FamilySearch Wiki:Article assessmentEdit This Page

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The following system is used to assess the quality and importance of an article on a particular topic.

Quality

The system is based on a letter scheme which reflects principally how factually complete the article is, though the content and language quality are also factors. Once an article reaches the A-Class, it is considered "complete", although edits will continue to be made.

WikiProject article quality grading scheme

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Class	Criteria	Reader's experience	Editing suggestions	Example
FA	The article has attained featured article status. More detailed criteria The article meets the featured article criteria: Featured content Featured articles Featured contributors Featured WikiProjects Featured article process Featured article committee Featured article criteria Featured article candidates Featured article review This box: view • talk • edit To Do: Amend criteria so that it is appropriate for the Research Wiki A Featured article or Help/How To Article exemplifies our very best work and is distinguished by professional standards of writing, presentation, and sourcing. In addition to meeting the policies regarding content for all FamilySearch Wiki articles, it has the following attributes. It is— (a) well-written: its prose is engaging, even brilliant, and of a professional standard; (b) comprehensive: it neglects no major facts or details and places the subject in context; (c) well-researched: it is a thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature. Claims are verifiable against high-quality reliable sources and are supported by inline citations where appropriate; (d) neutral: it presents views fairly and without bias; and (e) stable: it is not subject to ongoing edit wars and its content does not change significantly from day to day, except in response to the featured article process. It follows the style guidelines, including the provision of— (a) a lead: a concise lead section that summarizes the topic and prepares the reader for the detail in the subsequent sections; (b) appropriate structure: a system of hierarchical section headings and a substantial but not overwhelming table of contents; and (c) consistent citations: where required by criterion 1c, consistently formatted inline citations using either footnotes (<ref>Smith 2007, p. 1.</ref>) or Harvard referencing (Smith 2007, p. 1)—see citing sources for suggestions on formatting references; for articles with footnotes, the mw:meta:cite format is recommended. The use of citation templates is not required. The use of citations for Help/How To article is not required. Media. It has images and other media where appropriate, with succinct captions, and acceptable copyright status. Images included follow the images for the Wiki image use policy. Non-free images or media must satisfy the criteria for inclusion of non-free content and be labeled accordingly. Length. It stays focused on the main topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).	Professional, outstanding, and thorough; a definitive source for encyclopedic information.	No further content additions should be necessary unless new information becomes available; further improvements to the prose quality are often possible.	L'incoronazione di Poppea (as of December 2009)
A	The article is well-organized and essentially complete, having been reviewed by impartial reviewers from a WikiProject, like military history, or elsewhere. Good article status is not a requirement for A-Class. More detailed criteria The article meets the A-Class criteria: FamilySearch Wiki:Article assessment/A-Class criteria	Very useful to readers. A fairly complete treatment of the subject. A non-expert in the subject matter would typically find nothing wanting.	Expert knowledge may be needed to tweak the article, and style issues may need addressing. Peer review may help.	102nd Intelligence Wing (as of March 2010)
GA	The article has attained good article status. More detailed criteria The article meets the good article criteria:FamilySearch Wiki:Good article criteria	Useful to nearly all readers, with no obvious problems; approaching (although not equalling) the quality of a professional encyclopedia.	Some editing by subject and style experts is helpful; comparison with an existing featured article on a similar topic may highlight areas where content is weak or missing.	Usain Bolt (as of November 2009)
B	The article is mostly complete and without major issues, but requires some further work to reach good article standards. More detailed criteria The article meets the six B-Class criteria:FamilySearch Wiki:Article assessment/B-Class criteria	Readers are not left wanting, although the content may not be complete enough to satisfy a serious student or researcher.	A few aspects of content and style need to be addressed, and expert knowledge is increasingly needed. The inclusion of supporting materials should also be considered if practical, and the article checked for general compliance with the Manual of Style and related style guidelines.	KV55 (as of November 2009)
C	The article is substantial, but is still missing important content or contains a lot of irrelevant material. The article should have some references to reliable sources, but may still have significant issues or require substantial cleanup. More detailed criteria The article is better developed in style, structure and quality than Start-Class, but fails one or more of the criteria for B-Class. It may have some gaps or missing elements; need editing for clarity, balance or flow; or contain policy violations such as bias or original research. Articles on fictional topics are likely to be marked as C-Class if they are written from an in-universe perspective.	Useful to a casual reader, but would not provide a complete picture for even a moderately detailed study.	Considerable editing is needed to close gaps in content and address cleanup issues.	Architecture of Denmark (as of November 2009)
Start	An article that is developing, but which is quite incomplete and, most notably, lacks adequate reliable sources. More detailed criteria The article has a usable amount of good content but is weak in many areas, usually in referencing. Quality of the prose may be distinctly unencyclopedic, and MoS compliance non-existent; but the article should satisfy fundamental content policies such as notability and BLP, and provide enough sources to establish verifiability. No Start-Class article should be in any danger of being speedily deleted.	Provides some meaningful content, but the majority of readers will need more.	Provision of references to reliable sources should be prioritised; the article will also need substantial improvements in content and organisation.	Real analysis (as of November 2006)
Stub	A very basic description of the topic. More detailed criteria The article is either a very short article or a rough collection of information that will need much work to become a meaningful article. It is usually very short, but if the material is irrelevant or incomprehensible, an article of any length falls into this category.	Provides very little meaningful content; may be little more than a dictionary definition.	Any editing or additional material can be helpful. The provision of meaningful content should be a priority.	Geodia gibberosa (as of July 2009)
FL	The article has attained featured list status. More detailed criteria The article meets the featured list criteria:FamilySearch Wiki:Featured list criteria	Professional standard; it comprehensively covers the defined scope, usually providing a complete set of items, and has annotations that provide useful and appropriate information about those items.	No further content additions should be necessary unless new information becomes available.	Avatar: The Last Airbender (season 3) (as of February 2009)
List	Meets the criteria of a stand-alone list, which is an article that contains primarily a list, usually consisting of links to articles in a particular subject area.	There is no set format for a list, but its organization should be logical and useful to the reader.	Lists should be lists of live links to FamilySearch Wiki articles, appropriately named and organized.	List of aikidoka (as of June 2007)

WikiProject quality assessments

The quality assessments are mainly performed by members of WikiProjects, who tag talk pages of articles.

Importance

There is a separate scale for rating articles for importance or priority, which is unrelated to the quality scale . Unlike the quality scale, the priority scale varies based on the project scope.

The criteria is judged by using both manual assessment by a WikiProject member, and "external interest" judged by links-in, interwiki links and number of hits.

By "priority" or "importance" of topics, we generally mean to indicate the level of expectation or desire that the topic should be covered in the Research Wiki.

WikiProject importance assessments

Within a WikiProject, importance or priority must be regarded as a relative term. If importance values are applied within a specific project, these only reflect the perceived importance to that project. An article judged to be "Top-Importance" in one WikiProject's context may be only "Low-Importance" for another WikiProject.

Consider a hierarchy such as History -> History of Europe -> History of Poland -> Polish kings and queens. An article labeled as "Top-Importance" for the subject of history would almost certainly warrant inclusion in all general releases. A "Top-Importance" article for the history of Poland would be a reasonable candidate for inclusion, but some "Top-Importance" articles on Polish kings & queens may not be included in early releases.

Ranking within a subject area is very helpful in deciding which articles are included first as the scope of the expands.

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