Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment
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Welcome to the assessment department of the Military history WikiProject! This department focuses on assessing the quality of Wikipedia's military history articles. The resulting article ratings are used within the project to aid in recognizing excellent contributions and identifying topics in need of further work, and are also expected to play a role in the WP:1.0 program,
The assessment is done in a distributed fashion through parameters in the {{WPMILHIST}} project banner; this causes the articles to be placed in the appropriate sub-categories of Category:Military history articles by quality, which serve as the foundation for an automatically generated worklist.
Contents |
[edit] FAQ
- See also the general assessment FAQ.
- 1. What is the purpose of the article ratings?
- The rating system allows the project to monitor the quality of articles in our subject areas, and to prioritize work on these articles. It is also utilized by the Wikipedia 1.0 program to prepare for static releases of Wikipedia content. Please note, however, that these ratings are primarily intended for the internal use of the project, and do not necessarily imply any official standing within Wikipedia as a whole.
- 2. How do I add an article to the WikiProject?
- Just add {{WPMILHIST}} to the talk page; there's no need to do anything else.
- 3. Someone put a {{WPMILHIST}} template on an article, but it doesn't seem to be within the project'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 talk page of this department (or directly with the person who tagged the article).
- 4. Who can assess articles?
- Any member of the Military history WikiProject is free to add—or change—the rating of an article. Editors who are not participants in this project are also welcome to assess articles, but should defer to consensus within the project in case of procedural disputes.
- 5. How do I rate an article?
- Check the quality scale and select the level that best matches the state of the article; then, follow the instructions below to add the rating to the project banner on the article's talk page. Please note that some of the available levels have an associated formal review process that must be followed; this is documented in the assessment instructions.
- 6. Can I request that someone else rate an article?
- Of course; to do so, please list it in the section for assessment requests below.
- 7. 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.
- 8. Where can I get more comments about an article?
- The peer review department can conduct more thorough examination of articles; please submit it for review there.
- 9. What if I don't agree with a rating?
- You can list it in the section for assessment requests below, and someone will take a look at it. Alternately, you can ask any member of the project to rate the article again. Please note that some of the available levels have an associated formal review process that must be followed; this is documented in the assessment instructions.
- 10. 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!
- 11. What if I have a question not listed here?
- If your question concerns the article assessment process specifically, please refer to the discussion page for this department; for any other issues, you can go to the main project discussion page, or contact the project coordinators directly.
[edit] Assessment instructions
An article's assessment is generated from the class parameter in the {{WPMILHIST}} project banner on its talk page (see the project banner instructions for more details on the exact syntax):
- {{WPMILHIST| ... | class=??? | ...}}
The following values may be used:
- FA (adds articles to Category:FA-Class military history articles; should only be used for articles that are currently listed as featured articles)
- A (adds articles to Category:A-Class military history articles; should only be used for articles that have successfuly passed through the A-Class review)
- GA (adds articles to Category:GA-Class military history articles; should only be used for articles that are currently listed as good articles)
- B (adds articles to Category:B-Class military history articles)
- Start (adds articles to Category:Start-Class military history articles)
- Stub (adds articles to Category:Stub-Class military history articles)
- NA (for pages, such as templates or disambiguation pages, where assessment is unnecessary; adds pages to Category:Non-article military history pages)
Articles for which a valid class is not provided are listed in Category:Unassessed military history articles. The class should be assigned according to the quality scale below.
[edit] Quality scale
| Label | Criteria | Reader's experience | Editor's experience | Example |
 FA{{FA-Class}} |
Reserved exclusively for articles that have received "Featured article" status after peer review, and meet the current criteria for featured articles. | Definitive. Outstanding, thorough article; a great source for encyclopedic information. | No further editing is necessary unless new published information has come to light; but further improvements to the text are often possible. | Sikhism (as of August 2006) |
| A {{A-Class}} |
Provides a well-written, reasonably clear and complete description of the topic, as described in How to write a great article. It should be of a length suitable for the subject, with a well-written introduction and an appropriate series of headings to break up the content. It should have sufficient external literature references, preferably from "hard" (peer-reviewed where appropriate) literature rather than websites. Should be well illustrated, with no copyright problems. At the stage where it could at least be considered for featured article status, corresponds to the "Wikipedia 1.0" standard. | Very useful to readers. A fairly complete treatment of the subject. A non-expert in the subject matter would typically find nothing wanting. May miss a few relevant points. | Minor edits and adjustments would improve the article, particularly if brought to bear by a subject-matter expert. In particular, issues of breadth, completeness, and balance may need work. Peer-review would be helpful at this stage. | Durian (as of June 2006) |
 GA{{GA-Class}} |
The article has passed through the Good article nomination process and been granted GA status, meeting the good article standards. This should be used for articles that still need some work to reach featured article standards, but that are otherwise good. Good articles that may succeed in FAC should be considered A-Class articles, but having completed the Good article designation process is not a requirement for A-Class. | Useful to nearly all readers. A good treatment of the subject. No obvious problems, gaps, excessive information. Adequate for most purposes, but other encyclopedias could do a better job. | Some editing will clearly be helpful, but not necessary for a good reader experience. If the article is not already fully wikified, now is the time. | Agriculture (as of June 2006) |
| B {{B-Class}} |
Has several of the elements described in "start", usually a majority of the material needed for a completed article. Nonetheless, it has significant gaps or missing elements or references, needs substantial editing for English language usage and/or clarity, balance of content, or contains other policy problems such as copyright, Neutral Point Of View (NPOV) or No Original Research (NOR). With NPOV a well written B-class may correspond to the "Wikipedia 0.5" or "usable" standard. Articles that are close to GA status but don't meet the Good article criteria should be B- or Start-class articles. | Useful to many, but not all, readers. A casual reader flipping through articles would feel that they generally understood the topic, but a serious student or researcher trying to use the material would have trouble doing so, or would risk error in derivative work. | Considerable editing is still needed, including filling in some important gaps or correcting significant policy errors. Articles for which cleanup is needed will typically have this designation to start with. | Munich air disaster (as of May 2006) has a lot of helpful material but contains too many lists, and needs more prose content & references. |
| Start {{Start-Class}} |
The article has a meaningful amount of good content, but it is still weak in many areas, and may lack a key element such as a standard infobox. For example an article on Africa might cover the geography well, but be weak on history and culture. Has at least one serious element of gathered materials, including any one of the following:
|
Useful to some, provides a moderate amount of information, but many readers will need to find additional sources of information. The article clearly needs to be expanded. | Substantial/major editing is needed, most material for a complete article needs to be added. This article still needs to be completed, so an article cleanup tag is inappropriate at this stage. | Real analysis (as of November 2006) |
| Stub {{Stub-Class}} |
The article is either a very short article or a rough collection of information that will need much work to bring it to A-Class level. It is usually very short, but can be of any length if the material is irrelevant or incomprehensible. | Possibly useful to someone who has no idea what the term meant. May be useless to a reader only passingly familiar with the term. At best a brief, informed dictionary definition. | Any editing or additional material can be helpful. | Coffee table book (as of July 2005) |
[edit] Statistics
[edit] Current status
| Military history articles |
Importance | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| None | Total | ||||||
| Class | |||||||
| FA |
149 | 149 | |||||
| A | 19 | 19 | |||||
| GA |
70 | 70 | |||||
| B | 2863 | 2863 | |||||
| Start | 8360 | 8360 | |||||
| Stub | 13216 | 13216 | |||||
| Unassessed | 1925 | 1925 | |||||
| Total | 26602 | 26602 | |||||
[edit] Historical counts
| May 2006 | June 2006 | July 2006 | August 2006 | September 2006 | October 2006 | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FA |
80 | 1.05 % | 90 | 0.93 % | 105 | 0.82 % | 113 | 0.69 % | 131 | 0.67 % | 138 | 0.57 % |
| A | 15 | 0.20 % | 40 | 0.41 % | 39 | 0.30 % | 44 | 0.27 % | 18 | 0.09 % | 22 | 0.09 % |
| GA |
43 | 0.56 % | 45 | 0.46 % | 53 | 0.41 % | 68 | 0.41 % | 81 | 0.42 % | 73 | 0.30 % |
| B | 405 | 5.29 % | 635 | 6.51 % | 881 | 6.88 % | 1,471 | 8.97 % | 2,038 | 10.50 % | 2,336 | 9.62 % |
| Start | 1,143 | 14.93 % | 1,665 | 17.08 % | 2,101 | 16.41 % | 3,711 | 22.63 % | 5,548 | 28.58 % | 6,547 | 26.95 % |
| Stub | 1,413 | 18.46 % | 2,034 | 20.86 % | 2,670 | 20.86 % | 5,558 | 33.89 % | 8,343 | 42.98 % | 12,321 | 50.72 % |
| Unassessed | 4,555 | 59.51 % | 5,240 | 53.75 % | 6,951 | 54.30 % | 5,434 | 33.14 % | 3,255 | 16.77 % | 2,853 | 11.75 % |
| Total | 7,654 | 9,749 | 12,800 | 16,399 | 19,414 | 24,290 | ||||||
| November 2006 | ||||||||||||
| FA |
147 | 0.56 % | ||||||||||
| A | 19 | 0.07 % | ||||||||||
| GA |
72 | 0.28 % | ||||||||||
| B | 2,723 | 10.52 % | ||||||||||
| Start | 7,705 | 29.77 % | ||||||||||
| Stub | 12,830 | 49.57 % | ||||||||||
| Unassessed | 2,388 | 9.23 % | ||||||||||
| Total | 25,884 | |||||||||||
[edit] Monthly changes
| June 2006 | July 2006 | August 2006 | September 2006 | October 2006 | November 2006 | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FA |
+10 | +12.50 % | +15 | +16.67 % | +8 | +7.62 % | +18 | +15.93 % | +7 | +5.34 % | +9 | +6.52 % |
| A | +25 | +166.67 % | -1 | -2.50 % | +5 | +12.82 % | -26 | -59.09 % | +4 | +22.22 % | -3 | -13.64 % |
| GA |
+2 | +4.65 % | +8 | +17.78 % | +15 | +28.30 % | +13 | +19.12 % | -8 | -9.88 % | -1 | +1.37 % |
| B | +230 | +56.79 % | +246 | +38.74 % | +590 | +66.97 % | +567 | +38.55 % | +298 | +14.62 % | +387 | +16.57 % |
| Start | +522 | +45.67 % | +436 | +26.19 % | +1,610 | +76.63 % | +1,837 | +49.50 % | +999 | +18.01 % | +1,158 | +17.89 % |
| Stub | +621 | +43.95 % | +636 | +31.27 % | +2,888 | +108.16 % | +2,785 | +50.11 % | +3,978 | +47.68 % | +509 | +4.13 % |
| Unassessed | +685 | +15.04 % | +1,711 | +32.65 % | -1,517 | -21.82 % | -2,179 | -40.10 % | -402 | -12.35 % | -465 | -16.30 % |
| Total | +2,095 | +27.37 % | +3,051 | +31.30 % | +3,599 | +28.12 % | +3,015 | +18.39 % | +4,876 | +25.12 % | +1,594 | +6.56 % |
[edit] Log
A full log of assessment changes for the past thirty days is available; unfortunately, due to its extreme size, it cannot be transcluded directly.
[edit] Requests for assessment
If you have made significant changes to an article and would like an outside opinion on a new rating for it, please feel free to list it below. If you are interested in more extensive comments on an article, please use the peer review department instead.
Land warfareOperation LinebackerAbraham Lincoln assassinationAngevin EmpireParis Declaration Respecting Maritime LawSMS MagdeburgHMS Seraph (P219)Royal Canadian Sea Cadets- Add new request here
[edit] Requests for A-Class status
In order to provide a more rigorous assessment of high-quality articles, A-Class status is assigned after a formal review by the project as a whole, rather than at the discretion of individual reviewers.
Please note that this process is a complement to the project peer review, not a replacement for it. Articles that still require substantial work will typically receive much more detailed feedback through a full peer review than they will via the short review here; and even high-quality articles may benefit from a peer review if more exhaustive suggestions for further improvement are desired.
[edit] Instructions
[edit] Requesting a review
To request an A-Class review of an article:
- Add
A-Class=currentto the {{WPMILHIST}} project banner at the top of the article's talk page (see the project banner instructions for more details on the exact syntax). - From there, click on the "nominated" link that appears in the template. This will open a page to discuss the status of the article.
- Place
==== [[Name of nominated article]] ====at the top. - Below it, write your reason for nominating the article and sign by using four tildes (
~~~~). - Add
{{Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Name of nominated article}}at the top of the list of requests below.
If an article is nominated a second (or third, and so forth) time, either because it failed a prior nomination, or because it may no longer meet the standards and may thus need to be demoted:
- Move the existing review subpage (Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Name of nominated article) to an archive (Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Name of nominated article/Archive 1).
- Follow the instructions for making a request above (editing the primary page, which will be a redirect to the archive, into a new nomination page).
- Be sure to provide a prominent link to the last archive at the top of the nomination statement (e.g. "Prior nomination here.").
There is no limit on how quickly renominations of failed articles may be made; it is perfectly acceptable to renominate as soon as the outstanding objections from the previous nomination have been satisfied.
[edit] Commenting
Reviewers should keep the criteria for featured articles in mind when supporting or opposing a nomination. However, please note that (unlike actual featured articles) A-Class articles are not expected to fully meet all of the criteria; an objection should indicate a substantive problem with the article. In particular, objections over relatively minor issues of writing style or formatting should be avoided at this stage; a comprehensive, accurate, well-sourced, and decently-written article should qualify for A-Class status even if it could use some further copyediting.
[edit] Closing and archiving
Reviews will be closed by one of the project coordinators after four days have elapsed. An article will generally be promoted to A-Class if (a) it has garnered at least three endorsements from uninvolved editors, and (b) there are no substantive objections; a nomination with an isolated objection may pass, however, if that objection is not indicative of a major flaw in the article.
To close a review, coordinators should:
- Change the
A-Class=currentin the {{WPMILHIST}} project banner at the top of the article's talk page to eitherA-Class=pass(if the nomination is successful) orA-Class=fail(if it is not). - Move the
{{Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Name of nominated article}}from the list of requests below to the current archive page.
[edit] Current requests
- Add new requests here
[edit] Military brat (U.S. subculture)
I nominated this article for FAC about two weeks ago. Two people (Outriggr and SandyGeorgia) made some really good recommendations on the talk page and I realized some problems with the article that I decided I wanted to address, so I voluntarily withdrew the nomination. It probably would have passed if I left it on the FAC indefinately, but that isn't my style I wanted to get it right. One of the big changes was the decision to follow the Military Peer reviews recommendation and change the focus to be explicitly on U.S. Brats. Feel free to copy edit (or edit in general)... also, let me know any places where the prose is weak or needs to be improved (or feel free to fix on your own).
Withdrawn FAC and Previous Military Peer ReviewBalloonman 10:04, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
- I already made my suggestions. Support. --ScreaminEagle 17:58, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
- Copied ScreaminEagle's comments to article talkpage. [1] Very good detailed nitpicky suggestions... to which I am very appreciative. Balloonman 18:30, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
- SupportWandalstouring 20:28, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
