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Assessment categories: too sparse?

Copied from User talk:Opabinia regalis:

Does it seem to you that there aren't enough "bins" to sort articles into? With FA and GA as independent processes, we have no way of saying "minor but nontrivial work needed" - ie, neither "complete" and thus A-class nor in need of "considerable editing" and thus B-class. This seems to be the standard scale, but I'm surprised at that division. Seems like B will be a very diverse category. Opabinia regalis 03:03, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

I totally agree about the number of bins. I don't feel qualified to rate an article above a "B"; I merely copied over the existing FA, A and GA assessments. I wish there were two extra ratings: one between Stub and Start, and another between Start and B. There were several articles that had a few paragraphs about their topic, but didn't really merit a Start assessment and, similarly, several articles that didn't really deserve a B rating, but were significantly better than a Start. Willow 15:15, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm actually kind of dubious about the point of A-class as a long-term designation - if an article is that good, then why not spend the time to fix the references to the flavor-of-the-month format, copyedit it, and send it to FAC? If that's not a feasible suggestion, then it probably isn't A-class. Is it the "maximum" for articles that are realistically too short or about subjects too specific for FAC?

The WikiProject Mathematics assessment project seems to just use the comments to expand on the assessments. Since the bot probably won't work on any made-up additional gradations, I guess that's the best solution? Opabinia regalis 03:59, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

To be honest, I don't think that more assesment categories are necessary - simply, good articles need more work, anything less than a good article needs a lot more work. I think less time spent poring over the categorisation of an article, and more time spent improving it would be a good idea. If it's less than a screen in length, I'd call it a stub. Let's try not to get bogged down and remember what we're really trying to do. --Username132 (talk) 09:44, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Sure, but if the assessment categories are suboptimal, then we aren't getting as much out of the effort as we could be. As an example, both enzyme kinetics and gene are considered B-class, but the former is clearly of higher quality. In the start class, enzyme inhibitor is significantly better than lysine. If people don't feel qualified to unilaterally assess articles as A-class (and I agree with Willow that I probably wouldn't), then the lower categories are going to become more heterogeneous than is ideal in organizing our activity where it's most useful. I don't know if the appropriate solution to this is more bins (messes up the bot), more thorough commenting (takes more time to do an assessment), an internal process for promoting something to A-class that doesn't rely on individual decisions (bureaucratic and potentially time-consuming), or doing nothing and keeping the inherent inadequacies of the system in mind (doesn't organize things optimally). Opabinia regalis 00:50, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

I guess it all depends on how you like to work with Wikipedia. I prefer to work on the topics that I choose (usually obscure enough to not have their own stubs already) and really could never be bothered to go through the effort of improving an article like "enzyme". This whole article-improvement drive doesn't work for me (I figure an improvement to Wikipedia, is an improvment to Wikipedia, whatever form it takes) but if you think resolving this issue might make it easier for you to work with Wikipedia in the way that you like most, then you should carry on. --Username132 (talk) 15:23, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

I completely agreed with you until this assessment thing showed just how bad some of the basic articles are. I've wikilinked gene dozens of times without really paying attention to its inadequacies, so if an assessment scheme gets people fixing the higher-priority articles then I'm all for it (even if it makes me put off again the article I've been intending to write since I got here, which is a rewrite of molecular dynamics). For the time being I'll just start using comments more often in assessments. Opabinia regalis 22:20, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

The Comments thing wasn't set up, but I think it might be working now. Have fun! :D Willow 10:49, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Worklist

In further pursuit of my recent goal of organization, I went and created a Molecular and Cellular Biology worklist page ("borrowed" from WP:Chem). The purpose of this page is to (eventually) contain a list of all of the top 200 or so articles that the WP:MCB is interested in. I included a couple of semi-educated "gradings" to several of the articles listed, but please know that I barely skimmed most of them. Please, let me know what you think, and feel free to add items to the lists. Eventually, we may want to decide on some system to keep it from getting out of hand, but we're small enough right now that I don't think it'll be an issue. – ClockworkSoul 06:42, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi, Clockwork, you're doing great work! For the article assessment, I would recommend using the MathBot, as other WikiProjects are doing — it's very convenient! I could set it up, if you like. Willow 17:03, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Ooh, I got to learn something new today! You could set it up if you like; alternatively I can start it tonight if you don't beat me to it. Reading that page reminds me, we need to come up with a list of our most important articles for the Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team. Unfortunately, I can't do that alone. – ClockworkSoul 21:59, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi, so I think it might be working; the MathBot should compile our worklist tonight sometime. I took the liberty of assessing a few articles to start the list off, but they're just tentative; everyone should feel free to change them or add their own! Willow 16:06, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm a bit slow here. How does math bot identify the article? Does it just collate the info from the MCB templates that are added to the talk pages? David D. (Talk) 17:06, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi, David, I'm not an expert, but I think the bot goes through the Talk pages of the articles listed under the subcategories of Category:MCB articles by quality and Category:MCB articles by importance. If all goes well tonight, the bot should produce a new page for us at Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/MCB articles by quality, listing all the articles that have been assessed so far. The bot also keeps a statistics page with a nice graphic to use here and a log page to check for vandalism. Keep the fingers crossed! :) Willow 20:03, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

...oh, and anyone can assess an article by using the normal Template:Wikiproject MCB with "class" and "importance" fields, as described on the template's page. You can also see an example here. Note that the template has to go on the Talk page, though, not on the main article page. Willow 20:07, 29 August 2006 (UTC)