Wikipedia:WikiProject Mesoamerica/Assessment
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[edit] Article rating and assessment scheme
| Current detailed listing of Mesoamerica articles by quality | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Daily log of status changes | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Current Statistics | Rated article Categories | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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An article rating and assessment scheme has been implemented for Mesoamerica-related articles, which is monitored and maintained by WikiProject Mesoamerica. In this scheme, all Mesoamerica-related articles ('article' here also includes lists) may be assigned:
- a particular rating which indicates an assessment of their class (overall quality), and
- a particular rating which indicates an assessment of their importance (priority or relative significance).
The primary purpose of this rating and assessment scheme is to provide editors with a sub-categorised survey of the current status of Mesoamerican articles, which can then be used to prioritise the overall workload and highlight articles needing improvements at various stages.
For example, higher-priority articles (those most essential to any encyclopaedia) in need of most work (ie lower quality) can be readily identified for attention and collaboration.
There will be a number of secondary benefits from the scheme, such as being able to track which kinds and topics of articles are 'neglected'.
This assessment and rating scheme follows the precepts adopted by the Version 1.0 Editorial Team, see Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment and Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Work via Wikiprojects for details.
A subset of Mesoamerican articles relevant to the work of the descendant WikiProject WikiProject Aztec has been separated out into subcategories of this overall rating scheme, so that it is easier for the WP:AZTEC project to identify the rated articles and topics relevant to their worklist. These articles (identified by the use of the WP:AZTEC project banner {{WP Aztec}} instead of {{WP Mesoamerica}} ) appear in their own set of by quality and by importance categories, however they are also included in the Mesoamerica-level categories, listings and statistics as well, by reason of overlap and for completeness. See the WP:AZTEC assessment subpage for details and the Aztec-specific listings.
The class and importance ratings are recorded by setting appropriate values to the parameters of the main WP:MESO Project banner, {{WP Mesoamerica}} (or alternatively the WP:AZTEC subproject banner, {{WP Aztec}} ), which are placed on the corresponding talk pages of in-scope Mesoamerican articles. See the template instructions for details on these and other parameters which can be set.
See the Quality scale for guideline criteria for rating an article by class/quality. See the Importance scale for guideline criteria for rating an article by importance/priority.
The assessments of class and importance are assigned manually by WP:MESO project members (or other interested parties)– see the Rating instructions for details. Assigning a rating will automatically place the article in an appropriate rating category.
Once assigned, behind the scenes a bot (Mathbot (talk • contribs)) runs periodically (scheduled daily, about 0300hrs UTC) which compiles a variety of statistics and log data, which can then later be analysed.
It is expected that this rating and assessment scheme will require periodic and iterative maintenance, as new articles are created or identified, and existing articles are progressively improved (or, hopefully much rarer, demoted), requiring the status to be reassessed (indicated by changing the parameter value).
Of course, anyone is free to edit any of the articles they choose without regard to priority, however it is hoped that this will provide some basis for a more methodical approach to the longer-term overall improvement of content and coverage in the Mesoamerican field.
[edit] Instructions
An article's assessment is recorded via the use of certain parameters of the {{WP Mesoamerica}} and/or {{WP Aztec}} project banners, which are affixed to the talk pages of in-scope articles. Note that there are some other (optional) parameters to the project banners as well, see template talk:WP Mesoamerica for full description.
The two parameters used for this exercise are class (indicates an assessment of the article's current overall quality) and importance (indicates an assessment of the relative priority or significance of the particular article to general knowledge of Mesoamerican topics). Usage summary (note the parameters are in lowercase):
- {{WP Mesoamerica |class=??? |importance=??? }}
These parameters flag the article according to the values chosen (which then appear on the project banner), and also assign the article to a corresponding category. The possible values of these parameters and guidance criteria on which value to choose are detailed below: see Importance scale for the importance parameter and Quality scale for the class parameter.
The general workflow is as follows:
- Locate an in-scope Mesoamerica-related article (or list), add the {{WP Mesoamerica}} project banner to its talk page if not already there. (Note this also applies to new articles you may create, ie you can add the banner and the rating as you go).
- For articles in the specific scope of WP:AZTEC, you can use the {{WP Aztec}} banner instead, its class and importance parameters function in the same way and they will categorise into both Aztec and Mesoamerica-level categories.
- If currently unassessed (or when adding the project banner anew), determine what its class and importance assessment rating should be, using your judgement and the criteria given here. Try to be as frank as possible in the assessment, the aim here is to appropriately identify articles needing later improvement and there's nothing to be gained by "over-ranking" them.
- Add the selected parameter values to the project banner template call, per the specified syntax. Once previewed/saved, you should see the values updated in the banner and the appropriate categories assigned.
- If in doubt as to the appropriate class or importance level, you can either leave the value unassigned for now (ie omit the parameters), and/or consult with another project member to decide.
- If the article already has a rating, but you disagree or the article has subsequently been edited by you or someone else so that its overall quality has changed (hopefully for the better!), then you can update the parameter yourself to reflect its new status.
- Since we may (naturally enough) not be the most objective assessors of one's own work, it might be an idea in these or other unclear cases to invite another party to give the assessment. This can be done by adding the parameter/value combination |reassess=yes to the project banner, which will automatically assign the article in question to Category:Mesoamerica articles needing reassessment. You can also request reassessments/second opinions at the main discussion forum.
- On an ongoing basis, you can patrol the various x-class categories for improvement opportunities, and also the unassessed cats for new assessments.
[edit] Importance scale
The following values may be used for the importance parameter (they should be entered exactly as given):
| Value | Meaning | Examples | Category |
|---|---|---|---|
| Top | "Key" articles, considered indispensable to any survey of Mesoamerica, such as: top-level articles on regions, cultures and the largest/most-influential sites, and pan-regional articles on critical topics eg History. | Mesoamerica Maya civilization Aztec Tikal |
Top-importance Mesoamerica articles |
| High | High-priority topics and needed subtopics of "key" articles, often with a broad scope; needed to complement any general understanding of the field | Maya calendar Olmec mythology Uxmal |
High-importance Mesoamerica articles |
| Mid | Mid-priority articles on more specialised (sub-)topics; possibly more detailed coverage of topics summarised in "key" articles, and as such their omission would not significantly impair general understanding | Tzeltal language Tzompantli Tonina |
Mid-importance Mesoamerica articles |
| Low | While still notable, these are highly-specialised or even obscure, not essential for understanding the wider picture ("nice to have" articles) | K'an Joy Chitam I Lintel 24, Yaxchilan Thomas Gann San Gervasio (Maya site) |
Low-importance Mesoamerica articles |
The importance parameter is not used if an article's class is set to NA, and may be omitted in those cases. If the importance parameter is not yet set, or contains an invalid value, the article will be assigned to Category:Unassigned-importance Mesoamerica articles.
[edit] Quality scale
Each article may also be assigned to a particular class, intended as a point-in-time assessment of its overall "quality" - relative to the criteria given in the quality scale which is detailed below.
This quality scale follows the definitions employed at the Version 1.0 Editorial Team's assessment system.
The following values may be used for the class parameter (they should be entered exactly as given):
| Value | Meaning | Category |
|---|---|---|
| FA | Articles which are currently Featured status articles | FA-Class Mesoamerica articles |
| A | A-class articles; | A-Class Mesoamerica articles |
| GA | Articles with a current Good article status | GA-Class Mesoamerica articles |
| B | B-class articles; | B-Class Mesoamerica articles |
| Start | Start-class articles; | Start-Class Mesoamerica articles |
| Stub | Stub-class articles; | Stub-Class Mesoamerica articles |
| NA | Not applicable; ie for miscellaneous pages such as disambiguation pages, which do not require an assessment | Non-article Mesoamerica pages |
Articles for which a valid class has not yet been provided are listed by default in Category:Unassessed Mesoamerica articles.
[edit] Detailed criteria by class
These are the detailed criteria per class/quality division, following the assessment scheme used by the Wikipedia V1.0 Editorial team.
| Label | Criteria | Reader's experience | Editor's experience | Example |
 FA{{FA-Class}} |
Reserved exclusively for articles that have received "Featured article" status, 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. | Supernova (as of February 2007) |
| 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 March 2007) |
 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. | International Space Station (as of February 2007) |
| 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. 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) |
