Wikipedia:WikiProject Chicago/Assessment

Welcome to the assessment department of the Chicago WikiProject! This department focuses on assessing and recording the quality and the importance of Wikipedia's Chicago or Chicagoland articles. There are two parameters within the Chicago Project template used for recording the assessments. The Importance parameter records the importance rating and the Class parameter is used for the quality value. 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, or by other editors and readers, to aid in recognizing excellent contributions and identifying articles in need of further work. A reader may use the parameters to decide which articles to read if they were interested in the general topic Chicago or Chicagoland.

An example of how the assessment parameters are used - Filling in the rating in the Class parameter of the WikiProject Chicago template on the talk page of an article causes the name of that article to be placed in the appropriate sub-categories of Category:Chicago articles by quality and filing in the rating in the Importance parameter will place the article within the appropriate sub-categories of Category:Chicago articles by importance. These two lists serve as the foundation for an automatically generated worklist offered to the Chicago Project members by the WP:1.0 project team.

Frequently asked questions

 * How can I get my article rated? : Please list it in the section for assessment requests below.
 * Who can assess articles? : Any member of the Chicago WikiProject is free to add—or change—the rating of an article.
 * What if I don't agree with a rating? : You can list it in the section for assessment requests below, and someone will take a look at it. Alternately, you can ask any member of the project to rate the article again.
 * Aren't the ratings subjective? : Yes, they are, but it's the best system we've been able to devise; if you have a better idea, please don't hesitate to let us know!
 * How may I begin assessing articles? : Assessment may be done through a variety of ways, but the most efficient is through use of the MetaData article assessment script.

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

Introduction to assessing a Chicago article
Assessing a Chicago Project article involves reviewing and recording (1) the quality of the article (i.e., how well it is written) as well as (2) the importance of the subject of the article as it pertains to the scope of the Project and the subjective criteria established by the Project team members.

An article's quality assessment is recorded within the Class parameter of the WikiProject Chicago project banner on the article's talk page. Articles for which a valid Class is not provided are given in a category based list called Category:Unassessed Chicago articles. For the latest count of Chicago Project articles needing quality assessment (e.g., that need to have a quality value inserted in the Class parameter of the WikiProject Chicago template) see the information given below at or view the Category:Unassessed Chicago articles which will give the current count just before the alphabetical listing.

An article's importance assessment is recorded within the Importance parameter of the WikiProject Chicago project banner on the article's talk page. Articles for which a valid Importance is not provided are given in a category based list called Category:Unknown-importance Chicago articles. For the latest count of Chicago Project articles needing importance assessment (e.g., that need to have an importance value inserted in the Importance parameter of the WikiProject Chicago template) see the information given below at or view the Category:Unknown-importance Chicago articles which will give the current count just before the alphabetical listing.

If an article is within the scope of the Chicago Project group and the Talk page for the article doesn't have a Chicago Project template, a copy the entire text given within one of the boxes below should be pasted at the top of the Talk page of the article.

Chicago Project articles to be assessed have some aspects of the WikiProject Chicago template on their talk page, but the template may be incomplete. First, give yourself access to the MetaData article assessment script by following the instructions at MetaData. Next, select an article from the list at Category:Unassessed Chicago articles or Category:Unknown-importance Chicago articles. Then, look over the article in anticipation of filling out the parameters of the WikiProject Chicago template. Finally, select the appropriate answers for the MetaData script. You will be brought to the talk page where you may complete the assessment.

Importance parameter

 * Please follow a two step process to classify an article as "Top-importance": (1) Set a "placeholder" High-importance value (this will be there until Chicago Project Team consensus is obtained); and, (2) Add your article to the suggestions (you may want to add the page to your watchlist, so you can look for feedback). After consensus is obtained, a Chicago Project Team member will set the Top-importance value.

Assessment scales
The following scales provide the Chicago Project assessment criteria for the Quality and Importance parameters.

Importance scale
Only the "Top" 0.2% (or 45 as of May 2010) Chicago and Chicagoland related articles.

Importance is a relative term. Importance values are applied within the project. This evaluation reflects the perceived importance to this project and/or work groups that the article falls under. An article judged to be of "Top-importance" to one project may be only "Mid-importance" to another project. The criteria used for rating article importance are not meant to be an absolute or canonical view of how significant the topic is. Rather, it is an attempt to gauge the probability of the average reader of Wikipedia needing to look up the topic (and thus the immediate need to have a suitably well-written article on it). A good indicator for a high level of public interest is if a large number of different editors have contributed to the page.

These ratings do not reflect the general importance of an article from a cultural or social perspective. For example, the most viewed pages on the internet or on Wikipedia do not mesh with conventional views on importance. Sometimes celebrity, or the popularity of the article's subject matter, may have more of a bearing on the importance assessment than conventional importance. As a result, several individuals may have a higher importance than our own mayor, for example.

Requesting an assessment
If you have made significant changes to an article and would like an outside opinion on a new quality rating for it, please feel free to list it below. NOTE: This is only to rate the article on quality - you may or may not get feedback on the article. If you assess an article, please strike it off using Strike-through text so that other editors will not waste time going there too. Thanks! Generally, articles submitted here will not be rated above 'B', unless they are already rated as 'GA' by Good articles/Candidates.

You may bring to our attention an article that has either not received any Importance rating or that you believe has been incorrectly assessed. List the article below. If it has been previously assessed (incorrectly in your opinion) also 1.) state its current assessment level, 2.) check its talk page edit history to find the assessor and state it here (it is better to get a new assessor for reassessment), 3) summarize why you feel the assessment is not correct.

Assessment log
Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Chicago articles by quality log Note: This is a report generated by the WP:1.0 project team that uses their own project's criteria for "quality" which incorporates both Chicago Project assessment parameters of Class and Importance. CAUTION: In order to understand the report, as of August 29, 2009, the reader needs to realize that the report uses the term "Class" for both Class and Importance. An article's Importance parameter is reported as "Class" within parenthesis (e.g., (High-Class) ) and the quality parameter Class is reported as "Class" without the parenthesis (e.g., B-Class).