Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Musical Theatre/Article Assessment

Musicals needing assessment
I feel that the "Musicals" section will probably be broken up by letter, but this is a good start. &mdash; Music Maker  05:40, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Hmm....
I added the letters to break up the Musicals section, and now everything's.... angular.... and it cut some stuff off (tho the code, apparently, is still there....) &mdash;  Music Maker  06:56, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Assessment
If this project ever starts assessing articles through the template on the talk page of the article, the ratings given on this page and its subpages should really be looked at again. I've seen articles rated A-class (which should be close to FA, and absolutely no policy problems) with copyright issues with images, consisting largely of lists (see WP:EMBED), unreferenced (should have in-line citations) etcetera. Er rab ee 14:48, 4 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Errabee, I noticed the over ratings here a while ago, and bumped them all back to B. There is no MT article that I'm aware of that rises above B level &mdash; they're all in trouble.  Which articles are you still concerned about ratings on?  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 15:28, 4 May 2007 (UTC)


 * On WikiProject Musical Theatre/Article Assessment/Musicals 1 - M, several articles are rated A-class. Er rab ee 15:31, 4 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Ugh ... I hadn't seen those lists. No, those all need to be changed.  Further, there are almost no WikiProjects that don't include assessments right on the talk page, so it would be good if someone (who knows how) updates this archaic Project.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 15:43, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Allright; those were all over-rated (there are no GA MT articles, so there are certainly no A-class), so I bumped them all back to B. Some of them may not be B-class either, but more time will be needed to re-evaluate.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 15:53, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Thank you! Er rab ee 15:56, 4 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Ugh &mdash; most of them aren't even B-class. Could use some help :-)  Maybe someone can start at the bottom of the list while I work from the top.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 16:08, 4 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I'll start at the bottom then :) Er rab ee 16:11, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Proposal
As the article structure is now in place, I would think that it would be a good idea to add some objectivity to the assessment parameters: In order for an article to be considered to have a particular section, that section must satisfy the conditions set forth in the article structure. For example, simply including a synopsis is not enough to qualify an article for the Start-Class: the synopsis must incorporate the musical numbers, main characters, and follow all the parameters in the structure. If the section completes the requirements but is poorly written (a judgment call), it does not qualify as being complete. FA: Contains each element of the article structure, in its correct placement, satisfying all requirements and has been passed by the Featured Article Class committee. See WP:FA. A-Class: In addition to the requirements for GA, contains each element of the article structure, in its correct placement, including a well-written critical reception section and integrated media. The article must be well-referenced and nearly FA quality. A peer review by project editors who have not contributed significantly to the article is necessary to promote an article beyond GA class. GA-Class: Before an article is nominated for GA to the WP community at large, the article must have a well-written history, synopsis, dramatic analysis, musical analysis, production history, and information about any other versions. There should not be any significant information missing from the article that a reader would need to know to understand the article and its significance in the world of musical theatre. B-Class: To be considered of this class, the article must also have an infobox, a history section, a complete production section and a good start at all the other sections required by the article structure. Start-class: To be considered of this class, the article must have a synopsis and at least basic production information. Stub-class: Miscellaneous information regarding composer, lyricist, etc.

Votes

 * Accept &mdash; Music Maker  20:47, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Accept &mdash; warpedmirror  ( talk ) 20:51, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Accept &mdash; Dafyd 21:31, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Object. See below.  -- Ssilvers 21:35, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Object See below --omtay38 22:11, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Comments
I purposely left out things like lists, etc., as they have been of contention. I don't think the inclusion of a list should either qualify or disqualify an article for a particular level. &mdash; Music Maker  20:47, 18 June 2007 (UTC)


 * FA and GA are out of our hands. There is a formal process for those, and the description for what is an FA or GA article are well described.  I don't see why we need a policy for stub, start and B that are different from what the generally requirements say, but if you really want to do it, I want to review what you write as our policy.  I'm not sure I agree with the above.  For instance, you can progress beyond stub if you have sufficient info in the article to do so. Maybe the synopis isn't very good, but you have a good history and production info and links and awards, etc.  Or, maybe it's got a good synopsis but is missing all the other stuff.  I think it's very subjective:  If it looks like it's more than just a cut and paste from IBDB and has some real research in it, it's more than a stub.   The really, really hard thing to define is A-class, and I believe that, as a project we do not have the resources to assess anything at A-class in any systematic way.  I do not think we should spend a lot of time promulgating a lot of policies; I think we should dig into the 10 articles that have been proposed and see what we can accomplish as a collaborative effort, which has been missing here for a while.  If we are making a lot of progress on a few dozens of articles, then let's come back and get fancy with policies, like assessment polices that vary from the usual ones.  Just my 2cents.  -- Ssilvers 21:42, 18 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I simply proposed the guidelines to have something other than someone saying "I think this is a B-class". I think we should be able to look at the rating and know what needs to be done; if I see that an article is start-class, I know that I need to start researching its history without even reading the article.
 * And I know that FA and GA are decided upon by other people. Hence the phrase, "the WP community at large".  &mdash;  Music Maker  21:56, 18 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree with what Omtay says below. But, if we are outvoted, see my proposals to the class descriptions above.  I think I could live with something like that....  -- Ssilvers 22:13, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I've just spent a good portion of the day digging through various articles with various ratings to re-vamp the talk page notice (see the project main talk page for more info) and what I have found is that there really is no set of standards that define an article in a specific class. There are more a set of guidelines. The only thing that makes GA's and FA's separate is the voting aspect and the review by those who are not educated in a specific field. I really don't think we need to worry about how we classify articles. I actually think "This is a B so i'm gonna make it a B" is okay. Spending too much time on rating articles takes away from this project's main purpose: to edit articles about musical theatre. Using the classification scale is merely a way to quickly and easily gauge to what level an article is written. I don't think any of us have completely similar outlooks on what defines an A article, a B article and so on and, as such, don't think we should spend the time trying to agree. Instead, I think the ratings are in place so somebody can look at all the "stub" articles and pick one to improve on or look at all the "B" articles and find one to nominate for GA. In the long run, the classification of an article doesn't matter a bit, it's the substance. Plus, since (as we've found) every musical theatre article has important and less important sections, deciding on a set classification would be even harder than deciding on an article structure.

In short, I really don't think we need to get this detailed. Let's just get into some of the articles and write some good encyclopedia. :-D --omtay38 22:11, 18 June 2007 (UTC) P.S. Do take a look at the talk page near the bottom. The new talk page notice is gonna be pretty cool and i'm really amazed that it's working.

Happy Birthday to Us!
We have now passed 1,500 articles in the project. BTW, I removed the tag from the FA, A and GA class musical films, since we agreed that those are no longer within the scope of the project. Can anyone use a bot to find the others and remove our tag? It may drive us back below 1,500, but only temporarily - there are still lots of performers' articles that need our tag. -- Ssilvers 04:13, 5 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I can probably do it with AWB as soon as I have the time to build the new version. &mdash;   Music  Maker  5376  17:44, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I also did not try to update the Category tree to eliminate the film cats from it, because I'd probably make a mess and don't want to get yelled at again! ;-) -- Ssilvers 17:59, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

First Broadway musical at FA
Flower Drum Song has been promoted to Featured Article class, the first Broadway musical article promoted! (There is one other FA-class musical, A Very Merry Unauthorized Children's Scientology Pageant). Thanks to everyone who assisted us or commented! -- Ssilvers (talk) 20:03, 15 December 2010 (UTC)