Wikipedia talk:Assessing articles

SVGs

@Aymatth2: Hi Aymatth2,

I would like to ask you to convert the JPG charts at this page into SVG or <graph> charts. If you would give me the raw data I could do this, too.

PS: I have created a pie chart of Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Statistics in 2015. Sadly the Template:AbQ Pie is broken nowadays.

--Kopiersperre (talk) 13:18, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

@Kopiersperre: I cut-and-pasted the numbers from Wikipedia:WikiProject assessment#Statistics into OpenOffice Calc, dropped the list classes, and used the chart tool to make the JPG bar charts. The numbers I used, tab-delimited, are here (view in edit mode).

Top High Mid Low Not assessed Total FA 1194 1846 1735 4775 1096 191 10837 A 227 430 582 1239 369 79 2926 GA 2119 4842 9472 16433 10329 1758 44953 B 12211 23102 35389 70702 28439 13921 183764 C 10459 30412 67972 108843 94717 44055 356458 Start 17346 77027 309457 403830 806494 295947 1910101 Stub 4243 30915 228598 263756 1893310 844877 3265699 Not assessed 139 434 1661 2234 16042 532473 552983 Total 47938 169008 654866 871812 2850796 1733301 6327721

That was stretching my technical skills, and the result is not very good. If you could create clearer SVG charts, please feel free. I think the colors should be the same or close to those in Wikipedia:WikiProject assessment#Grades. Aymatth2 (talk) 14:02, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

Essay tag

Just wanted to apologize to main author here, and wikiproject participants, who agreed this was a good representation of their views. Earlier I downgraded tag from "Guidance essay" to "Essay" since that history was not apparent. I'm glad you corrected me. Great work on this piece! NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:02, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

• No problem. I had no idea there was a formal approval process for using the tag. Category:Wikipedia essays says "Please use more specific templates where appropriate", which is why is was originally tagged as {{guidance essay}} rather than plain {{essay}}. {{Guidance essay}} says it "may contain opinions that are shared by few or no other editors", so it obviously not very official. It was discussed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject assessment#User:Aymatth2/Project quality assessment before being promoted, then discussed a bit more at Template talk:WPBannerMeta#Removing the "importance" parameter, so does reflect some project member views. Obviously there is scope for improvement. Aymatth2 (talk) 13:41, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

"Formal"? Ha ha ha ha.... The whole general area essay-help-infopage area has been pretty laid back and only given sporadic efforts at organization/review/housecleaning. I got interested in housekeeping in this area and that's how I got here. But the expectations for the different tags and namespaces for this material have not been well defined by any means. As I get interested in this, I figured the thing to do was a quick survey of existing uses. When I saw you were esseentially the only ed, I mistakenly concluded this was a 1-ed viewpoint, and my understanding of guidance essays is that they should reflect at least some degree of consenus. Little did I know this one was discussed so well at the project page! Keep it up! NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:02, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

Comment on assessment process

Two or three times I've questioned a reviewer's conclusion that an article of mine was "start" and I've been told the article needed an "info box." Well, I would argue that some articles, especially brief articles, don't need an info box-- and, in fact, there's no stated requirement than an info box is required for an article to be a "C" or higher. Likewise, I've been told that illustrations are needed for an article to be rated higher than "start." If those things are true, it should be explicitly stated.

As a general comment, I think the reviewing process is flawed. I've had articles of similar quality rated "B" or "start' depending on the whim of the reviewer. A better system would be four ratings: Good, reviewed, unreviewed, and stub. "Reviewed" would mean that the material in the article is deemed to meet at least minimum standards for NPOV, verifiability, and accuracy. The reliability of information contained in Wikipedia articles is what is important -- and should be the focus of the review process. Smallchief (talk) 15:23, 25 December 2017 (UTC)

All ratings up to and including B are subjective and require only one assessor, who need not be independent. One person's "Start" may well be another person's "B", but I wouldn't assess anything as B unless it met all six B-class criteria. Higher ratings (GA, A, FA) all require outside scrutiny.

None of the ratings require either an infobox or illustrations. However, B-class criterion 5 states

The article contains supporting materials where appropriate. Illustrations are encouraged, though not required. Diagrams and an infobox etc. should be included where they are relevant and useful to the content.

so a case may be made either for inclusion or for non-inclusion. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 00:05, 26 December 2017 (UTC)

Some comments:

• Infoboxes are neither required nor prohibited for any article by site policies or guidelines. For a given article, editors can discuss and reach consensus on whether an infobox should or should not be included. There have been many arguments about this, always coming back to the same conclusion. See Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Infoboxes for a long discussion.
• Illustrations are nice to have but are not required and may not be available. An article should never depend on them. Wikipedia is particularly important to the blind.
• The quality criteria were agreed years ago, and millions of articles have been rated based on them. We can tweak the wording, but cannot make major changes.
• I disagree with Redrose64 about subjectivity. The criteria for Stub, Start, C and B are explicit. There may be debate about borderline cases, but there is a huge difference between Start and B.
• Some bulk reviewers do not understand the criteria. They fly through a list of new articles, one or two per minute, rating them all Stub or Start depending on length. You can ask them to say on the article talk page what needs improvement, but some will just ignore the request. You can always change the assessment to one you think matches the criteria.

Aymatth2 (talk) 13:26, 26 December 2017 (UTC)

Revert proposal

Recent changes to this article by one or more IPs make this essay meaningless. "The world is a globe" is changed to "Some editors assert that the world is not necessarily flat", which is qualified by "for example, there are hills in certain places". Any objections if I revert to the version before these changes were made? Aymatth2 (talk) 01:47, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

Since there were no objections, I restored the essay to the more meaningful version before these IP edits. As an essay, this page can go beyond simply copy-pasting chunks of the relevant guidelines, and can present opinions that may not be shared by everyone in the community. Any significant changes should first be discussed and gain consensus on this talk page. Aymatth2 (talk) 22:31, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

Feynman example

The Richard Feynman example in the page is terrible. Whereas the history of science covers a large range of times and figures, Feynman's only detriment is being recent in time. He came up with the most intuitive treatment of the phenomena of electrodynamics, which already puts him in the stratosphere for physicists. Furthermore, he invented nanotechnology. The importance of that cannot be overstated. He took on a public role during the Challenger disaster. His persona was so unique and interesting that his biographies are widely celebrated.

A history of science cannot neglect physics or the advancements of the 20th century. Among 20th century physicists, based on contributions to physics, Feynman would be top 10 while even Stephen Hawking would be perhaps in the top 100. What kind of history of science is so willing to disregard recent leaps in thought and technology? Modern computing is possible only because of Feynman's work.

What the example shows, in spite of what its intended purpose was, is that the importance class what drastically understated in the next tier of generalization in a short-sighted, misguided way.

Literally, almost any other example would be superior to this one.2601:182:4381:E60:E5E1:E128:563D:A7BF (talk) 03:26, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

An unimportant physicist

• I am not sure it is a bad example. As stated in the caption, Wikipedia:WikiProject History of Science did indeed rate Feynman mid-importance. That is, presumably, the consensus among project members. A recurring theme in the essay is that raters often ignore the quality and importance definitions. I would say that is the case here.

Headbomb put in the Feynman example. An earlier version of this essay used the image to the right. Alvin C. Graves has been rated low importance by Wikipedia:WikiProject Physics. Would that be a better example?

Shouldn't Article Assessments be published?

Wikipedia should include on published articles the Wikipedia:Content assessment for both transparency and warning. Particularly in the area of Health and Medicine, readers are often looking for actionable infomration and some Articles and Series are rated Class C. For example: In some locals, Restaurants have to post their Public Health Department rating; Products have labels and warnings. Many Wikipedia articles do not achieve neutrality and that is often reflected in the continent assessment.
See for example the conclusions: Accuracy and completeness of drug information in Wikipedia
Bbachrac (talk) 17:19, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

• @Bbachrac: Article assessments are visible on the article talk page in desktop view, but are not very easy to find on phones. Making them visible in the article itself would be a significant change. Usually the assessment is not concerned with accuracy so much as with quality of writing and completeness. And often an article gets a "start" or "C" rating just because it is short, even if it is accurate and complete. Still, if you want to ask for a more feedback, you could start a discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab). Aymatth2 (talk) 14:52, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

Problems with assessments related to inactive WikiProjects

Please see Wikipedia:Village_pump_(miscellaneous)#Improper_handling_of_assessment_for_inactive_WikiProjects _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 06:47, 10 December 2022 (UTC)