Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome/Assessment

Importance
A few questions: Do we want to reassess the criteria and process for designating "importance"? Might these be more complicated than single sentences:


 * TOP: Subject is a core topic in the Classics or is universally known of.
 * HIGH: Subject is not a key topic of the Classics but nevertheless is of interest to most.
 * MID: Subject is of interest to scholars of the Classics but may be only peripherally known of by others.
 * LOW: Subject is of little interest, except to Classical scholars.

by which I also mean: should there be different specific criteria (or even discussion) for people, works, events, objects, concepts, etc. and all/some in between? (I point out as a literature person that the only individual works of Classical Literature that are currently Top-Importance are the Iliad and Odyssey&mdash;not in the least bit acceptable or even logical. More important for the current discussion, does it reflect the above criteria? The "universally known of" Regia? Curia Julia?) And should some aspect of the review process be more than a "lone wolf" grading system? Can we take a more organized responsibility?

Right now LOW is the nearest to being defined purely within the Project's discipline, since its definition is "who the hell cares?". MID through TOP are defined by interest outside of Classics, with a curious system of in-discipline rating. (What is the relative Classical importance of something that "is of interest" and something that "is not a key topic" of Classics? Are they the same, and the main difference is the man on the street?) This system better reflects the interest of the Project in promoting Classical Studies throughout WP, but does not necessarily reflect the discipline's scholarly perspective. A vigorous approach in the opposite direction might more effectively accomplish the stated mission.

I also wonder if the importance scale might be explicitly tied in some circumstances to the number of subtopics and articles which will be dependent upon the rated article as an anchor. But that might be an overcomplicated approach. Thoughts from editors who have dealt with this system? — the cardiff chestnut  | talk  —  04:28, 11 November 2011 (UTC)