Wikipedia talk:Content assessment

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Lady Aleena (talk | contribs) at 08:05, 4 August 2008 (→‎New color scheme proposal for quality and importance scales: r). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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  1. 2006
  2. 2007
  3. 2008A, 2008B

WikiProject responses

This section is for WikiProjects to post their queries regarding the changes, in response to our postings on their discussion pages. Please do not change the header once the postings begin, as this section is directly linked from the message. Walkerma (talk) 18:44, 4 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • This is a minor question about referencing. Is the occasional {{fact}} tag, such as on Utah State Route 13, enough to drop it down to C? The only missing source is a map from about 1940 that will show US-191 on SR-13. (There are several unreliable sources that report this, so it should be correct.) If the answer is yes, I can see arguments starting by someone tagging a statement and dropping the assessment to C. --NE2 05:53, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    I would say no, as referencing is something that comes to 'perfection' at the B/GA divide. I would say that the article is borderline with respect to B2 (breadth and depth of content), but hey, it's a road, what can you say? :D. Happy‑melon 09:08, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Plus, reassessing the article just because someone added a {{cn}} is pretty cheeky.--Father Goose (talk) 09:12, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    This is a good point that we should clarify in the wording. I agree, it should stay at B-Class. I'll ask around to get others' views. Are there any ideas on how to word this? Thanks for raising this. Walkerma (talk) 17:32, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks for your work here; I've really felt the need for something between Start and B-class in working on WikiProject Textile Arts. - PKM (talk) 17:31, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • The Military History WikiProject has officially decided not to adopt C-Class per this discussion. -MBK004 18:23, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • The VG project is still undecided. See this discusion for more info. Gears of War Go 'Skins! 18:58, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Actually, if you read that discussion, it was a no-consensus to opt-out. The C-Class has already been implemented, we just need to update our assessment scale. JohnnyMrNinja 08:03, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • WikiProject Ohio has accepted C-Class and has already assessed over 50 articles as such. §hep • ¡Talk to me! 19:14, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • WikiProject Furry has implemented class C. I'm personally in support of this change - there's a need for a slot for articles which are beyond "Start" , but which aren't developed to the standards necessary to B-class - which is, after all, meant to be just a short step away from being a Good article. We have several long articles that have interesting information but which would be a long way from being considered "good". GreenReaper (talk)
  • WikiProject Seinfeld is still undecided. Right now, there's hardly any activities on the article. I just need a message about the new concept and with Joelster already retired, I'm already at a loss. Gprince007 is someone to talk to because he knows more than me about editing. Anyway since someone brought it up, I'll wait for the result in at least until the olympic starts. So I could use a bit more info about it on my talk page. It will be helpful in the near future. Johnnyauau2000 (talk) 04:15, 6 July 2008 (UTC) It's been decided that me and Gprince007 disagree with the notion of the new system. We're trying to bring our project further up the level and that trend doesn't help at this time. I recommending double-checking the difference between the two systems. Johnnyauau2000 (talk) 12:05, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • WikiProject India Assessment Dept. will not be implementing any changes this year. It will however consider changes for next year - Ncmvocalist (talk) 20:11, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Update:WP:VG has decided to except the new class. Gears of War Go 'Skins! 22:40, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • WP:Energy is accepting and implementing new assessment scheme. Please help to update the Template:WikiProject Energy—right now it doesn't include C-class feature.Beagel (talk) 17:57, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • The WikiProject Pinball has accepted the new class. Unfortunately we jumped the gun, and I tried to implement its inclusion I think before the bot was ready. There are a few articles rated C-Class (such as Indiana Jones: The Pinball Adventure), but the bot doesn't seem to be picking them up so far. If someone who knows better what they're doing can jump in here and fix or tell me what I did wrong I'd greatly appreciate it. Thanks, Fractalchez (talk) 21:55, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The banner had to be adjusted to include material for the new class. I've adjusted the banner and it should work now. John Carter (talk) 22:00, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Wow, thank you for your fast help! Fractalchez (talk) 22:05, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm against it

as a member of "Wiki project --US supreme court cases," I oppose this new system. It is mere "instruction creep" and unnecessary bureaucracy. In our Wiki project we only have a handful of articles anyway, why add extra assessment categories? JeanLatore (talk) 16:48, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If it's not useful to you, ignore it.--Father Goose (talk) 06:25, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Umm... Which thread are you responding to? Is this about category names or C-Class? JohnnyMrNinja 06:33, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've moved this section to where it makes more sense, and where it appears to have been initially intended. JohnnyMrNinja 04:53, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

WikiProject Spaceflight (and WikiProject Space Exploration) - request for help

On behalf of WikiProject Spaceflight (into which WikiProject Space Exploration has been merged) I would like to request help modifying Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Space exploration articles by quality statistics which is transcluded (template-like) onto project pages. Is there some way the table there can be modified so that it shows C-class articles? Thanks! (sdsds - talk) 20:49, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It should show C-Class right now. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 05:31, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Cool -- thanks! (sdsds - talk) 05:34, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Assessment category names

Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2008 June 24#Category:WikiProject Video games XXX pages - This 12-day old CfD is for non-article assessment categories which I created using logical naming, following in the pattern of Category:WikiProject Video games articles. As they weren't articles, I thought Category:WikiProject Video games images made a lot more sense than Category:Image-Class video game articles (this format didn't even occur to me at the time). It was then suggested that they be renamed to fit with other projects. I conceded, as my intention the whole time was to make things as easy-to-use as possible. Now, even though I am the creator of the categories, and I was one of the few who got these classes added to our project template, I cannot get anyone to close this CfD because the old names are more logical. My post to WP:AN just got another vote to oppose. I do not care what they are named at this point, I would just like it closed so I can progress with updating our template. So I guess my points are this -

  1. Why is functional naming preferable (to WP 1.0) over logical/literal naming?
  2. Why are category naming standards not written if editors are expected to follow them?
  3. Will someone please close that freaking CfD. At this point, I do not care if all of the categories are renamed Judy Garland.

I realize that there are many categories that already exist, but look at Category:NA-Class articles and you can see that they aren't all the same at this point. I am talking about what ideally would they be named. JohnnyMrNinja 13:32, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

These names have never been a standard part of the WP:1.0 system, and they were set up by individual projects to serve their own purposes. They're still not monitored by the WP:1.0 Bot. If a standard naming system has evolved (I don't really know!) then maybe we should describe that here at 1.0; so far, we've just noted the fact that these categories exist. With something like this that just evolves, it's very hard for us to impose an alternative from outside, even though your new names make more sense. And when you have standard systems you always have silly anomalies; in the same way you have Interstate highways in Hawaii, on WP you have Category:Good Articles by quality (which I in effect set up) - it's just simpler that way (GA can now track how many GAs there are using our bot). I'll ponder your comments before I respond at the CfD discussion. Walkerma (talk) 17:28, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Does anyone here have any interest in the category names? Because the CfD is still open aften 14 days, with little comment. I think people are too confused to know how to close it, since WP 1.0 was referenced. JohnnyMrNinja 09:55, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I ignored the fact that I'm hopelessly involved and closed it anyway. The categories were actually CSD candidates anyway. Happy‑melon 11:05, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Question about A-class

Can an article be rated A-Class without being a GA? Sceptre (talk) 00:30, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'd guesss generally not. See A-Class criteria. And article should be almost FA, so an A article should be able to pass GAN. Is that correct? §hep • ¡Talk to me! 00:34, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Quite wrong. It can be, and the current changes have made this more confusing than before. Geometry guy 00:36, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Learn something new everyday. My apologies for the misinformation. §hep • ¡Talk to me! 00:39, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, this is obviously still a confusing matter for people. Something's gotta change. Drewcifer (talk) 00:55, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
A-class is not always a level higher than GA-class. It's WikiProject-specific. Gary King (talk) 07:29, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We need to clarify this, as Geometry guy says. However, I thought there was some movement to change to require GA status. The A-Class criteria make it quite clear that an article shouldn't be able to get to A-Class without being GA material, so unless anyone can show examples of A-Class articles that have failed or wouldn't pass GAC, I'm inclined to say "no, an article can't be A-Class without GA", purely because if an article genuinely is A-Class material, GAC ought to be a breeze. Happy‑melon 10:09, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

GA and A-Class measure quite different things. They have different purposes, different processes and different editors involved. GAN most certainly is not a breeze, especially if you get a thorough reviewer such as Awadewit. On the other hand, GA is not good at assessing technical content. That is what WikiProjects do, and they need the freedom to do it, without having their hands tied by a long wait to jump through a hoop which they sometimes find irrelevant. These points have been made multiple times by Walkerma, myself, and others.
An easy way to clarify this would be to list the WikiProject, community, and other assessments in separate tables, as was done in the summary tables. Geometry guy 11:22, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Do they? I'm not sure I agree with that. I don't deny that WikiProjects and GA reviewers are better at measuring different things, but I think that they are ultimately looking for the same attribute: that ephemeral level of "quality". I'm not sure what the problem is: indeed GA is not good at assessing technical content - that's why GA reviewers don't hand out A-Class!! A-Class articles need the level of technical detail that only WikiProjects can assess... but they also need all the things that GA reviewers are looking for. Given that A-Class articles are supposed to be borderline FACs, GA really should be a breeze no matter who reviews the article: if the article is struggling at GAC, then that ought to raise serious questions about its A-Class standards anyway. I agree and sympathise over the backlog at GAC, but surely that needs to be solved by more reviewers and participation, not by not reviewing articles that really ought to be easy passes. Happy‑melon 11:30, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree with the premise that A-Class articles are borderline FAC. The top end are.
But the bottom line is that WikiProject assessments should remain within the control of WikiProjects. Hence, for example, MILHIST can choose not to adopt C-Class, and Mathematics can continue to use Bplus if it wants to. The idea of a single and universal Wikipedia-wide quality scheme is an illusion. One more time, see Talk:John von Neumann. No hey banda. Geometry guy 11:46, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
G-Guy is absolutely right here. If there is confusion here (and there has been since day 1 of GA-Class), we should try to clarify the situation as best we can. Anybody fancy drafting something clearer, that is not too wordy? Or is there a better way? Walkerma (talk) 06:28, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know if this helps but I've always seen it as ping pong:
  1. B-Class - assessment by a single editor representing the project
  2. GA - assessment by a single editor representing the community
  3. A-Class - assesssment by a team of editors representing the project
  4. FA - assessment by a team of editors representing the community
--ROGER DAVIES talk 06:36, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That explanation is beautiful. --EncycloPetey (talk) 06:37, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree - that's a fantastic way of putting it! Happy‑melon 11:06, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Nice. I'm pleased to see "GA" and "FA" being used without "-Class" appended. Something like this comment, together with assessment tables which separate the WikiProject and community assessments would go a long way towards addressing the confusion. Geometry guy 21:35, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Mr Davies's description represents the simple way in which I have perceived the scheme so far. Or at least the upper half—I see the lower half as a three-level course of increasing completion of the basic structure and critical mass of information, up to an acceptable level of quality (B-class). After that, it mostly comes to filling in the corners and improving referencing, presentation, and consistency. It's like a foetus, really: after weeks of dramatic changes, it reaches a point after which it just grows in size, mass, and complexity. I think I've been taking some things for granted, considering that most people seem to view it differently; only recently have I come to realise how things really stand.
Anyway, back to the subject. I've had this little theory about article development, the "Jumping Theory". This theory says that, provided that there is a certain amount of effort driving the development of an article, one class in the assessment scale can be by-passed at any stage during the development process. This applies throughout the scale: an article can go, after an organised attempt for its improvement, from a stub to C-class, from GA to FA, or from B-class to A-class. In the lower stages the progress can be somewhat faster, but in the upper stages it is slower, as more factors come into play and greater perfection is required, so jumping two classes needs a significant effort, and is harder to achieve the higher one goes, especially for complex subjects. This is just theory, of course (and deals with the scale as a single entity, although the ping-pong approach can join the two two-class columns of the upper half), but it could offer some food for thought to those who appreciate the abstract. It also gives a straight "yes" to the introductory question of this thread.
(Question: is there an equivalent of the trout for non-admins?) Waltham, The Duke of 00:06, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Assessment of articles not covered by a WikiProject

Sorry if this question is already answered in the documentation, but how do I request the assessment of an article that does not seem to fall within the mandate of any particular WikiProject? – SJL 04:09, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Most assessments are done within projects, but GA and FA are assigned to any article that meets the requirements. My suggestion is to try to expand the article in an attempt to attain GA status. --EncycloPetey (talk) 06:34, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your response. I'm not sure what more could be added to the article, to be honest. It's about a professional organization, and I've already written about everything that it does. – SJL 07:25, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Please read WP:GA? for the Good Article criteria. It does not yet meet it; for instance, references are unformatted; please take a look at WP:CITE/ES for that :) Gary King (talk) 07:28, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I may have just fixed the problem; I added two WikiProject banners which seemed to be appropriate. Pretty much every article fits under some Wikiproject. Drewcifer (talk) 07:35, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Quite. If in doubt have a look in CAT:WPB (needs cleanup, but everything's in there). You can pretty much always find a wikiproject to go with any particular article. Happy‑melon 10:11, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you do get stuck, you can request such assessments from Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Work via Wikiprojects, see Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team/Work_via_Wikiprojects#Areas_with_poor_coverage for more details. User:John Carter has done sterling work in this area in the past, but I can have a go myself (as can many others who watch this page) if you need it. Cheers, Walkerma (talk) 06:23, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You might also look at International Association for Plant Taxonomy, an organization article that did attain GA status. --EncycloPetey (talk) 06:39, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your responses everyone, they are very helpful. To be honest, I was put off of Wikipedia a few months ago after an unpleasant experience (see this proposal and the discussion that lead to its failure), and I've only recently decided to take another crack at it (when I can find the time). Friendly people like yourselves make that seem like a good decision. – SJL 03:17, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Typical article imagemap

Why does the "typical article" example used on this page completely omit GA? Wouldn't a "typical" example include GA? --EncycloPetey (talk) 05:32, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, that was fast! I was just going to ask for an opinion! The article went B to A/GA to FA very quickly, and you could only see it with a mouse rollover. I've amended it now to show GA as well. Walkerma (talk) 05:50, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. As a general impression question, then, does the "typical" article go relatively rapidly from GA to FA, with little time spent as a GA? --EncycloPetey (talk) 06:08, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, of course there is no truly "typical" article at all - but I was impressed by this particular example (which I admit, I didn't choose), because IMHO it is far more typical than most. It also shows every step along the way, including a formal peer review. I think many articles completely bypass A or GA on their way to FA, and some get "worked on" and go from Start to GA or A very quickly. Walkerma (talk) 06:17, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Question re: list class

There's a good chance this is already tucked away in the archives somewhere but I couldn't find it with a quick glance, so I'll go ahead and ask.

Why is it that there exist, currently, 7 different classifications for articles (start, stub, C, B, A, GA, FL) yet there are only 2 (List, FL) for lists? I understand that there are significantly less lists (and probably less interest in them as opposed to standard articles) but a little more granularity in the assessment scale for lists might be helpful. Recently there was a big push to create the C class to help distinguish between stub class articles and B class articles (a distinction that I was not entirely convinced was necessary). Right now, there is a single class (list) which encompasses every list from the barest stub all the way on up to an list that falls just short of featured status.

This seems a little like a double standard to me. As I understood it one of the primary rationale for the creation of a C class was to assist editors in determining "how much" work an article created, with the claim that there was some ambiguity between a "good stub" and "minimal B". But again, as I mention, right now there is no distinguishing between a barebones list and "almost FL" status. Has there ever been any consideration between providing a bit more substance to the way lists are rated? Shereth 20:53, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I know you hit the nail on the head: not enough people work extensively with lists to make granularity necessary. It's more the case that List-Class was created as a 'dumping ground' to avoid the problem of having to mark Lists within a project scope as something else (B, Start, A, whatever). Happy‑melon 21:09, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This is all water under the bridge, but I would have used the same quality system (Stub, Start, C, B, Good, A, Featured) for lists as for articles. A category like "FL" mixes two pieces of information: "What kind?" and "How well?" But as lists are a much rarer breed, it is probably not worth introducing a change at this point, while people are still absorbing the impact of the new C-class. Marc Shepherd (talk) 22:01, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That may be all academic. I've not worked on many lists, but when I did a couple of them recently, I looked around at existing lists for format ideas. My impression was that lists fall mainly into three groups: Stubs, long works in progress, and featured lists. It seems as if each particular list either has some gung-ho contributor creating a long and well-thought list, or has a team of occasional contributors resulting in "C"-quality work.
I'm also under the impression that there are relatively few lists compared to the number of articles, and that most projects pay little attention to them, so a complex rating system may just be more work. On the project I work with primarily (WP:PLANTS), lists receive very little attention, and aren't even counted in the assessment statistics. --EncycloPetey (talk) 22:39, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Although it is true that fewer people work on lists than what would be necessary to justify and support a classification system, I believe the lack of such a system is more relevant to the scope of lists than to anything else. You see, an article can be as descriptive as one can make it: it can be a B-class article and still be very useful, even though it could be improved to GA or A-class. With lists, however, there is a very specific type, quantity, and quality of information included, and completeness is paramount, or the list is simply not very useful. Sure, an additional column could be added to a table to add one piece of information to each entry, but the margins for improvement are generally much stricter than in articles. EncycloPetey has made a good distinction: stubs (the standard example of "just a definition"), works in progress (information present, but not yet complete), and FL (complete, with a couple of extra improvements in presentation and breadth of information). It's hard to make any finer distinctions... Perhaps a pre-FL class which indicates completeness of data but lacking presentation? One would argue that these things grow simultaneously, however. Waltham, The Duke of 00:22, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
For the most part, "list class" would refer to articles that can never be more than a mere list or indexes (as opposed to a categories), for instance List of symphonies by name; refer to Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and navigational templates in this regard; I would rather that lists which are seen as articles, e.g. List of Black Lagoon episodes follow the normal schema (Stub>Start>C>B...>FL) G.A.S 04:59, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]


  1. It does not make sense to have a standard FL class and not a standard List class.
  2. It does not make sense to have a quality-class based on "type of content", it should be one "style of content".

List class should only be used for articles that cannot be reasonably rated on the regular scale. Separating out lists by the fact that they list things would be like having a Biography class. To be more specific, Characters of Final Fantasy VII is a list of characters, but should not be rated as List class because it is formatted as prose and can be easily graded on the normal scale. List of Square Enix games is a collection of wikilinks, and impossible to rate on the standard scale, without being completely arbitrary. List of Square Enix games could probably get a better rating than List of basic chemical engineering topics, but why? What criteria are there? Formatting / visual appeal? That is (to a degree) a matter of personal taste. Completeness? Editors could scour the internet for hours and possibly never find all of the items that should be in a particular list. And nobody should ever have to do that. I propose this for list class, and FL by proxy (rough wording, hope it is clear) -

  • A list class article is an article that is comprised almost entirely of links to other articles. Effectively, it is like a nicely formatted (and possibly annotated) category.
  • Prose is limited to introductory statements (explaining what should appear on the list or in that section).
  • If a list ever progresses past this, to having expanded prose descriptions of entries, it would the be assessable by quality, and should be graded on the standard article scale.

Thoughts? JohnnyMrNinja 17:12, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Which is exactly what I said, just in more detail. FL is a curious case, though, as many a FL is much more than just a simple list. G.A.S 17:22, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, sorry, we've been discussing this same thing at WT:VG. FL doesn't seem to have much more criteria right now than a featured article that, BTW, is a list. JohnnyMrNinja 17:26, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Grading scheme

Please update {{Grading scheme}} with the non-standard classes per Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment#Non-standard grades. The current content there is outdated. G.A.S 11:16, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think you're right, but I think we should check up exactly how & where this template is used. My personal rule with popular templates like this is "Don't be too bold" because I don't want 900 angry messages that I've messed up WikiProject's assessment pages! There are probably some projects that don't like the nonstandard grades (we at WP:Chem have never used them - though we never adopted GA-Class either!). We also need to decide if we should add in all or just some nonstandard grades, whether we want an explanation section or not, and if we want them in a separate box. Personally, I'd say SOME (as per this page), NO and YES to those questions. Any thoughts? Walkerma (talk) 15:05, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The easiest is to determine where these parameters are in use, and continue from there. Add a hidden category to the template that trigger when the parameters are used to determine this (One each). G.A.S 15:10, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment please? G.A.S 05:55, 18 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Can you try testing this idea out as you propose? I don't understand about hidden categories, I'm unsure how best to determine where the parameters are in use! Once we know this, and we can be sure that it's OK, we can probably go ahead. Cheers, Walkerma (talk) 06:36, 18 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I have found the correct way at Help:Template#Monitoring_parameter_usage. Maybe that will be easier. Unfortunately I know nothing about coding templates, so I cannot implement this. G.A.S 06:44, 18 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I'll ask around for help with this. Thanks, Walkerma (talk) 11:42, 18 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That method seems like overkill. We could simply pass a parameter to the template that will append a particular row to the bottom of the template if the parameter is true (e.g. {{grading scheme | list=yes}}) and go from there. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 07:55, 31 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Currently the grading template uses such a parameter, but the results is outdated, for instance, see "List class" on WP:ANIME/ASSESS#Assessment scale, and compare it to WP:ASSESS#Non-standard grades. We need to know where list = yes before considering updating it, per the above discussion. G.A.S 08:08, 31 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The templates there are almost impossible to understand, as they're a horrible mess of conditionals, parameters, and parser functions. Instead, I'll just add hidden categories to take advantage of the job queue, as that seems simpler. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 08:58, 31 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Cool! G.A.S 09:03, 31 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Policy violations such as trivia"

I'd like to suggest rewording this portion of the C-class criteria. Strictly speaking, trivia (that is to say, trivia sections) are not a policy violation but an MoS violation. I'm not sure a short trivia section would not be enough to disqualify an article from being B-class, though a long one would diminish the article's readability. (I take it they're not allowed at all in Good articles, given the "list incorporation" criterion.)--Father Goose (talk) 03:38, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • I agree it should not be phrased as a policy violation, but I think trivia sections should disqualify an article from B-class for those Wikiprojects that have adopted C-class. Phlegm Rooster (talk) 04:38, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    I would blame that one on a drafting error. It would be better to say, "Trivia, bias or other policy violations", IMO. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 05:33, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Na, trivia is not a violation of policy. Technically, even an GA can have the trivia tag without risk being delisted. OhanaUnitedTalk page 06:26, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Perhaps when given a better sounding appellation, for example; Britney Spears#Cultural references. Still, trivia sections should be discouraged as much as practicable, in my opinion. Phlegm Rooster (talk) 08:19, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, "cultural references" sections aren't necessarily trivia sections at all. Several FAs have such sections, though none have trivia sections, i.e., unsorted information. The question is whether a couple of trivia bullets would be enough to disqualify an article from "B" status. I'd be more inclined to tolerate a short section containing "miscellaneous information" in a movie article than in a biography, for instance -- though in both cases all items would have to be sourced.--Father Goose (talk) 20:33, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    But complete sourcing is a requirement for GA. Are we making that a requirement for "B" as well, or can a couple of unsourced statements still exist in a "B"? I should think so, since that's part of what makes it a "B" rather than GA or "A". A "B" shouldn't simply be An A/GA that hasn't been through a formal evaluation. --EncycloPetey (talk) 20:39, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    GA is quite a bit more than B, with extra criteria, all applied more stringently, via a formal process. As for trivia bullets, they tend to be isolated facts which might or might not be true, so I personally would require sourcing for each before signing off on a B rating. But a short trivia list itself wouldn't necessarily deter me from giving an article a B.--Father Goose (talk) 02:24, 15 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
(outdent)Why not just acknowledge that articles with "substantial prose issues" (such as trivia or other inappropriate formatting) cannot reach the classification? Seems the simplest solution to me. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 02:55, 15 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I do acknowledge it, but don't consider a couple of trivia items "substantial prose issues". A long list, yes. Just as an article missing a couple of citations could probably reach B, a couple of on-topic and sourced trivia items ought not be a barrier, IMO. If the items can be integrated into the rest of the text readily, then they should be, but some pieces of information, even when highly relevant, don't have much relation to other parts of the article. I'd hate to think that information would be thrown out in pursuit of a "simple solution" -- ease of integration is not a good yardstick for inclusion-worthiness.--Father Goose (talk) 08:10, 15 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
And actually, I think other parts of the criteria cover the issue of overgrown trivia sections: "need editing for clarity, balance or flow", plus at the top, "contains a lot of irrelevant material". Trivia sections can range from a big mess to barely an issue -- things like neutrality and sourcing are much more of a sticking point. So I'd like to petition that "policy violations such as bias or trivia" be changed to "policy violations such as bias or original research". I'm not suggesting trivia should be given a free pass, just that it be addressed in proportion to the problems it causes.--Father Goose (talk) 08:33, 15 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Why even have a C-Class if there are no criteria? Trivia sections might not be a big deal to you, but they are anathema to many editors. Who's going to be heartbroken if their article doesn't make it to B-Class because of a trivia section? Not the kind of editors who create trivia sections and/or add to them; they are rarely the same editors involved in Wikiproject article improvement drives. Phlegm Rooster (talk) 03:33, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Wow, way to translate a discussion of trivia sections into "having no criteria". What I'm trying to suggest is that while trivia sections are not without their faults, they probably shouldn't be put on a par with WP:NPOV as a "policy violation". Are you even paying attention to what I'm saying?--Father Goose (talk) 08:57, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Would phrasing it as "articles should not include sections that are extensive lists of trivia, or any such list where the information is not supported by a reliable source." This restricts the form and the content, but dose not preclude a couple of bit of sourced info in a section waiting to be integrated into the main article. --Nate1481(t/c) 09:13, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
In my first response on 14 July I said that trivia should not be phrased as a policy violation. Maybe I should get one of those colorful signatures so I'll stand out better. Anyway, there has to be a difference or two between B and C, or there is no point to having a C-class. Phlegm Rooster (talk) 11:46, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

← Let's start over: do we all agree that avoiding trivia sections is not policy and therefore the current phrasing is unsatisfactory? I think we do. The question is: "What do we change it to?" Personally, I feel that a blanket disqualification will not do, and that these things should be judged on a case-by-case basis. Trivia sections are often a problem, but their identification is not without its difficulties, and the information they contain could or could not be useful and with a prospect of future integration into a better version of the article's text. I certainly disagree with Phlegm Rooster's statement that not including trivia in the criteria takes away all difference between B- and C-class. There are much more important and easy-to-determine factors to consider than trivia: a relative lack of sources, a complete lack of in-line citations, an obvious bias, a one-sentence lead, few and/or unhelpful images, language that is too technical, blatant errors in grammar and spelling... Any of these can keep an article in C-class. We have criteria. Trivia sections, as I see it, have more to do with article structure, and they could or could not be a problem. In any case, these things could be more easily caught in GAN; we don't want to resemble GA criteria too much, after all. And there is something else: this B-class checklist is a template for the more specialised WikiProject ones. If a project wants to eradicate trivia lists of all kinds, they might put that in their customised checklist. Waltham, The Duke of 15:06, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • I agree that WP:Trivia is a style guideline. I agree that the wording should be changed to reflect that fact.
  • Everything is always decided on a case-by-case basis anyway.
  • I did not state that "not including trivia in the criteria takes away all difference between B- and C-class", I said it takes away one criterion.
  • I argued against creation of a C-class because it would lead to too much "navel-gazing", by which I meant fuzzy decision making. Now that there is a C-class, we should retain as many sharp distinctions as possible. Is it so much to ask that somebody prosify/integrate the information in a trivia section into the text?
  • I don't feel that my argument is to be taken as a crusade against "trivia". To me, it's purely a style issue; some items in a trivia section are more than trivia, and should be intergrated into the main text. Others are evidence that something has a resonance in popular culture, and should stay in prose form. From what I have seen, trivia sections attract good faith edits by newer/younger editors who are afraid to mess with the main text. They should not be discouraged, but their contributions need to be cleaned up.
  • Since assessment takes place behind the scenes, I feel that shouldn't be used as a cudgel to eliminate trivia or trivia sections, if that is anybody's concern. Assessment is for advanced editors, who should be on board with Wikipedia:Consensus. If an article is has a trivia section, but the consensus is that it be assessed as B-class or higher, that is the way it should be. But the default should be C. Phlegm Rooster (talk) 23:17, 17 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
How about this: changing "policy violations such as bias and trivia" to "policy violations, such as bias and original research", and strengthening the "article structure" requirements in the B criteria with something like "The article has a defined structure. Content should be organized into groups of related material, including a lead section and all the sections that can reasonably be included in an article of its kind." That, in combination with "contains a lot of irrelevant material" from the C criteria and "suitable references" from B addresses the underlying problems with trivia sections without turning the presence of one into an automatic fail. (This is consistent with the current B criteria: "The Manual of Style need not be followed rigorously". Such rigor is, however, expected at the GA level: "it complies with the manual of style guidelines for... list incorporation".)
If it were a trivial matter (no pun intended) to integrate trivia items, then I would agree with you that it is not "too much to ask". However, having done trivia cleanup, I've found that there are frequently a few trivia items that do not integrate easily with existing content, and it would take a disproportionate amount of effort to build a section into which it would fit. Given that the alternative is disproportionately easy -- simply deleting it -- but not an improvement to the article, I'd rather the lower grades outline the general principles of organization, sourcing, and so on without edging into the rigidity more characteristic of GA and above.--Father Goose (talk) 22:43, 23 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This seems to tackle the issue quite nicely. It strikes the right balance between hazy and stringent criteria, and also addresses various aspects of how assessment should be done. What do you think, Phlegm Rooster? (Judging from the timing of the last few posts, you have six days to reply. :-D) Waltham, The Duke of 10:35, 29 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I made a small change to the Editing suggestions column; "...the article checked for general compliance with the manual of style and related style guidelines." Phlegm Rooster (talk) 15:55, 29 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Works for me.--Father Goose (talk) 21:20, 29 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Should there be more examples?

I think that there should be two examples for each article class, and that there definitely should be at least two examples for the "Evolution of an article" section. What are other people's thoughts on this matter? Kevin Baastalk 16:00, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In principle, agreed. But finding the examples are not quite so easy as it seems (trust me:) ) G.A.S 18:32, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I have not had the time to pursue this, but have long felt that perhaps the easiest and best way to construct a really effective example would be to select an existing stub, and then incrementally construct an article, deliberately pausing at each level transition. Most good, experienced editors would not normally do this, of course, but would create an article that is as good as possible in the first editing pass. Nevertheless I can't think of a more dramatic way to highlight the differences between levels, especially since the editor would have these issues clearly in mind as each edit is completed. Moreover, this approach would improve the corpus of live articles, rather than again dealing with instruction and meta-issues – a frequent complaint in these discussions. Spinality (talk) 19:17, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Why not just go through the history of a few FAs and just find points where they satisfied each step? Sure some of them didn't begin as stubs but I'm sure some of them did. Adam McCormick (talk) 20:13, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure who's actually going to read those examples. There are a lot of different paths an article may take on the road to FA. Also, the criteria have changed over time. There probably are no FA's that ever passed through C Class (since it's so new), or that traversed the path from Stub to FA when the current criteria were in place. You'd probably find a lot of FA's that wouldn't have passed the current "B" criteria when they were actually rated B. It's a better use of scarce resources to try to better define the criteria. Marc Shepherd (talk) 21:14, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I mean to locate points in their history that match the current criteria, not that matched the criteria at the time. And I would add that a lot of newbies read the examples when trying to figure out what the rating really look like. Adam McCormick (talk) 21:39, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Examples more inline with this would seem to be the idea. Adam McCormick (talk) 21:42, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I tried to do so with recently featured articles (just before the implementation of C class. Not so easy, but if someone is willing to find them... G.A.S 05:00, 17 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
My suggestion above – to do this deliberately – is because so many FAs will not necessarily go steadily through the defined steps. A good editor will often skip a level or two in a single extensive rewrite. However, if someone were to take a small topic steadily through each stage, delaying incorporation of in-line citations for example, using cleanup tags, etc., then a good instructive set of examples might be produced in a couple of days. Obviously, if one can find FAs that have gone through stages that match today's levels, then great. But I did spend some time looking, and couldn't find any that really illustrated the sequence. Spinality (talk) 21:52, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(Unindent) My short answer to this question would be YES, YES, YES! A major goal of this assessment revamp was to develop a set of examples, not just one. I had a lengthy phone call with User:Holon, whose academic research has shown that the implementation of an assessment scheme depends a lot on how good the examples are (i.e., lousy examples => lousy scheme). We agreed that we could provide multiple examples for each level, even though we may only have one main example in the top-level description. You can see his thoughts here. We will probably want to have some examples that sit right in the middle of the "grade", and others that sit on the border between grades (worse than this, it's Start, better than this it's C, etc). We will also want to have examples from different topic types - a biography, a science topic, a railway station, a town, etc. - so that people writing a particular type of article can find a relevant example easily.

I'd like to ask the folks here - can you each come up with a set of examples (include the actual version) from your own main subject area, and list them below so we can mull these over? I'll add some chemical ones later today. Thanks, Walkerma (talk) 17:49, 17 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Examples of B-class review?

Hi. I was wondering if anyone could point me to an example of a B-class review that has been carried out using the new B-class criteria? I'm thinking of doing some B-class reviews and would like to see how this is done, e.g. is a template used or just free text, what sorts of comments are given etc. Also, is there any way to distinguish between articles rated as B-class under the old system and those reviewed under the new system? I guess a lot of articles will need to be re-reviewed as they may not meet the new B-class criteria and will be downgraded to C-class, although likewise some high-end Start-class articles may be upgraded to C-class. Thanks. --Jameboy (talk) 21:40, 20 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Some projects, such as Military history and Films, have criteria parameters which are simply assessed as "yes" or "no"; when an article can attain "yes" for all of the criteria, then it stands as a B-class article. There's no need to discuss or comment unless a disagreement exists. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 01:31, 21 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
FYI, the Military History folks have a nice FAQ page to explain the process in more detail. We'll probably adapt that for our own purposes in time! Walkerma (talk) 05:38, 21 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Missing footnotes

The transcluded Good article criteria includes inline footnotes, but they don't link to anything here because we don't have a {{reflist}} in the {{grading scheme}} template. I happen to think we're better off without the notes section anyway -- it would double the length of the already-long transcluded GA criteria -- but in that case, we should disable the footnotes. (This can be done by putting "noincludes" around them on the Good article criteria page.)

Thoughts?--Father Goose (talk) 22:52, 23 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I agree with you. Thanks for spotting that. Walkerma (talk) 02:40, 24 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

B-List A-List

i think B-List A-List classes should be added. HereFord 21:42, 1 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Why? Happy‑melon 21:51, 1 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Because theres nothing in-between a start class list and Featured List Class.HereFord 00:55, 2 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, when I asked 'why' I meant "why do you think we need more gradation between 'List' and 'FL'?" Happy‑melon 18:37, 2 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You could always assess an A-List as {{A-Class}}, and that's what many projects do. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 01:11, 2 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Actually there is no start class for lists, only a general class for all lists except for those that are of feature quality. I see no reason for multiple levels for lists. It is either simply a list, or a Featured List. We never call a list a stub simply due to its nature. It does not take that much to move a list to Feature status unlike that required by articles. See the following fairly short list that is a Featured list: List of schools in Marlborough, New Zealand Dbiel (Talk) 01:48, 2 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
For the most part, "list class" would refer to articles that can never be more than a mere list or indexes (as opposed to a categories), for instance List of symphonies by name; refer to Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and navigational templates in this regard. I would rather that lists which are seen as articles follow the normal schema (Stub>Start>C>B>GA>A>FL), i.e. list of episodes, with descriptions, etc. Regards, G.A.S 20:47, 2 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

New color scheme proposal for quality and importance scales

Proposed color scheme
Quality Importance
Article classes Other classes
Class Color Class Color Import. Color
FA ff66ff Disambig cc6699 Top ffccff
FL ff66ff Redirect cc66cc High ccccff
A cc99ff Category 9966cc Mid ccffff
GA 9999ff Help 6666cc Low ccffcc
B 99ccff Image 6699cc NA ffffcc
C 99ffff MediaWiki 66cccc Unknown ffcccc
List 99ffcc Portal 66cc99
Start 99ff99 Project 66cc66
Stub ccff99 Template 99cc66
Current ffff99 User cccc66
Future ffcc99 NA cc9966
Needed ff9999 Unassessed cc6666
Current color scheme (quality only)
This is taken from here.
Article classes Other classes
FA Start Disambig Project
class td col class td col class td col class td col
FL Stub Redirect Template
class td col class td col class td col class td col
A List Category NA
class td col class td col class td col class td col
GA colspan = "3" Template:Current-Class File Unassessed
class td col class td col class td col class td col
B Future Portal ???
class td col class td col class td col class td col
C Needed
class td col class td col

The current color scheme is really bad when all are seen side by side. Here is a new one that I would like to throw out here to see what everyone thinks. I hope that I got all of the quality types (there are at last count 22). I have added a possibility to expand even further. Please tell me what you think. - LA (T) 17:55, 2 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Why not go for broke? I have now included a new color scheme for importance. I am a big fan of staying within the basic 256 colors. - LA (T) 18:19, 2 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think your importance scale in particular loses a key attribute of the current scale: a continuous gradation from strong to weak in one colour, reflecting the parallel continuum from vital to inconsequential. What reasoning do you have for saying that "the current colour scheme is really bad"?? Happy‑melon 18:39, 2 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
My thoughts and color likes and dislikes...
  1. Right now, when placed side by side, the colors are just jarring to my eyes. In some cases they just clash badly. Look how Category and Current clash with everything. List, Future, Disambig, and Image aren't much better. I have a personal color chart that I use when picking colors. I just picked a column and went with the colors in it to avoid clashing colors.
  2. I see magenta as a soothing and good color while red is an irritating and bad color, so the importance scale goes from red (bad) to magenta (good), but when it comes to importance you may be right, it may be better to go with a gray scale (#000000 to #ffffff). (I don't like some shades of magenta.)
  3. Project and Template colors are the same. (Plus I don't like that shade of pink.)
  4. Not all of the colors are written in hexidecimal making templating a bit tricky when doing background colors. Also if one does try to put the # in front of the hexidecimal on a page just for the color, one would get an ordered list (# is the wikicode for ordered lists just like this one).
  5. I am not a big fan of gray or white unless used in a gray scale.
Now, I know that all of this is just my personal preferences, but I had to ask. :) - LA (T) 19:34, 2 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, and another thing, I went with bright colors for articles, and muted colors for non-articles. - LA (T) 19:44, 2 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Hmn, some of these are certainly valid complaints, although I don't think they justify throwing out the entire scale and starting again. I think colour is important and so the importance scale should probably not be greyscale; and remember that NA-Class is the only one to use white - Unassessed-Class and -Class are both transparent. The colours of the non-1.0 classes (ie everything bar FA/FL/A/GA/B/C/Start/Stub/???) have never really been ratified or even centrally planned, so a redesign of these would certainly be a possibility. I agree that the colour for Cat-Class is particularly jarring. I also like the idea of using more muted, pastel colours for the non-article classes, although I don't like the 1-to-1 correlation between your colours - it might give the impression, for instance, that there is some connection between Portal pages and Lists, or between Category pages and A-Class articles. A co-ordinated, subtle, scheme for non-article pages would be a nice development, however. Why don't we concentrate on that area? Finally, I'm now in the process of adding CSS classes to all the {{X-Class}} templates, so you can now override the default colours with your own preferences by adding code like the following to your monobook.css:
.assess-xx {
    background: #123456 !important; }
So if you have personal preferences or dislikes for particular colours, you can set whatever schemes you want for your own viewing. Happy‑melon 20:28, 2 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Could we go with the colors I came up with for that non-article pages? It is the non-article quality classes which need the most help at the moment anyway. The rest can wait until those are done, and if you would like I can go in and do some of the changes on those which are not protected or only semi-protected. I can change the color and add the classes, since I do know my way around html. I wasn't even thinking color correlation problem. - LA (T) 20:40, 2 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is that they are all too similar. It's extremely hard to distinguish each one from another. I agree that the colours for non-article classifications need overhauling, but they should remain seperate colours to the article assessment colours. Besides, it's way too soon for something as radical as that. We've only just implemented the overhauled assessment scheme. Changing all the colours would be like starting a barnyard riot. --.:Alex:. 21:05, 2 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
(ec)There's no rush or deadline, so no reason not to have a play around and come up with a colourscheme that pleases everyone. I think the colour correlation problem is serious enough to preclude the colourscheme you suggest above. Why not try a collection that's a bit more varied from the article-class scale? I also think that the colours are generally quite dark - lighter shades would probably look better. Happy‑melon 21:08, 2 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The problem, as mentioned above, is that the colors in the proposed scheme are too similar. Currently, the quality assessment scale (FA-FL-A-GA-B-C-Start-Stub-Unassessed) uses a HSV scheme with constant saturation and values, just with different hues. The importance scale (Top-High-Mid-Low-None) uses a HSL scheme with constant hue and saturation, but with different lightness for each class.
So, if we ignore the non-standard classes, the scales are independent of each other, and work properly. The problem is that there is no real gradient between non-standard classes—we can't say that a template is "better" than a category or portal like we can say that A-Class is better than Start-Class, or that High-Importance is better than Low-Importance. We can't put unrelated classifications in a continuous color scale, as that would imply that they're related; so, I wouldn't support the proposed scale as is. I would prefer to have a non-standard scale that "gets out of the way" of the two standard scales. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 05:54, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Quality scale
Article classes
Class Color
FA ff66ff
FL ff66ff
A cc99ff
GA 9999ff
B 99ccff
C 99ffff
List 99ffcc
Start 99ff99
Stub ccff99
Current ffff99
Future ffcc99
Needed ff9999
Disambig cc6699
Redirect cc66cc
Category 9966cc
Help 6666cc
Image 6699cc
MediaWiki 66cccc
Portal 66cc99
Project 66cc66
Template 99cc66
User cccc66
NA cc9966
Unassessed cc6666

I am going to try to answer all in one go, hence the outdenting.

The colors are so similar since I used the same column on the color palette I linked you to above. I will always use the same column, no matter which column I choose. I loathe colors that jump all over the place when dealing with similar items. And please stay away from gray; any hexidecimal color with the letters a, b, d, and e and the numbers 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, and 8; and any color that can't be typed with only three characters; and please, let's not use any of the names (they are evil). I also tried another group of colors, but the result was the same.

I seriously doubt the correlation would have been noticed had I done one long list instead of the groups side by side to save some from having to scroll. If any user is naive enough to believe there is a correlation between two extremely different classes, well, that we can not fix.

The colors I chose for the non-article items were done in alphabetical order by what the subject space was and started with magenta and worked my way to red in the column. (And HSV and HSL mean nothing to me, the article is a bit too dense for me at this time of the morning.)

  • Article
    • Article-Disambiguation
    • Article-Redirect
  • Category
  • Help
  • Image
  • MediaWiki
  • Portal
  • Project (The only non-alphabetical one, since it points to Wikipedia space.)
  • Template
  • User
  • anything
    • NA (Can be anything.)
    • Unassessed (Can be anything.)

These were intentionally made dark, denoting their non-importance.

Also, there may be no rush or deadline, however, letting things drag on and on and on leads to nothing getting done and frazzled nerves. I would like to get things done as soon as possible so that I can move onto the next thing. I don't go away from a project until it is complete, or as complete as it can be. - LA (T) 07:34, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If I had written the table as the one to the right, would you have seen any correlation? - LA (T) 07:40, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. --.:Alex:. 09:57, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I would also have noticed the correlation quickly. To be perfectly blunt: you are extremely unlikely to gain support for changing the colourscheme of the article classes (FA/FL/A/GA/B/C/Start/Stub/?) or the importance scale (Top/High/Mid/Low/NA/?). You are much more likely to make progress A) working only on the non-article classes, and B) actually listening to the comments and complaints that numerous editors are now throwing at your proposals. When I say "there's no rush" I mainly mean that very rarely is the first idea presented the best: in 99% of situations, the ultimate best solution evolves from analysis and discussion of initial designs.
You seem to have very limiting personal preferences for colourschemes which I suspect the majority of wikipedia users do not share. Remember that you can now implement through CSS whatever colourscheme you personally prefer without any discussion; I think, however, that when making changes that will affect all users, you need to be a bit more open to compromise and allowing designs to evolve. Now, three users have told you that your colourscheme is not practical, for a variety of reasons. How do you propose to surmount those problems? Happy‑melon 13:15, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, Happy-Melon, make these four. I too believe that it would be extremely impractical to change the colours for the long-standing and well-working article-quality and importance scales. On the other hand, I strongly suggest bringing some order to the non-article classes, and shall support an effort to do so.
In fact, I have a few ideas. Since the available colours are relatively few (and I am referring to colours easy to distinguish and sufficiently different from those already in use), I propose teaming up classes that have a relatively similar function (at least as far as the tagging WikiProjects are concerned), so that they can use similar, or in some case even identical, shades. Alternatively, some other pattern could still be based on such groups. Here's one idea of how such teams could be like—some of them already in existence, in a way:
  • Proper but unstable articles (Future, Current)
  • Navigational non-articles in the mainspace (Redirect, Disambiguation)
  • Content-organisation namespaces (Portal, Category)
  • Content-editing-related namespaces (Template, Project)
I'd put Image and List separately; I shouldn't change Needed and the "No assessment" classes at all, considering grey and white quite fitting for their respective purposes. The new classes proposed by Lady Aleena, namely Help, MediaWiki, and User, refer to namespaces which cannot be under the scope of any WikiProjects, and are therefore unnecessary. Waltham, The Duke of 21:00, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
My thoughts on what has been said above:
  • Both the current article assessment colours (including those for "Future" and "Current") and importance colours are perfectly fine as they are, IMO. Let's not try and fix something that isn't broken; the colours are well established, and changing them just for the sake of it is only likely to ruffle some feathers. That said, I do feel that the new colour for B-Class is too similar to that used for GA-Class (and I've seen the same complaint made by others).
  • On the other hand, I think we do need to re-evaluate the colours used for the non-article classes (and have said so elsewhere previously). Those used at present are a bit of a mish mash, and clash with others, Category/Start and Project/Template to name a few. A proposal has already been made here to change the colour of Portal-Class, and while I don't object, I do think we would be better doing the whole lot of them in one go.
  • Regarding the colours proposed above, I share the same concerns as those made by others. I won't go into it further, for the sake of not repeating what has already been said.
  • There are more classes than those listed above. I re-shuffled {{Grading scheme/doc/see also}} last night to include {{Merge-Class}}, but later found more. These include {{Bplus-Class}}, {{AfD-Class}}, {{MergeDel-Class}}, {{Merged-Class}}, {{Display-Class}} (this one is unused, so I've TfD'd it), {{Structure-Class}}, and {{WP-Class}} (a duplicate of {{Project-Class}}, which I've redirected). It's possible there are others, so if we are going to reassign colours, it would be helpful to know just how many we're dealing with. I also agree with the comment above that adding new classes for Help, MediWiki and User is unnecessary. PC78 (talk) 23:48, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Another thing that might be worth asking, though, is what purpose are all of those extra classes actually serving, and is it possible to merge or delete some of them. It seems to be getting too detailed (all of the varieties of merge-involved classes, to name just a few). Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 00:22, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Personally I would get rid of the lot and assess anything that isn't an article as "NA-Class", though I suspect that this is very much a minority opinion. :) None of these extra classes really have anything to do with article assessment, after all. But I think it's generally left to individual WikiProjects to use whatever grades they feel useful. PC78 (talk) 00:44, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I have already conceded on the issue of both importance and article class colors. The only colors I would like to see changed are the ones for non-articles.
Yes, I have a narrow color palette, but I am trying desperately to make the colors easy to memorize. 12 3-digit number-letter combinations (with a limited choice) are easier to remember then 12 6-digit number-letter combinations especially if they go from one side of the spectrum to the other. There are so many colors, that if they are way too varied, then they would be hard to memorize. Sure, I have my land-line phone, cell phone, social security, and credit card numbers all memorized; but I really would like to have an easy to memorize list of color codes for at least the non-article classes. The basic colors are #f00, #ff0, #0f0, #0ff, #00f, and #f0f. Change the 0s to "c"s and you get the really light colors or change the "f"s to 3s and you get the really dark colors.
So everything from Needed-Class and up, I will grin and bear the colors, but from Disambig-Class down, I would still like the color scheme above or one very close to it. Though if Needed-Class can be anything, I would like to see it worked into the non-article classes color scheme.
I would really love to see other suggested color schemes. Please share. - LA (T) 08:04, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Future class and Current Class

Why are {{Template:Future-Class}} and {{Template:Current-Class)) included as valid assessments?

This template is used in assessment summaries for the WP1.0 project; see Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment.

See the following pages:

I thought that they were considered invalid classes

The following are some articles using these classes:

Projects using one or both of the classes

I have been working on this edit for several hours now and haved developed a better understanding of the use of classes in the process. I have edited Template:Current-Class and Template:Future-Class to reflection their non standard use. I believe that Template:Cat class/doc needs to be edited as well, but I am not sure how best to do it. The page currently implies that they are approved for general used by all projects and endorsed by this project, which I do not believe to be the case. I hope I have not made this post impossible to understand. Any feed back? would be appreciated.

Well my edit to Template:Current-Class was a failure and had to be reverted Dbiel (Talk) 20:11, 2 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The classes are not invalid per se; we just don't use them Wikipedia-wide, but we don't discourage their use. WP:WPTC uses these scales also, for pages like 2008 Atlantic hurricane season (ongoing, hence {{Current-Class}}) and Post-2008 Atlantic hurricane seasons) (hasn't occurred yet, so {{Future-Class}}). As for the text present in the pages: That was just boilerplate copied from older versions of templates such as {{A-Class}}. The edits are fine. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 06:01, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Let's not single out {{Future-Class}} and {{Current-Class}}; if you look at the documentation for {{Disambig-Class}}, {{Category-Class}}, {{Template-Class}} et al, they all use the same boilerplate text. I also don't see a problem wit {{Cat class/doc}}, though I assume you actually mean {{Grading scheme/doc/see also}}: it's just a list of the various assessment grades used across Wikipedia, it doesn't really imply anything IMO. PC78 (talk) 22:50, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Here's another question, then - is there a good reason why these classes cannot be included in the bot-generated tables? I only ask because at present, when articles are assessed as such, the bot notes them as "removed" and does not track them actively. This can create problems if the tag (or task force parameter) is mistakenly added/removed or if the page is renamed improperly, because we can't see it in the logs. (It would also be nice to have a full tally of the number of articles within these classes, although that is less important and of course can be checked manually through a look at the category itself.) Any thoughts? Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 21:53, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I would assume they aren't included because they aren't widely accepted by WikiProjects; it's only a small minority of projects that actually use them, as opposed to List-Class. That said, I do think it would be useful if the bot did track them, since they relate to actual articles in the article space, though we don't need to trouble the bot with the whole gamut of non-article classes. PC78 (talk) 22:57, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. I should clarify that I wasn't implying any usage at non-article-space (where any assessment is by type and therefore is unlikely to need changing). Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 23:26, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Assessment Chart

How do i get this chart to include the classes: list, features list, category, and template. They have all been added to the project, and have articles classified as such, but don't appear on the chart. Also, when does it update? Grk1011 (talk) 20:13, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The WP 1.0 bot, which maintains those tables, does not recognise Category-Class or Template-Class pages. It should, however, recognise List-Class and FL-Class. Happy‑melon 20:59, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think the problem might be that it hasn't updated since those inputs went into effect. When will it update the chart again? Grk1011 (talk) 21:04, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
When the script for the 1.0 bot was originally written, it maintained a collection of just 37,000 articles. Now it collects data from 1.7 million pages, which means the script takes a very long time - several days, in fact - to complete a full circuit of the assessment system and start again. Each project is usually updated every 3 to 4 days, so you'll have to wait until the next update. Happy‑melon 21:08, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, if you go to User:WP 1.0 bot, there is a link to "run the bot right away". That will let you update the tables without waiting for the next automatic update. I ran it on the Eurovision articles just now, so the table is updated now. — Carl (CBM · talk) 21:19, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. Now, there is a discussion to rename the project. Will it be complicated to get the assessments straightened out if we do rename? Grk1011 (talk) 21:22, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No, it isn't hard. You just need to repeat the steps you followed to set up the project in the first place - create the needed categories, and make the assessment template to use them. If you have trouble, ask me on my talk page. — Carl (CBM · talk) 21:24, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't set it up in the first place, but if the time comes, I will prob need your help, thanks. Grk1011 (talk) 21:28, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, i just checked, the chart does not include list and Fl, why are they missing? Grk1011 (talk) 21:30, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
They are missing because the corresponding categories are empty. Also, the bot only tracks the following assessments: FA, FL, A, GA, B, C, Start, Stub, List, Unassessed. This is why the template class does not appear in the table. — Carl (CBM · talk) 21:32, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

← If you look at [1] The page is FL but its in the unassessed category. I think there is something wrong with the banner, but I don't know how to fix it. Grk1011 (talk) 21:34, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I fixed the banner. You will need to wait for the software to update the contents of the FL category, then run the bot to update the table. The bot only looks at the contents of the category. — Carl (CBM · talk) 21:40, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, Grk1011 (talk) 21:47, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
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