how it works.)

B-Class criteria

B1 - is suitably referenced and cited

Q. How much reference is enough - for eg, what about articles using only the 1911 Britannica or Janes? A lot of pages only use information from these sources, which, although is accurate, may not be ideal IMO. What is the policy in this regards?

A. Policy is to cite anything that is likely to be challenged but, again, this is B-Class not a FAC so some latitude is permitted. As a rule of thumb, all sections need an absolute minimum of one citation and all direct quotes should be attributed to a source. The sources you mention are fine.

B2 - reasonably covers the topic

Q. How comprehensive does the article need to be?

A. You are checking that there are no obvious gaps and that the article will reasonably answer any questions a general reader (not a specialist) might have. For example, a B-class article on an air force base would typically say where the base is, when it was in use, and which notable squadrons used it. Similarly, an article about an aircraft should say where, when and by whom it was made, any history on it, identify the particular specifications.

B3 - has a defined structure, including a lead section

Q. Organization - What is the minimum to pass the article for organization? If we go by the template comment, as long as it has sections, its ok, irrespective of whether those actually work or if they are not ok.

A. Broadly, yes, though if they're ridiculously irrelevant, or very skimpy, consider re-organising the sections yourself on the sofixit principle. B-Class is not a very high bar.

Q. How long should the lead section be?

A. Providing it accurately summarizes the main body of the article, the length doesn't matter too much. That said, most reviewers expect to see at least one reasonably long paragraph.

B4 - is free from major grammatical errors

Q. what counts against grammar? - needs a teeny weeny bit of expansion, since this is, from my experience, one of the harder ones to grade.

A. Sure. I wouldn't worry about minor grammatical or spelling errors and so forth. If it makes sense and is reasonably well written, pass it. ("The Fighting Falcon is a dogfighter with numerous innovations including a frameless, bubble canopy for better visibility, side-mounted control stick to ease control while under high g-forces, and reclined seat to reduce the effect of g-forces on the pilot.") Fail it only if the article is poorly written: "The Fighting Falcon aircraft is a dogfighting plane with many technnical things including a frameless, bubble canopy for better vis., side-stick controling to ease control while under high gs, and reclined seat to reduce the g's on the pilot."

Q. Do I pass a two-line stub for grammar if there are no mistakes or do I not as there is not much to judge?

A. Don't bother completing the checklist for something that short.

B5 - contains appropriate supporting graphics, infoboxes, or images

Q. If the page has good images, but lacks a much needed infobox, do we pass it or not.

A. Pass it. Please note that infoboxes are not compulsory. The fail really only applies if the article has no graphic (infobox, photos, graphics) at all. What we don't want is pages that are a wall of text, with nothing to break it up or add visual interest.

Q. Does a longer article require more supporting materials than a shorter one in order to pass Criterion 5? E.g. is one infobox at the top sufficient for a 12-screen-long article, or does it need something to break up the rest of the text as well?

A. Just an infobox is not sufficient for a longer article. The rest of the text should be broken up a bit as well.

B6 - technical content made understandable

Q. What happened to this criteria?

A. While the general WP:BCLASS content assessment guidelines include a sixth criteria, WikiProject Aviation does not.