Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Trains/Assessment

Two stub categories
We now have two categories for stubs:


 * Category:Stub-Class rail transport articles from the assessment project
 * Category:Rail transport stubs from Rail-transport-stub

I'm not suggesting that we remove the latter (as it is still useful) but I think we can remove it from articles that have been given a higher rating. The same would apply to the other article stubs. Mangoe 03:22, 11 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Those that are rated as B class can likely have their stub tags removed if there are any left, but quite a lot of start class articles still count as stubs due to their short length. Some of the articles listed in Start class could arguably have the stub tags removed from the article text, but not all of them.  Those that are in Stub-Class rail transport articles are nearly all exceptionally short and little more than stubs in the first place.


 * I haven't spent a lot of time on each article as I go through rating them and there are likely a few thousand more yet to be assessed. I've only just gotten the list of articles tagged with the project banner down to 200, and I haven't made a thorough scan through the various rail categories yet. Slambo (Speak)  10:33, 11 July 2006 (UTC)


 * If it's too much trouble to remove them during assessment, that's OK. I was more looking to see if anyone thought that there was a reason to keep listing so many things as stubs. Mangoe 12:02, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Assessing list articles
I've been putting off reassessing both List of London railway stations and List of closed railway stations in London mostly because I'm unsure of how to assess them as articles. In the past, I've assigned NA class to pure list articles because they are lists. However, the inclusion of these two lists specifically in the requests for assessment section here would indicate that other editors disagree with that idea. So the question comes down to how do we assess lists on the quality scale? Looking at Template talk:Grading scheme, I don't see any further guidance there, and the closest there is to a grading scheme for lists would be the Featured List criteria (and so far, there is only one rail transport list at featured status: List of London Underground stations). Featured lists don't have a few of the requirements of Featured articles (like well-written prose), but how do lists that aren't Featured fit into the grading scheme? Slambo (Speak) 14:47, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Importance of rail terminals
Why Belorusskiy Rail Terminal in Moscow is rated as low important while Kievsky Rail Terminal - as mid-important? Moscow has nine rail terminals of which three assessed as mid-important and others - as low important with no evident principle.--Planemo 19:27, 13 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I was asked this question personally by another user, so I'll copy my answer here...
 * In rating articles, I usually go with what I call the "culturally or historically significant" rule of thumb with regards to rail transport technology and history worldwide. I've tried to put this idea into words on the WikiProject Trains/Assessment page (see the Importance scale section) and so far haven't seen any dissenting opinions on the guidelines specified there.  Generally, I look for notability statements (such as superlatives [first, largest, busiest, etc.], whether the structure is a listed building or equivalent status, notable historic events that occurred there, etc.) in the lead section and combine that information with my own experience in researching rail transport topics.  There's more on subject notability in the Trains WikiProject MOS (another collection of guidelines where I have yet to see any major dissenting opinions).  If I don't see any notability statements like these in the lead, then I usually examine my own familiarity with the subject and how important the topic seems to me in an understanding of rail transport history and technology.
 * I don't claim to be the Trains WikiProject Article Ratings Guru, I'm just the guy who's been doing a lot of them, and if there are any specific ratings that should be changed, you don't need my permission to be bold and make the update. Slambo (Speak) 14:02, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Hope that helps. Slambo (Speak)  20:15, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Does it mean that your assessment is rater function of the article than of the topic itself? If you see large article, you assess it more important and when you see small one you otherwise? By the way, there is even an narrative film named after the Belorusskiy Terminal - you can read details about the film in Polish Wikipedia. --Planemo 02:02, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Not necessarily. In all of the ratings that I put on articles, I ask "how important is this article's subject to an understanding of rail transport history and technology on a worldwide scale?" before I make a rating decision.  If I don't see anything in the article to assert the subject's importance to worldwide rail transport, then all I've got to go on is my personal experience in researching rail topics.  This becomes especially difficult when the article is only three sentences long on a topic that is not discussed in detail in my own reference library. Slambo (Speak)  11:42, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Also, other editors are free to change the ratings on any given article. I am not an official gatekeeper and my ratings are not final.  Unfortunately, I don't know how to read or speak languages other than English and Spanish (although I can come close on related languages like Italian and Portuguese, I don't know them well enough to be confident at all), so I have to rely on other editors for translations from other languages. Slambo (Speak)  11:47, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

WP:TUK
Hi! WikiProject UK Trams now has it's own assessment department, and I was wondering if we could have some help getting it up-and-running? Also, we would like second opinions on most of the articles already assessed, aswell as help from you guys to get some of our articles up to GA/A/FA, and to do some updates to our talk page banner with regards to assessments. Thanks!  Bluegoblin  7   10:29, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Islip (LIRR station)
I found that after writing the article on Islip (LIRR station), it was almost instantly given a "B" rating. Though I'm flattered, I've written scores of Long Island Rail Road-related articles, and never had such a high rating for any of them. What did I do right? DanTD 04:22, 12 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I've just downed it to start. IMHO "B" is for start articles that are getting longer (ie with quality text not just lists, etc), and has some refs maybe (not always), pics, etc. for a rail stations this typically means a good chunk on its history, current services, any accidents, any redevelopments in the past or (esp sourced) discussion of future plans. Don't take to too seriously though as the ratings stub, start, and B are somewhat flexible and not that serious when compared to "GA", "A" and "FA" (which go through a proper peer review process, etc). This is also not meant as a knock or anything to DanTD or the guy who rated the article. Pickle 05:21, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

No new assessments for 2008?
Apparently the bot that assesses railroad-related articles has been shut down. I hope everything's alright, because I added some new station articles, and I'm still waiting for the reassessment for Bayside (LIRR station). DanTD (talk) 03:28, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

How to find the assessment history of an article?
Well, maybe a stupid question but how can I find the assessment history of a specific article? The assessment log is huge (and truncated, as it says) and no search-tools seem to be available. Some articles have the "Article milestones" info box but not all. Is the information available anywhere? --Sivullinen (talk) 23:10, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
 * One way is to check the history of the talk page of the article, assessment changes can be checked there. Mjroots (talk) 09:25, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Wording of "Requesting an assessment" section
The section on requesting an assessment should include a statement indicating whether new requests are to be added at the beginning of the list or the end. Currently, no guidance is given on this point, and the list of requests consequently has no chronological order. Granted, some people would ignore such a request or not notice it, but most would follow the stated protocol – such as "Please add new requests to the end of the list." I'm not a project member, so I am just pointing this out, in an attempt to help clarify things. SJ Morg (talk) 10:13, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Assessment Log
It looks as though the automatic assessment log has been unusable for some time (since January 2010?) due to a number of pages with duplicate project banners where the parameters were not consistent. (Evidently no one's been paying much attention to it.) I think I've zapped all the duplicates now, so it should be generating a useful log again. Choess (talk) 22:54, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

It has not been recording since November 2017 and the WP1.0 table doesn't auto update itself also 1.02 editor (talk) 08:58, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

Reassessed long ago
Does anybody care to delete the articles that have already been reassessed? I'm on the verge of doing it myself, if it becomes necessary. DanTD (talk) 20:34, 6 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Okay, a lot of these assessment requests were done years ago, so I'm just going to remove the ones that are done. -User:DanTD (talk) 18:09, 18 March 2013 (UTC)


 * There's still some at the top of the list that was reassessed 10 years ago but still there. Maybe it's time for a major cleanup. -1.02 editor (talk) 05:09, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

A class
Is there any chance that we can reinstate the A-class grading for TWP? 1.02 editor (talk) 11:28, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Is there a need for it? Is there something lacking from the B-GA-FA progression? Are there people willing to carry out an A-Class review? -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 11:38, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

Assessments requests
How frequently does anyone actually do assessments? I put some articles at the bottom of the list about a month ago and they still haven't been reassessed yet. WT79 The Engineer (talk) 13:23, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Not sure. I have posted assessment request but it hasn't been attended yet since months. The last time I requested for an assessment, it with done within a week. Footy2000 (talk) 06:48, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

Assessment requests completed
With the exception of one article (request number 9) that went though a GA nomination process, I've gone through all the outstanding assessment requests and completed them to the best of my ability. I'm still pretty new to the project, but if people want to add additional articles for reassessment I'm happy to take a look at them when I get a chance. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 16:53, 24 July 2021 (UTC)