Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography/Assessment
Welcome to the assessment department of the Biography WikiProject! This department focuses on assessing the quality of Wikipedia's Biography articles. While much of the work is done in conjunction with the WP:1.0 program, the article ratings are also used within the project itself to aid in recognizing excellent contributions and identifying topics in need of further work.
Category:Biography articles by quality serves as the foundation for an automatically generated worklist. The ratings are done in a distributed fashion through parameters in the {{WPBiography}} project banner. Filling in a rating in the class parameter of the {{WPBiography}} template on the talk page of an article causes the name of that article to be placed in the appropriate sub-categories of Category:Biography articles by quality.
Frequently asked questions
- How can I get my article rated?
- Please list it in the section for assessment requests below.
- Who can assess articles?
- Any member of the Biography WikiProject is free to add—or change—the rating of an article.
- What if I don't agree with a rating?
- You can list it in the section for assessment requests below, and someone will take a look at it. Alternately, you can ask any member of the project to rate the article again.
- Aren't the ratings subjective?
- Yes, they are, but it's the best system we've been able to devise; if you have a better idea, please don't hesitate to let us know!
If you have any other questions not listed here, please feel free to ask them on the discussion page for this department.
Instructions on how to assess a Biography article
An article's assessment is generated from the class parameter in the {{WPBiography}} project banner on the article's talk page. Articles for which a valid class is not provided are listed in Category:Unassessed biography articles. At present, there are over 100,000 biography articles that need assessment (e.g., that need to have a class inserted in the class parameter of the {{WPBiography}} template).
Biography articles to be assessed have some aspects of the {{WPBiography}} template on their talk page, but the template may be incomplete. First, select an article from the list at Category:Unassessed biography articles. Then, look over the article in anticipation of filling out the parameters of the {{WPBiography}} template. Next, replace the {{WPBiography}} template on the article talk page with the following:
{{WPBiography
|living = yes no
|class = B, Start, Stub
|needs-infobox = yes
|activepol = yes <!-- Active politician -->
|a&e-work-group = yes <!-- Arts and Entertainment -->
|politician-work-group = yes <!-- Politics and Government -->
|military-work-group = yes
|sports-work-group = yes <!-- Sports and Games -->
|s&a-work-group = yes <!-- Science and Academia -->
|musician-work-group = yes
|needs-photo = yes
|listas = <!-- enter lastname, firstname for proper alphabeticization -->
}}
The above {{WPBiography}} template has all the answers that you will need for most situations. From your review of the article, delete those answers and parameters that do not fit the article. Then, fill in the listas parameter (e.g., last name, first name), then save. And, you are done!
Class parameter
The following values may be used for the class parameter:
- FA (adds articles to Category:FA-Class biography articles)
- A (adds articles to Category:A-Class biography articles)
- GA (adds articles to Category:GA-Class biography articles)
- B (adds articles to Category:B-Class biography articles)
- Start (adds articles to Category:Start-Class biography articles)
- Stub (adds articles to Category:Stub-Class biography articles)
- NA (for pages, such as templates or disambiguation pages, where assessment is unnecessary; adds pages to Category:Non-article biography pages)
- Dab (a more specific categorization than NA, for use on disambiguation pages)
- Template (a more specific categorization than NA, for use on template pages; see example)
- Cat (a more specific categorization than NA, for use on category pages)
Articles for which a valid class is not provided are listed in Category:Unassessed biography articles. The class should be assigned according to the quality scale below.
Priority parameter
The following values may be used for the priority parameter:
- Top
- High
- Mid
- Low
The parameter is not used if an article's class is set to NA, and may be omitted in those cases. The importance should be assigned according to the priority scale below. Note that the priority is used on the workgroup lists only.
Core parameter
The template also has a core=yes parameter for core articles only, as selected by the Core Biographies team.
Quality scale
| Label | Criteria | Reader's experience | Editor's experience | Example |
 FA{{FA-Class}} |
Template:Chembox style | Reserved exclusively for articles that have received "Featured article" status after peer review, and meet the current criteria for featured articles. | Template:Chembox style | Definitive. Outstanding, thorough article; a great source for encyclopedic information. | Template:Chembox style | No further editing necessary, unless new published information has come to light. | Template:Chembox style | Wayne Gretzky |
 A{{A-Class}} |
Template:Chembox style | Provides a well-written, reasonably clear and complete description of the topic, as described in How to write a great article as much as the existence of reputable sources allow it. 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 the "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. No editors involved in the writing of an article should self-assess their article at this level. Best venue for achieving this class is to request a Peer review | Template:Chembox style | Very useful to readers. A fairly complete treatment of the subject as much as the existence of reputable sources allow it. A non-expert in the subject matter would typically find nothing wanting. May miss a few relevant points. | Template:Chembox style | 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. | Template:Chembox style | Linus Pauling |
 GA{{GA-Class}} |
Template:Chembox style | 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 being a Good article is not a requirement for A-Class. | Template:Chembox style | 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. | Template:Chembox style | 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. | Template:Chembox style | Bob Marley |
| B {{B-Class}} |
Template:Chembox style | 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, NPOV or 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. | Template:Chembox style | 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. | Template:Chembox style | 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. | Template:Chembox style | Alfred Hitchcock, Ales Hemsky, Joshua Toulmin |
| Start {{Start-Class}} |
Template:Chembox style | The article has a meaningful amount of good content, but it is still weak in many areas, and may lack a table. For example an article on Queen Elizabeth might cover her personality well, but be weak on back story. Has at least one serious element of gathered materials, including any one of the following:
NOTE: This is not a negative grade. There are no negative grades in Wikipedia. Having an article on Wikipedia is a passing grade, since it has to pass Notability. This grade is here to alert editors of articles that need some improvement to reach B-class |
Template:Chembox style | Not useless. Some readers will find what they are looking for, but most will not. Most articles in this category have the look of an article "under construction" and a reader genuinely interested in the topic is likely to seek additional information elsewhere. | Template:Chembox style | Substantial/major editing is needed, most material for a complete article needs to be added. This article usually isn't developed enough for a cleanup tag: it still needs to be built. | Template:Chembox style | A. J. Croce, Aaron T. Beck |
| Stub {{Stub-Class}} |
Template:Chembox style | 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.
NOTE: This is not a negative grade. There are no negative grades in Wikipedia. Having an article on Wikipedia is a passing grade, since it has to pass Notability. This grade is here to alert editors of articles that need some improvement to reach Start or B-class |
Template:Chembox style | May be useless to a reader only passingly familiar with the term. Possibly useful to someone who has no idea what the term meant. At best a brief, informed dictionary definition. | Template:Chembox style | Any editing or additional material can be helpful. | Template:Chembox style | Emppu Vuorinen |
| Needed {{Needed-Class}} |
Template:Chembox style | The article does not exist and needs to be created. | Template:Chembox style | | Template:Chembox style | | Template:Chembox style | |
Priority scale
We have decided for the time being to mark priority for only the top 200 biographies. The list is being developed at Wikipedia:Core biographies. NOTE: Work groups may want to use the other ratings to help sort articles by priority but they do not carry any intrinsic value outside of this use.
Priority must be regarded as a relative term. If priority values are applied within this project, these only reflect the perceived importance to this project and to the work groups the biography falls under. An article judged to be "Top-Class" in one context may be only "Mid-Class" in another project. The criteria used for rating article priority are not meant to be an absolute or canonical view of how significant the topic is. Rather, they attempt to gauge the probability of the average reader of Wikipedia needing to look up the topic (and thus the immediate need to have a suitably well-written article on it).
| Label | Criteria | Examples |
| Top | High probability that non-Historians would look this up. Limited to the top 200 biographies. Must have had a large impact outside of their main discipline, across several generations, and in the majority of the world. For instance, Einstein, brilliant physicist, but his theories have affected people outside of physics and in many other countries besides his nation of origin and several generations. His ideas have changed the way people think. No member should give this rating to any biography without first getting Project approval from the other members. | Albert Einstein |
| High | Must have had a large impact in their main discipline, across a couple of generations. Had some impact outside their country of origin. | Patrick Henry |
| Mid | Important in their discipline. | John Seigenthaler, Sr. |
| Low | Subject is notable in their main discipline. | Morena Baccarin |
Requesting an assessment
If you have made significant changes to an article and would like an outside opinion on a new quality rating for it, please feel free to list it below. NOTE: This is only to rate the article on quality - you may or may not get feedback on the article. If you desire a review, use the peer review process. If you assess an article, please strike it off using <s>Strike-through text</s> so that other editors will not waste time going there too. Thanks!
Seeking an A-class rating? We suggest you submit it for a Peer Review to allow us more time to respond and review. Be sure to first read what qualifies as an A rating before doing so though.
Generally, articles submitted here will not be rated above 'B', unless they are already rated as 'GA' by Wikipedia:Good articles/Candidates.
Please add new requests to the bottom of the list.
Samuel K. Zook --Wizardman 13:37, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
Statistics
Current status
| Biography articles by quality and importance | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Quality | Importance | ||||||
| Core | Other | ??? | Total | ||||
| FA
|
34 | 1,592 | 1,626 | ||||
| FL
|
192 | 192 | |||||
| A
|
1 | 104 | 105 | ||||
| GA
|
41 | 8,083 | 8,124 | ||||
| B | 92 | 37,308 | 37,400 | ||||
| C | 37 | 159,780 | 159,817 | ||||
| Start | 3 | 736,025 | 736,028 | ||||
| Stub | 1 | 1,031,591 | 1 | 1,031,593 | |||
| List | 7,483 | 7,483 | |||||
| Category | 2 | 210,322 | 210,324 | ||||
| Disambig | 8,072 | 8,072 | |||||
| File | 29,522 | 29,522 | |||||
| Project | 1 | 197 | 198 | ||||
| Redirect | 3 | 42,015 | 42,018 | ||||
| Template | 12,678 | 12,678 | |||||
| NA | 238 | 238 | |||||
| Assessed | 215 | 2,285,202 | 1 | 2,285,418 | |||
| Unassessed | 32,552 | 32,552 | |||||
| Total | 215 | 2,317,754 | 1 | 2,317,970 | |||
| WikiWork factors (?) | ω = 10,638,226 | Ω = 5.39 | |||||
Historical counts
| July 2006 | August 2006 | October 2006 | November 2006 | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FA
|
34 | 3.80 % | 106 | 0.08 % | 185 | 0.11 % | 193 | 0.11 % | 212 | 0.11 % | ||
| A
|
9 | 1.01 % | 57 | 0.04 % | 77 | 0.05 % | 95 | 0.05 % | 95 | 0.05 % | ||
| GA
|
34 | 3.80 % | 137 | 0.10 % | 195 | 0.12 % | 195 | 0.11 % | 243 | 0.13 % | ||
| B | 220 | 24.61 % | 1,383 | 1.05 % | 1,967 | 1.21 % | 2,360 | 1.32 % | 2,682 | 1.44 % | ||
| Start | 104 | 11.63 % | 4,107 | 3.13 % | 5,634 | 3.47 % | 6,621 | 3.71 % | 7,980 | 4.30 % | ||
| Stub | 67 | 7.49 % | 3,515 | 2.68 % | 27,816 | 17.12 % | 41,572 | 23.27 % | 43,715 | 23.59 % | ||
| Unassessed | 426 | 47.65 % | 121,800 | 92.90 % | 126,581 | 77.92 % | 127,644 | 71.44 % | 130,325 | 70.35 % | ||
| Total | 894 | 131,105 | 162,455 | 178,680 | 185,252 | |||||||
| December 2006 | January 2007 | February 2007 | ||||||||||
| FA
|
222 | 0.11 % | 238 | 0.11 % | 248 | 0.12 % | ||||||
| A
|
104 | 0.05 % | 105 | 0.05 % | 111 | 0.05 % | ||||||
| GA
|
266 | 0.14 % | 297 | 0.14 % | 344 | 0.16 % | ||||||
| B | 3,060 | 1.58 % | 3,583 | 1.79 % | 4,553 | 2.15 % | ||||||
| Start | 9,617 | 4.98 % | 12,049 | 6.02 % | 16,774 | 7.92 % | ||||||
| Stub | 46,635 | 24.15 % | 49,852 | 24.91 % | 62,198 | 29.36 % | ||||||
| Unassessed | 133,177 | 68.98 % | 133,957 | 66.95 % | 127,639 | 60.25 % | ||||||
| Total | 193,081 | 200,081 | 211,867 | |||||||||
Monthly changes
| August 2006 | September 2006 | October 2006 | November 2006 | December 2006 | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FA
|
+72 | +211.76 % | +79 | +74.53 % | +8 | +4.32 % | +19 | +9.84 % | +10 | +4.72 % | ||
| A
|
+48 | +533.33 % | +20 | +35.09 % | +18 | +23.38 % | +0 | +0.00 % | +9 | +9.47 % | ||
| GA
|
+103 | +302.94 % | +58 | +42.34 % | +0 | +0.00 % | +48 | +24.62 % | +23 | +9.47 % | ||
| B | +1,163 | +528.64 % | +584 | +42.23 % | +393 | +19.98 % | +322 | +13.64 % | +378 | +14.09 % | ||
| Start | +4,003 | +3,849.04 % | +1,527 | +37.18 % | +987 | +17.52 % | +1,359 | +20.53 % | +1,637 | +20.51 % | ||
| Stub | +3,448 | +5,146.27 % | +24,301 | +691.35 % | +13,756 | +49.45 % | +2,143 | +5.15 % | +2,920 | +6.68 % | ||
| Unassessed | +121,374 | +28,491.55 % | +4,781 | +3.93 % | +1,063 | +0.84 % | +2,681 | +2.10 % | +2,852 | +2.19 % | ||
| Total | +130,211 | +14,564.99 % | +31,350 | +23.91 % | +16,225 | +9.99 % | +6,572 | +3.68 % | +7,829 | +4.23 % | ||
| January 2007 | February 2007 | |||||||||||
| FA
|
+16 | +6.72 % | +10 | +4.20 % | ||||||||
| A
|
+1 | +0.96 % | +6 | +5.71 % | ||||||||
| GA
|
+31 | +11.65 % | +47 | +15.83 % | ||||||||
| B | +523 | +17.09 % | +970 | +27.07 % | ||||||||
| Start | +2,432 | +25.29 % | +4,725 | +39.22 % | ||||||||
| Stub | +3,217 | +6.90 % | +12,346 | +24.77 % | ||||||||
| Unassessed | +780 | +0.58 % | -6,318 | -4.72 % | ||||||||
| Total | +7,000 | +3.63 % | +11,786 | +5.89 % | ||||||||
Assessment log
- The logs in this section are generated automatically (on a daily basis); please don't add entries to them by hand.
Unexpected changes, such as downgrading an article, or raising it more than two assessment classes at once, are shown in bold.
Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Biography articles by quality log
Worklist
- The logs in this section are generated automatically (on a daily basis); please don't add entries to them by hand.
 | This page is currently inactive and is retained for historical reference. Either the page is no longer relevant or consensus on its purpose has become unclear. To revive discussion, seek broader input via a forum such as the village pump. |
This page was once used by the Version 1.0 Editorial Team. It is preserved because of the information in its edit history. This page should not be edited or deleted. Wikiproject article lists can be generated using the WP 1.0 web tool.