Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Comics/Assessment

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NA This article has been rated as NA-Class on the quality scale. Please explain the rating here.
NA This article has been rated as NA-importance on the importance scale.

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[edit] Article Classification

Thanks to Hiding for creating this! I was wondering why the comics project hadn't started with the assesments yet! - Mike | Trick or Treat 23:59, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I thought to get you started by adding a few articles (done now), but I notice that that was hardly necessary as there are already about 500 articles for the letter A alone waiting for assessment... Good luck! I may join this later, but I have a few other tasks still waiting. But it's a good initiative!Fram 21:02, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Importance

While the class can be assessed reasonably objective, importance is of course a highly subjective topic. What I feel is rather important is how many articles, approximately, do we think can (or should) be labeled "top" and "high". Can we have only 10 top articles, 50, or 500?

I see this importance assessment as resulting in a triangle shape, with a narrow top and a potentially very large bottom (but many of those low importance aricles will not have been created yet and may never be). Most of the existing articles should either be mid importance or low. Some agreement on this principle, and on very rough numbers for the two top categories, may be useful for people wanting to assess articles.

Take e.g. Peyo. I have now assessed this as high importance, since he is quite important for having created the Smurfs, but then again not one of the few sublime, hugely infuential artists. Of course, if we would have a very broad "top" class of 500 articles, I would change this immediately to "top", since he is after all one of the most popular artists. On the other hand, if we would have only 10 "top" articles and 50 "high" articles worldwide, then Peyo may be a good candidate to be dropped to mid importance. Similarly: Calvin and Hobbes are extremely popular and important as a series, and Watterson as an artist as well. But are the individual characters Calvin and Hobbes truly of high importance? It's debatable, but I don't want to demote them without a prior discussion of what we want and what the consensus of the (for the moment) few contributors is.

Some suggestions:

  • Top articles: not more than 50, including a few general articles (comics and so on), a few editors (Marvel, DC), artists (Hergé, Schulz, Eisner, Crumb), and series (Superman, Tintin, Peanuts). Debatable (well, everything, but especially): do we prefer articles on Artists (Hergé, Schulz) or series (Tintin, Snoopy)?
  • High importance: not more than 500, including all other general articles (comics by country, speech balloon, adult comics), major editors (Dupuis, Casterman, Fatagraphics, ...), magazines (Spirou, Tintin, Pilote, Raw, ...) artists, series, characters, conventions (Comic-con, Angoulême) and awards (PRix Saint-Michel, Eisner Awards, ...).
  • Middle importance: everything else that is better known than with experts alone: artists with multiple (more than 5?) comics by major publishers, long running series (more than 5 years/ 5 albums / 20 issues?), major characters from very important comics, winners of awards (authors and series), ... This also includes individual comics from truly major series (Tintin, Asterix) if they have received enough criticial attention, major graphic novels, and other remarkable things not included in the high importance.
  • Low importance: individual comics from a series (e.g. the articles for every individual Yoko Tsuno comic), minor artists (only a few publications, many publications but in minor magazines, e.g. Bird Studio), short-lived series from minor publishers, articles about most characters (Snoopy's siblings), settings (São Rico), and other aspects of individual comics and series), ...

My intention would of course not be to stick rigorously to those numbers of 50 and 500, but when you notice that we have 80 or 100 top articles, start a discussion to see if we can demote half to high importance, or must accept that the arbitrary number of 50 was too low.

Discussion please! Fram 15:09, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

  • Well, I very much echo your thoughts on this, and it's what I've had in mind whilst rating. I tend to rate as Top what I would expect to see covered in Encyclopedia Brittanica, I rate as high what I would expect comics scholars to work on, I rate as mid what I would expect independent comics encyclopedia to cover and I rate as low what only fan or company sourced material would cover. Hiding Talk 20:37, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Top importance should definitely be used very sparingly. I took it upon myself to increase the rating on Batman because he's just as iconic as Superman and Spider-Man, completely recognizable to people who know nothing of comics and essential to the medium's developement. However, looking at the category again today I saw stuff like the Avengers and the Hulk listed, which while very important to comics, probably don't belong in that rarified strata that Comics, Marvel Comics, Superman, and Peanuts (comics) belong to, as well as mean little to the layperson. I think the "would this be an article in your standard print encyclopedia?" guideline is a good rule of thumb. WesleyDodds

[edit] Top importance

Just so that people are aware... we're now up to 46 'Top importance' articles, many of which I don't think deserve that classification. These include 52 (comic book), Asgard (comics), Brotherhood of Mutants etc. Might need a review/cull before this gets out of hand, and to see how many editors are rating these as top? --Mrph 11:29, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

It looks like a good chunk (18) were rated in the last 24 hours. And it looks like the editor(s) involved may only be looking at importance to a particular company instead of the project as a whole. The same seems to be holding true for "High" as well.
I'm going to take a look and possibly knock a few down. — J Greb 13:56, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] A and GA rating

i have been seeing that A articles (such as Iron Man and the X-men) have lost or never had there Good Article status. I was just wondering shouldn't we change it around so it goes A the GA the FA, or should we request that all the A articles we have go up for GA status.Phoenix741 15:12, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

I've noticed that too. I think we'd need to keep the current rating system - my understanding is that it's common to a number of different Wikipedia projects, not just WP:CMC. Might be worth putting them for GA, though, if the numbers aren't excessive? If they pass, hurrah. If not, we've got a solid justification for knocking them down to B (and hopefully some guidelines for improving them, too). How many articles would we be looking at, though? --Mrph 16:26, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

All of them(18), i think i counted 3 as being former canidates but the rest have no mention of being a good article.Phoenix741 16:32, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

That's not really workable, then - there's already a backlog at WP:GAN and some of these don't look like they're suitable as Good Articles anyway (Thunderbolts (comics), for example, is being rewritten due to the change of cast/creators/direction in this week's issue - really not stable enough to qualify under the criteria...). I'd suggest we provisionally regrade anything that isn't clearly GA or former GA to a B article. We can review from there, if need be. A bit harsh, but perhaps not unfair...? --Mrph 16:55, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
Well i will do that now, but the ones that were former GA, were just candidates and failed the criteria, so we might as well just bump them all down to B, which i will do now.Phoenix741 16:58, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
Comment amended in light of replies below - as noted, I still don't think the majority of these are really 'A', but the A-class criteria should be the guide here, not GA status or lack thereof. --Mrph 17:36, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

A-class does not depend on GA. That's a common error. Wiki-newbie 17:15, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

well then it should be switched around on the chart, on the main page.Phoenix741 17:19, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
I'd forgotten that - sorry, and thanks for the reminder. Having said that, I really don't think most of those articles are GA- or A- class. I've commented on Thunderbolts above (and there are other issues with that one, too, which aren't related to GA requirements) - some of the bio articles are also rated as B for that project, but A for WP:CMC. While I suppose that's possible, it doesn't seem right/useful. --Mrph 17:21, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Despite having not been nominated for GA, A-class is a general rating that certainly puts an article higher than B. It's all or nothing. Wiki-newbie 17:23, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

then would anyone mind if i fixed up the chart so it goes from B to A the GA then to FA? to prevent confusion.Phoenix741 17:24, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, but there's another issue then: A is a double edged sword for the cream of the GA crop, and then articles better than B. Go to the larger spectrum of Wikipedia then: where I do not know. Wiki-newbie 17:26, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

  • Yes, if I remember right, GA was introduced after the FA A B Start Stub had been decided and implemented. I only use GA on articles which have GA status, and I don't base my B or A rating on the lack of GA but on the article itself. This is discussed in depth at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Council#A_or_GA, where the order of the chart is ultimately decided. I would reckon that as we rate and re-rate we will get the hang of what should be rated at which level. Hiding Talk 17:27, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Additional "Classes"

Something I noticed on the Film Project, 3 additional classes that may be worthwhile to include with this project:

  • Category (class=Cat)
  • Template (class=Template)
  • List (class=List)

Thanks for listening...— J Greb 01:14, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I'll have a look and a fiddle next week. Ta. Now Superman has finlsihed its FARC I should be able to get back here. Hiding Talk 18:43, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
Done. Might be a few issues I've missed, but the extra classes are hopefully explained on the front page. Hiding Talk 23:01, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Example 'A'

Our example 'A' article, comics, has since been regraded to B. Any suggestions for the best choice to replace it? I'm tempted to suggest Iron Man or possibly Galactus, as they seem to be the least volatile options at the moment. --Mrph 00:25, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Iron Man would be good. I'd be loathe to use Galactus as there is still some conflict over what shape it will take. I'd also recommend John Buscema. --GentlemanGhost 16:46, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
I would prefer John Buscema - I think it's important to have non-fictional articles on this list to stress that we are not a fandom project. Phil Sandifer 12:51, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Assessment scale issues

I'm a bit concerned that our assessment scale is slanted too heavily in favor of superheroes and a presentist view. Though there are problems all the way down (including a few dozen really questionable articles in the "high" importance scale), my biggest concern is with the "top" importance scale, which currently asserts that Jean Grey and the Silver Surfer are more important than Krazy Kat, Winsor McCay, Maus, and Lil Abner. Someone (and I'm happy to do it if nobody else wants to, but I don't wanna get yelled at for it) needs very badly to go through at least top and high importance with an eye towards downgrading and upgrading things. Phil Sandifer 12:51, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I changed Jean Grey and Betty Cooper from top to high, and House of M, Krypton (comics) and List of dead comic book characters from top to mid. There were a load of others I wanted to downgrade as well, but these seemed the most obvious (it is e.g. harder to judge for me if Bill Everett is Top, high or even mid importance, although I doubt that he is top, contrary to e.g. Jack Kirby or Jean Giraud). Fram 13:17, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
Bill Everett is probably mid-importance, with Namor being high. Phil Sandifer 13:19, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I am assessing and reassessing a lot of articles, and have again changed a few from Top to High. Since these may be controversial, I'll list them here for your input: Bill Everett, Marvel Mystery Comics, Funnies Inc., Comic book collecting, and (a while ago) Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson. I have added Little Nemo to the Top class.

I have also reassessed a lot of articles from High to Mid, but only the (to me) obvious cases. There are many articles there that I would judge as Mid, but as I am not familiar enough with superhero comics, I have left them alone in case of doubt. I have the feeling that many people think that if an article is of high importance in the context of e.g. X-Men, Superman, Batman, ..., it is automatically of High Importance for comics in general. Are e.g. the Daily Bugle and the Daily Planet of high importance? They are recurring, important settings, but to give them the same importance as Alan Moore, Bringing Up Father, or Judge Dredd, seems bizarre. Of course, we have only four categories... We now have 307 High importance articles, so perhaps we don't have to be too critical of those yet. Fram 08:24, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

  • I've been tinkering with adding a minor importance class, below low, so that it sort of gives us room for this kind of divide. For me The Bugle and the Planet are of low importance, but again, I'm not a superhero fan, they're sort of subsidiary to what's important to the average encyclopedia reader, what I mean is anything you need to know about the Bugle or the Planet you can read in the Superman or Spider-Man articles. Hiding Talk 13:03, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
    • Good ideas and comments. I was just tinking, we have 10,000 plus comics articles, so only the top 1 percent goes into Top importance (currently even less than that), the top 5 percent goes into High (would be 500 articles), and that leaves only two levels for the other 94 percent. Adding a fifth level would make the assessing for me at least easier... As for Top articles, I just added Rodolphe Töpffer, which was unassessed. Fram 13:27, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Another "Class" to add...

Just ran across this one: "Featured List" class - which List of Smallville episodes has been promoted to.

We might want to add the class to our listings so it doesn't continue to read as "Unassessed".

- J Greb 00:25, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Marvel articles for assessment

I've started a running list of Marvel articles which are unassessed, starting with the ones IMHO are most notable. BOZ 22:55, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

I've added quite a few since in the last month - check it out. :) BOZ 16:38, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Some help please

Hello. I'm a bit inexperienced, and would appreciate some help. Excuse me if the question is stupid. The Sinfest article has seen a fair bit of work recently, with quite a bit of content, many references and new pics added. The article is still rated as "start" class. What I want to ask is: Can any editor upgrade the quality rating of the article, as long as the checklist is completed? Or is an outside opinion necessary for all changes in an article's quality scale? Thank you. vineetcoolguy (talk) 07:30, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

AS far as I am concerned, any editor can rate individually up to B class. GA and FA are "official" indications (or at least out of the hands of this project, let alone an individual editor), and A class should probably get some discussion and independent opinion. Fram (talk) 08:56, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
Thank you. vineetcoolguy (talk) 12:04, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Rejig

I'm working on rejigging the assessment structure. We've discussed a tier of importance between Low, and looking at WP:CRICKET, I am slowly integrating Bottom-importance. I'm also going to remove Needed, Current and Image class, since these are largely unused, and deprecate Future, since that removes articles from the grading structure and the effects it achieves can be better got through temnplates. Hiding T 13:59, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

  • Okay, this has been implemented. Hiding T 22:35, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Categories

I have now added all (well, nearly all, I'm bound to have forgotten some) categories to the project, increasing the number from about 500 to slightly over 1500. May be useful for automated or manual searches of comics-related articles (e.g. articles which are not tagged as being part of the comics propject, while being in a category that is part of our project). I'm mentioning it here because these are not shown in the log or in the table with number of articles. Fram (talk) 08:48, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, no longer slightly over 1,500 but up to 1,850 by adding all meta-pages (project pages, assessment pages, tags, ...). We now have 16,887 pages at Category:WikiProject Comics articles, with 14,106 of those "true" articles and the rest (2781 pages) categories, templates, ... Fram (talk) 12:26, 11 June 2008 (UTC)