Wikipedia:WikiProject Cricket/Assessment

Welcome to the assessment department of the Cricket WikiProject. This department focuses on assessing the quality of Wikipedia's cricket articles. While much of the work is done in conjunction with the WP:1.0 program, the article ratings are also used within the project itself to aid in recognising excellent contributions and identifying topics in need of further work.

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

Introduction
The assessment system used by the Cricket WikiProject to rate article quality consists of two parallel quality scales; one scale is used to assess regular prose articles, while the other is used to assess lists and similar non-prose articles. The progression of articles along these scales is described in greater detail below.

Quality scale
It is important to remember that the "class" of an article has two factors: completeness and quality. These do not necessarily overlap or interlink. Completeness is measured by the classes B, C, Start and Stub where B is arguably a finished article and Stub is little more than a place-marker. Quality is measured by classes FA (see WP:FA), FL (for lists only; see WP:FL), GA (see WP:GA) and B (assessed by WP:CRIC). To be rated FA or GA in quality, the article must have achieved B-class at least in terms of its quality, according to the B-class criteria (see the Quality standards section below).

Quality standards
The B-class criteria listed above are based on the view that any article which has been developed to B-class standard must be a strong contender for WP:GA status. Passing all of conditions 1–6 qualifies the article as B-class. To qualify as C-class, it must pass four of the criteria including at least two of conditions 1–3. Otherwise, it is start-class only.
 * 1) It reasonably covers the topic using WP:NPOV within the terms of WP:SCOPE and WP:LENGTH; contains no significant omissions or inaccuracies; and does not breach WP:NOTSTATS
 * 2) It is suitably referenced and all significant points have appropriate inline citations with no suspicion of copyright violation or original research
 * 3) It complies with WP:MoS; it uses good English, does not breach WP:WTW and is free from grammatical, syntax and spelling errors
 * 4) It has a defined structure with an introduction that satisfies WP:LEAD and presents content in sections to satisfy WP:SECTION
 * 5) It provides adequate navigation through wikilinks, categories and appropriate templates
 * 6) Where both possible and appropriate, contains supporting materials such as an infobox, images or diagrams
 * 1) It has a defined structure with an introduction that satisfies WP:LEAD and presents content in sections to satisfy WP:SECTION
 * 2) It provides adequate navigation through wikilinks, categories and appropriate templates
 * 3) Where both possible and appropriate, contains supporting materials such as an infobox, images or diagrams
 * 1) Where both possible and appropriate, contains supporting materials such as an infobox, images or diagrams
 * 1) Where both possible and appropriate, contains supporting materials such as an infobox, images or diagrams

If the article is given B-Class status as a result of being reviewed using these criteria, it is automatically placed in Category:Reviewed B-Class cricket articles.

C-class is awarded to articles that pass four of the B-class criteria, including at least two of conditions 1–3. Work is still needed in certain areas (e.g., coverage, inline citations, introduction, linkage, categories, etc.). A C-class article must be appreciably better than a start-class one and, by passing the majority of B-class criteria, it is closer to a B than to a start. Any article that attracts two or more attention tags such as refimprove or copyedit cannot be C-class, let alone B-class.

With short articles, the difference between start-class and stub-class may be a matter of opinion though rules of thumb might be that a stub has up to six lines of narrative and a start has a dozen or more. For the "in-between" cases, the reviewer must take a subjective view of the threshold between a stub and a weak start, the key perhaps being the article's potential for growth. Some articles are bound to be short because of limited scope or lack of data. Broadly, a stub is an article that contains little more than a definition or a brief overview. It must have sufficient content to comply with WP:CRIN and it must be verifiable but it might yet consist of just a couple of sentences (e.g., a biography must stipulate, with a citation, that the subject played top-class cricket). A stub will probably fail all six B-class criteria, particularly #1. A start-class article is, in a sense, an expanded stub that may pass one to three of the B-class criteria but is not yet up to C-class standard.

As stated in the quality scale, FL-class and List-class are special cases reserved for lists.

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

The navigational tool below can be used as a quick way to view cricket articles per their assigned quality scale category: Articles: FA-Class | GA-Class | B-Class | C-Class | List-Class | Start-Class | Stub Class | Unassessed

Parameters
An article's assessment is generated from the class and importance parameters in the WikiProject Cricket project banner on its talk page (see the project banner instructions for more details on the exact syntax):



Class parameters
The following values may be used for the class parameter (A-class is defunct in WP:CRIC):
 * FA (adds articles to Category:FA-Class cricket articles)
 * FL (adds list articles to Category:FL-Class cricket articles)
 * GA (adds articles to Category:GA-Class cricket articles)
 * B (adds articles to Category:Reviewed B-Class cricket articles when reviewed according to the B-class rating criteria below; and to Category:B-Class cricket articles as default)
 * C (adds articles to Category:C-Class cricket articles)
 * List (adds list articles to Category:List-Class cricket articles)
 * Start (adds articles to Category:Start-Class cricket articles)
 * Stub (adds articles to Category:Stub-Class cricket articles)
 * NA (for pages such as categories, templates or disambiguation pages, where assessment is unnecessary)

Importance parameters
The following values may be used for the importance parameter:
 * Top (adds articles to Category:Top-importance cricket articles)
 * High (adds articles to Category:High-importance cricket articles)
 * Mid (adds articles to Category:Mid-importance cricket articles)
 * Low (adds articles to Category:Low-importance cricket articles)

The parameter is not used if an article's class is set to NA, and may be omitted in those cases. The importance should be assigned according to the importance scale below.

Task force parameters
Task forces may optionally be established by the project to concentrate on specific areas of study (they are widely employed by many other projects) and this template caters for the option by enabling a task force parameter to be set. Thus, if an article is being supported by the a cricket task force, the parameter's to be included in the template dependent on taskforce are:

Importance scale
The criteria used for rating article importance attempt to gauge the probability of the "average" or "typical" reader of Wikipedia needing to look up the topic; and thus the need to have a suitably well-written article on it. Therefore, it is the importance of the article to the development of the project that is under consideration. To use an obvious example, it is clearly more important for the project to develop Cricket than Barmy Army. Although some subjects may have current notability, as will the 2019 Cricket World Cup in 2019, it is the long-term importance that matters and so the 2019 World Cup article does not deserve a higher importance rating than the articles on previous World Cups; this approach complies with WP:RECENTISM.

Generally notable topics must not be judged from the perspective of editor demographics but must be rated similarly regardless of the country or region in which they hold said notability. For example, Indian or Pakistani topics which may seem obscure to some in England or Australia (and vice-versa) must be rated accordingly and so the Ranji Trophy and the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy are equal in importance to the County Championship and the Sheffield Shield.

The navigational box below provides a numerical oversight of cricket articles by importance:

Importance standards
Note that the importance status values and meanings in the above table are widely applicable across Wikipedia and are standard to many projects, although there are variations to suit the needs of a particular project. Their purpose is to enable project members to assess the importance of individual articles within the context of the project's subject-matter. In this case, the subject-matter is cricket. Note especially that it is essential to use assessments as objectively as possible by application of the criteria in the status table and (relatively speaking) not subjectively based on your personal view of, for example, a particular player's merit. Unfortunately, a measure of subjectivity is necessary where assessment of people's importance is performed.

Hence, cricket and any article that strongly supplements it is of top-importance. Strong supplements are articles that have been developed separately for reasons such as space or presentation but are essentially part of the key topic: e.g., Laws of cricket, History of cricket, batting, bowling, wicket, cricket ball, ICC, etc. The ICC may be seen as an exception to the norm among the 26 top-importance articles but its key function of administering the sport worldwide is of top-importance.

Biographies, match/tour(nament)/season reviews and articles about teams pose the biggest subjectivity problem. This WikiProject has agreed to follow a precedent set by WikiProject Football that articles about globally renowned teams, competitions and individuals are limited to high-importance, as specified above.

Before a team or individual can be granted a high-importance rating, some measurably objective reason must be provided. Good benchmarks for objectivity in the case of a player are his membership of one of Wisden's greatest player selections, as listed below, which recognises outstanding career achievement (a single outstanding match or Test series or season is insufficient). For teams, useful benchmarks are the level of ICC membership internationally and, at national level, participation in the country's national championship. In other cases, the breaking of a major cricket record may suffice or alternatively recourse to a recognised and reputable source that clearly states an individual's importance to the sport's history and development: e.g., the likes of the 2nd Duke of Richmond and William Clarke had profound impacts on cricket history. This latter course is more likely to be needed for non-players such as umpires, writers and administrators. The principle extends itself logically to non-biographical articles and it should be relatively easy to justify Bodyline, for example, as a high-importance article.

It has been agreed by WP:CRIC that no biography, not even those of W. G. Grace, Don Bradman or Garfield Sobers, can be rated top-importance. High-importance is limited to those people whose legacy has been to undeniably make a meaningful impact on the game's history: i.e., truly great players like Grace, Bradman and Sobers; innovators like William Clarke, Arthur Haygarth, John Wisden and Kerry Packer; great writers and broadcasters like John Arlott, Richie Benaud (also a top-class player), Neville Cardus and C. L. R. James; those players active since 1863 who feature in one of the significant career-based lists (see below) published by Wisden Cricketers' Almanack; those players active before 1864 who are judged by substantial pre-Wisden sources to have achieved the highest standard; and those players who accomplished an outstanding achievement such as breaking a significant world record. The accredited career-based Wisden lists are:


 * Six Giants of the Wisden Century: six plus thirteen named "alternatives" (i.e., 1864 to 1963; published in 1963 to commemorate the Wisden centenary)
 * Wisden Cricketers of the Century: five plus 44 other nominees (i.e., the 20th century; published in 2001)
 * Wisden Leading Cricketer in the World (i.e., actual awards from 2003; notional awards back-dated to 1900)
 * Wisden's "All-Time World Test XI" (published October 2013; to commemorate Wisden's 150th anniversary in 2014).

Any player who is named in or just outside one of these lists has high-importance on the basis of their recognition by Wisden.

Note that any "top" or "high" rating for an article is subject to approval by a registered assessor and that an assessor may veto the nomination if he/she considers that it is inappropriate, especially if the rating is based on a subjective motive.

Here are a few examples to illustrate the concept and the points above (these should not be viewed as inflexible rules; each case must be judged on its individual merit):


 * National teams – "high" if full ICC member (i.e., plays Test cricket); "mid" if associate; "low" if affiliate


 * National cricket councils – the ICC is "top" (see above); bear in mind the historic importance of a special case like Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), which is "high"; major federations and boards of control are also "high" while the rest are "mid" to "low", generally depending on ICC membership level


 * Cricket terminology – all are specific topics except if the article is a list or in some other way generic; for example, cricket ball as an essential piece of equipment and dismissal (cricket) as an essential functionality topic must both be "top" while yorker as an optional tactic is "mid"; if the article is generic it may be "high" and if it is an essential supplement to cricket it could be "top"


 * Venues – slightly difficult as a few venues such as Lord's, MCG and The Oval have perhaps exaggerated importance by association with the sport's history and administration; even so, all historically significant venues (e.g., Trent Bridge, Sabina Park, Eden Gardens) must be "high" as "general areas of knowledge", while other well-known venues may be "mid" or "low" (venues are generic topics, not specific, because of their histories and usages)


 * Non-international first-class clubs and teams – these are also generic topics for historical reasons and must be rated as "high", "mid" or "low" depending on whether they are first-class, second grade (e.g., minor counties in England or grade level in Australia) or a local club respectively. Note that some apparently minor clubs such as Hambledon have major historic associations and so have high-importance.


 * Specific events including individual season, tour, series, competition, match or incident reviews must be rated according to their measurable (i.e., by reference to key sources) significance to the subject if a high-importance rating is proposed. Otherwise, an article about a Test series/tour or a Cricket World Cup tournament should be rated a default "mid"; articles about all other international and first-class competitions should be rated a default "low" (per the football project's precedent).


 * Biographies – see above.

Log
The full log of assessment changes for the past thirty days is available here. Unfortunately, due to its extreme size, it cannot be transcluded directly.

Participants
Please feel free to add your name to this list if you would like to join the assessment team


 * 1) - trying to get rid of unassessed and 'articles of unknown importance'

Frequently asked questions

 * How do I add an article to the WikiProject? : Just add WikiProject Cricket to the talk page; there's no need to do anything else.
 * How can I get my article rated? : Please list it in the section for assessment requests.
 * Who can assess articles? : Any member of the cricket WikiProject is free to add or change the rating of an article. Please add your name to the list of participants if you wish to assess articles on a regular basis.
 * 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.
 * Where can I get more comments about my article? : Place a message at WT:CRIC and ask if the project members can conduct more thorough examination of the 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? : To a point, yes, and unavoidably so where people are concerned although objectivity is the required method. See, in particular, the disclaimers on the importance scale.
 * How can I keep track of changes in article ratings? : A full log of changes over the past thirty days is available here. If you are just looking for an overview, however, the statistics may be more accessible.

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

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 drop a line to WT:CRIC and ask if one of the project members can assist, or alternatively leave your request below and ping one of the above assessment participants using the following template.