Reviewing Articles
Another skill editors should know is how to review an article. It's not something overly useful, but it's still good to know. Wikipedia grades, or "assesses" its articles on a scale according to how much information they provide and how well. This assessment scale is largely unofficial, with the majority of assessments made by WikiProjects who claim jurisdiction over the articles. There are, however, two official ratings which are given to those articles which are nominated by editors and reviewed to see if they meet a series of criteria. The full ranking is as follows:
| Label | Criteria | Reader's experience | Editing suggestions | Example | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 FA{{FA-Class}} |
The article has attained Featured article status.
|
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. | Tourette Syndrome (as of March 2009) | ||||
| FL {{FL-Class}} |
The article has attained Featured list status.
|
Avatar: The Last Airbender (season 3) (as of February 2009) | ||||||
 A{{A-Class}} |
The article is well organized and essentially complete, having been reviewed by impartial reviewers from a WikiProject or elsewhere. Good article status is not a requirement for A-Class.
|
Very useful to readers. A fairly complete treatment of the subject. A non-expert in the subject matter would typically find nothing wanting. | Expert knowledge may be needed to tweak the article, and style issues may need addressing. Peer-review may help. | Batman (1989 film) (as of October 2008) | ||||
 GA{{GA-Class}} |
The article has attained Good article status.
|
Useful to nearly all readers, with no obvious problems; approaching (although 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. | 2008 ACC Championship Game (as of January 2009) | ||||
| B {{B-Class}} |
The article is mostly complete and without major issues, but requires some further work to reach Good Article standards. B-Class articles should meet the six B-Class criteria.
|
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, and expert knowledge is increasingly needed. The inclusion of supporting materials should also be considered if practical, and the article checked for general compliance with the manual of style and related style guidelines. | Jammu and Kashmir (as of September 2007) | ||||
| C {{C-Class}} |
The article is substantial, but is still missing important content or contains a lot of irrelevant material. The article should have some references to reliable sources, but may still have significant issues or require substantial cleanup.
|
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 address cleanup issues. | Exeter Cathedral (as of June 2008) | ||||
| Start {{Start-Class}} |
An article that is developing, but which is quite incomplete and, most notably, lacks adequate reliable sources.
|
Provides some meaningful content, but the majority of readers will need more. | Provision of references to reliable sources should be prioritised; the article will also need substantial improvements in content and organisation. | Real analysis (as of November 2006) | ||||
| Stub {{Stub-Class}} |
A very basic description of the topic.
|
Provides very little meaningful content; may be little more than a dictionary definition | Any editing or additional material can be helpful. The provision of meaningful content should be a priority. | Cuthwine (as of August 2008) |
Other types of pages are graded outside this criteria. Lists are no more than that, long lists of topics that all relate to the main theme of the list. Lists don't provide any prose, and any references are there simply to confirm that the topic does meet the criteria for inclusion. Each list must provide a specific criteria for what is considered a member of that list. Usually this is clear in the title, such as in List of current heads of state and government, and only needs a little more background as to how the list should be organized. Other lists don't at first glance seem as exclusive, such as List of people affected by bipolar disorder, and require some strong referencing to merit inclusion.
Disambiguation pages are designed to help people find the right article. Some topics share names with other topics, leading to confusion. For example, if you were to search for George Washington, you're probably looking for George Washington, but you could also be looking for George Washington (who was featured on the Main Page last April Fool's), George Washington, George, Washington, or perhaps one of the George Washingtons. That last sentence contains a total of 8 links, all of which lead to a George Washington of some variety, and I certainly could have included more from George Washington (disambiguation).
The assignment
Now that you've seen the different kinds of articles, take a look at some of these and tell me what you think they should be graded as. Don't look at the talk pages, just read the article and give it your own assessment. Give a short reasoning of why you have graded it such. If you believe an article does not meet the requirements of any level, mark it as a "sub-stub". Once you have done that, leave me a message on my talk page.
So, to complete this lesson, click the random article, say, ten times, and assess each article on the above scale (without looking at the talk page) and give me a short reasoning on each of the 10 articles, on my talk page. Cheers.