Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment

The assessment department of the Military history WikiProject focuses on assessing the quality of Wikipedia's military history articles. The resulting article ratings are used within the project to aid in recognizing excellent contributions and identifying topics in need of further work.

Introduction
The assessment system used by the Military history 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.

Criteria
The following tables summarize the criteria used to assess articles at each level of the quality assessment scale. In addition to the criteria, the tables list the assessment process used at each level and provide an example of an article previously assessed at that level.

Processes
This section describes the different processes used to assess the quality of military history articles.

Individual review
The individual review process is used for all assessment activities up to and including the B-Class level. In this process, any editor may review an article against the listed criteria and assign the corresponding quality rating themselves.

Article authors are free to assess their own articles under this process. However, by convention, the final assessment for a B-Class rating is typically left to an independent editor; requests for an independent assessment may be made at the assessment request page.

Peer review
The peer review process is not used to evaluate an article for a particular assessment level directly; rather, it is a forum where article authors can solicit ideas for further improvements. Peer review is most often requested when an article is at the C-Class or B-Class level; articles at lower levels are typically so incomplete that a meaningful review is impossible, while articles at higher levels go through more formal review processes.

By convention, military history articles are typically listed in the history section of the main peer review request page; however, articles may be listed in other sections if their primary topic lies in another field.

Good article review
The good article nomination process is an independent review mechanism through which an article receives a "good article" quality rating. The process involves a detailed review of the article by an independent examiner, who determines whether the article meets the good article criteria.

Full instructions for requesting a good article review are provided on the good article review page.

A-Class article/list review
The military history A-Class review process is the most thorough and demanding assessment of article quality done by the Military history WikiProject. An article that undergoes this process must be reviewed by at least three independent examiners, each of whom must agree that the article meets all of the A-Class criteria.

Full instructions for requesting an A-Class review are provided on the A-Class review page.

Featured article/list candidacy
The featured article candidacy and featured list candidacy processes are an independent, Wikipedia-wide quality assessment mechanism; these processes are the only way an article can receive a "featured" quality rating. The process involves a comprehensive review of the article by multiple independent examiners, all of whom must agree that the article meets the featured article or list criteria.

Full instructions for submitting a featured article or list candidacy are provided on the corresponding candidacy page. Editors are advised to carefully review the submission instructions; failing to follow them correctly may cause the submission to be rejected.

Instructions
An article's quality assessment is generated from the class parameter in the WPMILHIST project banner on its talk page:



The following values may be used for the class parameter to describe the quality of the article:
 * FA (for featured articles only; adds articles to Category:FA-Class military history articles)
 * FL (for featured lists only; adds articles to Category:FL-Class military history articles)
 * A (adds articles to Category:A-Class military history articles)
 * AL (adds articles to Category:AL-Class military history articles)
 * GA (for good articles only; adds articles to Category:GA-Class military history articles)
 * B (adds articles to Category:B-Class military history articles)
 * BL (adds articles to Category:BL-Class military history articles)
 * C (adds articles to Category:C-Class military history articles)
 * CL (adds articles to Category:CL-Class military history articles)
 * List (adds articles to Category:List-Class military history articles)
 * Start (adds articles to Category:Start-Class military history articles)
 * Stub (adds articles to Category:Stub-Class military history articles)

The class parameter should be assigned according to the quality scale below.

The following classes may be used for non-article pages; many are automatically generated by the template when it is placed on a page of the corresponding type:
 * CAT (for categories; adds pages to Category:Category-Class military history articles)
 * DAB (for disambiguation pages; adds pages to Category:Disambig-Class military history articles)
 * DR (for drafts; adds pages to Category:Draft-Class military history articles)
 * IMG (for files; adds pages to Category:File-Class military history articles)
 * NA (for project pages; adds pages to Category:Project-Class military history articles)
 * POR (for portals; adds pages to Category:Portal-Class military history articles)
 * RDR (for redirects; adds pages to Category:Redirect-Class military history articles)
 * SI (for set index pages; adds pages to Category:SIA-Class military history articles)
 * TMP (for templates and modules; adds pages to Category:Template-Class military history articles)
 * USR (for user pages; adds pages to Category:User-Class military history articles)

FAQ

 * See also the general assessment FAQ and the project's B-Class assessment & criteria FAQ and A-Class review & criteria 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 WPMILHIST to the talk page; there's no need to do anything else.
 * 3. Someone put a WPMILHIST 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 Military history WikiProject 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. Can I assess articles that I have written or contributed significantly to? : For the most part, yes—in fact, you are encouraged to do so. B-Class assessment, by convention, is generally undertaken by an independent editor (requests can be made here), and A-Class promotion requires the consensus of multiple independent reviewers. However, if your article falls within the Stub- to C-Class range, by awarding the rating yourself you are helping to prevent the assessment requests process becoming overloaded.
 * 6. 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; this is documented in the assessment scale.
 * 7. Can I request that someone else rate an article? : Of course; to do so, please list it in the section for assessment requests below.
 * 8. 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.
 * 9. Where can I get more comments about an article? : The peer review process can conduct more thorough examination of articles; please submit it for review there.
 * 10. 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; this is documented in the assessment scale.
 * 11. 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!
 * 12. 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, or contact the project coordinators directly.

Assessment backlogs
Please help to clear any backlogs of unassessed articles in the following categories:


 * The current status of Category:Unassessed military history articles = articles unassessed. After articles have been assessed, they are automatically removed from this category.


 * The current status of Category:Military history articles with no associated task force = articles without task forces. After task forces have been assigned, articles are automatically removed from the category.


 * The current status of Category:Military history articles with incomplete B-Class checklists = articles with incomplete checklists. After the checklists have been completed, articles are automatically removed from the category.


 * The current status of Category:Military history articles with missing B-Class checklists = articles with no assessment against the B-class checklist. After the checklists have been started, articles are automatically removed from the category.

Statistics

 * Quality operations: A bot-generated daily log which lists articles Reassessed, Assessed and Removed.
 * Popular pages: List of top articles with the most frequent views, updated monthly.

Special projects
