User talk:Hurricane Noah/Article Assessment Proposal

Thoughts

@Chess: What are your thoughts thus far on this? I honestly could use some advice for developing and fleshing out this proposal. Noah^Talk 21:55, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

A few quick thoughts:

• A user right for article promotion will be difficult to implement. The article assessment process is done through a template on the talk page. Presumably a complicated edit filter would have to be set up (assuming that would work) and without the specifics of the proposal worked out it wouldn't pass. Additionally, another permissions backlog for admins with unclear guidelines wouldn't be very fun for them to deal with.
• Assessments have been traditionally performed by the WikiProject on its own templates as a triage tool. It allows editor to track what needs improvement. Centralizing the system to be an awards system is going to be seen as undermining that.
• I would say that the real problem with A-class is that it is mutually exclusive with GA/FA class. Any articles good enough for GA/FA will get those ratings, so A-class is effectively a B+ class. I would propose making A-class inclusive with GA/FA so that WikiProjects can have their own awards to give out for excellent articles, in addition to the Wiki-wide GA/FA system.

Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 00:12, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

@Chess: User right will be worked on at a later time after I ask an experienced admin about how to implement such a measure. I will include this as a separate measure from the scale itself.(No longer planned) WikiProjects would still be able to assess their own articles. The plan would be for anyone to be able to assess an article up to C class. B-class would be assessed through either an optional review process, third-party assessment, or self-assessment. A-class would become a centralized process and require a review for promotion. Anyone with the user right (which would be granted if the editor has demonstrated either quality article creation or quality review [ie knowing what's expected of higher quality content]) would be able to assess B or higher. Basically, anyone who has gotten multiple GAs/As/FAs or demonstrated their knowledge through reviews would be able to obtain the right. We are simply changing the standard ratings that projects will be able to use on their articles. Projects could continue to use their own ratings as they see fit since that is controllable through their templates. The problem with A-class is that it isn't its own thing. WikiProjects can currently assess articles for A-class if they wish and most people disregard these ratings because the projects don't have the same criteria. Any articles good enough for GA/FA will get those ratings The problem is many people can't get an article from GA to FA. The goal with this change is to make A-class a sort of workshop to help articles get near FA so they can go there without being snow opposed and closed. Same thing with B-class and GA. Many wikiprojects don't have the resources to sustain A-class reviewing so it would be pointless to have it continue at a local level. Noah^Talk 01:38, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

I added information related to the WikiWorkshop (a revised PR to handle PRs, B-class, and A-class). Nevermind on the user right. Thoughts on the workshop? Anything unclear? Noah^Talk 03:04, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

I would recommend rewording the proposal to remove the implication that articles should go through B-class review. I like the idea of having B-class review be an optional, guided process with specific attainable goals, so that editors can get a more informal level of feedback on their article to a standard less than that of GA. But most editors won't support a system that expects people to go through a review to get to B-class and probably won't like the implication of more bureaucracy. Said review process would have a massive backlog if it was made the default as well. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 15:53, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

@Chess:Reworded to it is recommended for newer editors, but anyone can assess B-class. Is any of the language used or concepts presented unclear? Anything that needs expanded upon? Anything else that should be added or changed in either of the currently written up areas? Criteria for classes will not change from our current defaults other than the addition of standardized A-class criteria. The GAR and FAC processes will not change either. Any additional items that should be added that I haven't or will not address? Noah^Talk 22:43, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

There may need to be additional changes considering the scale can be considered BITEy (both quality and importance) and discourage newcomers. So.... After seeing what others had said, the scale currently used may be BITEy towards newcomers since their work gets assessed as either stub or start which is visibly below average since they see C-class (ie the average). I have revamped the entire scale so it starts out at Average (Start–C are by far the most common) and goes through Excellent. I will have to adjust everything else as a result. I removed start and stub entirely since they wouldn't be needed anymore. I think unassessed should be included as an official, default quality rating that shows up as red because it has no determined quality and needs attention brought to it by those passing by. Noah^Talk 10:36, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

@Hurricane Noah: It should be clarified whether "needed-class" is applicable to redlinks. It's also a bold choice to kill off stubs considering how many stub tags we have. The most common article class by far is stub-class; "Start-C" is outweighed by the sheer quantity of stubs (Category:Stub-Class biography articles has a million articles). Also, any editor can understand a stub article is visibly lacking. They don't need to have the blow softened on that front. I'd say stub should be kept so that average-class isn't the worst possible class which basically implies the average-class articles are shit. This would mean that any editor who makes a real effort into creating an article that isn't a stub gets something other than the worst grade.

On another note, a lot of stuff will have to change to merge Stub, Start and C-class. It'll be a lengthy undertaking, as things like mw:ORES rely on the existing article assessment system. You might want to seek out some people who are more familiar with the technical side of article assessment than I, as I don't know what has to do be done to enable this merger. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 20:21, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

@Chess: Talk pages of redlinks are deleted per policy so red links are thus not assessed. Other people want inadequate, adequate (GA), and excellent (FA) only for the article ratings or something similar. They think everything below GA should be merged into one class. It is planned to have three unofficial subcategories criteria-wise within average that contain the Stub, start, and C criteria so that way editors can judge how their article is progressing. Average is meant to be articles that haven't been reviewed against specific criteria (criteria below B is much less specific). The goal of this is to eliminate the time spent assessing and reassessing articles that aren't reviewed against specific criteria. The whole reason why these ratings came about to begin with had to do about finding articles to put on CDs and in written Wikipedia. We are far past that stage and don't really need a complicated system anymore. We have stub tags for a reason and eliminating the stub class wouldn't affect how these templates function. We would simply tag articles that are stubs with these templates and nothing would change. Other people have talked about how it would be a lot of work to merge classes, but it could be accomplished via bots and other things. We will hold a formal feedback stage prior to any RfC to discuss things of technical nature. The goal right now is to just get a proposal fleshed out that can go to a discussion/feedback stage. One thing that does need to be thought out is good list criteria. Noah^Talk 21:13, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

• @ChessEric: Would you have any thoughts on this? I will have to rewrite portions of the processes section to match up with the new ratings so it isn't consistent there right now. Noah^Talk 17:32, 22 September 2022 (UTC)
• @Destroyeraa: Would you be able to provide your thoughts on this? This proposal is far from being developed and will eventually require wide-scale feedback for improvement. What do you think of it thus far? Noah^Talk 00:19, 24 September 2022 (UTC)