Wikipedia talk:Article assessment

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Is this a good idea? violet/riga (t) 17:58, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

It's intriguing. I wouldn't mind giving it a shot. Johnleemk | Talk 14:41, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for the comment. I think it could serve an excellent purpose of highlighting good articles and thanking those involved in its creation, mixing in a little peer review as well. violet/riga (t) 22:07, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
Better than WP:GA at least... Borisblue 04:39, 12 November 2005 (UTC)


Is this all going to be superceded by the soon-to-be-implemented m:Article validation feature? (Why it's called "validation", I don't know, but AFAICT it involves being able to give a "rating" to each version of a page.) pfctdayelise 14:17, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Let's have regular contests :-)

The title here is confusing, but the idea is right. The focus should be on identifying a set of related works, and finding which ones are best among them; not on whether it is by 'rating' or whether it is about articles or lists or...

I would love to promote a weekly "content fair" where people submit articles related to a given subject, and they are rated; the collective can note whether some of them should really be flagged as "Good", sent to Cleanup or a suitable WikiProject, or Featured candidates, or sent to Peer review for one reason or the other... and which are just ok, and which quite good. All the articles will benefit from seeing where they fall in comparison with related articles, seen through the eyes of third parties who care about (and perhaps even garden) the subject. The archive of the November 2005 content fair discussion about "Biographies of 18th century Astronomers" would be a useful historical record, as well.

Knowing in advance what topics will be covered, we could target the relevant Wikiprojects as well.

We could start by having fairs focused on a single topic, though eventually large topics can start to hold their own booths at the fair, and the whole could scale quite nicely to hundreds of reviewers focusing on their favorite subfields. What do you think of that? +sj + 19:26, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

That all sounds great. To be honest I'd forgotten all about this idea - thanks for reminding me about it! With some of those suggestions I believe this could be a great project. Perhaps you're right about the name - is there anything else that we can come up with? violet/riga (t) 21:24, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
I quite like Wikipedia:Article assessment. violet/riga (t) 22:59, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
Interesting idea, but since Wikipedia is always changing, how will the ratings be anchored in any particular point? For instance, someone rating an article '7' at the beginning of the week might rate it '9' at the end of the week after changes are made. And am I correct in saying that an article receiving all 10s would be FA-level? --DMurphy 06:51, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
That is a point, and I think it would be great to see such improvement. Hopefully this process will help improve articles, and if all it does is advertise an article then that would be a positive thing. I would think that an article with all 10s should be placed on peer review or FAC as it is going to be pretty damn good. violet/riga (t) 18:49, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Improvement

Would this encourage or discourage article improvement? I mean, how can we reliably vote is some meddling soul keeps improving the article! ;) If an article is improved greatly during the voting period, different votes will refer to different versions of the article. – Quadell (talk) (bounties) 14:54, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

I think it will encourage article improvement. I've considered linking to the diff of the article as it stands as assessment begins, but I think that might discourage people from improving it. Perhaps someone that improves the article midweek could inform those that have assessed the article already, asking if they would kindly reevaluate their opinion. That's fine, and I think it would be a nice way to get some discussion going about what's needed in an article. violet/riga (t) 15:01, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Overload

I think that the current Natural disasters topic seems to have gained a few too many submissions. While its good to have that, I think it is a little overwhelming. We need to ensure that future topics are more restrictive. violet/riga (t) 14:55, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Topic Choice

I think we should establish a list of topics that will be covered well in advance, so that we have time to point out any categories that are too general, too underdeveloped, or too restrictive. That or we should have some sort of voting system similar to COTW or AID. --DMurphy 22:13, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Take a look at Wikipedia:Article assessment/suggestions. violet/riga (t) 22:59, 19 February 2006 (UTC) Oh I see you have. Hopefully that page will turn into a good discussion for the topic choice. violet/riga (t) 23:00, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article assessment rubric?

Have you considered developing a rubric for the article assessment? Awarding points shows some degree of relative merit, but briefly describing what a "5" means would give more insight about how an article can be improved. Rfrisbietalk 18:57, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

That's a good idea, and developing assessment guidance is something I would hope to introduce at some point. I wouldn't like to be as prescriptive as a marking grid, but to give a description for a few of the levels would certainly help ensure consistency. I would encourage people that assess an article to give at least some justification for the marks they give. violet/riga (t) 19:06, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Video game essential articles.

The WikiProject Computer and video games has been collecting and assessing articles it considers to be essential articles. Would we be able to work with this page to assess some of our articles more formally than we have been doing up until now? This page seems like a good idea. jacoplane 22:31, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Someone on the suggestions page has mentioned the idea of a C&VG topic, and I think it would be a very good idea. We could look at one of those areas (such as Series and characters) otherwise it would be open to too many articles, but it is a good idea. Nice work on the assessments that you have done there. violet/riga (t) 22:41, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] prepare for takeoff+

violetriga, glad you came back to this :-) I really like the name, and will help out as I can. Drumming up support for a topic a week until there are regulars monitoring this talk page is probably a good idea before running proper contests. But perhaps in another couple weeks can start that as well... +sj + 06:57, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Coordination with related activities

Thanks for taking the initiative and getting this started, Violet/Riga! I hope that I will be able to participate most weeks. I think this project is an excellent complement to some of the other assessment work going on, and as such I think we should make sure that everything is well coordinated with the work here.

At WP:1.0, we considered that assessment was a prerequisite before we could even consider producing a print/CD/DVD version of Wikipedia (the ultimate goal of WP1.0). We set up four sub-projects ,two of which use this assessment scheme:

  • Core topics has assessed articles on the 160 or so major topics, and is now working through a COTF to improve the weaker ones.
  • Work via WikiProjects has contacted the majority of several hundred WikiProjects, and obtained lists of decent articles such as this one for Arts
  • Wiki Sort is the WP:1.0 project related to the "user rating" scheme planned for Wikipedia.
  • FAs first is reviewing existing FAs (esp. older ones) to check they are "up to snuff" - see their review page.

We hoped that contacting the WikiProjects might stimulate interest in article assessment (by subject experts!), and we have been very pleased to see this beginning to happen. I had seen from the WP:Chem list that assessment often stimulates work on article improvement - if you don't believe me see here! There are now article assessment worklists for these groups that I know of (some pre-date the WP1.0 work):

Perhaps this project can work with WP:1.0 and Good articles to help coordinate and support this great work?

Also, could I propose a selection of near-core topics for this group to assess, probably a selection taken from a list like this one? Cheers, Walkerma 20:39, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

There is certainly some great assessment work going on so far. Perhaps we should look at adopting that assessment scheme, if only to assume that there are equivalents (such as articles achieving a score of 9 or 10 are "A-Class").
Perhaps we should create Wikipedia:Assessment to list all the ongoing assessment projects.
Some of those "must have" articles could be included - it would be easy to choose languages as a topic, for example. Thanks for your inputs. violet/riga (t) 00:17, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to present... hypocracy!

I just discovered this article, and in all honesty my initial impression of it is that what you people do is pick a cluster of articles each week and appraise them. I've no doubt you mean well, but what it comes down to is that you really ought to do some actual work, like the WP:AID or the WP:COTW, instead of going to a page and saying 'you know, you're not doing a very good job.' And that is what the dedicated purpose of this project is, too; I read the summary at the top of the page. Now, I have nothing against constructive criticism - hell, I'm a movie critic, being critical is my job - but Wikipedia allows more. Anybody sufficiently qualified to say 'you're not doing this right' is by definition someone who could do it better. -Litefantastic 00:39, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

This project praises good work and points out areas for improvement. It helps people to see what needs to be done to an article and helps to give wider attention to articles that would otherwise have a very small editor base. I've helped out loads of articles that I would not have even looked at previously. Your criticisms could just as easily be aimed at peer review and at todo boxes.
Any wikiproject that deals with the topic being assessed is welcome to use the information, and I've also considered the idea of a group of editors that go through the articles after the assessment period and fix them up, though that might be more difficult to arrange. violet/riga (t) 00:54, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
I have also improved many articles from stubs to full-length articles, and I often find myself staring at a long article, wondering what to do next. Having an outsider (from this project) spend fifteen minutes providing some fresh, independent insights is IMHO very helpful for editors. I'm a chemist, so I wouldn't presume to make significant edits on the Aurochs article, but I hope my comments on it will guide an expert who can. Walkerma 04:42, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
Alright; you make fair enough points. -Litefantastic 17:37, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Templates

Have any talk page templates been created for this process? I would think that a notification on article talk pages that "this article is currently undergoing assessment" and "this article has an assessment that has been archived" or something similar would help to involve those contributors that have been actively working on the articles being assessed. If none have been made and people agree they are a good idea, I can cook something up easily. Pretty much a copy/paste job from something like Template:oldCVGpeerreview and Template:CVGPeerreview. jacoplane 01:55, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

See {{assessed}}.-gadfium 02:32, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Awareness of this project

Since this project is still new, the main thing it really needs is a lot of new contributors. Take a look at the community portal: notice how prominently the AID and COTW are featured? I would suggest this project really needs to be prominently featured on the community portal to be truly successful. jacoplane 02:08, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Archive of article assessments

When each article assessment is archived, would it be possible to make the date clearer? I found the date of each assessment on a side-box, but can the dates be added to the archive summary as well? Also, not everyone is aware that the assessment comments refer to the article as it was at that date, and not as it appears when reading the assessment (maybe years later). Could a standard blurb be added to the appropriate place for each assessment/archive explaining this? There is the option of linking to the actual version that was being assessed, but the disadvantage of that is that people can accidentally hit edit, miss the warning NOT to edit, and end up saving a very out-of-date version. My preference would be to link both the assessed version and the current version. Carcharoth 08:56, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A Scientific peer review

I have made a suggestion at WikiProject Science and wonder what the users of this page think. --Oldak Quill 17:06, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Scientific peer review

A scientific peer review has been started and we're looking for Wikipedians who are members of the scientific academic community to run for the board. If you want to give it a shot come over and post a little about yourself. New nominations are being accepted until the 00:00 on the 17th March.

The project aims to combine existing peer review mechanisms (Wikipedia peer review, featured article candidate discussion, article assessment, &c.) which focus on compliance to manual of style and referencing policy with a more conventional peer review by members of the scientific academic community. It is hoped that this will raise science-based articles to their highest possible standards. Article quality and factual validity is now Wikipedia's most important goal. Having as many errors as Britannica is not good–we must raise our standards above this. --Oldak Quill 17:58, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Note

I changed my mind and removed AA from the 'COTWs' template (and the COTWs template from AA). No offense to what you do, but all the other topics on there were for editing, not peer review, and I think this was a little out of place there. -Litefantastic 23:50, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Permalinking?

This project is great, as it helps to identify which articles are in need of improvement, but what could be really helpful is if the reviewers added a permalink to the version they're reviewing. For example, the assessment on Hurricane Nora states that the article does not have a single reference, and for someone who stumbles upon that page and compares it with the current version of the article will be confused, to say the least. It also helps identify improvements in articles after the assessment is done, which helps weigh the overall impact of assessing articles to begin with. So, would that be something feasible to do in the future? Titoxd(?!? - help us) 21:10, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

That is a sensible idea, and I'll try and implement it soon - thanks. violet/riga (t) 21:12, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. Titoxd(?!? - help us) 21:17, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Delay

I've put things back one week due to my absence and the lack of assessment on the African countries articles. Hopefully I'll be able to get on at some point and do some of these. violet/riga (t) 21:13, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Perfect... I planned to review a few myself, but my schedule has been very busy lately. I'll review a few right now. -DMurphy 22:45, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
Is this all still up and running? It seems that this project is very dependent on a handful of people, unfortunate really since it is such a good idea! TheGrappler 22:05, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
I've been away for an extended time. I might get it going again, but as you say it depends on the number of people willing to help out. violet/riga (t) 18:48, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What happened?

I've wandered back here after a few months, hoping to find a growing collection of assessments, but find that things have, to say the least, died down a bit. What happened?

I think the idea of permalinking above (which I also suggested somewhere) is a good idea to get people contributing here more. It allows reviewers and later readers to see how something changed before and after the review period. I'm guessing that CotW, FA, GA all have similar "before" and "after" links to show how their processes have contributed to improving articles, and allows reviewers to take some of the credit for pointing out these improvements (while obviously not taking anything away from the editors who did the actual rewrites and improvements). Carcharoth 16:08, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps a bit outside of the scope of the project, but you could also adopt the article assessment scale and give the letter assessment as well as the numerical overall grade? Titoxd(?!? - help us) 07:23, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Determining assessments of works of literature

Maybe this is completely goofy. However, it seems to me that it would make sense to use any existing standards of "importance" in this process. Two ideas which come to mind are the books published by Carroll & Graf listing what the editors found to be the 100 best books in the mystery, fantasy, modern fantasy, science fiction, and horror genres, the various other awards including general literary awards, that a book might have been considered for (like maybe the Booker Prize) and any other similar books ranking various books and/or other works. Queen's Quorum, a list of the most important mystery short-story collections, comes to mind hear, as does the recent BBC Big Read competition. Would it be of any use to include these lists somewhere here? Also, regarding the Carroll & Graf and similar books, would including such a listing be potentially a violation of copyright, even if the titles were only listed in order and no "review" material were included? Badbilltucker 15:24, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Article "importance" in this field is obviously a "hot topic". It implicitly raises the issue of notability and takes it further. Is there a measure of how importance should be used across subject areas, across wikipedia. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 16:08, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
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