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This page documents an English Wikipedia guideline. It is a generally accepted standard that editors should follow, though it should be treated with common sense and the occasional exception. When editing this page, please ensure that your revision reflects consensus. When in doubt, discuss your idea on the talk page.

Shortcut: WP:ASSESS

The following system is used by the Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team for assessing how close we are to a distribution-quality article on a particular topic. The system is based on a letter scheme which reflects principally how complete the article is, though the content and language quality are also factors. Once an article reaches the A-Class, it is considered "complete", although obviously edits will continue to be made.

The quality assessments are mainly performed by members of WikiProjects, who tag talk pages of articles. These tags are then collected by a bot, which then generates output such as a table, log and statistics. For more information see Using the bot. The WP:1.0 team is now setting up to use a second bot to select articles, based on the assessments performed by WikiProjects.

Two levels, GA and FA, are not assessments that can be assigned simply by a project member. These refer to external judgments of article quality made at WP:GA and WP:FA. If these tags are desired, and the article meets the criteria (for GA or FA), it must be nominated (for GA or FA) and await comments.

It is vital that people not take these assessments personally. It is understood that we all have different priorities and different opinions about what makes a perfect article. Generally an active project will develop a consensus, though be aware that different projects may use their own variation of the criteria more tuned for the subject area, such as this. Many projects have an assessment team. If you contribute a lot of content to an article you may request an independent assessment.

At present this assessment system is in use in the Wikipedia 1.0 project, and in several hundred WikiProjects on the English Wikipedia. As of November 16, 2007, over 900,000 articles have been assessed. Other languages are now beginning to use the system also.

There is a separate scale for rating articles for importance or priority, which is unrelated to the quality scale outlined here. Unlike the quality scale, the priority scale varies based on the project scope. See also a proposed template at {{Importance Scheme}}.

Grades

WikiProject article progress grading scheme [  v • d • e  ]

Label	Criteria	Reader's experience	Editing suggestions	Example
FA {{FA-Class}}	Article has obtained "Featured article" status. More detailed criteria The article must meet the featured article criteria: A featured article exemplifies our very best work and features professional standards of writing and presentation. In addition to meeting the requirements for all Wikipedia articles, it has the following attributes. It is— (a) well-written: its prose is engaging, even brilliant, and of a professional standard; (b) comprehensive: it neglects no major facts or details; (c) factually accurate: claims are verifiable against reliable sources, accurately represent the relevant body of published knowledge, and are supported with specific evidence and external citations; this requires a "References" section in which sources are listed, complemented by inline citations where appropriate; (d) neutral: it presents views fairly and without bias; and (e) stable: it is not subject to ongoing edit wars and its content does not change significantly from day to day, except in response to the featured article process. It follows the style guidelines, including the provision of: (a) a lead—a concise lead section that summarizes the topic and prepares the reader for the detail in the subsequent sections; (b) appropriate structure—a system of hierarchical headings and a substantial but not overwhelming table of contents (see section help); and (c) consistent citations—where required by Criterion 1c, consistently formatted inline citations using either footnotes[1] or Harvard referencing (Smith 2007, p. 1) (see citing sources for suggestions on formatting references; for articles with footnotes or endnotes, the meta:cite format is recommended). Images. It has images and other media where appropriate, with succinct captions and acceptable copyright status. Non-free images or media must satisfy the criteria for the inclusion of non-free content and be labeled accordingly. Length. It stays focused on the main topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).	Professional, outstanding, and thorough; a definitive source for encyclopedic information.	No further content additions should be necessary unless new information becomes available; further improvements to the prose quality are often possible.	Tourette Syndrome (as of June 2008)
FL {{FL-Class}}	Article has "Featured lists" status. More detailed criteria The article must meet the featured list criteria: Prose. It features professional standards of writing. Lead. It has an engaging lead section that introduces the subject, and defines the scope and inclusion criteria of the list. Comprehensiveness. It comprehensively covers the defined scope, providing a complete set of items where practical, or otherwise at least all of the major items; where appropriate, it has annotations that provide useful and appropriate information about entries. Structure. It is easy to navigate, and includes—where helpful—section headings and table sort facilities. Style. It complies with the Manual of Style and its supplementary pages. Visual appeal. It makes suitable use of text layout, formatting, tables, and colour; it has images if they are appropriate to the subject, with succinct captions or "alt" text; and it has a minimal proportion of red links. Stability. It is not the subject of ongoing edit wars and its content does not change significantly from day to day, except in response to the featured list process.			FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives (as of January 2008)
A {{A-Class}}	The article is well organized and is essentially complete, having been reviewed by impartial reviewers from a WikiProject or elsewhere, as described here. More detailed criteria Provides a well-written, clear and complete description of the topic, as described in Wikipedia:How to write a great article. It should be of a length suitable for the subject, appropriately structured, and be well referenced by a broad array of reliable sources. It should be well illustrated, with no copyright problems. Only minor style issues and other details need to be addressed before submission as a featured article candidate. See the A-Class assessment departments of some of the larger WikiProjects (eg WikiProject Military history, WikiProject Biography).	Very useful to readers. A fairly complete treatment of the subject. A non-expert in the subject matter would typically find nothing wanting.	Expert knowledge may be needed to "tweak" the article, and style issues may need addressing. Peer-review may help.	Durian (as of March 2007)
GA {{GA-Class}}	Article has obtained Good article status. More detailed criteria The article must meet the good article criteria: It is well written: (a) the prose is clear and the spelling and grammar are correct; and (b) it complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, jargon, words to avoid, fiction, and list incorporation.[2] It is factually accurate and verifiable: (a) it provides references to all sources of information, and at minimum contains a section dedicated to the attribution of those sources in accordance with the guide to layout;[3] (b) at minimum, it provides in-line citations from reliable sources for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons;[3] and (c) it contains no original research. It is broad in its coverage: (a) it addresses the main aspects of the topic;[4] and (b) it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style). It is neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without bias. It is stable: it does not change significantly from day-to-day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.[5] It is illustrated, if possible, by images:[6] (a) images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content; and (b) images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.[7]	Useful to nearly all readers, with no obvious problems; approaching (although not equalling) the quality of a professional encyclopedia.	Some editing by subject and style experts is helpful; comparison with an existing featured article on a similar topic may highlight areas where content is weak or missing.	International Space Station (as of February 2007)
B {{B-Class}}	The article is mostly complete, without major issues, but requires some further work to reach Good Article standards. B-Class articles should meet the six B-Class criteria: More detailed criteria The article is suitably referenced, with inline citations where necessary. It has reliable sources and important or controversial material which is likely to be challenged is cited. The use of citation templates such as {{cite web}}, is not required, but the use of <ref></ref> tags is encouraged. The article reasonably covers the topic, and does not contain obvious omissions or inaccuracies. It contains a large proportion of the material necessary for an A-Class article, although some sections may need expansion, and some less important topics may be missing. The article has a defined structure, including a lead section and all appropriate sections of content. It contains all the sections that can reasonably be included in an article of its kind. The article is reasonably well written. The prose contains no major grammatical errors and flows sensibly, but it certainly need not be "brilliant". The Manual of Style need not be followed rigorously. The article contains supporting materials, such as an infobox, images, or diagrams, where appropriate. It should have an infobox where relevant and useful. Images are not required, although illustrated articles are encouraged. The article presents its content in an appropriately accessible way. It is written with as broad an audience in mind as possible. Although Wikipedia is more than just a general encyclopedia, the article should not assume unnecessary technical background and technical terms should be explained or avoided where possible.	No reader should be left wanting, although the content may not be complete enough to satisfy a serious student or researcher.	A few aspects of content and style need to be addressed, and expert knowledge is increasingly needed. The inclusion of supporting materials should also be considered if practical, and the article checked for general compliance with the manual of style.	Jammu and Kashmir (as of October 2007)
C {{C-Class}}	The article is substantial, but is still missing important content or contains a lot of irrelevant material. The article should have some references to reliable sources, but may still have significant issues or require substantial cleanup. More detailed criteria The article is better developed in style, structure and quality than "Start"-Class, but fails one or more of the criteria for B-Class. It may have some gaps or missing elements; need editing for clarity, balance or flow; or contain policy violations such as bias or trivia. Articles on fictional topics are likely to be marked as C-Class if they are written from an in-universe perspective.	Useful to a casual reader, but would not provide a complete picture for even a moderately detailed study.	Considerable editing is needed to close gaps in content and address cleanup issues.	Exeter Cathedral (as of June 2008)
Start {{Start-Class}}	An article that is developing, but which is quite incomplete and, most notably, lacks adequate reliable sources. More detailed criteria The article has a usable amount of good content, but it is weak in many areas, usually in referencing. Quality of the prose may be distinctly unencyclopedic, and MoS compliance non-existent; but the article should satisfy fundamental content policies such as notability and BLP, and provide enough sources to establish verifiability. No Start-Class article should be in any danger of being speedily deleted.	Provides some meaningful content, but the majority of readers will need more.	Provision of references to reliable sources should be prioritised; the article will also need substantial improvements in content and organisation.	Real analysis (as of November 2006)
Stub {{Stub-Class}}	A very basic description of the topic. More detailed criteria The article is either a very short article or a rough collection of information that will need much work to become a meaningful article. It is usually very short, but can be of any length if the material is irrelevant or incomprehensible.	Provides very little meaningful content; may be little more than a dictionary definition	Any editing or additional material can be helpful. The provision of meaningful content should be a priority.	Coffee table book (as of July 2005)

Non-standard grades

There are a few other assessments used in the mainspace that are done by WikiProjects but do not fit into the scale. Some of these are not used by all WikiProjects. Of these, only List-Class is tracked by the bot. In no particular order:

Some WikiProjects use additional grades not listed above, such as those used at WP:Comics. Most common are Cat, Dab (for Disambiguation), Future, Image, List, Needed, and Template. See relevant Assessment page for the WikiProject, at Category:WikiProject assessments.

Evolution of an article - an example

This example of the article "Atom" may help demonstrate the typical profile for an article's development through the levels.

• The article started as a stub [1] on Oct 1, 2001.
• By 8 October, 2001 it received some additions and approached the upper bound of the definition of stub: [2]
• On 20 September 2002, the article was enriched with some more information and it moves into start class: [3]
• The version as of 3 June 2004 [4] is still in start class. There is a meaningful amount of information - but it needs further structuring improvement.
• On 24 June 2004, the article receives another important addition - a useful image. It has reached the upper bound of start class, but still not good enough to get a C-class rating: [5].
• On 18 September 2004, the article looks like this: [6]. Some of the sections have expanded and now it barely meets the C-class requirements.
• By 31 August 2005 the article has been expanded further and can now be comfortably called a C-class article: [7]. The article's major shortcoming is in referencing.
• The version of 12 December 2005 [8] has enough content and structure of a respectable article. In spite of its lack of in-line citation, the article is approaching the upper limit of C-Class. If it were properly referenced, we could have considered rating it B-class.
• After addition of several new images and contents from a book (now cited), the article looks like this [9] on 19 August 2006. Though some editors would still hesitate to rate it B-Class, due to its lack of in-line citation, in terms of content it deserves B-Class.
• By 23 March 2007 [10] new content and references have been added and the article would now safely pass a B-class assessment by any editor.
• The October 17 2007 version of the article: [11] is nominated for a Peer Review. Review closes on February 9, 2008 leaving the article like this: [12]. The review ensures completeness of the content, addresses many MoS issues and inline citation problems and upgrades the article to A-class.
• Next day [13] the article is nominated and listed as GA.
• On February 12, 2008 the article was nominated for FA and this version of the article: [14] (as of 17 February 2008) was promoted.

See also

Wikipedia:Article assessment previous version superseded by this version.

Wikipedia content modification information:

• This page was last modified on 5 July 2008, at 03:19.

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