Wikipedia:Article Incubator/Assessment

Welcome to the assessment department of the Article Incubator WikiProject! This department focuses on assessing the quality of Wikipedia's articles graduated from the Article Incubation process. 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.

The ratings are done in a distributed fashion through parameters in the WikiProject Article Incubator project banner; this causes the articles to be placed in the appropriate sub-categories of Category:Article Incubator articles by quality, which serves as the foundation for an automatically generated worklist.

Frequently asked questions

 * See also the general assessment FAQ.


 * 1. What is the purpose of the article ratings? : The rating system allows the project to monitor the quality of articles in our subject areas, and to prioritize work on these articles. It is also utilized by the Wikipedia 1.0 program to prepare for static releases of Wikipedia content.  Please note, however, that these ratings are primarily intended for the internal use of the project, and do not necessarily imply any official standing within Wikipedia as a whole.
 * 2. How do I add an article to the WikiProject? : Just add WikiProject Article Incubator to the talk page; there's no need to do anything else.
 * 3. Someone put a WikiProject Article Incubator template on an article, but it doesn't seem to be within the project's scope. What should I do? : Because of the large number of articles we deal with, we occasionally make mistakes and add tags to articles that shouldn't have them.  If you notice one, feel free to remove the tag, and optionally leave a note on the talk page of this department (or directly with the person who tagged the article).
 * 4. Who can assess articles? : Any member of the WikiProject Article Incubator is free to add—or change—the rating of an article. Editors who are not participants in this project are also welcome to assess articles, but should defer to consensus within the project in case of procedural disputes.
 * 5. How do I rate an article? : Check the quality scale and select the level that best matches the state of the article; then, follow the instructions below to add the rating to the project banner on the article's talk page. Please note that some of the available levels have an associated formal review process that must be followed; this is documented in the assessment instructions.
 * 6. Can I request that someone else rate an article? : Of course; to do so, please list it in the section for assessment requests below.
 * 7. Why didn't the reviewer leave any comments? : Unfortunately, due to the volume of articles that need to be assessed, we are unable to leave detailed comments in most cases. If you have particular questions, you might ask the person who assessed the article; they will usually be happy to provide you with their reasoning.
 * 8. 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.  Please note that some of the available levels have an associated formal review process that must be followed; this is documented in the assessment instructions.
 * 9. Aren't the ratings subjective? : Yes, they are somewhat subjective, 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!
 * 10. What if I have a question not listed here? : If your question concerns the article assessment process specifically, please refer to the discussion page for this department; for any other issues, you can go to the main project discussion page.

If you have any other questions not listed here, please feel free to ask them on the discussion page for this department.

Instructions
An article's assessment is generated from the class parameters in the WikiProject Article Incubator project banner on its talk page:

The following values may be used for the class parameter:


 * FA (adds articles to Category:FA-Class Article Incubator articles)
 * A (adds articles to Category:A-Class Article Incubator articles)
 * GA (adds articles to Category:GA-Class Article Incubator articles)
 * B (adds articles to Category:B-Class Article Incubator articles)
 * Start (adds articles to Category:Start-Class Article Incubator articles)
 * Stub (adds articles to Category:Stub-Class Article Incubator articles)
 * NA (for pages, such as templates or disambiguation pages, where assessment is unnecessary; adds pages to Category:NA-Class Article Incubator articles)

Articles for which a valid class is not provided are listed in Category:Unassessed Article Incubator articles. The class should be assigned according to the quality scale below.

Requesting an assessment
If you have made significant changes to an article and would like an outside opinion on a new rating for it, please feel free to list it below.

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.