Wikipedia talk:Content assessment/Archive 3

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Set up

I'm struggling finding a/the page which explains how to set a WikiProject assessment system up. I'm hoping to put one together for the Wikipedia:WikiProject Clans of Scotland. I have a Template:WikiProject Clans of Scotland set up but don't understand how to action the assessment. Anybody able to help? -- Jza84 · (talk) 13:31, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

You should find what you need at Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Using the bot. :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)}/_(Desk) 13:56, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! I did! Assessment set up! -- Jza84 · (talk) 15:50, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

That's a great topic for a WikiProject but... erm... why do you need a seperate banner when a) not only does WP Scotland already have one, on which you could be a workgroup, b) {{WP Scotland}}'s documentation already lists a clans=yes parameter (although it doesn't seem to be active in the code)?

Since your project is entirely a subset of the Scotland topic, please strongly consider adding your code and blurb to that banner so that double tagging of talk pages can be reduced. --kingboyk (talk) 13:04, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Policy tag

I don't believe this should be tagged as a policy, for two reasons. First, we limit the policy tag to a few particularly important documents expressing core community principles. This is not such a document. Second, we avoid the policy tag for pages that are meant to be purely advisory, such as the manual of style. This page is very similar to a style guide (it gives only suggestions and examples, but no requirements). — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:13, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't have any objection to this being classed as only advisory. Walkerma (talk) 19:35, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Well then how about this one? --Simpsons fan 66 06:27, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Er, I think that {{guideline}} would be more appropriate in this case. This isn't really a style guideline. Although I'm really not sure that it should have been tagged as policy either. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 06:37, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that sounds good to me. Can I go ahead and add {{guideline}}? Walkerma (talk) 18:43, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Yeah. I'd say it's widely accepted, as about a million articles use it. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 04:53, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Banners and assessments

I note that the index page shows that the majority of articles that have a WikiProject banner on them are actually assessed. Of course, this doesn't mean that placing a banner on an article makes it more likely to be assessed, but it might. Perhaps we should try to get a banner on almost every page - it might help us speed up the process of getting virtually everything assessed. Of course, it might not, but there's nothing much to lose. It makes it easier for people to assess an article (and makes it clear that it is not assessed), as well as making it easy to find (present in unassessed articles category). And people know which project(s) to go to if they need input.

One problem is that there are sometimes no projects that are very closely related to the article; I find this often myself. Still, I think it would be a good goal for the project to get banners on all applicable pages, even if we can only use the orphan banner for now. Richard001 (talk) 04:35, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

This is the type of thing that has to be decided at the level of each wikiproject; some may decide to do it, some may decide not to. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:40, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

This is a perennial proposal; maybe an FAQ should be created to address it. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:35, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Featured lists

Does the bot collect data for featured lists? How should the template be coded (I am working on {{WikiProject Dance}}) Paul foord (talk) 13:33, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

In the past we haven't, but I think we may be about to implement the change to allow use of FL-Class. See this discussion, and please add your support for FL-Class if you want to use it! As for the actual coding, that's too hard for me, but I expect early adoption from the Chicago WikiProject, and you may be able to copy things/ask for help from them. Walkerma (talk) 15:13, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

GA/A

I always think it's a bit strange that A is a better grade than GA. It's probably just me but I thought I might-as-well bring it up. George D. Watson (Dendodge).Talk^Help 21:19, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

If you actually look at articles, you'll find you are correct that GAs are generally better than A class articles. This is because the GAs have to go through a process to become GAs, whereas A class just requires one person to decide that an article is 'pretty gud' and slap an A on it (I've seen this many times, and usually remove them). In theory, though, an A is supposed to be a little better - the sort that wouldn't take much to become an FA. I can't stand the A-class myself, but there aren't any good suggestions for what to do about it. Richard001 (talk) 22:41, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Delete it, perhaps? There's a definite process that is basically working for GA and FA; there isn't one that I know of for A. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 21:06, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Short article, not stub or start -- please create a new category

Some articles are voluntarily kept short, because they cover a topic closely related to a much larger article. Their purpose is to clarify a concept, then redirect the reader. For example, tumor is kept short to reduce duplication with the huge, encyclopedic cancer article. Tumor will not grow larger. Therefore, it is not a stub nor a start. It is (and will remain) a short article. Please create a new category.

I also noticed you do not have a category for summary articles, as described in the WP:SUMMARY guideline. Emmanuelm (talk) 14:40, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I think you're confusing length with quality Emmanuelm. If an article is short but good it should have a higher rating than start. Admittedly it's a bit difficult for short articles though. I've never seen a very short article become an FA, for example. They're harder to assess because they look just like a stub even though they may be almost perfect. It might only be the addition of a couple of sentences that would take them from start class to 'perfection', provided the writing is good. I don't think adding a new class is going to help though; I think they're always going to remain a bit awkward to assess.

I'm not sure what you mean by summary articles. Again, that's got nothing to do with quality. Many articles use (or should use) summary style in at least one section, and many are, or at least should be, summarized in another article. We have the template {{summary in}} for such articles, and obviously the template {{main}} (and, to a lesser extent, {{further}}) are used in the opposite cases. Richard001 (talk) 22:49, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I understand what Emmanuelm is saying - there are certain articles which have limited potential to grow either because they are very specific topics or of low importance. But These articles could also go through stub-start-B-GA life cycle (if not FA). Hence I don't see the need to have a separate class for them. Arman ^(Talk) 10:45, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Banners and assessment templates

Should the general 'editorial team' assessment template be included in the banner shell with other WikiProjects? Richard001 (talk) 20:09, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

The template is a banner of the core topics, WVWP, and orphan assessment projects, among others... so it would be wrapping a banner shell inside a banner shell, which I'm not sure if we want... Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 20:11, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

I think this is something we should discuss. I usually place it inside a shell if there is one, since the fact that "nested=yes" is an option suggests that this is reasonable, and I strongly support the effort to minimise template clutter. But if others feel strongly that it should stand alone, we could definitely consider it. Walkerma (talk) 21:22, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you, though the problem seems to be in that this isn't technically a WikiProject, hence the need to have some sort of guideline to clear up the uncertainty here. Richard001 (talk) 22:07, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Council discussion of interest

See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Council#Non-standard banners Richard001 (talk) 09:51, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Fewer words?

Discussion moved to Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment rewrite. Please comment there.

Overhaul and rewrite of the assessment scheme

Rewriting the criteria

The early part of this discussion, on rewriting the criteria, has now been moved to Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment rewrite.

There have been two proposals recently relating to assessment, and both seem to be reasonable (IMHO). They would both involve some rewriting and recalibrating, and therefore I think we should consider both proposals at the same time. I'm adding a third proposal, which is in effect how I think the first two would best be implemented together. There's also a fourth, which came up in discussions, and which I'll throw in for good measure. Walkerma (talk) 18:01, 12 April 2008 (UTC). The four proposals:

• Simplifying the descriptions
• Refining the assessment scheme
• Converting the scheme to summary style
• Add an FAQ

Discussion on these has been moved to Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment rewrite. Please comment there, and please sign up to help there also! Another topic (revamping the grading scheme) is described below; this may well be moved to a separate page soon. Walkerma (talk) 17:46, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

A class

A discussion regarding the usefulness of A class can is ongoing here. Just thought it is relevant that I draw your attention to this. Arman ^(Talk) 10:37, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Add A Class between B and GA

The gap between start class and GA is huge and to cover this wide range B class alone is not sufficient. From a Wikiproject's perspective, we need the B class to specifiy the potential candidates for a GA upgrade. We also need the start class to identify articles that have just started but yet need some work to cover the minimum ground. Between these two stages there are lots of articles which are somewhat complete in the sense they don't have much more to add (mostly due to lack of importance of the topic) but are neither good enough to push for a GA drive. We need a class for these articles. In other words, we need 2 classes between GA and start. This can be achieve by either demoting A-class below GA, or by introducing a new class: B+ like what WikiProject:Mathematics did. Arman ^(Talk) 10:36, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I pointed out below that if we do, I think it would be better to name the addition as C-Class, instead of B+ class, as the difference between B and B+ is tenuous in ordinary life. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 20:44, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Eliminate the List class

List is not an article quality class. It is a "Type" of article. A List can grow from Start, gradually move past B-class and eventually become a Featured List. Hence I don't see the justification of retaining a "List-class". Arman ^(Talk) 10:39, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. Besides, lists can be graded, as several WikiProjects have shown. However, there were long discussions about this in the past, and many people were in favor of having List-Class as a quality category, alongside FL-Class. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 20:45, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

• Erm, question. If List class was removed, wouldn't FL go as well? Steve Crossin (talk) (review) 22:51, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Not at all. It would just graduate to "FL" instead of "FA". – ClockworkSoul 14:38, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

I have to agree... if I had a choice, I would say that 'list' class should be deprecated and allowed to be graded like and other article. – ClockworkSoul 14:39, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

We debated this extensively last year; the projects who use a lot of lists were very vocal in their requests. One problem is that lists are harder to assess for quality. For example, if you have a List of disciples of Jesus it would only amount to (I think) 13 (Judas had to get replaced); so if all thirteen names are there, should that be a perfect quality article? There are no issues of quality of English, inline citations (usually), aesthetics (usually) to worry about, pretty much all that really matters is completeness. As the disciples example shows, one of the main quality issues with a list is "How wide a scope should a list be?" Should it be "List of known followers of Jesus from the Bible" with a subsection for the disciples?

In summary, then, the main thing we need is simply a tag that says, "This is a list and we want to track it for our project". I accept that the proposal to eliminate list-class has some sound logic; however, until someone writes a separate bot for handling lists, the current compromise seems (to me) to be the best way. Walkerma (talk) 16:12, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Action plan

OK, hopefully we have enough people interested that we can get something useful done. (One thing - I personally will be mostly offline from May 22 till June 14, though I will have a lot more time for this initiative after June 14.) What should we do first? I would propose the following order as making the most sense:

1. Refine the criteria. Once we've got the detail done we can
2. Write a simplified description (in summary style, with links to the detailed version). After we've gone through all that we should have everything clear in our minds so we can
3. Write an FAQ page.

Does this sound like a plan? Walkerma (talk) 02:56, 8 May 2008 (UTC) If people are OK with this, we can perhaps by agreeing on a new page or pages for this. Walkerma (talk) 03:02, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like a plan to me, and logically sequential. How much refinement of criteria do people think is needed? It's a good idea to draw on exemplars when refining criteria, so empirically anchored/based. Keeps checks on the descriptions. I have some comments/suggestions, which I'll make as soon as I can. Holon (talk) 13:56, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

A Proposal

I propose to add a new "who can promote" column to the rating table. My proposal for the new table would be something like this:

Class	Minimum criteria	Who can promote
Stub	A very short article or a rough collection of information that will need much work	Anyone (even a bot)
Start	Any two of the followings: 1) A particularly useful picture or graphic 2) An infobox with useful key information on the topic 3) Multiple links that help explain or illustrate the topic 4) A subheading that fully treats an element of the topic 5) Multiple subheadings with some contents that indicate material that could be added to complete the article.	Any human editor (no bot), a discussion of the assessment on the article talk page is useful but not required.
B	Atleast 4 of the 5 start class criteria. The article may have dispute on factual accuracy or neutrality but is tagged as such if that is the case.	Any user, who is ideally not a major contributor to the article. A discussion of the assessment on article talk page is required if the reviewer is one of the major contributors to the article.
A / B+ (new class)	1) Written in an understandable language, 2) No factual accuracy dispute. At least 60% of the content is verifiable from inline citations. Reference format may need clean-up; 3) Broad in coverage; 4) No neutrality dispute. 5) Stable; 6) Illustrated, where possible. In summary: the article can be Good Aricle candidate with some copyedit and clean-up.	Atleast 2 users - 1 should propose on article's talk page and a second one (who is not a major contributor to the article) should support and upgrade. Request for reasseeement may also be posted on relevant WikiProject Assessment department page.
GA	See GA criteria	GA Nomination process
FA / FL	See FA criteria	FA Nomination process

• Very Strongly Object to any effect to have 'a discussion of the assessment on the article talk page' for anything below A Class. 2 million+ articles to assess, just work out the time it takes! Three man years (24 hours and 7 days a week) of assessments at least. I personally assess about 2500 articles. At a rate of 1 a minute that is a weeks solid work. If you have to discuss each one that will invariably mean that a lot less assessments will occur. I thought the objective of the Editorial Team was to get more articles assessed not less. SunCreator (talk) 23:50, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

• Observations I guess A designation would be good enough, more so if the A criteria is put down for reference. By the design above B+ would not be very necessary. But, it would probably be mighty helpful to have a frame of reference for A criteria (I wouldn't recommend putting down the quantified part, i.e. 60%). Apart from these minor issues the proposal looks quite agreeable. Aditya^{(talk • contribs)} 09:41, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

• I don't see why discussion should be "required" for Start/B/B+ class articles. Those ratings serve mostly as a guide to help people tell which articles to work on, and anyone else can always change the rating later if they disagree with it.
  Also, I think the critera for "Start" above are far too weak. I usually think of start-class as: has some references to print sources and covers at least one aspect of the topic in depth. I don' think that adding just links, images, and infoboxes can turn a stub into a start-class article. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:03, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Explanation If I understood this correctly, a discussion should not be "required" for start or B class article assessment, though a note/comment to the talk page would be highly useful. Assessing A-class articles may not be as simple (as many of them already has to go through collaborative WikiProject evaluations and discussions). And... well, as start class article should ideally be considered just that — a start, may be a good start too. A lot may not be expected out of one such article.
    • Of course not much can be expected of a start-class article, but it's reasonable to expect it to be more than a stub in terms of the amount of actual text it contains. If links and an infobox were sufficient on their own, many of the bot-generated stubs like PPARG would be 'start-class'. Let's use that article as a starting point - what class should it be? — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:23, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
      • I like this suggestion of a "who can promote" column. I agree with Carl that we don't need to mention discussion as part of the definitions - if it happens, it happens. I disagree with Carl that Start must have print sources - that has NEVER been a requirement for Start; Start-Class covers a wide region from "more content than a Stub" to "getting to be quite a decent article, but either lacking refs or lacking several major content areas. In other words, the main difference at the lower levels is usually in terms of content. Many topics (esp. general ones) may have a decent article with zero refs, but members of the WikiProject (who know the topic well) know that it accurately covers the topic - such an article should never be classed as Stub. Walkerma (talk) 14:46, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
      • I'm going to move much of this discussion over to a new page, at Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment rewrite. We can put the drafts in the article space, and keep the discussion on the talk page. I'll leave the signup section and pointers here. Walkerma (talk) 14:46, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
      • I think PPARG is a stub! (Not much prose content) We see this a lot at WP:CHEMS, where we have a lot of data in a box but not a lot of prose content. This was a great article for discussion, Carl! Walkerma (talk) 14:51, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
        • Yes - the grading scheme has never required references for start class. I was only saying that I personally include that in my mental checklist when assessing an article. My work is almost always in the context of mathematics articles, but the math 1.0 grading scheme doesn't require refs for start-class either. But if we are talking about changing the criteria, I would propose that even a start-class article should have at least one reference to a source where readers can learn more about the topic.
          I think that if the phrase "Has a meaningful amount of good prose content" was added to the start-class criterion above, it would cover bot articles like PPARG. — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:05, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

A few observations:

• Explanation of A / B+ (new class): What I meant is, it can be called either "A" or "B+"; certainly not both. We can discuss about this name.
• Discussion requirement: I apprehended that some inexperienced editors may have a tendency to over-rate their own poor contributions. A requirement to discuss the rating (above start class) will at least force them to logically evaluate their own rating. Note: I suggested we require discussion for B class - only if the reviewer is one of the major contributors to the article. However, if majority of you think this will create unnecessary bureaucracy, we can drop this.
• Start vs. Stub: Note: The current proposal makes the start class more stringent than existing requirement (atleast 2 criteria, instead of just 1). the example article PPARG, in my opinion, is a valid candidate for a start class. Why? This article gives an enthusiastic editor enough material, link and reference to work on the topic and expand it. It also provides the editor a structure of the article, a relevant public domain image. The work on the article has already "started". We need to differentiate this class from articles which leave very little clue on how to expand them, e.g. Coffee table book (as of July 2005). Once we add some useful text materials to PPARG it will become a B-Class article based on proposed definition (note - it will yet not the B-class based on current definition). After further expansion, when the coverage of the article will become reasonably broad only then it will move to A or B+ class (equivalent or slightly better than current B-class), which will be the stepping grade for GA nomination. Arman ^(Talk) 02:04, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

• • Some projects (at least math) have both A and B+ classes at the moment. Very roughly, GA is a more bureaucratic equivalent of B/B+, and A has higher standards than GA in projects that have a review process for A-class articles. But there is no assumption that every article will proceed to the GA or FA process; these are completely optional. A lot of very reasonable articles are rated B.
  • The proposal above weakens the requirements for start-class, in that it removes the requirement "The article has a meaningful amount of good content". It is true that if that is ignored then articles like PPARG look like start-class. But really, there is almost no text in that article at all - it even has a stub tag at the bottom. A start-class article needs to have enough text (several paragraphs, at least) to be an "article" rather than just a "stub".
  • I strongly disagree with the proposed requirement for discussion for Stub, Start, B, and B+. These are not meant to by used externally to judge articles, like FA is. And they are not meant to involve any sort of bureaucratic process. They're only meant to be used within a project to keep track of progress and tell which articles need what sort of work. There's no reason not to just let people assign ratings as they wish, since anyone else can always change the rating later if they disagree. The A/GA/FA ratings have approval processes, for people who want to pursue them. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:21, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

GA doesn't look like a more bureaucratic equivalent of B/B+ nowadays, especially since the new GA reassessment drive. On the contrary a lot of recent GAs look like a less bureaucratic equivalent of older FAs. But, I would agree that "requiring" a discussion for anything lower than a B would be bureaucratic. But, as a lot of inexperienced editors do tend to over-assess their own contribution, I would stand by the proposal that B articles can't be rated so in the absence of an explanatory note on the talk page. That would make over-assessors at least think a bit more. Aditya^{(talk • contribs)} 18:21, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

I really dislike the entire "who can promote" idea, as it makes a lot of assumptions about the ability of WikiProjects to assess articles. There's WikiProjects like MILHIST which have completely developed assessment processes, and for which these guidelines make a lot of senese; on the other hand, there there are nascent projects that would face obstacles with these criteria. For example, if a project only has one major editor acting as a reviewer, and that editor writes an article, who grades it?

Overall, I think this sort of thing is better for WikiProjects to decide for themselves. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 23:49, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Although I prefer uniformity in these definitions accross Wikipedia, if the decision is to leave the definitions for WikiProjects to decide, I'm fine with that as well. My only request, in that case, would be either to promote GA class above A-class, or create a new B-plus class for auto generation of tables like this. Arman ^(Talk) 02:13, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure the plus-minus scale is such a good idea. I mean, even in academia the difference between a B and a B+ is not that sharp. If there is a need to further discretize the gap between GA and Start-Class articles, I think introducing {{C-Class}} would be more understandable. That would also retain the original meaning of A-Class (articles that are more or less ready for WP:FAC) and give the finer control some projects require. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 03:13, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

I would suggest considering the minumum number of categories required for the purposes for which the assessments are used, then work toward having that many. You can get more sharp distinctions but it takes more up-front work and probably more work for people using the scheme. Getting more genuine distinctions doesn't come just from adding categories. In my opinion, based on experience analysing many data sets from marking rubrics, it is highly likely to come from words alone at all -- rather it comes from the exemplars. For this reason, I'd recommend including the suggestion that new users at the very least briefly familiarize themselves with the exemplars. Having said that, it is possible to have multiple compatible versions for different levels of precision as I mentioned somewhere. I will also comment on this somewhere else. Holon (talk) 07:55, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree, in fact, one of the main benefits IMO of the scale is its simplicity. However, there have been a lot of calls to increase the granularity of that particular aspect into three ranges: Start-Class, not Start-Class, but not close to GA, and close to GA. The latter one would be the homologue of the "close to FA" relationship that A-Class currently holds. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 08:18, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

A vs GA

This subhead is more or less an arbitrary break, but I do have an "A vs GA" question. Suppose someone writes an article on "Edison and the phonograph", applies for GA, and gets rejected. Then they take it to a wikiproject that deals mostly with biographies, and it's rejected for A-class. Then they rewrite it as a history article, and it gets rejected again. Then finally it gets accepted as an A-class technology article. Do we want to consider this an A-class article for purposes of 1.0? We don't have any way to keep track of text that is rejected in one context but accepted in another. I'm very happy that there are many wikiprojects that do such a good job of assessment that there's no need for their articles to be vetted by anyone else. But can just anyone hang up a sign saying "A-class ratings done here"? If so, doesn't that create a weakest link in the process? - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 23:20, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, the problem really is in the way articles are counted, rather than in the way they're graded. It is not a problem if two WikiProjects have different opinions on the assessment of different sections of the article, particularly for large multidisciplinary articles like Space or Time. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 23:53, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

This tends to be rarer than it should be - it's always tempting for a reviewer to copy over another WikiProject's assessment! The selection bot takes each WikiProject's assessment separately, and if it passes for one project but not another, it will still make it onto the DVD. I'd like to develop a correction parameter for differences between projects, but thankfully it's not so much of a problem with A-Class. I would say that we have a much bigger problem at the Start/B interface, which is likely to be the deciding point for many important topics. Some projects are really quite liberal with Bs, but others are very strict. Hopefully the new exemplars will help us reduce that variation. As for random/unworthy A-Class assignments, hopefully most WikiProjects will rein in such practices. I'd really like to see peer review for all A-Class eventually, but I don't think we're ready for that just yet. We should say that peer review is recommended, though. See the recent discussion (also mentioned below). Walkerma (talk) 05:04, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

The problem highlighted by walkerma with B-class once again reinforces the need to split class-B into 2 classes. Currently some projects are considering B-class as "close to GA", while others are interpreting it as "somewhat more than a start class". We do need to have two separate classes and probably the stable version will include the upper class, but not the lower class. Arman ^(Talk) 03:25, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Reading the arguments above (this section and others) I wonder which one is redundant - A or GA? That "near to FA" or "progressing towards FA" thing applies to both. I believe more FAs have evolved directly from GAs than from A-grades, and anyways there are way fewer A-grades than either FAs or GAs, and mighty few WikiProjects can support a proper A-grade evaluation (review, discussion, improvement and all).Why do we have a GA-grade if it's not really important (we already have B-grades and A-grades), or may I ask why do we have A-grades (we already have FAs and GAs)?

One wold expect an article to go through increasingly stringent quality assessments as it goes higher up the ladder: B by individual assessors, GA by a dedicated process, reviewers and criteria, A by a few WikiProjects, and FA by community consensus and dedicated process and criteria. Doesn't the role of A-grades look a bit dubious here?

I'd say the assessment of A-grades higher than GAs represent unfairness and injustice to articles and editors who don't belong to strong WikiProjects like WP:CHEMS or WP:MILHIST. Many articles supported by weak or even non-functional WikiProjects have gone on to become FAs, but they never had an opportunity to go through an A-assessment. Aditya^{(talk • contribs)} 05:06, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

The thing is, GA/FA and SSBA are in reality two different scales that are juxtaposed together. The A-Class classification, as well as the rest of the SSBA system, is meant to be internal to WikiProjects only, while both GA and FA are public in nature. The reason both GA and A are needed are because they have completely different purposes. A-Class has no real importance by itself (unlike GA and FA), hence it doesn't actually need the project-wide review that GA and FA have. The class's lightweight assignment process is not a bug, it's a feature by design.

Also, the reason A-Class is sandwiched between the two public processes is three-fold: first, GAs tend to be more focused on stylistic concerns, while A-Class is supposed to be an assessment of the article's content by subject experts. Since in reality, WP:1.0 is more worried about wrong content than the wrong type of dash in the article, we decided to put A-Class first. Another reason is that historically, A-Class has been thought of as "ready for FAC, just needs some sprucing up". Furthermore, there have been somewhat-recent suggestions to remove GA from the scale, but having GA was considered helpful in these previous discussions. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 05:19, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, keep in mind that the converse would be "unfairness and injustice" to said strong WikiProjects which actually try to work with this system. Designing everything around the lowest common denominator isn't really a good idea, in my view, since a vast number of WikiProjects happens to be entirely dysfunctional at the moment. There's no reason why their failures need impact the functioning ones. Kirill ^(prof) 13:17, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Three questions:

• Do we really have to juxtapose two different streams of assessment lying parallel that doesn't necessarily compliment each other, or can we build it like individual assessment and small-group (i.e. WikiProject-centered sub-communities) assessment, the SSBA part, leading to Wikipedia (i.e. community process/consensus) assessments (Stub > Start > B > A > GA > FA)?
• Is the Wikipedia driving towards an integration of quality and coherence and a convergence of efforts, or is it driving towards a WikiProject dependent fragmentation in quality and coherence and a divergence of small-groups as opposed to individuals contributing to the project and the community?
• Is it unfair to believe that the few strong WikiProjects that can generate A-grades (which may or may not be compatible with GAs) can work on the SSBA module without A-grads popping in between FAs and GAs, and also work on other systems (if I remember right, at least one has A coming lower than GA and another has a B+ to come on top of B) as they see fit? Aditya^{(talk • contribs)} 13:59, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

The issue is that A-class and GA-class aren't really comparable at all. GA review (and, to a significant but lesser extent, FA review) is dominated by stylistic concerns rather than content review. A-Class review typically focuses heavily on content, and less on style issues. By the time an article has reached A-class, it can probably just have the style issues brushed up and then be moved to FA review. GA is much more like "B-Class with fewer MOS issues" than it is like A-Class. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:04, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

So, based on the explanations given, it now seems to me, for GA-s, it is good enough to have a broad coverage of the topic, not necessarily complete; but for A-class, the coverage needs to be somewhat "complete". If that is the case, I understand A-class being above GA. But this distinction needs to be further clarified in the description of the grading scale. Furthermore, since some wikiprojects already have an A-class assessemnt process, I now recommend to leave it as it is. WikiProjects that don't have a strong A-class assessement framework should just skip it. But to address the need of a separate class between B and GA, I recommend to officially introduce the B-plus class, so that WP 1.0 bot can pick it up. Arman ^(Talk) 02:42, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Agreed on both counts. The only thing I see a problem with is calling the new class as B+; I'd instead prefer to call it C, for the reasons I postulated before. If projects will be debating whether an article in a newer scale is a B or a B+, it is the same amount of work as to whether the article is a C or a B. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 02:50, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

(Reduced indent) Shouldn't WikiProject dependant assesment (i.e. SSBA) come first followed by community processes (i.e. FA and GA) in the structure? Is it necessary to maintain two different systems overlapping each other? As I understand, GA has come to its current status only lately, undertaking a long journey. But it has done so, and it is only prudent to respond to development. Aditya^{(talk • contribs)} 16:01, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

They could, but I don't see why they should. These are two different assessment purposes, not just processes. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 02:18, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. And I believe the proposed option F below to completely separate Good article assessment from the WikiProject scales addresses many of the concerns in this thread by recognising that SSBA and GA-FA have a different nature and purpose. Geometry guy 11:53, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Recent related discussion

FYI:

• Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#A_class A proposal to tighten up the A-Class review, which broadened into a discussion of the A/GA order. Some of that discussion has (in effect) spilled over into this discussion, which seems fine to me as we consider how we write things up.
• Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)/Archive_46#articles_assessements: My reply includes a complete history of the assessment scheme, with links - which could be very useful background information for those involved in this rewrite.

Walkerma (talk) 05:04, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

What would it take to establish a first-class foundation for Wikipedia standards?

After looking through the discussion here, I think it might be instructive to describe an 'ideal' process, and to work back from there to what's doable. Pretty much every issue that has come up here is fairly common in assessment. I hope it will be easier to see why from the ideal. Please keep in mind that the work put into what I outline to follow overlaps with normal work on articles anyway, and in the long run would likely make that work far easier by helping to identify what needs to be done and when.

It may also turn out something closer to the ideal is achievable with available skills than I realize. With some ingenuity, Wikipedia could be a first for online ratings en mass by developing a top-class process based on solid foundations! OK, not likely, but possible. It's already considerably better than the crude methods normally used, such as ratings of 1-10 plucked out of the air.

Ideal

Given the nature of articles, the following process in the ideal is what I would (and do) recommend.

1. Compare (pairwise) a set or sets of exemplars and scale them.
2. List in order from worst to best (by links). This provides an ordered set analogous to a ruler with many points of possible distinction.

This achieves two things:

1. When the scheme is refined, it can be refined not only based on what 'should' distinguish better from worse, but what is seen to in a carefully calibrated and ordered set of examples.
2. The set of examples can sit in the background and be used whenever anyone wishes to, for greater precision (you can always go from cm to meters).

The last point is key when articles are near a threshold for going from one "grade" to the next.

Probably more important than all else an ordered set of examples provides a clear picture for editors of what it takes for an article to progress toward the highest standard.

Common reaction

A common reaction to this is that it's too time consuming because most are used to easy, but poor, rating processes (e.g. pluck a number from 1 to 10 out of the air or a grade based on best guess).

I understand but my standard response is that the payoffs outway the up-front time, often by a large factor, and of course anything worth doing takes some effort and coordination. The only reason most of us can buy a thermometer and easily, yet precisely, measure temperature at will is that a lot of work lies behind its development and construction. Like anything else, including articles on Wikipedia themselves, quality products require some work.

Good measurement instruments and procedures are a cornerstone of industry and technology -- without common standards, many things are impossible in industry. The same idea applies to Wikipedia as a whole. If editors can quickly, yet precisely, measure against calibrated standards as they work and assess articles, there are similar payoffs. There is a lot more clarity on standards and how to know where you are and what it takes to progress.

I believe around a million have been assessed, is that right?

However, it's like everything, it does take time and coordination. Hopefully though, this helps in explaining various issues and how they all fit together in the bigger picture even if nobody actually ends up participating.

Small-scale test

I can offer to anyone who wishes to do a small scale test in their own project. I don't think I have yet encountered a case in assessment where people have not found the process informative and useful.

Send me a set of article labels, preferably 15 or more, and I'll send back a spreadsheet with a set of pairwise comparisons to be done: each to be compared with each other and a judgment made about which is better. Do these and send me back the results. I will scale it, put them in order, and tell you how consistent you were overall and tell you which articles were anomalous, if any. Include at least two or three of the articles in the scheme so you will be able to see how the rest scale in between. If you can organize more than one judge to make comparisons, even better, and I can give you feedback on each judge's consistency and the agreement between them.

This should be quite quick for someone who is reasonably familiar with the set of articles, if the assessor only needs to refer to them when it's hard to say which is better. Most judgments should be quick and only a portion take more time. The payoff -- for your project you get a much clearer picture of the way articles progress from worse to better quality, and you have a far more precise basis for judging when an article should move up a grade.

This can be extended across projects. This would simply require choosing a number of articles in your project as well as some from another project also doing a calibration exercise. All articles can be scaled jointly and tests conducted to see how successful the exercise was. It's preferable that the assessors have some knowledge of the other articles, but I doubt it would be necessary for them to be experts on the content to get worthwhile results.

Obviously, this requires coordination if it crosses editors and particularly projects. However, the result could be a nice list across projects of articles from the worst to higher quality that everyone can refer to pluse the benefits to the project mentioned.

So to reiterate, this process is beneficial for

• refining the scheme by seeing what actual progression looks like, according to consistent judgments by a methodical process.

• provideing a set of examples (behind the scenes) that includes examples in the scheme, and can be used when the call between one grade and the next is getting difficult, avoiding debate the number of classifications (there is more precision if you want it and editors would know more clearly when an article is getting close to progressing to the next grade).

• giving a clear summary picture of what it takes to progress articles for editors, which would probably also reveal things not anticipated up front.

• founding refinements on the information to make the criteria more accurate, so more efficient to use and more credible.

I know there's a lot, but I hope it gives a clear picture of the ideal, and it might spark ideas even if nobody elects to do a trial.

Don't hesitate to criticize -- believe me it's unlikely you'll raise anything I haven't heard many times, and if you do, I'll be grateful for the challenge.

Cheeers all. Holon (talk) 10:45, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Sounds excellent to me- sign me up! I have a few questions before I collect my list:

• By "article labels" do you mean things like "Aesthetic appeal," "Verifiability" or what? Or do you just need a list of actual articles? Or both these things?
• If you need a list of actual articles to compare, would you prefer a list of similar topics (with just variation in quality & completeness), or would a broad selection of topics be better? Personally, I'd like to send you two sets - one set that could be all (say) inorganic compounds or cities, and another that could include a wide variety (e.g. Antoine Lavoisier, electrocyclic rearrangement, Claisen condensation, Enthalpy of fusion, stable carbene, HSAB theory, Kraft process). Cheers, Walkerma (talk) 03:17, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

I too was confused by what you mean by labels. I can send you 15 hurricane articles easily... ;) Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 03:19, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, no I mean the names of the articles. The only thing that matters is that the names/lables allow whoever judges to know which articles, at what time (if relevant), those names/labels refer to. Certainly, if you can, both sets will give you more information; i.e. a similar set and broad set of articles. So long as you can do N(N-1)/2 comparisons for each set, where N is the number of articles. Comparisons will be faster if you're familiar with some or most so that you only need to refer to them sometimes, of course. However, no matter what you select, some comparisons will be so obvious they only take a moment, because the quality is far apart. Closer ones (quality) should take more deliberation. Once you've done this, future assessments against the ordered set can be made simply by choosing the closest match. This is the payoff related to getting precision when you need it, in addition to having a clearer basis for developing criteria etc. As you noted, it is important the articles represent the range of interest. I'd recommend having something very high quality and something very low (toward extremes) for reference points. If anyone wants to do just one set of articles, best is to select a set not too similar, because the results may be artificially consistent, but also not unsually different articles that are especially difficult to compare for some reason. Exemplars should have relatively little noise, without being contrived in terms of being prototypical in all respects. It is best just to choose a slection of articles that you consider reasonably representative of a larger category or population of articles, and to deliberately select a range. Also, without fussing too much, it is best to have exemplars across the range. Just send the list in a column in Excel, or post here for that matter. Then, I'll send back the pairs to de done and brief instructions. Any more questions, let me know. Holon (talk) 14:39, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

OK, I've created a list covering a broad range of topics, importance and quality in the general area of chemistry. I've emailed you an Excel sheet, and also put the list up at User:Walkerma/Sandbox2. I'll try to prepare a "similar topics but differing quality" selection as well, but right now I really should get on with marking lab reports! Thanks a lot, Walkerma (talk) 17:21, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Here's WP:WPTC's list: User:Titoxd/Sandbox/List. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 01:30, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Titoxd -- can you select a subset of 20 to 30 articles and I'll send you the set of comparisons. Cheers Holon (talk) 05:21, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Will do. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 09:07, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I updated the sandbox link above with twice the articles. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 09:15, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, have had no time lately, I'll get the list to you soon. Cheers Holon (talk) 11:41, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Proposed reassessments section

I'm not really sure how we ended up with this section of the page, but people keep adding entries. Is anybody actually reviewing these pages, and should we even have that section to begin with? Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 05:46, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I was wondering that myself! Walkerma (talk) 02:45, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I have flagged the section (lamely) for removal. If somebody is actually using these entries, please provide usage instructions on the page and remove the {{off-topic}} template. If somebody can state definitively that the material is being ignored, then please be bold and jettison the section. Trevor Hanson (talk) 05:42, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I cannot state definitely that the section is being ignored, but I'm quite certain that it doesn't belong there. Requests for reassessments should be brought to the assessing project(s), and not here. We don't do that here. – ClockworkSoul 06:01, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for taking action. I was pretty sure this was the right step, but thought there was a small chance this was an informal mechanism being used by...well, by somebody. – Trevor Hanson (talk) 21:54, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

No problem. I've never been accused of not being bold enough. :) Seriously, though, it was added by a new user who probably just wasn't aware of how assessments work, and in no time it started to attract a small amount of attention. It was better to just remove it now rather than let it get too big to easily excise. – ClockworkSoul 23:00, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Assessment of lead sections?

WMF got $3 million in March from the Sloan Foundation to promote stable and written versions. I hope that means that there is money available in support of Version 1.0. There are a variety of organizations that would probably jump at the chance to be hired to help help with vetting, fact-checking and copyediting, because it would increase their own visibility. If we could get some serious help, I'm wondering if we could dramatically increase the number of lead sections, or lead plus first sections, that make it into some version of Version 1.0. (If the only two options for inclusion in 1.0 are "lead" and "the whole article", that will tempt people to cram stuff into the lead that really doesn't belong there; better to offer a third option of "lead plus".) Should there be a separate assessment for "lead" and "lead plus", or should the quality of the lead and the first section simply weigh heavily in the assessment of the entire article? - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 21:06, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm not so sure about the lead+first section approach. Many articles are organized chronologically, so taking only the first section would actually remove most of the coverage inherent in them. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 21:51, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Okay, what do you think of the idea that "lead only" (across an entire wikiproject, say) is probably a bad idea, because people will respond by pushing things into the lead that shouldn't be there? Perhaps, if people like the idea of throwing in the lead sections from 100 articles, we could use summary-style in reverse: figure out why we're attracted to that idea, what it is about those 100 articles that makes the leads worth including, and then write an article that incorporates material from those leads, that links to those articles as "main articles". - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 16:25, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

It's just that I don't know where we're using lede-only articles for inclusion. I thought that was an idea suggested a while ago, but that never really got off the ground. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 19:55, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm quoting Martin, but I don't know whether the idea has gotten off the ground, either. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 20:58, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

My understanding was that it didn't get off the ground simply because we haven't done it yet, not that we'd abandoned the idea! Sites like Wichempedia (which is a mirror of WP chemicals lead sections + chemical data, see this example) manage to do this very easily (I know the guy running the site, and it was an hour or two for him to add the leads).

I've often heard that many times people use WP just to find a basic definition, or basic piece of info that is in the lead. We could use this "leads only" approach to produce a concise-form encyclopedia, that could have a million text-only leads on a single DVD, flash drive or easy download, or perhaps 40,000 on a CD. I agree with Tito about the "first section" - that section tends to be no more important than later sections IMHO. I think we can worry about people bloating the leads if and when it happens - personally I don't think it would be a major problem. Assessing leads - that's an interesting idea, but it could get complicated!

I'll try and talk to the relevant people to find out how this project could benefit from the financial support. Thanks a lot, Walkerma (talk) 02:35, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

I doubt that people would start cramming stuff into the lead, but if anyone does that sort of thing just tell them it's inappropriate. A lead is just a short (but not too short, which most of them are) summary which shouldn't go into too much detail. Richard001 (talk) 01:47, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

List assessment

I can't find any guidelines on assessing the quality of list articles. Are there any? -Freekee (talk) 16:06, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

I think it's either a list or it's not, and if it is it's either a featured list or it's not! However, now that lists are "official" (they are read by the bot) we should at least mention something in the guidelines/criteria - good idea. Thanks, Walkerma (talk) 17:24, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Printed German Wikipedia

I get a little more worried every month. Other organizations are spending lots of money on article creation, and we're not, and we're getting closer and closer to being toppled from our perch. While we have generated a little over 6000 FAs and GAs, the German Wikipedians are getting ready to publish a 50000-article, 1000-printed-page encyclopedia, with generous financial support for article proof-reading and fact-checking from their publisher, Bertelsmann. Bertelsmann owns Random House, and if our publisher can't come up with similar financial support, I would support approaching Random House for help. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 16:31, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

The Germans had their first offline release in 2004, ours was in 2007. They did a lot of things right, particularly in just getting on with the job instead of just talking about it! However, we are on track for a 30,000 article release on DVD by late summer, which will be a big step forward. The Polish WP followed the German model, and although they produced a very nice DVD they found they were at the mercy of the publisher (which had paid for article checking etc). We have several things the German's don't:

• Fully open software; the German offline reader can only be used by the publisher, but we have an open source reader written by our publisher, Linterweb. This in turn allows our output to be used for free giveaways like One Laptop Per Child.
• A very powerful assessment scheme covering all corners of the project. We can filter out the dross far more effectively - so our selection can be much higher in quality than the German one (assuming equal quality of overall content). We don't need a publisher to control our article selection process.

We would dearly love to produce our first printed materials, but my personal attempts didn't work out. There are all sorts of issues that lie behind these decisions, and the spotlight is on us far more than with the German Wikipedia (so we can NOT screw things up!) With the Sloan money mentioned above, maybe now is the time to consider an initiative. Walkerma (talk) 17:22, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Martin, that was very helpful. I'm still worried that we will eventually lose the race we started, but as long as we're at the top of the Google rankings, there's plenty of time to fix things. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 19:52, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Votes on changing the assessment scale

The following discussion is archived. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

• See Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment#Conclusions for the results. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 19:18, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

This is an attempt to bring closure to the above discussion, and to reach a consensus on changing the assessment levels. Any change would affect thousands of people and articles, so I am proposing a two-stage process:

1. People involved in the discussion here vote on the changes proposed. It will only involve voting by support, since there are several options open; if you like more than one option, you can support more than one.
2. If there is a clear consensus for change, then we hold a second round vote (yes or no) on that change. For this we will solicit comments from the WikiProjects, perhaps by adding a link to a project's stats table or via the assessment template.

I will be taking votes and the above comments into consideration when judging consensus. If there is clear support for the change then we will implement it. Note that I will be "on the road" from Wednesday, and my internet access will be patchy, so I may be requesting help with the logistics. I won't vote, as I feel too close to the topic, and I've already expressed my views above anyway. I'd prefer not to discuss other proposals, because we need to keep the debate contained. I selected these two proposals because both of them garnered a lot of support, and they have been proposed more than once before (by others). If you MUST offer up a new proposal, please put it in a new section, and we will consider it only if it also gets lots of supportive comments. Walkerma (talk) 05:31, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Please review the following debates before voting:

• Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive_26#Beginning_fresh
• #Proposal_-_adding_C-class_between_GA-Class_and_Start-Class and Wikipedia_talk:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team/Assessment#Why_no_.27C-class.27.3F

Comments or suggestions on the voting process

I'd like to suggest removing the "bundled" options (presently D and F); new ideas are emerging mid-poll, and consensus for each issue that is not dependent on other options can be measured independently.

This is also an example of the advice at WP:POLLS being substantiated; these issues need more in the way of discussion than voting -- and consensus, if it is clear, can be discerned from structured discussion (instead of voting) anyway.--Father Goose (talk) 08:01, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Nevermind, I'm just going to be bold and remove the "bundle" options myself: one has received no votes, and the other introduces a new option not dependent on other options.--Father Goose (talk) 08:09, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

These issues have been debated over the last two years; the voting choices I listed here represent the consensus from those two years of discussion. But I'm OK with letting things evolve as they will. Walkerma (talk) 12:26, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I have posted a note to Wikipedia talk:good article criteria asking editors to come and vote here. 69.140.152.55 (talk) 05:06, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Option A: No change

Support

1. Kirill ^(prof) 05:43, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
2. No need to change. I looked at Arman's calls for another class in the range up to GA. I think this is because he is implementing the Start and B-class assessments far too liberally which is why there is a big gap from B to GA. For example, the median size of a Start-class Bangladesh article was about 2k and a lot of articles even smaller than 1kb were being tagged start. The median for a B was also much lower than other WikiProjects (about 10k compared to 20+k). I think that listing anything longer than 2 lines as a start class article is causing the problem. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 05:52, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
3. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 07:17, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
4. I don't think the gap between start and B is that significant that a new class is needed. dihydrogen monoxide (H₂O) 08:42, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
5. I've seen a lot of very poor quality articles pass GA standard and don't think it should be higher than A class Nick Dowling (talk) 10:14, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
6. There is a significantly disproportionate gap between start and B-class, and stub and start-class. However, adding a new grade is not the solution, but rather; the solution is to heighten the criteria of start-class slightly, and to stricten the application of B-class criteria (which is what some WikiProjects do independently anyway). As such, there is no need for any changes currently. Ncmvocalist (talk) 10:53, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
7. I don't think the problems identified elsewhere will be solved by such changes, I think instead they will entrench them further. What is needed is more editors prepared to assess articles across the board. Hiding T 11:58, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

   Why do you think the problems would become worse? Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 05:28, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

   The issues identified at the village pump include the fact that a number of WikiProjects don't have enough editors rating and assessing. Adding extra classes is going to exasperate those issues, because those WikiProjects won't implement the new scale, meaning even more disparity between projects and within the scale, the very issues I believe the proposals are looking to solve. Hiding T 16:50, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

   I'm afraid I don't follow. Currently, the assessment tables have an assessment date, which will tell us which scale these pages are using. Additionally, we want WikiProjects to re-review these articles, as we want to add a clearer demarcation for static releases, and get rid of the copyvio/OR/POV allowance present in the current B-Class criteria. The new scale would allow WP:1.0 to say, "anything lower than a B-Class will not be included, unless in really extreme circumstances." Having more editors reviewing articles is something everybody definitely can agree on, but a vote doesn't really help us get closer to there. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 23:53, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

   Okay, I'll try again. The position is that assessment varies, the scale is being interpreted differently across Wikipedia and standards vary. The proposed solution is to add another classification, which you seem to indicate will increase variations in assessment. I'm curious as to why B-Class has now become the minimum standard. Last time I checked, A-Class was the minimum. This indicates to me standards are falling. So maybe I'm the one not following. Hiding T 19:17, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

8. Per Ncmvocalist's argument. Implementing a new class won't help to change the system and its efficiency. The only way to achieve this is to increase the gap between any two ratings, and simply not "round up" when assessing. I've seen too many "it's almost there" assessments, or people thinking that because an article is closer to start than stub, it should be graded as stub class. This mentality only helps to add to the confusion in the process. Mastrchf (^t/_c) 12:09, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
9. The assessment categories are already confusing enough to many people; adding additional categories is going to make matters much worse. People need to better familiarize themselves with the existing standards (and if the standards for a particular wikiiproject are too vague, the wikiproject needs to address that). Karanacs (talk) 14:01, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
10. I don't see the need for any changes. Whilst there can be a large gap between start and B, I don't think adding in a C-class will do anything to improve articles or the confusion surrounding their ratings; it will only compund the issue. Woody (talk) 15:38, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
11. I do lots of assessment work, and see no reason to make a change; this seems like a "solution in search of a problem." I skimmed through the earlier discussion, and don't see a compelling case of what problem there is that needs to be solved. Sure, there is some inconsistency, but that's to be expected in a project like ours. I strongly suspect that a change in the assessment system would lead to more inconsistency, as people get confused between the new and old standards, rather than less. (For what it's worth, I am glad to see people are putting thought into this kind of thing, but on the whole I think our energies would be better spent on writing and assessing articles.) -Pete (talk) 16:23, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
12. No change. It's already confusing enough. Kaldari (talk) 17:51, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
13. naerii - talk 18:15, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
14. Does it need to be more complicated? I find that the greatest issue needing discussion is more clearer delineation between stub, start, and B class. bibliomaniac15 23:56, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
15. TomStar81 (Talk) 05:43, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
16. I don't see why change is needed. As someone has already stated, the system is complicated enough - • The Giant Puffin • 12:32, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
17. I am strongly against any changes to the scale. It's already confusing and complicated enough as it is, so why make it more so? To drop or to add an assessment level can only cause problems. For example, if we drop GA, then people are going to start sending articles to FAC even if they are nowhere near ready. The scale has worked fine for years, and to start messing with it now would be a bad choice. Juliancolton ^{Tropical Cyclone} 16:05, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
18. Asdfasdf1231234 (talk) 16:48, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
19. Thinking this through, I was attracted to the idea of a C class. But really, the problem isn't the gap between B and start, the problem is that "Start" is positioned too close to stub - in fact, it overlaps significantly. An article with a table of contents and one section that isn't a stub is still a stub. ("multiple subheadings that indicate material that could be added to complete the article") What we should do is upgrade the requirements for start class to approximately those for the proposed C class. With that done, we don't need an additional class. GRBerry 17:42, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
20. While I understand the desire for a more nuanced rating system, adding more grades won't provide help to other editors -- or users -- in understanding what needs to be done to the article. What is needed is more detailed reviews of articles. (I admit that sometimes I get myopic after working too long on an article, & don't always notice that I have left some important details out.) To be honest, I happen to enjoy working on bringing articles up to about B level -- but no further -- because I feel less pressure in writing them & conforming to trivial standards which I have encountered when trying to push into the higher levels (which require peer review). -- llywrch (talk) 21:24, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
21. — Rlevse • Talk • 23:04, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
22. After reading through several of these proposals a couple of times, and supporting some and opposing others, and then re-reading other comments again, I have come to the conclusion that this vote has more or less become one large clusterfark, and not organized very well. While I think there's some interesting comments and ideas, and some of them could eventually be tweaked and ultimately passed, I think we're trying to pass too many changes too quickly here, and we need to seriously take a step back and not make rapid changes to the system that quickly. Wikipedia's overall assessment system really isn't broken, and I don't think that mass changes are needed at this time. Before we look at adding new classes to the system, we might actually want to do a survey and take a look at how wikiprojects are actually using these assessments, and how many wikiprojects have unassessed articles; I'd recommend assessing the unassessed articles under the current system before confusing things further and adding new classes to assess them under. I therefore, cannot in good conscience endorse any changes to the system at this time. Dr. Cash (talk) 04:27, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
23. The current system works well if it is applied properly; making changes to the structure will not solve the problems of poor application. We should look at the examples offered by the strong wikiprojects, such as the oft-mentioned WP:MILHIST, and see how to apply their processes/criteria/assessment strategies to other situations. Perhaps small wikiprojects could be loosely grouped into "Inter-project assessment cooperatives", so that their assessments can be strengthened. Or use the larger projects to mentor and assist smaller ones. Let's not confuse poor application with poor structure. We might have the first; I doubt we have the second. Gwinva (talk) 04:38, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
24. I think that if B-class is being awarded to liberally at the moment a WP:1.0 newsletter should go out to the Wikiprojects or something that clearly says to lift their standards for B-class. I've always thought of A-class as "almost FA" and B-class as "almost GA". C-class would add confusion I think because it would be a blurry patch between Start and B-class. Would cleanup tags be allowed in C, does it need to be fully referenced like B-class? I think the current system is good and that if people aren't using it consistently an effort should be made to change their usage before the system is changed. James086^{Talk | Email} 06:51, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
25. Not convinced any of the nominated changes are an improvement on what we have. Many of the problems actually relate to misapplication rather than deficiency. Orderinchaos 20:40, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Please note my comments on Option C. Arman ^(Talk) 11:12, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Option B: Put A below GA only

As proposed here

Support

1. This is already the de facto standard, and has been for a long time.--Pharos (talk) 05:50, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
2. Support - It makes sense that the two highest ratings should be decided by a process and not arbritarily. Most of the time, A-class articles are not as good as GA's anyway, and will bring GA's closer to FA in quality. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 16:25, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
3. Support I'm actually going to go ahead and support this idea. Part of the problem with FA, GA, & the assessments system is that they're three independent processes, and in the current system, they don't come together well. While I don't think that pulling GA out of this system, and leaving FA at the top with the assessments below it is the right answer, since I strongly believe that we want to be all-inclusive here, and we need to maintain a sense of the clear progression of articles from start to finish (stub to FA). I do think we need to be more clear of the differences between the three. Part of the problem is a general confusion of whether A is "better than GA" or not. I don't think we can get a clear picture to this problem, simply because A-class doesn't have a uniform set of standards that apply evenly across all articles, while GA does. If A-class was listed below GA, it would make the process clear, such that an article would progress from stub through A-class with individual wikiproject assessments, and then go to the community for a GA & FA review. Of course, not all articles are FA-worthy, and some will undoubtedly stop at the GA level. Of course, one could also make an almost equally compelling argument to keep the status quo; progress through the wikiproject assessments through B-class, then go for a communitywide assessment with GA, then back to the wikiproject for A, then to the community for the final ranking. Dr. Cash (talk) 16:47, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
4. Support - Logically it makes sense to have GA higher, it's currently a source of confusion between editors. So this needs sorting out sooner or later, and it would be less work to do it sooner(as in the future there will be just more Ga and A articles). Therefore I fully support doing it now. SunCreator (talk) 23:21, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Comment

• I feel it necessary voice an outright oppose. GA should remain a process outside the normal rating stream. I doubt all 4,000 article already GA are worthy of being considered near FA ready, where as all the A class would be. Gnangarra 13:06, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
• I feel very stongly about this so I also feel I have to outright oppose this. I don't think it is the de facto standard in any sense. Milhist and Ships see A above GA. A is an article not quite FA yet, but is above the one reviewer standard of GA. Woody (talk) 15:36, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
  • In most cases, A is actually quite below GA, because there is no A process at all for most subjects. See my proposal below that would make a special place for projects which have an A-class reviewing department.--Pharos (talk) 19:53, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
    • I doubt very much that it is in 'most cases' as you suggest. Any cases where it is applied that way are generally because the editors who changed the grade(s) are poorly-informed, inexperienced, biassed and/or the like. Ncmvocalist (talk) 09:44, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
      • Maybe the majority of WikiProjects are administered in a "poorly-informed, inexperienced, [etc.]" manner, but the fact remains that less than a handful have a dedicated A-class reviewing department. I do think there is a way to recognize these particular processes, though, hence my proposal with Option G.--Pharos (talk) 20:35, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose Some WikiProjects treat it that way, others do not. WikiProject Time and bio care about A-class and is not below GA. Zginder 2008-05-19T21:18Z (UTC)
• Comment: IMHO, GA can be considered as B+, while A=A and FA=A+. miranda 04:14, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
  • This is not an assessment of school work. Ncmvocalist (talk) 09:44, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
    • I don't think you understand the system. Wikipedia's current assessment system is set up like a grading system. With B-articles, GA is over B, which is B+. Stub-class can be compared to lack of information. Okay? miranda 12:31, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
      • I'm well aware of the system, thanks, but maybe you've misunderstood it. GA is above B because of stricter criteria, and because it is only then considered as a "good article". Ideally, an encyclopedia is aiming to have feature articles, which is why FA is at the top. We don't have A++ B- and the like because these are not pieces of work assessed for school. Ncmvocalist (talk) 18:25, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
• Per Woody - Oppose. Ncmvocalist (talk) 09:44, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Option C: Add a new C-Class between Start and B

As proposed here

Support

1. As the proponent. I've come around to see the need behind this class. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 05:51, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
2. As one who spends a significant amount of his time working with various projects' ranking systems, I think the addition of this value would provide real benefit with minimum disruption. – ClockworkSoul 06:01, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
3. Assuming that it can be implemented without too much hassle, I'd love a C-class. I believe it would greatly help in keeping track of article-improvement priorities for WikiProjects. -RunningOnBrains 06:26, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
4. I've been in support of a rating to fill the huge gap between Start and B for a long time. If we were starting a new system from scratch, reworking (or removing) A-class would also be an obvious change to make, but some WikiProjects use it so changing that would mean considerable disruption.--ragesoss (talk) 06:28, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
5. There is indeed a huge gap between Start and B; articles that are solid but have referencing deficiencies should be C.--Father Goose (talk) 06:38, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
6. Necessary to allow a clearer selection of 'acceptable' articles. Happy‑melon 07:38, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
7. This was brought to me via the IRC hurricanes channel. I feel this would be a good addition and is a good choice to add in front of B. Good thinking Tito.^Mitch32^contribs 10:24, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
8. The gulf between what I expect of a "Start" and a "B" is huge, a "C" class is a good idea in my opinion. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 11:54, 19 May 2008 (UTC).
9. I think I could support this, although I would love to see one of those charts where they describe what C-class would be like compared with what the other letters would be. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 16:27, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
10. Yes, the gap between Start and B has long been a problem. Judgesurreal777, there is such a chart as you ask for above: Wikipedia_talk:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team/Assessment#Proposal_-_adding_C-class_between_GA-Class_and_Start-Class.—DCGeist (talk) 17:15, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
11. Yes. The addition of a "C" class would solve the problem of many articles being held in "Start" class because they don't meet "B" standards (for e.g., a well-written and relatively complete article that still lacks citations). This is de-motivating for editors who have worked tirelessly on an article, and clearly see it as beyond mere "Start" class. Sunray (talk) 17:46, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
12. Originally I was going to oppose because we're inventing a new class out of thin air and render a lot of scripts like Outriggr's useless. But after seeing the proposal, I quite like it because a lot of B-class articles have "NPOV", "written like an advertisement", or similar tags. They could fall into C-class under this new proposal. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 18:16, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
13. And GA class should be dropped (combined into A) because it is confusing. Kevin Baas^talk 20:31, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

    No way. Most projects don't have a large member base that provides a steady stream of reviewers. Melting GA and A together spells disaster. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 02:28, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

    Yet again you completely misunderstand a comment on GA-Class, Ohana. Kevin Baas is not referring to the Good article designation here, but to GA-Class. Geometry guy 10:02, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

14. B is way to wide a gambit. Zginder 2008-05-19T21:16Z (UTC)
15. Add C to the existing system. As mentioned elsewhere, there are far too many Starts for that category to be handled effectively. ♬♩ Hurricanehink (talk) 01:01, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
16. If we accept the definition and example of Start class as given in the current grading scale, there is a large gap between that stage and a near-GA B class. A C-class in between B and start will help ensure that only near-good quality articles are assessed as B. Arman ^(Talk) 03:49, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
17. That would be good. There are some articles which are not quite B class, but are over start class. miranda 04:09, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
18. "B-class with cleanup tags" is definitely a class of article that is both fairly common (in my experience) and doesn't neatly fit into either B or Start classes. Nifboy (talk) 08:01, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

    It just occurred to me, the C is for Cleanup. I am highly amused by this. Nifboy (talk) 12:36, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

19. per Nifboy, support. Cricketgirl (talk) 08:14, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
20. There is a wide gap between B and Start Class. I think there is a need to create a C class. C class may be NPOV free, have general references and must be a bit more expanded from Start articles. Amartyabag ^TALK2ME 00:44, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
21. I've long thought that there's a huge gulf between Start and B (if the latter is properly applied), which reduces the motivation to improve the bulk of our non-stub articles. Espresso Addict (talk) 12:08, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
22. I think there is a large need for a class of articles that are more than a start but have major problems with style, neutrality, or reliance on original research. Having a class for problematic articles that are easily sorted out for Wikiprojects would be a great things. It is easy for anyone to fix Start class article that has these problems, but when the problematic article is more mature it really needs attention from people with more subject knowledge than those that normally roam the backlogs.--BirgitteSB 16:02, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
23. There is far, far too large a gap (now) between "Start" class and "B" class; having a "C" class would be an excellent way to fill that gap. ("Start" class means, in my mind, that an article has gotten beyond the couple of paragraphs that stub class articles have; if "B" class is almost good enough for GA status, then there is a huge, huge range of length and quality that "Start" class articles - now - can have. That's not good.) -- John Broughton (♫♫) 20:55, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
24. Support - This is a simple and good idea. SunCreator (talk) 23:30, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
25. Support B-class articles range from "board, decently written and referenced" to "long but unreferenced, badly written and poorly organised". With the introduction of the C-class rating, articles in the former category will keep their status while articles in the latter category will be downgraded to C-class. As a result, a B-class rating will be worth more. WikiProjects (especially those focusing on areas which are poorly covered) may thus organise "drives" to bring many articles to B-class status. However, moving A-class to below GA-class may not be a good idea, especially if a C-class rating is introduced. Some WikiProjects only give A-class status to articles which have passed an internal A-class review; such reviews tend to focus on content, while FA and GA focus on non-content issues. We should encourage more WikiProjects to have A-class reviews and lowering the prestige of an A-class rating will not do that. --J.L.W.S. The Special One (talk) 09:23, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
26. Support I was and remain amazed that such a class doesn't exist. Loren.wilton (talk) 12:51, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
27. Weak Support. I can see some benefit to this option. Majoreditor (talk) 03:43, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
28. Support - This is a simple and good idea as SunCreator says. Tom (talk) 17:30, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
29. Support - I think the comments below by Armanaziz sum it up well. Trevor Hanson (talk) 20:33, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
30. Support - for the reason I have given above. Sarah777 (talk) 20:40, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
31. Support - There really is a big gap between Start and B-class, a C-class would be perfect to fill that gap Cerebellum (talk) 16:57, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Comments

• It seems to me that stricter application of B-Class criteria, and drawing a sharper line between stub and start, is the solution. The assessment system is already over-complicated and an extra class will make this worse. We should be aiming at fewer, clearer, classes. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 07:20, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
  • My view is that B-level is already quite demanding (as it should be), and stub-class should be limited to articles that really are stubby. That leaves a great many articles that are start-class -- some of which are poor, and some of which are good but need additional improvement (usually in referencing) before they can hit B-level. The gradations we have between all the classes is quite lumpy; nothing between Start and B, and a doubling up on A. There's no clarity in that scheme. A/GA, B, C, D/Start, plus stub and FA seems like a better-balanced and clearer system to me.--Father Goose (talk) 08:28, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
• This option is worth considering, although I'm not yet sufficiently convinced to support. I would also point out that renaming GA-Class B+ would give WikiProjects more flexibility to make B-Class a little less demanding, as they would have full control of the criteria for B+-Class. Geometry guy 11:01, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
• I'm not sure that a C class is the answer, where simply being more subjective in reviewing articles could resolve many of the issues. Gnangarra 13:09, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Just to discuss - simply being more subjective/strict in reviewing articles solves the problem of B-class not being up to the mark - but the problem of start class being too broad remains. Arman ^(Talk) 03:56, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

In fact, this proposal would considerably tighten B-Class criteria as well. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 23:54, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose per my vote on Option A. Ncmvocalist (talk) 09:48, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose Seems horribly redundant. How is this any different from 'start' class? Dr. Cash (talk) 15:07, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

  In two ways: It tightens B-Class criteria, which create a larger gap between the new B-Class and Start-Class. Start-Class are articles that while not stubs anymore, cannot be considered complete. C-Class would mean that the article is more or less complete, but still in very bad shape. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 23:57, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

• I am opposed to this proposal especially. There will be no substantial difference from Start-Class, and it's just going to cause confusion in assessing articles. As I have said, the assessment scale is to give an estimate of how much work it needs to be done, which is reaching A or FA-Class, not to be an exact science. Juliancolton ^{Tropical Cyclone} 16:09, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
• This is the only change I think we need. The rest should remain the same. I think this class should only be reserved for articles identified as problamatic rather merely incomplete. (Omission leading to undue weight would not count as "merely incomplete"). Currently there is no way for Wikiprojects to know what articles in their subject area have been tagged with outstanding issues. This could be a way to solve that for the mature articles which are also the most diffcult for people with little subject specific knowledge to resolve.--BirgitteSB 16:12, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps the following theoretical examples will help explain my view of the differences between the new B-class, the proposed C-class and the current Start-class.

• B-class: An article about a chess player with good sections covering his career, personal life and contributions to chess theory. It is fairly well-referenced but does not meet GA criterion 2a. Although generally detailed, the article misses a few important points. The prose contains a few errors but is largely readable.
• C-class: An article about a country with good History and Geography sections, stubby Politics and Culture sections and an Economy section with little information. There are a couple of fair use images which lack rationales and very few references, while the prose is poor but readable.
• Start-class: An article about a movie with a detailed Plot section containing two screenshots, as well as an Analysis section which is full of original research. Entirely written from an in-universe perspective with poor but comprehensible prose, the article has no references.

--J.L.W.S. The Special One (talk) 09:23, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

• It looks like the result from this polling exercise has come down between two choices - no change and add C-class. I have already expressed my support for the later. Now It seems appropriate to discuss a bit more between these two options. Those who are favoring no change seem to be insisting on 3 points: 1) Addition of a C-class will make the already complicated grading scale even more complex; 2) It will create unnecessary reevaluation task which won't add any value and 3) Current grading scale, if applied cautiously, is enough for a reasonable evaluation. Let me discuss why I disagree to all 3 of these arguments:

1. Complexity: From whose perspective are we evaluating the complexity? The article rating is not published on article main-space, hence it is fair to assume that it is not intended for any ordinary reader. The entire assessment process is maintained and used by members of various wikiprojects who have already demonstrated their ability to deal with complexity of the assessment process. If they can deal with A-class and B-class, it is an insult to assume that and additional C-class will be "too much for them to handle".
2. Unnecessary work: This proposal will create virtually NO ADDITIONAL WORK for wikiprojects, which believe their current assessment process is fair and adequate. They can simply ignore the new class. But WikiProjects which are so far using the B-class more leniently will benefit from an exercise of downgrading some of their B-class articles to c-class and thus reserve the B-class only for potential candidates for a GA upgrade. On the other hand, those wikiprojects who are using the start class articles definition too broadly, will benefit by upgrading some of them to C-class so that when prioritizing move to B-class, they can screen down to a much smaller group of articles.
3. Current scale is adequate: Once again, the wikiprojects which believe the current scale is adequate do not need to do any change what so ever. But there are wikiprojects who can truly benefit from narrower scales. Just take a look at the examples of start class and B-class articles currently given in the grading scale. Can't you just see how huge the gap is between these two? The wikiprojects which believe they could use one more class in between should not be deprived of a tool to further organize their articles by quality. Arman ^(Talk) 11:06, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

The above is a good summary. I agree that a C-class rating would be a useful, optional tool. I don't think we should be focusing on how to define precise standards distinguishing Start-, C-, and B-classes – but rather on what a C-class option would mean to an editor trying to classify a particular article. There are times when it is hard to draw the line, either because of the presence or absence of standards within a particular WikiProject, or simply because there aren't enough "shades of grey" in the classification scheme. If I had to rate a bottle of wine, say, and reserved "A" for the very finest, and "Start" for good drinkable plonk, I would be frustrated having only "B" available for everything else. Many of the problem cases cited (conservative Starts and lenient Bs) would comfortably fit as Cs. Yes, I know, we keep saying we're not grading essays; but to an extent, every ranking system really IS grading essays. A "C-class" would seem to be intuitive, would help in many circumstances, and I don't see how it would hurt. Trevor Hanson (talk) 20:33, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

I still don't get it. Even the example above gives three articles on three different topics. It looks to me like the scale will be something like, stub, short article; start, it's got body but badly in need of organisation and depth; B, it's got most of the criteria for GA/A but not all. For C, we're saying... what exactly? It's a better start? It's got more issues than you would normally expect in a B class but not as many as you would at start level? It just looks a little confusing to me. Hiding T 19:22, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

For your ease of understanding, here is high-level summary of the proposed scale, with example articles for each class from same WikiProject:

• Stub - Doesn't qualify being called an article, at best comparable to a dictionary definition (e.g. Antineutron)
• Start - Has some useful materials that can be used to write a good article but is either incomplete, poorly referenced, unorganized, or has other major quality/scope issues. These are articles that have just grown out of the stub-class due to addition of some useful contents. (e.g. Aeolipile)
• C-Class - Has a significant amount of useful materials that need further reorganization and quality improvement, or a well written framework that needs additional subject matter detail. (e.g. Acoustics)
• B-Class - Broad in coverage, well referenced and have all materials expected by an ordinary (non-expert) reader. No POV / OR concerns. But has language, grammar and MoS issues. (e.g. Bell's theorem)
• GA-Class - Has passed as GA. (e.g. Anaerobic digestion) (amended by Walkerma (talk) 21:01, 26 May 2008 (UTC))
• A-Class - Must be a GA that has gone through WikiProject level Peer review to ensure accuracy and completeness of content. (e.g. Black hole) Currently, an A-Class article need not be a GA, and it does not require a peer review. We may well want to strongly suggest the peer review, but the suggestion of a GA prerequisite goes against the purpose of A-Class. The Walkerma (talk) 21:01, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
• FA-Class - Meets FA Criteria. (e.g. Atom) - Arman ^(Talk) 02:44, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I fixed a couple of errors in the above description, which is otherwise a good working guide. The errors were in the GA-Class (which MUST have passed as GA) and A-Class (see details above). From a quick glance, the examples look good to me. Walkerma (talk) 21:01, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

...and I inserted some verbiage in the Start- and C-class descriptions, to include cases that I thought were omitted from the original text (viz: "either incomplete..." and "...or a well-written framework..." since such articles aren't necessary poorly-written, unorganized, etc.; a good editor with limited subject matter expertise might write a great introduction and outline, for completion by experts). However I stupidly neglected to leave an explanatory comment here. Trevor Hanson (talk) 21:59, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks to both Trevor and Walkerma for updating the descriptions. In practice when we rewrite the grading scale these descriptions need to be much more elaborate and specific and ideally we should use multiple examples from different wikiprojects. But right now we are trying to decide whether or not to add the C-class, and if that need has been clearly established then let's move forward by closing this poll and proceed towards actual rewrite of the grading scale. Arman ^(Talk) 02:59, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Option D: Combine A and GA into GA/A class

Added by Father Goose.

Support

1. I can't support swapping A and GA because of semantic problems: "A" is traditionally the top grade, and "good" is something less than "top". More importantly, there are not a whole lot of practical differences that distinguish A and GA articles from each other. As I understand it, the two classes have origins in separate but redundant projects. They overlap -- they always have -- and it's time to just fold them together. The fact that we are considering swapping A and GA in ranking shows they are interchangeable.--Father Goose (talk) 06:53, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
2. Support for reasons given by Father Goose. SunCreator (talk) 23:35, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Support for simplification. Tom (talk) 17:39, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Comments

• As much as it bugs me that GA has a review process of some kind and A does not, a process as dramatic as a merge would not be particularly easy. If we are to consider this at all, then perhaps the best way of going about it would be to deprecate GA entirely, and convert GA-review into A-quality review. – ClockworkSoul 07:13, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
  • However it would be handled (merging, deprecating, etc.), it amounts to the same thing. I'd call it "GA/A" because "good articles" has much more history behind it, but does not fit in the "ABC" ranking scheme. Regardless, unless the two classes can be made distinct and non-redundant, they should be folded together.--Father Goose (talk) 07:52, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
• Milhist has an A-Class review system (based on three editors reviewing) and it works well. Increasingly, it is an essential pre-FAC step. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 07:22, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Milhist is probably not the best project to point to when discussing generalities: it is as close to the "ideal" wikiproject as I've ever seen and most projects are far, far less well-staffed and organized – ClockworkSoul 07:25, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
• I can see the attractions of this option. As I understand it, GA was originally an 'adequate' rating (ie an article was judged as being of a minimum acceptable standard for WP), and A is a project-specific rating that exists alongside, but separate from, GA. With the steady rise in GA standards though (the odd unsafe pass aside!), I wonder how much differentiation there really is between the two. EyeSerene^talk 10:23, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
• The fact that we are considering swapping the order of GA and A (which I don't support) does not mean they are interchangeable: instead it reflects the fact that there isn't an answer to the question, "Which is better, chalk or cheese?" Combining chalk and cheese is not a particularly palatable option :-) Instead, I recommend separating the Good article process entirely from WikiProject ratings. Geometry guy 10:54, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
• No way. It will have a collateral damage to all projects which have an A-class reviewing department. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 18:11, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
  • See my proposal below that would make a special place for projects which have an A-class reviewing department.--Pharos (talk) 19:49, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose, if you mean what I think you mean. MILHIST's "A" rating gives us the best of all worlds; we can rate the process instead of the articles, and as long as we continue to have confidence in the process, we don't have to look over their shoulders at the articles. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 00:18, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure what you think I mean. But let me put it this way: are there any "A" articles that wouldn't pass GA? Should there be any A articles that couldn't pass GA? Separately, is there enough separation between GA and FA standards that a separate intermediate rating (A) should exist? If not, then I think A and GA should be synonymous.--Father Goose (talk) 01:15, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
    • I think there are probably a fair number of A-Class that wouldn't pass as GA (I've tagged a couple myself that way), and that is quite appropriate - that's why we have two separate tags. They indicate very different things. For example, a complete article which just needs the citation format cleaning up to make it into an FA - this could never pass GA but is perfectly good as an A. I suspect that there are some GAs that wouldn't pass muster as A, because of lack of comprehensiveness. Walkerma (talk) 01:55, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose per my vote on Option A and B. Ncmvocalist (talk) 09:48, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
• Comment I could see doing this, but I don't think it's particularly realistic. While GA already does have certain standards for comprehensiveness and verifiability, this could be expanded a bit to include some of the more subject-specific options fairly easy. But I don't think that some wikiprojects would want to give up their own control over the A-class rating. Although, in the view of all wikiprojects, what I don't like about A-class is that lack of common and clear criteria that all A-class articles should adhere to. This makes it a rather poor process wiki-wide, and an argument for just dumping A-class ratings entirely. Dr. Cash (talk) 15:11, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose. This would make it more difficult to continue project-specific A-class rating reviews such as the one at Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/A-class rating, and instead subject this level of article only to the review of the GA editors, who have historically been less focused on content and more on commas. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:26, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
  • David, this is exactly the thinking behind Option G. Check it out!--Pharos (talk) 17:29, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose. apples and oranges. Majoreditor (talk) 03:40, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Option E: Replace Start-class with C-Class

Support

1. In my opinion the start-class should renamed (or replaced with) C-Class. The word start is misleading, because it implies that every article that just has been starded deserves this rating. This is the reason why the quality of start-class articles is so poor. Ruslik (talk) 06:53, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
2. This would seem to be a sensible extension of the current naming system, without introducing another layer of bureaucracy and the need for more reviews. EyeSerene^talk 10:06, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
3. Why implement more bureaucracy when we can simply do a renaming?--Pharos (talk) 19:40, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
4. I strongly support this proposal, because the term "start" is overly specific, and renaming it to the more general "C" would increase consistency in our grading scheme. Adding "C" without removing "start" would mean too many levels. "Stub-class" already describes an article that was just started and isn't yet long enough. -- Rmrfstar (talk) 00:40, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
5. I agree with the above statements, especially Pharos. Chris M. (talk) 00:48, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
6. I really don't see much of a different between 'start' and 'C' as it is, and I strongly oppose adding a new C class without other changes (see above). Personally, I don't care whether you call it 'start' or 'C', but there already is a 'stub' class, which is where articles 'start', so from this perspective, I guess it makes sense. Dr. Cash (talk) 15:13, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
7. Support Agree Start is misleading. Would prefer start to be made D-Class and we have C-Class also. But still with or without C-Class then remove Start class, hence support. SunCreator (talk) 23:27, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Comments

• I always figured that the reason that the quality of start quality articles was poor was because they are start quality articles. After all, if they were higher quality, wouldn't they most likely be B quality? ;) – ClockworkSoul 07:06, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
• Alternatively, start-class could be renamed D-class, with C created as proposed above. "D" may sound harsh, but start-class articles (that don't qualify as "C") need a tremendous amount of work.--Father Goose (talk) 07:41, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
  • I would be opposed to adding a "D-class" for two specific reasons.

    First, this approaches the old grammar school rating system and it is too easy to then add an "F" (for "Fail") class.

    Second, forgive my use of a theoretical crystal ball but I think "D-class" would have a tendency to become known as the "Delete-class". -- Low Sea (talk) 17:08, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

    • "F" might as well be synonymous with deletion, so there's no point to an "F" class (AfD/prod/speedy are the "rating" process in those cases). D-class would be anything that is not bad enough to delete, and not a stub, but needs very serious work. There are plenty of articles that meet that description. Then there are ones that are actually pretty good, but need a bit more work before meeting B standards; those are Cs.--Father Goose (talk) 00:55, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose - unnecessary and arguments in support are meritless. Ncmvocalist (talk) 09:54, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose - there are articles which are above start class and are barely below B class. C is middle ground. miranda 03:11, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose - "Start" class simply means "Not a stub anymore". Whether you call this "Start" class or "C" class, it spans way, way too much of a variety of articles - from those that are only six paragraphs (that's not a stub) to those that have a couple of images and a number of footnotes and external links, but aren't quite good enough for "B" class. We absolutely need to split what is now "Start" class into two different classes, so we can measure progress (or the lack thereof). -- John Broughton (♫♫) 20:59, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Option F: Rename or remove GA-Class to separate the GA designation from WikiProject ratings

This is not specifically the option F discussed below: the proposal is to separate the Good article designation from WikiProject ratings (hence it covers part (1) of option H as well). How this is done depends partly on what other options are supported. This is not a proposal to merge, downgrade, upgrade, or do anything to change the GA process and the Good article designation itself.

Support

1. See my comments here. Geometry guy 10:14, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

   For the record, my own preference is to rename GA-Class as B+-Class. Most GA's would then be either B+-Class or A-Class. Geometry guy 09:51, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

2. Strong support EyeSerene^talk 10:56, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
3. Support. Well thought out plan. This is a separate designation away from the assessment scale and as such, should be separated. Woody (talk) 11:22, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
4. Removes confusion and simplifies assessment scale. Kevin Baas^talk 22:41, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
5. Yes. GA = B + manual of style compliance. That really isn't a significant quality difference. GRBerry 17:45, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Comment How is this related to manual of style compliance? The MOS doesn't cover this. Dr. Cash (talk) 17:47, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Comments

• Multiple editors have referred to this issue, and I don't believe this poll will make any sense unless we gauge consensus for an option of this form as well. Geometry guy 10:14, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
• Whether renaming/removing the WikiProject GA-class, or anything else that would decouple it from Good Article assessment, this would be extremely helpful. EyeSerene^talk 10:56, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose The solution is not to decouple any assessments or projects from the assessment scale. There needs to be a clear and visible path in taking articles from stub-class all the way through FA, and GA is a part of that process. It would make far more sense to move GA up one step above A-class, so that that path would go from the wikiproject assessments (stub-->start-->B-->A), and once it completed that, it would go through the larger and more community-wide assessment projects of GA and ultimately FA. Dr. Cash (talk) 15:18, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
  • I think this is more in the nature of removing the current confusion (by whatever means) between the Good Article WikiProject and individual WikiProject-awarded GA-classes. EyeSerene^talk 17:46, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

There shouldn't be any confusion there. The GA "class" should not be awarded by wikiprojects, ever, period. It is there as a class in the same sense that FA is, to designate where in the rating scale that the article falls; GA & FA require outside review processes, and adding either one of those needs to go through either WP:FAC or WP:GAN. Any wikiproject adding a 'GA' class on their own needs to discontinue that practice immediately. Dr. Cash (talk) 18:31, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

A WikiProject can award GA-Class: if it has an A-Class article which is also a Good article, and the project decides that it is no longer A-Class, then they can make it GA-Class. The system is so confusing that it even confuses the experts.

A WikiProject is just a bunch of editors of varying experience. No matter how much we jump up and down saying "desist", there will still be editors who assess articles as GA-Class without realising that there is a requirement to use the Good article process. It crops up regularly at GAR.

Furthermore, many WikiProjects have their own version of the assessment scheme on this page. If a WikiProject decides it no longer wants the Good article process to be a requirement for GA-Class in its template, and amends its scheme, who are we to stop them? The WikiProject assessments are there to help WikiProjects track article quality after all.

There seems to be some illusion here that there exists a universal Stub->Start->B->GA->A->FA scheme for recognising article quality. A look at e.g. Talk:John von Neumann demonstrates how untrue this is. Geometry guy 19:21, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

If only... EyeSerene^talk 20:18, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Please elaborate on specific wikiprojects that actually assign a GA-class without going through WP:GAN. I have yet to see this in my experience. Dr. Cash (talk) 03:49, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Here is an example of a WikiProject member rating an article as GA-Class without using WP:GAN. This persisted until January this year. I am not aware of any WikiProjects which routinely assign GA-Class (apart from downgrading A-Class) without using the Good article process (this part of my comment was hypothetical), although Aryaman has indicated a belief that there are some, and may wish to comment here. Geometry guy 17:14, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose Confusing, and it makes GA irrelevant, which is absurd considering how many thousands of articles this project has reviewed, improved, and assessed. VanTucky ^{Vote in my weird poll!} 02:58, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
• Scraping GA is another step backward in internationalisation. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 04:15, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
• Very strongly oppose abolishing GA. Merging GA with A might be acceptable though. 69.140.152.55 (talk) 05:01, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

  There is very little point in contributing to a poll if you are not going to read what other editors have written. There is no plan here to abolish GA. Contributions made in write-only mode do not help to form consensus. Several editors did not even read far enough to realise that this poll is using approval voting. Geometry guy 09:49, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

While there is no direct plan to abolish GA, removing it from the assessments scale will ultimately lead to the project's demise. Dr. Cash (talk) 15:30, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Glad that the abolition of GA is not being considered. And thanks for the constructive feedback. I oppose renaming "GA" to "B+." At this time, however, I think that the most important thing to change is to get articles with copyright infringement or severe policy problems out of the B-class. There's no need to establish a new class for these; just move them to the start-class or, for particularly serious problems such as copyright infringement, delete or stubify them. Right now, I decline to cast a vote for  any of the options. 69.140.152.55 (talk) 09:51, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose. De-coupling GA from the assessment scale is risky. Majoreditor (talk) 03:49, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Option G: Community-granted A and WikiProject-granted A

As proposed here

Support

1. Pharos (talk) 20:42, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Comments

• At the moment, the "WikiProject A" granted by, eg, WP:MILHIST is considerably higher in requirements (content, breadth, MOS, citations, and so forth) than the current Community-granted GA. Do you envisage raising the GA standard to make the "community granted A" equivalent? Or lowering the A standard to match the current GA? (In fact the mil hist quality scale offers a good analysis of stub/start/B class articles as well. We could adapt their checklists and criteria for general use.) Gwinva (talk) 21:48, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
  • I would envision keeping the standards about where they are (though I would have no problem with raising GA a degree). "WikiProject A" could perhaps be considered a higher standard, but not explicitly. Under this system it would not be meaningful to rank the two, because one would be for certain subject areas assessed by WikiProjects which have dedicated review departments, and the other would be a catchall for all other subjects. It would not actually be possible to assess "other" subjects to the same extent as those with dedicated review departments, when one is outside the context of a WikiProject which has content experts. There would be no overlapping jurisdiction.--Pharos (talk) 22:56, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
• Unnecessarily confusing, and provides no tangible benefit that I can see. VanTucky ^{Vote in my weird poll!} 03:01, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Benefits:

  • Strongly encourages MilHist-like review departments at WikiProjects, which can provide better reviews than the GA community process.
  • Ends "A" being granted without process in many WikiProjects.
  • There is a clear place where every article should be assessed, and no overlapping jurisdictions.
  • Eliminates confusion over relative "rank" of "A" and "GA".

• Agree with VT. Some members in WPs and the community might have unnecessary standards for assessing an article. miranda 03:08, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Um, please explain further. This sounds like a general criticism of assessing anything.--Pharos (talk) 03:33, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
• Whiskey? Tango? Foxtrot? Is this a joke? Dr. Cash (talk) 03:37, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
  • OK, did you read the proposal?--Pharos (talk) 03:58, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Umm,... YES. It really is that stupid. Far too complicated and bureaucratic. Dr. Cash (talk) 04:02, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

You're entitled to your opinions, but please try to keep your replies civil. – ClockworkSoul 13:50, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I take offense to those remarks. I don't find anything "uncivil" about them. All I was doing was making my point that this is a dumb idea. 'Nuf said. Dr. Cash (talk) 13:51, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Be as offended as you like, but calling somebody's ideas "stupid", doesn't exactly fit the definition of civility. Let's just leave that there and not thread-jack this discussion. – ClockworkSoul 13:55, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Ok, whatever. I still disagree strongly with this proposal. Dr. Cash (talk) 14:21, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

• Yes, this is a nice option. All A articles must be accessed by a Wikiproject. Every Wikiproject must employ a person to review the A articles. Amartyabag ^TALK2ME 00:49, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

  I hope you don't mean "employ" as in "employee". Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 00:01, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Further comments

I propose that we finish this first round at midnight UTC May 25-26. Walkerma (talk) 05:31, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

OK. I'll leave comments about this on the Signpost's talk page, as well as the Village Pump, et al. We should try to advertise this as much as possible. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 05:49, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I've done the village pump, as well as the 1.0 page and the community portal notice board. Please do mention it on the Signpost, though. Thanks, Walkerma (talk) 06:01, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I think we have two distinct issues here, in terms of the high end (GA/A), and the low end (Start/B), of the assessment scale. It appears at this point we might come to a clearer consensus on these issues if they were addressed separately.--Pharos (talk) 03:39, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Kevin Baas has suggested in a recent edit that this poll be converted from approval voting to a support/oppose vote on each option. I reverted his edit, as it is not good practice to change procedures in the middle of a vote, and also because such a change should be discussed first. However, I notice that many editors are phrasing their "comments" in the form of an "oppose", so it may be worth having a discussion about this. I am personally against changing Walkerma's approach, but it isn't my call. I would say, however, that if there is any change, then the deadline needs to be extended considerably. Geometry guy 20:09, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I saw all the oppose votes and thought that that was what was intended, and the lack of an oppose section was just a historical artifact. I'm fine w/approval voting, although there are some proposals that are orthogonal to each other. (Such as add C and remove GA.) Kevin Baas^talk 20:32, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

We seem to have at this point:

low-end:

• Do nothing
• Add C
• Replace start w/C

high-end:

• A is above GA. (i.e. do nothing)
• merge GA w/A (and/or B+/B). (i.e. eliminate or rename GA-class)
• GA is above A.

and some yes/no questions.

But I think we're too far through the process to start over - so i'd suggest waiting till the vote closes, implementing the results, and then resolving any remaining questions/issues, perhaps w/another, more organized, poll. Kevin Baas^talk 20:50, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

On further thought, the proposals can well be organized into a number of yes/no votes:

• Should a class, "C", be introduced, either replacing "start" or inserted between start and "B"?
  • If so, should it replace start or be a new class inserted between start and "B"?
• Should "GA" class be renamed (for instance, to "A" or "B+")?
  • If so, should it be merged w/A or renamed to B+?
  • If not, should "GA" class be moved to above "A" class?
• Should there be two "A"'s: a community-granted and a wikiproject-granted, distinguished on the talk page?

Kevin Baas^talk 18:15, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Proposed addition of option F: rename GA-Class as B+ Class

With apologies to Walkerma, I'm afraid I really must propose the addition of an option F. I'm proposing it in a new section per request. The purpose of this option is to clear up a long-standing headache in the assessment system, which is the widespread confusion between GA-Class and Good article. The Good article process and the WikiProject assessment systems are totally different content review processes with different goals and different methodologies. The current scale attempts to shoe-horn a community-wide assessment process which focuses on style and policy-compliance issues into an assessment scale that varies from project to project and is managed by content experts. This doesn't wash and causes problem after problem. That this is an issue can already be seen in the fact that an article can be A-Class without being a Good article, and of course a Good article need not be GA-Class (with this again varying from WikiProject to WikiProject). Thus the current scale looks something like:

Stub - Start - B - A
               |   |
              GA -FA

Further, the current system leads to Good article reviewers adjusting ratings without any sort of WikiProject consent. When I delist a Good article which is A-Class, do I drop it to B? Good article reviewers also often do not have the content expertise to judge the place of an article on a WikiProject assessment scale.

What I am proposing is that we remove the Good article issue entirely from WikiProject assessment scales by renaming GA-Class as B+ Class. This recognises the fact that Good article is a community-wide (or at least, project independent) seal of approval that the article meets basic standards, and allows Good article status to be awarded to articles of any class except FA-Class. The green dot could be added as a symbol to the rating if desired. For the most part, this would mean B+ and A articles have a green dot. Good article reviewers could add and remove the dot without affecting WikiProject ratings.

If we could sort out this headache, it would make my day. Geometry guy 10:42, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

• I support this proposal--or indeed, any variant; for instance the projects could work according to an A/B/C/D scale, while FA and GA would remain community-wide assessments. I note that the above discussion seems mainly to come from people involved in the projects. It would be good to drop a note with those involved in GA and FA, to make them aware. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 10:50, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

• I support this change, but not the renaming part. We don't want to get a green dot in mainspace at the expense of further demoting ourselves (Or the FA crowd will have one more reason to oppose the green dot proposal: they will say "it was a GA class but now it's only a B+ class, not even reaching A." OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 17:44, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

• I'm not sure how this separates GA from the project assessment scale - renaming GA to B+ seems to me to be wedging it firmly into the scale:

Stub - Start - B - B+ - A
                        |
                       FA

Have I misunderstood? For the record, like jb I'm all for anything that will help to make things clearer ;) EyeSerene^talk 16:59, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, you both have. Here is a better diagram, which might help clarify these misunderstandings

Stub -> Start -> B -> B+ -> A -> FA Class (WikiProject class assessments)
                                 ||
                           GA -> FA       (Community wide/independent content review and FA-Class = Featured article)

The purpose is not to rename Good articles as B+ !! It is to separate completely the Good article designation from the WikiProject assessment scheme. Your misunderstanding demonstrates the huge problem with referring to articles as GA-Class.

I would also note that this issue has received some attention on this page recently: see Wikipedia_talk:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team/Assessment#A vs GA. Geometry guy 19:11, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification - the similar nomenclature is a recipe for confusion, and I'm still not sure I understand the difference between a Good Article and a GA-class article. However, could your diagram be incorporated with the Stub > Start > C > B > A scheme that's been proposed above? It may result in exisiting 'B' class articles being reclassified as 'C' class, but it would avoid 'B+' as a somewhat awkward designation. EyeSerene^talk 19:31, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

If both this proposal and C-Class were accepted, the diagram would become

Stub -> Start -> C -> B -> B+ -> A -> FA Class (WikiProject class assessments)
                                      ||
                                GA -> FA       (Community wide/independent content review and FA-Class = Featured article)

for reasons of independence. I agree there is an opportunity to eliminate B+ by using the new B for the best current B-Class articles, and the new C for the rest. This is why I haven't yet supported the C-Class proposal. Geometry guy 19:56, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree with most of what you say, but for simplicitys sake I think we should go with A B C instead of A B- B+.. I do support the separation of community evaluations: GA FA from wikiproject evaluations: A B and hopefully C Acer (talk) 20:01, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Okay. In view of these remarks, option H below, and remarks made by editors in the other options above, I've added a more generic option F to separate the community GA evaluation from the WikiProject assessment scheme. Geometry guy 10:17, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

• Strong oppose The solution should not be to remove GA from the assessment scale. The solution should be a tighter integration of all review & assessment options across all levels (FA, GA, PR, and the wikiproject assessment scales). We need to work together here; don't isolate one group and leave them out. Dr. Cash (talk) 14:59, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose Absolutely not. This proposed rename would be totally confusing, and it would be a watering down of what GA means. Dr. Cash hits it on the head, leaving out GA is big mistake, considering we have assessed thousands of quality articles. Quite a few more than FA, actually. VanTucky ^{Vote in my weird poll!} 02:55, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I think this is a further illustration of the confusion created by having two assessment schemes with similar names, and proof of the need for Gguy's proposal to be implemented. WikiProject GA-class is not the same as Good Article status, as awarded by WP:WPGA. EyeSerene^talk 07:42, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Umm, actually GA-class IS the same thing as Good Article Status. When articles are promoted to GA, they are assigned GA-class in the assessments. I am still waiting to hear from someone regarding my request for an actual wikiproject that assigns a 'GA-class' assessment without going through WP:GAN. All that's been offered so far is one instance of one user assigning it to a wikiproject, which was later reverted, with an actual nomination and review taking place several weeks later. Dr. Cash (talk) 04:06, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I apologise for my lack of clarity ;) Let's see if I can explain myself better: I agree, the guidelines on the V1.0 grading scheme currently state that WikiProject GA-class should be awarded by taking an article through the Good Article assessment process; thus a Good Article award also translates into a GA-class award. However, this leads to contradictions later on - for example, if a WikiProject then reassesses the article as A-class... Clearly it cannot be A-class and GA-class at the same time, and the A replaces the GA in the WikiProject template, but the article is not removed from WP:GA - it retains its Good Article status, despite no longer being a GA-class article. This seems completely illogical to me, and suggests that we should either:

• fully integrate Good Article status into the hierarchy, so an A-class award would automatically replace GA status (can't see this happening for all sorts of reasons!)

or

• remove the GA-class from the WikiProject hierarchy, so GA status is completely separated and no longer translates into an equivalent class on the hierarchy (which is, I think, what Gguy's proposing)

I hope that's clearer! EyeSerene^talk 11:47, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't really see the issue here. The way I see it, A-class articles being above GA means that they should adhere to the GA criteria, and then go beyond. I read that as A-class being a subset of GA, sort of like a GA+. And I have, and will continue to, delist A-class articles that are not GA, especially if there is no A-class review appearing anywhere in article talk or archives. If you are going to remove GA from the assessments scale, then we should remove FA as well. Let the wikiprojects do their own thing from stub-->start-->B-->A, and then let the community assign a Featured or Good status to it. The same arguments for having A below GA, also apply to FA -- how can an A-class article be "below" FA, if A is supposed to be the top? But removing GA from assessments scale on its own is only devaluing the project, which is something that I simply cannot agree to. Dr. Cash (talk) 15:20, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I think that suggestion ("Let the wikiprojects do their own thing from stub-->start-->B-->A, and then let the community assign a Featured or Good status to it.) has a lot to recommend it. GA and FA have to serve the entire community, not just those articles that also happen to come under a WikiProject, so why not make the distinction clear? As you say, A-class articles exist that would not qualify as Good Articles, and although according to the V1.0 assessment scale that shouldn't really be the case, barring FA and GA WikiProjects are ultimately free to classify their articles in whatever way they see fit. The assessment scale is not, despite appearances, unified or even consistent. I do understand your objections and see the sense behind them (and it should go without saying that I certainly don't want to devalue WPGA!), but from other comments on this page the way you regard A-class (as a subset of GA) clearly isn't the way some others regard it. Doesn't this indicate, if we're not even all on the same page, that the whole thing needs deconstructing? EyeSerene^talk 17:00, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I could support decoupling BOTH GA AND FA from the assessment scale, since they are separate processes and not tied to the wikiprojects. This might actually make sense; so that we could essentially read it like, "This article is a 'A-class Featured Article', or a 'A-class Good Article', or a 'B-class Good article'. It might even strengthen the system a bit by creating somewhat of an unwritten rule of requiring wikiproject A-class prior to FA nomination, or wikiproject B-class prior to GA nomination. Although I don't think this should be a written rule, since an article could certainly be reassessed on the fly during FA or GA reviewing. Although theoretically, all FAs should be A-class upon initial listing at FA, separating FA as well as GA out of the assessment scheme would give the wikiprojects another avenue to review older FAs themselves prior to listing at WP:FAR, which would make it possible to have a 'B-class Featured Article'. It might also help to alert Raul & Sandy (or whoever runs WP:FAR) about the quality of the older FAs, if a wikiproject reassessed the article at a lower class for some reason; they could then take appropriate action if necessary.

However, I still think that decoupling GA alone without taking action regarding FA is the wrong approach, and will continue to oppose that avenue. Dr. Cash (talk) 18:03, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Proposed addition of option G: Combine A and GA into GA/A class, process delegated by commmunity in cases of mature WikiProjects

I think that this can address the problem of variability of quality and maturity among WikiProjects. The community-wide GA process would have the role of giving "A"s to articles, except in selected topic areas where a mature WikiProject supersedes this role.

So, we have a vote, say, that establishes that WikiProject Military history is mature enough, and has a thorough enough process, to handle "A"-granting in its military history topic area. The designation of "A-granting WikiProject" can also be removed by community decision, if standards fall in the future. This would be like educational accreditation.

And maybe an immature WikiProject could mark articles "B+" (which would have the same rank as "B") in preparation for future "A" accreditation.

So, the default would be the community-wide GA process, with the participation of maybe three or four "A-granting WikiProjects" in selected topic areas to start.--Pharos (talk) 17:09, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Question: What if an article is part of more than one WikiProject? More interestingly, what if there are fundamental philosophical differences between the WikiProjects? And finally, can article editors "forum shop" by changing the WikiProject templates on an article's talk page? 69.140.152.55 (talk) 08:28, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Again, this seems to be a tacit recognition that (whatever the original intention) there is no longer any meaningful distinction between GA- and A-class articles. I'm not entirely sure this is actually the case though - certainly for MilHist, who are blessed with knowledgable and prolific editors, expert content reviews are no problem (and beyond the current remit of GA). Are you suggesting that GA take on content reviews in addition to the current criteria for articles that belong to less-'professional' projects (or no project at all)? EyeSerene^talk 19:15, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

There are quite significant distinctions at present. For the great majority of WikiProjects, A-class has no meaningful review process, and no real enforceable standards at all (and so quite below GA). For WikiProjects like MilHist there is a great review process, and A-class may be considered equivalent or even better than GA. I am essentially proposing that we take away "A-granting powers" from immature WikiProjects, so that "A" is more meaningful. Possibly we should still distinguish between "Community-granted A" and "WikiProject-granted A", but these should still be relatively similar standards (with "WikiProject-granted A" perhaps considered a higher standard, but not explicitly).--Pharos (talk) 19:26, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I think that unless GA criteria are expanded and the GA WikiProject can find subject experts able to take on content reviews (and so assess to the same standard as the MilHist A-class, which I believe is generally regarded as above GA) there should still be distinctions between community and project A-class. This would be a significant quality-control wake-up call for many WikiProjects though - not necessarily a bad thing IMO ;) EyeSerene^talk 19:53, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, not only would this provide a wake-up call to the WikiProjects, it would also set a clear boundary between "Community-granted A" as a catchall for uncovered subjects, and "WikiProject-granted A" for specific covered subject areas. There would be no more conflicting jurisdiction, and as more WikiProjects adopt MilHist-like practices, new subject areas would one by one come under this more rigorous scrutiny.--Pharos (talk) 23:09, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I would name it "A" class, though, essentially droping "GA-class", thus simplifying:

Stub - Start - C - B - A - FA

Kevin Baas^talk 20:29, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the idea would be to name it "A" class, but we would still distinguish between "Community-granted A" and "WikiProject-granted A" on the talk page box.--Pharos (talk) 22:17, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose Again, too similar to be anything but confusing and detrimental to the good work that GA does. VanTucky ^{Vote in my weird poll!} 02:56, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Perhaps my wording has not been clear. This proposal would leave the GA process to the exact same "good work that [it] does" now, except that for certain subject areas where highly mature WikiProjects (like MilHist) have developed alternate processes.--Pharos (talk) 04:37, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I hate to point this out, but I think wikiproject military history is in the serious minority here -- most wikiprojects don't have very clear and developed processes for reviews. Plus, specific projects aside, the criteria for 'A-class' varies quite widely among all wikiprojects. Dr. Cash (talk) 13:42, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

That's the whole point of this proposal. MilHist is in the minority now, but it shouldn't be. The proposal would strongly encourage MilHist-like review departments at other WikiProjects, and only those with clear and developed processes would get "A-granting authority" at all. In the beginning, there might only be three or four WikiProjects that fit these criteria, but I think eventually most WikiProjects that have a decent-sized membership will develop in this direction.--Pharos (talk) 17:04, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I'd actually be in favor of removing A-class altogether, just have GA and FA. The gap really isn't that large between them. Wizardman 00:00, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Proposed addition of option H: Separate DA/GA/FA (Wikipedia Quality Rating) from A/B/C/D (WikiProject Assessment Rating)

I think that these two systems need to be separated from one another entirely. WikiProject Assessment should be carried out within the projects which treat a particular article, granting a 'grade' A/B/C/D. An article should reach A-Grade according to that project's assessment standard prior to becoming eligible for a Wikipedia Quality Rating. If it belongs to more than one WikiProject, it needs to satisfy the A-Grade requirements of all those projects. (This should be intuitive: an article that brings together knowledge from two or more fields needs to be A-Grade in respect to both of those fields before it can be considered 'Good' from Wikipedia's 'global' perspective.) Wikipedia Quality Rating, on the other hand, looks at the article from the perspective of the encyclopaedia as a whole, and therefore cannot possibly use the same kinds of standards as a WikiProject Assessment. An article that is still undergoing development (i.e. D/C/B) should receive a Wikipedia Quality Rating of DA for 'Developing Article'. A WikiProject is responsible for ensuring that an article is detailed and accurate regarding its area of expertise. Its members, due to the nature of the work they do here, often lack the broad vision that is needed to rate articles for the encyclopaedia. Experienced reviewers, however, while they probably lack expertise in the particular field, are capable of viewing the project as a whole and rating the article accordingly. Thus:

(1) Separate the two systems entirely.

(2) Make it incumbent upon all WikiProjects to develop detailed Assessment guidelines for articles within their scope.

(3) Make A-Grade WikiProject Assessment required for nomination to Wikipedia Quality Rating.

—Aryaman (talk) 20:12, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

The problem with that is that it introduces a lot of unnecessary red tape as a requirement for GA and FA, which is not necessarily a good idea. Currently, there is no requirement for an article to be a GA before an FA; there's not even a requirement that the article be peer reviewed before it can be submitted at FAC. Additionally, many WikProjects are not capable of producing the assessment guidelines you propose, be it because they're nascent, or just not very active. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 22:50, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, this system has its benefits but it relies on active and interested WikiProjects. That is simply not the reality at the moment. Most projects simply haven't the interest in creating comprehensive assessment departments. Woody (talk) 22:54, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree with (1) (at least in part), but not with the rest, for the reasons mentioned by Titoxd and Woody. Geometry guy 10:26, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

'Developing article' is a horrible idea, probably far worse than the "Jump to Conclusions" mat. Seems like it's adding more bureaucracy and process, and in the end it won't be much different than a 'start' class article. Dr. Cash (talk) 15:02, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I read this proposal very differently. Sorry for the long comment, but I think this idea deserves more attention. Throughout these discussions, I see two separate recurring issues:

1. Defining a useful taxonomy for articles, incorporating the distinct perspectives of:

• Subject matter expertise, and
• Encyclopaedic integration.

2. Creating a useful family of processes for classifying articles within that taxonomy, processes that accommodate both:

• Mature WikiProjects, and
• Nascent projects that sometimes can produce FA articles, despite a lack of broad editorial resources and consensus.

I of course agree that a more-bureaucratic process is doomed to failure. However, I don't see that creating intuitively meaningful taxonomic pigeonholes must require red tape. Thus:

• I think the proposed DA/GA/FA and A/B/C/D schemes do a very good job at addressing the first issue, by recognizing that subject matter coverage and encyclopaedic quality are orthogonal issues (to an extent). The problem remains of whether such a system could be practical.
• Clearly, the requirement for a WikiProject A-Grade before a GA rating won't work in today's environment, unless we wanted to restrict GA/FA ratings to mature WikiProjects. But the obvious solution is to allow individual WikiProjects to establish their own GA threshold (A-grade, B-grade, or some magic internal classification – essentially an automatic "no consensus" for promoting certain articles). For nascent WikiProjects, such thresholds would not apply. Red tape would be an internal WikiProject decision.
• I don't find the idea of a DA-rating as a horrible idea per se. This rating would simply define an explicit default stratum for non-rated articles – classifying them by using a named placeholder, rather than by the absence of a GA/FA rating. Isn't "DA" more meaningful than "non-GA/non-FA"? This separate rating scale makes it clear that Stub>Start>C>... are not intrinsically part of the progression to GA/FA, but an independent quality axis.

Trying to bronze-plate the diverse rating schemata already in use guarantees that the system can never make sense. Trevor Hanson (talk) 02:17, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose the requirement that "If it belongs to more than one WikiProject, it needs to satisfy the A-Grade requirements of all those projects." This would allow one WikiProject to impose its POV on an article before it can even make GA. For FA, maybe a good gauge of consensus, but you are driving the standard for GA too high. 69.140.152.55 (talk) 10:15, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Option I - Proposal of C-class usage, with other special usages

Eh, never mind - since it seems that no one agrees - just ignore this.^Mitch32^contribs 23:06, 19 May 2008 (UTC) Since it seems this discussion is going nowhere I have a new proposal:

1. Add C-class - C-class would benefit those B-class articles not ready for GA. I know that's what B+ is for, but adding a + sign does not define much. I do feel C-class then B-class would do much better.
2. Use Developing article and redefine Stub - I feel this could be shoved between Start and Stub. A definition of a stub, at least in my eyes would be something like. A developing article to me would be like K-232 (Kansas highway) - which has prose and the right templates included. A stub would be something like K-9 (Kansas highway) which is not complete with the infobox and has minor prose. Start would be something like New York State Route 443, which has a certain amount of prose and is detailed, but not complete.
3. GAN becoming a little more strict - Per discussions on WT:GAN, I feel GAN should be a little stricter on what it accepts. However, I do not believe what was proposed about turning it into FAC-type is a good idea. Instead, I feel a full review of the review by an experinced editor, such as User:Derek.cashman, would help benefit what's added. If the article doesn't have a real full review, the article can go either to GAN, or be failed by the 2nd reviewer. Something like at Talk:New York State Route 9L would be in my eyes, a good review.
4. Merge A-class into GA under certain conditions - As I see this is a highly good idea, I feel there are some drawbacks and there are some advantages. One major drawback is that without A-class, FAC would be loaded with people saying they are ready when they are clearly not. If it were to go through, I'd say make peer review given more attention and make sure its ready for FAC, not just GAN passed straight to FAC. This'll cause stress on reviewers and the nominators as well.
5. Redefine the B-class - To see that an article is ready for GAN, I suggest that redifining the B-class would be in order. This is sort of like FAC and the A-class thing above, it would as well help the backlog at GAN with less articles that are really ready. Such example would be New York State Route 343, which I have in nomination. I will regret that I have 11 GANs at the moment, and is causing a backlog, but I can slow down and this may help. No B+ class in this case.

I am not saying that all will go through, but this is, in my opinion, a twice better option then some I've seen.^Mitch32^contribs 22:47, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Comment

• Frankly, I oppose all of this. It seems to be orientating the assessment scale towards GA, something which I wholeheartedly disagree with. Woody (talk) 22:52, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
• I'm afraid I must agree. I think GAN is better than it ever was, and I believe it should be free to stay its own entity. For various reasons, I am also somewhat opposed to your other proposals, as well. While good ideas, I feel the risks outweigh the benefits. Juliancolton ^{Tropical Cyclone} 22:58, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Assessment - Do we need a new page?

Should this redirect here (yes, I created it myself, but I'm asking more if we should create a new page)? We have the shortcut WP:ASSESS, but this isn't actually about assessment in general, just articles really. What about e.g. featured sounds, images etc? Should we create a new page with a slightly broader scope that would basically provide links to all the relevant assessment pages? See commons:Commons:Assessments, which was recently created. Richard001 (talk) 02:00, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

I would applaud that idea. I think it would be very useful if you could BE BOLD and write a broader perspective on assessment. This could form part of our rewrite initiative (going on now) - that is, you could get a few people to critique your page and reach a consensus.

FYI: One problem we had when starting this assessment scheme was that there was another system of assessing articles via a system of manual postings, and this "used up" some of the obvious locations - see Wikipedia:Article assessment. Many thanks, Walkerma (talk) 16:43, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

I have created a new page, though it's very short and I need some help from others to make it better. I think a Category:Wikipedia Assessment might also be useful. Please post any replies on Wikipedia talk:Assessment (I need to prune my watchlist, and this page will sadly have to go for now). Richard001 (talk) 00:46, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

FA too article-centered?

I apologize if I'm reinventing the wheel, but it has been pointed out here that the designation "FA" is very article-specific. A precedent was set by creating the "FL" class, but I'm thinking we need to take a more decisive action to take into account featured portals, images, and whatever else. My thoughts are that we can take one of two actions:

1. Create an "F*" category for each resource type in addition to FA (article) and FL (list): FP (portal), FC (category), FI (image), etc. This would, of course, spawn a large number of classes and would necessitate further cluttering teh already bloated project banners.
2. Combine the "FA" and "FL" classes into a single "Featured" class that can cover any featured content going forward. This would have the potential to significantly reduce clutter in the long run.

A separate issue that can tie into this is as follows: since some projects seem to have a fetish for employing an entire zoo of non-ranking "importance" designations ("List", "Template", "Disambig", "Category", "Image", "Portal", to name the ones I can think of off the top of my head) we may want to consider adding an optional "type" parameter for non-articles. Thoughts? – ClockworkSoul 16:38, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm not against dropping most of those designations, with the exception of lists, since they are a normal part of the main namespace and are not part of the site architecture in the way that Dabs are, but are too different in form from articles to realistically need a nuanced grading scale, IMO. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 21:38, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't mind the second option, and I've proposed that myself previously. However, let's worry about one sweeping change at a time, please... :) Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 06:12, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I'd oppose dropping them because a lot of WikiProjects find them useful for categorising, organising and tracking. I can understand they are superfluous to your purposes, but that doesn't make then superfluous to everyone's. Since they don't actually cause any interference with your goals, and they segregate out stuff you don;t want, I can't see how they impact. Hiding T 11:55, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I like the second option the best, but my only concern is what would be the short name for the "Featured" class? It should definitely not be "F". -- Imperator3733 (talk) 20:03, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

The issue I have with the second option is that the assessment is geared towards printable content. I would offer the idea that Featured Portals and Featured Images aren't likely printable. Do we really have a Featured Category process? For me, it ain't broken. Hiding T 16:54, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Ratification vote on C-Class

The following discussion is archived. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

• See Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment#Results of the poll for the results.

As I said above, Walkerma has asked me to start the {{C-Class}} ratification vote if he wasn't here, so I'm doing that. We'll use the customary support/oppose/neutral format for this poll, which will be closed two weeks from now (0300 UTC June 18, 2008) by Walkerma. The scale being proposed is the same as that for Option C in the previous round of voting. As usual, comments are welcome. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 03:01, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Support

Users who support the addition of {{C-Class}} should sign with # ~~~~ below:

1–50

1. As proponent. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 03:01, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
2. Whole-heartedly. Arman ^(Talk) 03:25, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
3. Yes, please. – ClockworkSoul 03:28, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
   • I've been rightly asked to elaborate, so I will do so. Dere are a number of flaws in da current ranking system, one of which is dat dere is a very broad range between "start" (usuwally broadly defined as a very incomplete and unreferenced article, but more than a stubby) and what is called "B" (broadly defined as "the highest article grade that is assigned outside a more formal review process."), which while adequate for many projects, is inadequate for many others, especially projects with an especially large population of "start" class articles. For those others, this "just started" vs "almost done" dichotomy makes it more difficult for many projects to target effort as efficiently as could otherwise be possible.. By adding an intermediate and optional "C" rank, we can take one step towards resolving this gap. – ClockworkSoul 16:16, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
4. Support. The B rated articles are really unbalanced, some are almost GA and others are crap. This will fix it -- penubag  (talk) 03:46, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
5. Support. After thinking it through and surveying articles on WP:METEO, I am even more convinced that the extra class is useful. -RunningOnBrains 04:41, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
6. Support. OSX (talk • contributions) 04:44, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
7. <3 Tinkleheimer TALK!! 04:54, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
8. Support, will help clarify the current grading system. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 05:10, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
9. Support. There's too much of a difference between the Start class and B class to have an accurate idea of what a B-class article is. This will help clear up that confusion. Harryboyles 05:28, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
10. Support. Would fill a gap and allow for an even progression in the development of articles. Sunray (talk) 06:29, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
11. Support per my comments above: will enable us to easily separate our 50,000 B-Class articles into those that are presentable and those that aren't. Happy‑melon 07:25, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
12. Support. G.A.S 07:59, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
    The current B class rating is too much of a wildcard: Consider that the example of a B class article is Jammu and Kashmir, a article without any article wide cleanup templates whatsoever. Yet, according to the definition: Articles for which cleanup is needed will typically have this designation to start with. On the other side, we have "Start class", which accourding to the example (Real Analysis) is just a few random thoughts. Re: cleanup tags, the guideline reads This article still needs to be completed, so an article cleanup tag is inappropriate at this stage. I would rather that the distinction lies in the type of cleanup required: Those that require a banner would be "C-class" and those that require only minor cleanup, "B-class". G.A.S 14:55, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
13. Support because currently "B-Class" is such a wildcard. I've seen articles that are deserving of B-Class, and I've seen articles that are not, but not definitely not Start-Class either which is why I am completely in favour of a new rating to distinguish the good and bad "B" articles. It currently seems to be used as a middle ground between Start and GA, and that really isn't a good thing. --.:Alex:. 08:47, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
14. Support. I'm actually in opposition to the arguments that the current grading system is adequete: I don't find it to be so. Many-a-time I've attempted to grade an article as C-Class, only to find it is replaced by an unfortunate cap in our grading system. Agree with this proposal from the version 1.0 editorical team: there's lots of benefits to be had to our articles, in having an intermediate step–it all promotes growth and development. Anthøny 08:37, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
15. Support The B class alone is too broad in scope and content. D0762 (talk) 08:59, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
16. Support. As a dumping ground for anything in between the distant worlds of Start and GA, the current B-class does a poor job as an indicator of article quality. Adding a C-class should result in more realistic assessment. Gr1st (talk) 12:17, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
17. Support Helpful change. ike9898 (talk) 14:53, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
18. Support; I've been using Start-class as a default rating for articles which have all the content they really need but have significant cleanup or other problems. C-class would fix that. Nifboy (talk) 15:08, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
19. Support the addition of C-class. I like the idea of WikiProjects assessing an article as A, B, C, start, or stub, while FA and GA would be separately based on their respective project-wide process (FAC and GAN). This would really improve the assessment process and make it much more intuitive and manageable. Pyrospirit (talk · contribs) 15:50, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
20. Support - I came here from AN as a skeptic, but it actually sounds like a good idea. Start and B cover too much ground. Guettarda (talk) 18:09, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
21. Support – It gives an intermediate "shade of grey" classification with intuitive meaning, one that editors can choose when articles don't fit well as either Start- or B-class. Those who don't see the need don't have to use it. Trevor Hanson (talk) 19:09, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
22. Support. I've advocated this for a long time.--ragesoss (talk) 19:21, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
23. Support - As someone who assess articles in this area I do find that both Start-class and B-class cover a lot of ground, and a additional grade for articles in between Start and B would be helpful. Camaron | Chris (talk) 19:50, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
24. Strong Support -- Working over at WP:SCH/A I do a lot of assessments and the biggest problem I see is that the group of articles which are considered starts (by most definitions) is way too big. If all this did was to break the Start class in half it would be well-worth the reworking of our categories and templates. Also per compelling reasoning by Happy-Melon below Adam McCormick (talk) 19:54, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
25. Support– Even though I will have to reassess every start and B class in WP:Time. Zginder 2008-06-04T19:57Z (UTC)
26. Support Too much of a gap between good Bclass articles and bad. I'm an Editorofthewiki^{[citation needed]} 20:48, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
27. Support; sounds like a logical idea to me; the gap between "start" and "B" is way too big. GO-PCHS-NJROTC ^(Messages) 23:34, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
28. Support; I agree the gap between "start" and "B" is too big. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 00:10, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
29. Support on condition that the grading scheme criteria is made more precise with Start, B, and C. §hep • ¡Talk to me! 00:40, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
30. Support - Having reviewed a number of articles, I've always felt that the current system is missing something between start and B.--Danaman5 (talk) 01:47, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
31. Support Agree that the gap is too large. Mangostar (talk) 06:10, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
32. Jitse Niesen (talk) 10:23, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

    Support a 3-class system is a good, solid breakdown by criteria. A 2-class system carries many discrepanies of standards as there may be only a few points separating A from B. Mind you, a D-Class would be excessive. Vishnava _talk 12:17, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

    Reconsidered my opinion. Vishnava _talk 12:21, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

    How dare you. :-D Waltham, The Duke of 22:51, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

33. Support, I also agree, the gap between "start" and "B" is too big. feydey (talk) 20:33, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
34. Support - concur the difference between start and B class is too large. PhilKnight (talk) 21:56, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
35. Support I wondered why there wasn't already a C-class. B-class can be anything from not quite a Good Article to disorganized blather. C-class would better accommodate disorganized blather. Yechiel (Shalom) 01:06, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
36. Support Yes, there is a need for a C class, coz there is a huge gap between the start and B articles. C class would help to organise the articles in a better manner. Amartyabag ^TALK2ME 01:25, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
37. Support - it doesn't take much content to move an article from "stub" class to "start" class - even two full paragraphs and a couple of external links makes something "start" class. Then there is (in my opinion) a huge gap until an article hits "B" class. I think we should at least try out a C-class assessment; if in practice it turns out not to be so useful, then we can drop it. But if we don't try, we'll never know. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 01:36, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
38. Support. C is for quite-good articles that still lack some of the rigor needed for B-classing. "Start" is crap; "B" is good; there is an obvious gap in between.--Father Goose (talk) 01:58, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
39. Support. Adding C-class will create no additional work for project that don't want it. For those projects that do want to better specify the status of articles below GA status, adding C-class is a good route. ♬♩ Hurricanehink (talk) 03:33, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
40. Support. Putting in a C-Class will help to clarify the distinctions between Start and B-class. If there's an issue with higher-up articles including the A-class, that can be done separately from this. For now, we need the C-Class. Red Phoenix ^{flame of life...protector of all...} 03:41, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
41. Support- I have to agree with John Broughton here, the gap between Start and B class is just far too large. Steve Crossin (talk)(email) 04:27, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
42. Support - wholehearted. There's too much vagueness between Start and B class. I also thoroughly support Becksguy's comment below about the arrangement of classes being stub-start-C-B-A-GA-FA. Cricketgirl (talk) 14:03, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
43. Support-I agree with John Broughton. Disorganized and well-written articles are too closely related in this current set-up. Patch1990 (talk) 15:49, 6 June 2008 (UTC)Patch1990 10:45Am, 6 June 2008 (CST)
44. Support – I've found that the gap between start-class and B-class to be a bit too much of a jump. Alternatively, though I wouldn't mind seeing the levels shifted as some have proposed; I personally have little use for A-class, an article is ether good enough for an assessment or it's not. --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 16:23, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
45. Support Sounds like a good idea.Fairfieldfencer FFF 17:45, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
46. Support Itfc+canes=me (talk) 16:35, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
47. Weak support - almost neutral Would be useful but I don't think we are in dire need of it. I'm opposed to any bot-assessment drives or massive collaboritve drives to re-assess Start/B to C - just integrate it into normal assessments from here on in. --maclean 19:23, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
48. Support For me, just because an article doesn't meet B class doesn't mean its a start. One of the articles I created would fall under C-class rating. It adds depth to the current assessment scheme, but making a D class would be too much. DA PIE EATER (talk) 02:55, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
49. Support Makes it easier to categorize articles, provides more information, and results in a more balanced distribution, solves the problem of the bloating "B"-class that many feel is too broad. ("B" reads like "not A"). Kevin Baas^talk 14:28, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
50. Support. Though in my opinion the system needs more work in general (i.e. something needs to be done about the GA/A-Class area), the addition of a C-Class is important and a good first step. Jared (t)  16:24, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

51–100

1. Serious Support - Per Hurricanehink and I volunter too join this class' designated/review team. Let me know when I start! Beam 02:24, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
2. Opp— sorry, Support (hehe) – I have often encountered articles with much information, with images, with some references, and which left me a general impression of "nice article". They were often rather messy, and certainly needed lots of improvement, but were a long way from stubs; I kept being surprised by seeing them classified as "start", even though I knew that they could not be B-class. This change will instil some intuitiveness and common sense into the grading system. Most people focus on the gap between Start-class and GA; I care more about the deep chasm between B-class and stubs. Waltham, The Duke of 22:51, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
3. Support - Great! Limetolime ^{I want an award! • look what I did!} 23:42, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
4. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 00:36, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
5. Support We need something between Start and B-class. Some articles just aren't one or the other. Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • ^{(Broken clamshells•Otter chirps)} 00:41, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
6. Support if you'll permit me, having put no discussion in before now; there are plenty of community articles for the USA (for example, Brownell, Kansas) that are good in multiple ways (here, we have good demographics and a useful infobox with a good map, with everything sourced), so perhaps better than Start class, but really don't seem good enough for B class. Nyttend (talk) 02:41, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
7. Support as it will be a very useful tool to help sort articles for the various projects. I can see it being a very useful tool for quickly seeing (in general) what needs to be done on an article. No, it's not specific, but it will be useful. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 07:00, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
8. Yes, why not? Stifle (talk) 13:28, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
9. Support It sounds like a good idea. Geeky Malloy 15:26, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
10. Support I've just been looking through a number of articles relating to the 2008 Olympics. Quite a lot are rated as B-class, but I'm rather uncomfortable with their ranking: they're clearly not Start-class, but are too lacking to be B-class. I'd much rather have the option to re-rank these as C-class articles Bluap (talk) 02:15, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
11. Support Will make it a little easier to rate articles.Gears Of War 00:42, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
12. Support There are hundreds of articles out there that are beyond Start class but do not meet the requirements of B class. Adding a C class will make it easier to properly evaluate articles and decide how to best improve them to higher levels of quality. -- Comandante {Talk} 00:58, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
13. Support: I think this will fill a huge gap in the current system. Too many B class articles are nothing of the sort, but can definately be defended as not being Start class. Nburden ^(T) 01:15, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
14. Support. I can't think of a logical reason why this shouldn't be implemented, or why this simply cannot be done without having to reosrt in a poll !vote. But hey, who am I? — _Maggot^Syn 01:33, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
15. Support - This is a good idea, I think it would be useful at the project I'm working at, WP:USRD especially, and then some. CL — 01:52, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
16. Support It always confused me that there was no C rank. I spent an hour or so the other day trying to find out where I could be WP:BOLD and suggest it, then I see this pop up in my watchlist. Touche', whoever started this thread... touche' --Koji†Dude ^(C) 01:59, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
17. Support Any class that can contain Harry Trott and Mundubbera, Queensland is much too broad to be of much use. -- Mattinbgn\^talk 02:32, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
18. Support We have left too big a gap between B and GA. Any article that does not reach GA is literally dumped into B class (and sometimes Start class). Having a middle-ground between B and Start would allow better classification. — Parent5446 ☯ ^{(message email)} 02:51, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
19. Support It just makes sense to have more options when it comes to rating articles. More options makes life easier for those who rate, especially in the ambiguous world of B-class and Start class. Fliry Vorru (talk) 02:53, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
20. Support I strongly support. --SkyWalker (talk) 03:46, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
21. Weak Support Most wikipedians still don't understand or properly implement the existing assessment ratings. The C-class makes sense, but I doubt it will improve the assessment issue on wikipedia any.--Finalnight (talk) 03:53, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
22. Support Something to finally fill in that gap, eh? I like it. -- Ned Scott 04:26, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
23. For all the good reasons stated for the proposal. seresin ( ¡? ) 04:39, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
24. Support Per the arguments above. This will fill a gap. PeterSymonds (talk) 05:52, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
25. Support The C-class will help article assessment definitely. It will provide articles another class onto which evolve. Good idea!⇨ EconomistBR ⇦ Talk 06:18, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
26. Excellent Support!! I've been actually considering suggesting this as an in-between for Start and B, but haven't been so sure about or even found the time for it. --Slgrandson (How's my egg-throwing coleslaw?) 07:27, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
27. Support Would give a much needed shade of grey between Start and C. - Dravecky (talk) 07:49, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
28. Support The gap which sits inbetween Start and B class articles is too large as so many don't actually fit into either class so a C class will allow for better assessment granularity. treelo _talk 10:23, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
29. Support I totally agree, the difference between start and B is the largest on the scale. C class rating will definitely improve assessments. Charles Edward 12:16, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
30. Support - C is an important letter in the alphabet. Scarian^{Call me Pat!} 13:14, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
31. Support I agree. Willking1979 (talk) 13:37, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
32. Support Per reasons already stated. - JVG (talk) 13:44, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
33. Support per arguments above Nar Matteru (talk) 14:30, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
34. Support per above. D.M.N. (talk) 14:31, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
35. Support, but I think clearer guidelines for all classifications should be developed. How do we handle cases when, say, an article about a philosopher is A-class as far as his biography is concerned, but only Start class when we come down to his philosophy, and Stub class when the criteria is his relevance for his country? Three WikiProjects, three different criteria, confusion. -- alexgieg (talk) 14:50, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
36. Support. This will definitely make distinguishing between "B" and "Start" easier. For those opposing the proposal on the grounds of extra complexity, perhaps merging "GA" and "A" would be a logical next step.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:51, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
37. Support This could be used as a useful flag for start class articles that have been written into real articles as opposed to just the nascent form of one. —Preceding unsigned comment added by HatlessAtlas (talk • contribs) 15:16, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
38. Support, per the comments of User:Tixod in comments, below. There's a huge gap between Start and B. Personally, I think there's ALSO a huge gap between Stub and Start. When I'm rating articles, I'd like to diferentiate between a single line stub (sub-stub? placeholder?) and a paragraph stub. T L Miles (talk) 15:22, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
39. Support - agree with the point that B-class and Start-class are too far apart for the former to offer any real idea of quality. Good idea. Chwech 15:29, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
40. Support It would be nice to have a place to put articles that are makeing proggress from start class but are not at 'B' i.e. could get to GA if someone\group sat down & pushed, (which is what usualy happens to get an article to these levels). Start tends to be 'Long stubs' that contain useful info but are not fully formed articles. C shoudl be fully formed articles that need more work due to stubish secitons & b shodul be ones that need polish. --Nate1481(^t/_c) 15:40, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

    P.s. I also like the idea of spiting of GA & FA, to separate thing A-C would then be guides for projects while FA & GA would be community definitions. --Nate1481(^t/_c) 15:45, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

41. Support Have been thinking we've needed this for a while now. Experience has now shown that B-class is currently just too wide and C-class should hopefully give an incentive to drive quality up from C to a new B. A-class has got squeezed, with the increased but perfectly obtainable standards of GA and I think it would be simpler and better to remove A-class. Tom (talk) 15:42, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
42. Support The gap between Start and B is so vast that there needs to be a finer gradation in between to provide a steppingstone towards creation of B article. Alansohn (talk) 16:10, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
43. Support Stub=mere definition ... Start=well, started ... C=Better than started, quite nice so far...B=now this is getting REALLY GOOD! :P Bwilkins (talk) 16:21, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
44. Support Great idea, I see no problem with clarifying and better organizing the grading scheme. Boccobrock•T 16:37, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
45. Support I use C class on my own wiki. StewieGriffin! • Talk Sign 17:07, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
46. Support This seems like a good idea. I think the really intense projects that keep their ratings up to date can just filter the new ones as they come through. GA/A definitely needs revamping by the way. -Oreo Priest ^talk 17:12, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
47. Support While my initial proposal was to replace Start class with C-class, I nevertheless support introduction of a separate C-class as the first step in this direction. Ruslik (talk) 17:40, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
48. Support with evil straight vote. Seriously, the border between the best stub and the worst A or GA articles has room for more than 2 classifications. I don't care if it's called "C," "B-," "Start+," or what, but it should be there. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 18:27, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
49. Strong support. This is needed to strengthen both GA and A class articles. MrPrada (talk) 20:07, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
50. Support-this is needed in many wikiprojects to further assess start/stub articles that have a chance at a B-class, but aren't quite there yet.SRX^--LatinoHeat 20:13, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

101–150

1. Support- The massive difference between Start and B-class often makes it difficult to rate articles. The difference between a stub and a start-class article is clear, as is the difference between B and GA-class. Having six classes (FA, GA, B, C, Start, Stub) really isn't any more complicated or bureaucratic than having five, so I don't think that that argument holds any water. Long overdue IMO. Note: I have some experience in this area, having started Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Assessment.JACOPLANE • 2008-06-12 20:44
2. Support per TPH. --Mizu onna sango15/水女珊瑚15 00:13, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
3. Support - the difference between a bad Start-class and a good B-class is just too big not to merit another level.Grey Wanderer | Talk 22:13, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
4. Support - There is a wide world of difference between the criteria for a B class article and a stub. I would support it wholeheartedly provided the differences are made clear. Wildhartlivie (talk) 22:32, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
5. Support as per all those who have indicated the gap between Start and B. John Carter (talk) 22:37, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
6. Support - gap between Start and B needs a step inserted to encourage improvement. Sarah777 (talk) 23:00, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
7. Support - the B class rating isn't meaningful because it's too broad. Currently, it doesn't take much to upgrade an article from Start to B, yet the gap between B and GA can be enormous. Having another level will encourage editors to put in the extra effort to move the article from C to B, even if GA seems out of reach. ThreeOfCups (talk) 23:20, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
8. Support - lessening the gap, or at least providing this milestone should encourage editors to make more improvements. Louis Waweru  Talk  01:25, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
9. Support - I've always thought there was far too big of a gap between Start and B. There's several articles out there that are rated Start and are definately better than your standard Start-class article, just not quite good enough yet for a B-class rating. Alinnisawest (talk) 01:51, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
10. Support - Less of a gap. Riverpeopleinvasion (talk) 02:30, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
11. Strong Support - By adding the C class, it tends to pull the entire rating system in line with the traditional A to F grading system used by many schools where C = average or acceptable, F is failing - totally unacceptable, D - needs improvement to become average. Since we are dealing with the progression from nothing to outstanding; the negative issues related to D & F do not apply yet still serve as a good guide line for grading. There is just too big of a gap right now between start and B. Dbiel ^(Talk) 05:23, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

    Interesting point but pegging our quality standards to standards applied by schools in some countries wouldn't deal with the core problem. This is the existing system isn't adequately or consistently applied. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 05:41, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

    Also, a stub is not a failed article, it's just a stub. Orderinchaos 13:56, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

    I fully agree that a stub is not a failed article and the comparison breaks down at this point unless you make the assumption that the grading is based on the stub being submitted as an completed article for review ready to be graded, then the stub would be considered a failed article. But the fact is stubs and starts are not ready for review or grading. But they are graded simply based on their current progress in moving forward to become a gradable article. The point remains that it would be helpful to have another level between start and B. The new level definition also does make sense. Dbiel ^(Talk) 19:56, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

12. Full Support - it provides indelible division between sanity and insanity. why not give it a try? --Axxand (talk • contribs) 05:04, 13 June 2008 (Phils)
13. Strong Support - i never undertstood why there wasn't a C class, Wikipedia and its content has evolved so much and the jump from start to B seems so far compared to the other classes. Metagraph comment 09:39, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
14. Support. There's way too big a jump between Start and B-class. This would fill an obvious void. Coemgenus 11:36, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
15. Support - there definitely seems to be a need for this, too many articles are stuck in the space between Start- and B-Class. – Ikara ^{talk →} 12:06, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
16. Support The area between start- and B-class articles is too vast (and vague), and this should've been implemented long ago. Jaxfl (talk) 12:15, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
17. Support I was actually all set to vote against this until a week or so ago where, for a project I'm working on, I reviewed a whole stack of articles, finding that they were all B-class and that there was such a variety within them that the rating had been rendered relatively meaningless. After looking around I found this was not an uncommon problem. I support a C-class between Start and B for these reasons. (I should note, too, that as a rater myself on a fairly large project, there'll be heaps of work for me to do if this goes through. But the end result will be far better for everybody IMO.) Orderinchaos 13:47, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
18. Support - If this is put into effect, it may be a good idea to make an announcement on the WikiProject X articles by quality statistics tables. Maybe a bot could add a table row to the bottom with a message to let the projects know. After a week or so, remove the announcement. Just a thought. - LA @ 13:53, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
19. Support - The current standard for the B-class is much too vague. Adding a C-class will allow the descriptions to be more precise. Kleio08 (talk) 14:41, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
20. Support Been thinking about this for a while. The Dominator^Talk_Edits 15:00, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
21. Support Sometimes you get well-developed articles which aren't quite B-class but have to be classed as that. This will make it all much more precise. Computerjoe's talk 15:20, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
22. Qualified Support, yes the current B-class is too broad. Ideally I think its more useful to identify the higher quality B articles: those which are ready for nominating for GA, that was my motivation for the Maths B+ class. For maths articles the distinction can be clear between a good technical maths article and a good encylopedic maths article in particular if the article contains a history section. But any splitting of the B-class is good. --Salix alba (talk) 17:44, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
23. Support, there is a rather large gap between Start-class and B-class articles. I think the addition of another class would only help to evaluate the quality of articles more accurately. Artichoker^[talk] 17:59, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
24. Support, I agree with the many people who have noticed a gap between Start and B class. There are a lot of articles that are too good to be listed as Start class but not good enough to be B-class, and right now they just have to be assessed as one class or the other. Adding C-class would solve this problem. --TheCatalyst31 ^{Reaction•Creation} 18:31, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
25. Support, per the many excellent comments above of my fellow Wikipedians. KV5 • Squawk box • Fight on! 02:02, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
26. Support There are articles which are up to C-class standard, but not exactly to B-par, due to minor issues like citations, POV, sources and the like. If ANYONE were to assess these or look at these, they would notice the difference. Sure it's a new system, but the community will adapt...as always. miranda 02:50, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
27. Strong Support As a WikiProject reviewer of several articles that are Started, but not yet B-class, I'd love to have something in between the two to use. I rarely mark things as B', because they just aren't quite there yet (and I often feel guilty if I do). However, it's not right keeping the articles in Start class, either. C-class would be perfect and highly beneficial. I also like the thought of having A-C and Start be the Project assesments and FA/GA being a different sort of criteria. --Willscrlt (Talk) 06:18, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
28. Strong Support. We need something between start and B, for articles that are longer than start-class but, say, need more references or references at all. Daniel Case (talk) 08:21, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

    Umm. All articles need adequate references: it's policy. I really don't think adding a class is a fix for this.--ROGER DAVIES ^talk 11:09, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

    I'm talking the difference between articles that are comprehensive, way beyond start-class, but lack references or have only a few or none at all. It doesn't seem fair to mark those as start, when "finished but for refs" would be more accurate. Right now some reviewers use "start", others use "B" (Among articles I have on my watchlist, I'll point to fumble as an excellent example of something too comprehensive to be a start, yet needing lots more refs than it's got). Daniel Case (talk) 17:35, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

29. Support - The massive difference between Start and B-class often makes it difficult to rate articles. WAS 4.250 (talk) 11:07, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

    That only happens if the lines are very blurred. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 11:11, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

30. Support but I agree that any articles that are undreferenced should never get past C class. Verifiability is a fundemental principal of wikipedia but I have seen lots rated as B class with no references at all - even biographies of living persons. I think that's a complete travesty and makes a nonsense of the rating system. Richerman (talk) 16:00, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

    Erm. They shouldn't get past anything so adding a new class won't help. For example, this stub has refs. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 18:34, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

    Well, I agree they shouldn't, but as an article gets longer you can't really call it a stub. As someone has said above, a stub doesn't really refer to quality, it's more about the length of the article. On reflection, I think that unreferenced or undereferenced articles should be start class at best and C class should used for other problems, such as structure, style, lack of information etc. B class should only be used for articles that are close to GA but lacking in a few minor respects - and I don't consider lack of references to be minor. However the guidelines at the moment allow for articles missing references to be B rated. There should also be more rigorous use of the relevant tags for unreferenced material so a casual reader is warned that the information may not be reliable. Richerman (talk) 00:21, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

31. Support - Having assessed articles for all sorts of different projects, the gap between start and B has always bugged me. I've seen any number that seemed better than a start, but not quite good enough for a B. I agree with Willscrlt, and think this would help a lot, imho. :) --Ebyabe (talk) 19:04, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
32. Support - I strongly agree with User:Richerman that it is a travesty that articles are B-classified with inadequate references, etc. I'd like to see more discussion of Trevor Hanson's proposal (that all B-class articles be automatically downgraded to C) - I imagine it could trigger a very useful round of article improvement, if presented positively to the community. - Pointillist (talk) 22:23, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
33. Strong Support - i like the idea of the C-class system because when you look up something up on wikipedia if you don't get enough info from a wiki page you can see what class it is in so if its in a low class you will know that the article you are reading is (most likeley) going to get bigger but if it is in a high class you will know that it will (most likely) not get to bigger than it is now.if you agree with me , discuss about it on my Talk page. - Ddrman642 (talk) 18:17, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
34. Support! - I like it, this would be a perfect compromise for those articles that are just missing one qualification for B-class, or have some other slight problem but are overall good. - Borg Sphere (talk) 00:12, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
35. Support The C-class would let articles that go the extra mile inbetween B-class and GAs be its own class. — ComputerGuy890100^{Talk to me}_{What I've done to help Wikipedia} 01:56, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
36. Support - Seems good to me. --Piazzajordan2 05:19, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
37. Support - It would fill the gap (and the confusion I often have) in determining quality between Start and B. Craigy (talk) 08:33, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
38. Support - Not to jump on the bandwagon here, but I often encounter articles not good enough to be B and yet far above Start, especially newly created articles. --FeldBum (talk) 11:43, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
39. Support - As a member of [[WP:WPSCH]]'s Assessment team. I see this need all the time. There is better than a Start, but not good enough to be a B, and therefore close to GAN. — Calebrw (talk) 14:26, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
40. Support I've seen a gap between Start-Class and B-Class (since I've written two articles that have fallen into that gap) and this should fix that. --Michael Greiner 16:19, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
41. Support - I feel that this would bridge the gap nicely, and provide a more accurate assessment of an article's quality. Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 18:40, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
42. Strong Support - I think this would even out the large amount of B-class articles that really shouldn't be so. Elephantissimo (talk) 18:43, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
43. Support- I've seen far too much variation in "Start" class articles, and this will certainly help. Eric (EWS23) 20:37, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
44. Support - I was thinking this was needed just the other day. I've seen plenty of articles that are so extensive that they cannot reasonably be called "Start", but still fall short of what I would expect from a "C" class. Fractalchez (talk) 02:59, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

    Additional argument - There is another side benefit of creating a C class. With only six currently existing classes, I have found the "Stub" designation to be stretching far beyond what it once was. While on some level this is expected and good, I think it's trying to cover far too much territory now. A C-category would push the entire "Start" category down a bit, reclaiming a good number of articles that really should not be called "stubs". Fractalchez (talk) 03:58, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

45. Support - This will give us an idea about where an article should be. To me, the gap between B-Class and start was just too big of a gap. Chris (talk) 15:34, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
46. Strong Support - Currently there is way too big of a gap between Start and B class, C class will help out in the ranking system. --Chetblong (talk) 18:18, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
47. Support - This will be a nice intermediary. However, don't forget to actually edit these articles instead of merely marking them ;) NuclearWarfare (talk) 19:18, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
48. Support — I have often found the definition of a B-class article to be too broad, and have also had difficulty choosing between B- and start-class; I would welcome the addition of a C-class for more clarity. Mr. Absurd (talk) 19:44, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
49. Support - There are some OK articles that deserve more than C-Class Anonymous101 (talk) 19:57, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
50. Strong support -- I very much like the 7-point rating scale proposal of Stub, Start, C, B, A, GA, FA. (Yes, this requires swapping A and GA; I think that's actually how most articles work anyway, and in any event, it makes good sense per the arguments by Becksguy below.) I also suggest that all currently-rated B-class articles be changed to C class. (Another way to look at it is "rename B to C; introduce B between C and GA/A). C-class articles that were downgraded to B-class can be added to a list for speedy-review, and the truly-B quality articles are likely to be reclassified quickly, and the on-the-cusp articles improved. Otherwise, this new C class is not going to have much effect with the existing not-quite-B articles. NoDepositNoReturn (talk) 23:26, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

151–200

1. Support - This distinction is long overdue. Askari Mark (Talk) 23:58, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
2. Support - Per all of the above excellent arguments. My spiel is going to be a repat of the above but I will try my best from personal experience: When grading articles (i have done so previously, see my contributions if you wish) i have trouble when choosing between a Start class vs a B class. To be safe i put it as a start class because many times i think, woah this has a lot of text and seems good... but it doesnt seem to be a B class just yet. This is where the proposed C class will come in. So many times when choosing, I pick start class to be safe when that article is probably a lot better and more well developed than a lot of the other start classes. Cheers! (Note: I am currently under exam study but I saw this pop up in my watch list so I thought I reply- if there is further discussion about this after June 27 I might further comment-Sorry).Calaka (talk) 07:31, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Oppose

Users who oppose the addition of {{C-Class}} should sign with # ~~~~ below:

1–50

1. No need to add more levels to this system. I don't see much need for this. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk ♦ contribs) @ 03:21, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
2. I don't think we've established a good boundary between start and B; adding more classes in between them is not really a solution to this problem. Christopher Parham (talk) 04:08, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
3. Current grading system is adequate. --Gimme danger (talk) 05:26, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
4. I ignore the grading system entirely until I've brought something up to GA or FA, as I have extreme difficulty grading things on my own. Adding C-level would mean that after all the Elements articles are re-evaluated, I would have to re-do the entire Image:Periodic Table by Quality.PNG. More work and no benefit. Sounds like a bad idea to me. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 10:52, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

   I'll do it for you. :P Happy‑melon 10:58, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

   Dude, if you ever thought that an image like this is ever going to be a static image, you have grossly underestimated the dynamic nature of Wikipedia. Arman ^(Talk) 01:51, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

   I never thought that at all. If you look at the image's upload log, you can see we've already gone through at least a dozen revisions to keep it up to date. I was merely using the image as an example of how every wikiproject will suddenly have a massive workload of reevaluation and template work dumped onto their laps. Why suffer the extra burden for what appears to be no real benefit? --Cryptic C62 · Talk 10:51, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

   In the same way I was using it as an example to demonstrate that, no matter how off-the-wall or menial the task might appear, there are people here who are willing, even eager, to do it. It isn't nearly as bad as it looks on paper: it's both simplistic and counterproductive to imagine this reassessment being a top-down, centrally-organised operation; there's no deadline, so we'll mainly be allowing the classes to naturally sort themselves out in the course of the pre-existing reassessment drift. There are people who will be prepared to work systematically through Category:B-Class articles, but even if there weren't, the reassessment would still get done, because, like everything else here, it's built out of the countless trivial contributions of uninvolved editors. I think the benefits of adding C-Class are very well explained in the response to EyeSerene's question a few numbers below - there's no point duplicating them here, but they're certainly compelling to me (as they would be, given that I wrote half of them :D). Happy‑melon 13:10, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

5. The current assessment scheme is complicated enough. (I don't quite understand the difference between a "Good article" and an "A-class" article myself.) Please don't add more complexity. -- Taku (talk) 11:04, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

   I don't think filling the gap between B-class and start-class would make things too complicated. Also, one of the better proposals on this page is to separate FA and GA from WikiProject assessment, which would mean that A-class would be clearly defined as a WikiProject's highest rating while GA would be reserved for the project-wide WP:GAN process. In my opinion, adding C-class and separating FA and GA from the other assessments would simplify things, not make them more complicated. Pyrospirit (talk · contribs) 15:58, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

6. The current system does the job, and is complex enough. No need for another class of article. - Shudde ^talk 12:25, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
7. The scale's been fine, no reason to mess with it; "you can't fix something that ain't broken". Don't need to add confusion to something as simple as assessing an article. Juliancolton ^{Tropical Cyclone} 12:44, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

   (Provisional oppose) (edit) Switch to neutral I think this is too dependent on other factors to be regarded as a single issue !vote; we introduce a C class, and then ... what? We've created another layer of bureaucracy, a need for more reviews (and reviewers, which are in short supply already), and have we really clarified anything? How much further will we subdivide the scale when there are problems with the variations between the top and bottom end of C (or B, A, or any other level)? If the intention was to replace Start with C, and use it as a catch-all for articles that are more than stubs but not really of any quality, then I'd see the sense and support the proposal, but as it stands I fear that, unless we are very careful, this is the top end of a long slide into ever-lengthening lists of increasingly meaningless distinctions. EyeSerene^talk 13:10, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

   I don't think we're at risk of that, because this is the only area of the scale where there is subjectivity. The stub/start boundary is fairly well defined in most people's minds, and naturally the B/GA, GA/A and A/FA boundaries are very clearly delimited. I also think most people have a good idea in their minds of what constitutes a "proper" 'B-Class' article, and what would definitely be 'Start-Class'. The problem is that there are a very large number of articles which fall neatly in the middle of those ideas - again, most editors could easily imagine the sort of article - but there is currently nowhere they clearly belong. In order to be consistent across the project, one of these classes has to be a 'catch-all' for everything that doesn't meet one of the other conditions. Right now there is confusion over whether that should be "B" or "Start". Those who write the articles get a bit of a kick out of grading it as "B-Class" than "Start-Class"; but those who work from the other end and deal only with the finished product would much rather that only the 'best of the rest' made it to "B". With an extended assessment scale the question shifts from being "Start or B?" to "Start or C?", because B-Class becomes a more elevated, and objectively assessed, criterion. And it really doesn't matter whether an article is Start-Class or C-Class except to the editors involved. But having articles which are utterly unsuitable for a printed release, or even of being considered 'reasonable', dumped into the same category as those which are borderline GA, is a problem. That's the main reason why we need one more grade: unless you define brutally objective inclusion criteria like WP:MILHIST has, editors are going to argue over which class these mediocre articles should be, and mistakes will be made and articles miscategorised. Much better for all concerned if those mistakes don't have a negative impact on the work for which the assessment scale was devised: working out which articles are 'acceptable' and which aren't. But with that implemented, the problem is solved; there is no additional incentive to add more grades after that. This proposal isn't about improving the accuracy of our assessments, it's about solving a specific problem: the fact that the bottom end of our B-Class category is so poorly defined as to be virtually nonexistant. Happy‑melon 13:49, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

   I understand your point, and accept that the upper article classes are pretty clearly delineated, but if it's the Start/B boundary that's the problem, why not simply rename Start to C and apply B more rigorously? I think the reason for the misapplied standards at the lower end of B is the name of the next class down, not its contents - I strongly suspect 'Start' implies, to many editors, that the article has only just been posted and is a work-in-progress; hence anything that has been more than 'started' should automatically graduate to B. I believe this proposal will result in the same confusion, but with the Start -> C boundary rather than the Start -> B one, and subdividing less-than-acceptable articles (ie those currently at the top of Start/bottom of B) into upper- and lower- less-than-acceptable is an unnecessary distinction. However, renaming Start to C and clearly defining the problematic B lower-boundary would, I think, remove this misconception about which articles belong where. Whilst the new C would necessarily be a large class, with lots of variation in quality, it would still enable B-class to do what it's supposed to do... and without over-complicating the system. EyeSerene^talk 18:08, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

   Both of the above comments make important points. But consider a slightly different perspective. Many of the objections here seem to focus on article acceptability and "grading" relative to a reader, and view everything below B-class as simply "inadequate." But for an editor, there are important distinctions at the low end of the scale as well. Consider the new classification scheme as an editor's tool – a ranking based on the type and amount of editorial work required. A Start-class article needs substantial (re-)writing or (re-)structuring – a big project. A C-class article provides a useful editorial context, but needs significant additions of material or sources. A B-class article needs only incremental editing. These strike me as useful editorial pigeonholes: (re-)write, versus extend, versus enhance. Today, we seem only to have "started" and "nearly finished." As C-class is populated with borderline articles, both Start- and B-classes will become more meaningful and useful, especially for new and active articles. I see less value in a wholesale reclassification of existing articles. The benefit is in tracking what we're doing today. Trevor Hanson (talk) 19:59, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

   I think it's fair to say that the problem we're really trying to solve here is the things-getting-marked-as-B-Class-when-they're-actually-mediocre-at-best issue. At its most banal, I see the assessment scale as a 'cookie crumb trail' for editors: they find a bad article, they improve it, they reassess it, they feel proud for having done so. The issue with just enforcing more rigorous B-Class standards is that it leaves a host - the majority in fact - of articles languishing in the wilderness until someone puts in the lot of work that might be needed to bring it from poor Start to genuine B. For all that time, they get no reward; in the same way, there is no visible sign of improvement on a WikiProject or even project-wide scale, which leads to an overall loss of morale. WikiProjects really do bind together around their assessment scales: it's a good feeling to go to one of "your" wikiprojects and see that 'the team' has improved a few more ratings. By having a C-Class, we get the best of all worlds: editors fighting over ratings do so at the Start/C boundary where a miscategorisation doesn't impede the work of 1.0; we flatten out the scale a little where it's steepest and hence people are less tempted to 'round up' for their own or their project's aggrandisement; and people get to have that little warm glow of having made a quantitative improvement to an article that bit more often. All told, not bad for one day's work :D Happy‑melon 20:35, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

   I've been mulling it over, and I do find the above arguments quite persuasive. I still don't approve of the added bureaucracy this has the potential to introduce, and I'm not convinced it will genuinely lead to an improvement in article quality, but I think there are enough potential benefits that, if everything goes well, it could be worth a try. If it's a complete disaster, it can always be rethought - this is a wiki after all ;) EyeSerene^talk 17:04, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

   That's probably the most insightful point of all: if it all goes pearshaped and it turns out to be counterproductive, we can go back to how it was before simply by redirecting Template:C-Class to Template:Start-Class (and probably still improve the average quality of B-Class articles :D). What have we got to lose? Happy‑melon 13:13, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

8. The problem is not the current scale, its that each Wiki Project has it's own idea of what makes each level of article. One project will say a B class has to have inline citations, another will say it just has to have references...also, anyone can rate the article, I've seen articles where the original author posts the article and then 10 seconds later rates it a B class for whatever project. Adding more layers isn't going to help the underlying problem. LegoTech·(t)·(c) 13:38, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

   On the contrary, I'd say that one more class is exactly what we need to solve the problem, which as you correctly note is very much about the local interpretation of what "B-Class" means. The real definition of B-Class is "something you wouldn't be disappointed to see in a printed encyclopedia, although not something you'd pass for WP:GA". As I said above, down at article level, editors see three possible ratings and think "it's too long to be considered a 'start' but not GA-Class, therefore B". We have such a well-ingrained image of what a stub looks like (ie very short :D) and what a GA looks like (ie it has "GA passed" in its {{ArticleHistory}}) that for stuff in the middle there are only two possible choices. And when the article quality is actually slap bang in the middle of the two definitions, an author's ego is inevitably going to encourage them to 'round up' rather than down. If that rounding caused them to mark it C-Class instead of Start-Class then it's no big deal, because no one's expecting C-Class articles to be anything special; just better than Start-Class ones. But people who view a B-Class article should be able to be confident that what they're reading is factually accurate, well referenced, reasonably well written and all the other things that a B-Class is supposed to be, but which currently only people like WP:MILHIST actually enforce because by relegating everything else to the ignominy of "Start" class, it has a draconian feel to it. If all it was doing was relegating articles to the next letter of the alphabet, it's much less of a stigma. Happy‑melon 13:59, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

9. Oppose per Christopher Parham. It's always been a point of consternation for me what the heck the difference between Start and B class is. I don't think squashing another assessment class is the right way to approach the problem. bibliomaniac15 19:24, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
10. Oppose, I see no compelling reason that another class should be added to the current rating system, and agree that the current setup in place is sufficient. As has been stated, a "B" rating is used to indicate articles of a quality good enough for a print encyclopedia but not the cream of the crop - wedging a new rating that says "Hey, this isn't good enough for a print encyclopedia, but it's better than some of the other stuff" seems to serve no useful purpose. Arkyan 19:36, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

    Except to discourage editors from marking said "not good enough for a print encyclopedia, but better than some of the other stuff" articles into B-Class because they (quite legitimately in some cases) don't like the thought of all their hard work on an article merely being a "Start"?? Happy‑melon 20:22, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

    I am confused - do you want to discourage editors from making articles B-class because they don't like all their hard work being merely a "start" ?? Arkyan 21:31, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

    Whoops - I realized you said marking, not making, which changes the whole sentiment of your statement! Nevertheless, if an editor is going to unscrupulously mark an article as "B" class for fear of being labeled "Start" class, there is nothing to prevent them from illegitimately upgrading articles from "C" to "B". Dishonest assessments are indicative of a problem with those assessing articles, not the assessment scale itself. Arkyan 21:34, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

    It's just human nature. Somewhere above a user proposes that just changing the name of Start to C would keep some from moving up to B, and I think that's accurate. The kind of editors who are apt to place an incorrect "B" assessment (And not go for the gusto and place an FA) are probably those that just don't want their article to be second to last. For those, giving an extra "Well it's better than just a start" category will prevent those from placing bad pages in the B Class. We're not talking about those who actively defy the system through "dishonest assessments" (Read edit in bad faith), just those who aren't familiar enough with it. Let's assume that The vast majority of misassessments are made in good faith shall we? Adam McCormick (talk) 21:43, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

    I can appreciate what you are saying. All the same, I feel that regardless of how many gradations are introduced into the assessment scale, there is always going to be a certain amount of misjudged articles that exist right at the dividing line. For as many "B" articles that should be "Start" articles, we'll see "B" articles that should be "C", and "C" that should be "Start". Will the introduction of a "C" class reduce the number of false-positives among "B" rated articles? Probably. Are false "B" ratings that egregious of a problem on Wikipedia? I don't know. Is reducing the number of false "B" ratings worth the trouble of re-assessing the existing "B" and "Start" class articles to determine which would fall under a "C" rating? I don't think so. Arkyan 21:53, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

    Ideally they are all going to have to be reassessed periodically anyway, so the better the criteria are now, the less extra work we generate by assessing on the current scale. And as I argue above, misassessments aren't the only problem. I have personally assessed many thousand schools articles and there is just too much variability between a bad start and a good start. When editor can put in hours of research and rewrite into a start and not improve the article (at least as far as the assessment is concerned) it's disheartening, but under the current system often all we can say is "It's just not good enough to be a B." At least with an extra level we can split up this over-sized category and be able to give an intermediate level of feedback. Adam McCormick (talk) 22:51, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

    In addition to all these - check this: assume your WikiProject's new year resolution is to upgrade as many "Mid" important articles to (atleast) B-class as possible. I'm assuming the WikiProject currently maintains a strict B-class standard. If that is the case, the chance is you'll find 100s of Mid important start class articles. How do you prioritize then? On the other hand, if you have an extra C-class, your 100 start class article will be divided into two groups - 30 odd C-class articles which can be upgraded to B-Class with some effort and 70 odd truly start class articles which still need a long way to go. Isn't this a big help in prioritizing your work? Arman ^(Talk) 10:28, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

    You make some excellent points, and I have no doubt that an additional rating will help prioritize that kind of work. However, the same argument could be made down the line when someone wants to add a "D" class, and so on. It will always be possible to make the argument that additional ratings mean a more finely classified system which is easier to prioritize - choosing the point at which there are sufficient ratings is arbitrary at best. I feel that point has already been reached. For what it's worth, my oppose is more of a "passive do not support", as in I really see no reason why the current system is inadequate and ought to be changed, rather than an "actively oppose", as in, I think this proposal is bad and implementing it would cause trouble. Arkyan 15:18, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

    Well there is a "neutral" section below :D. For me, the big difference between adding a C-Class and adding a D-Class is that the C-Class will help us solve, probably almost completely, the problem of having mediocre articles in B-Class. If there's any more gradation below B-Class, then there won't be much opposition to enforcing tighter standards for B-Class articles, as an editor's work won't have to be incorrectly considered "almost GA" just so it's not considered "a start". If/when we have the debate on D-Class, that benefit simply won't be there, because we don't need to 'protect' C-Class from incorrect inclusions. Then the legitimate criticisms of having additional grades become more prominent, and there would be few or no benefits to counter them. So I don't think that this proposal opens a 'gateway' to D/E/F/etc-Class. Happy‑melon 13:34, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

11. Oppose - I've made my thoughts on the matter clear before, so I see no need to rehash when one can scroll up, but I would like to vocally object to the immediate re-polling of the issue on the basis that 1) it occurred far too quickly and seemed mainly to have the objective of ramming ideas through over clear lack of sufficient support levels, and 2) no large-scale community notification regarding a further poll (that I noticed) that will greatly impact the site should it pass, much less any courtesy notices on the talk pages of all of the editors who just participated in the previous poll. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 03:50, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

    About the first two points: When the previous poll was closed, Walkerma said that the support behind this proposal and the "no change" proposal was large enough in both cases, so the best way to go forward was to get an up-or-down poll on whether to add this assessment class or not. He also asked whether other users agreed, and nobody voiced any objection to doing things this way. Eight days passed since the previous round of voting was closed, and waiting further would have caused users to lose interest in the proposal, and it ending up in limbo like the 27th Amendment. As for community notification: This was posted on WP:VPP, WP:VPR, WP:AN, WT:COUNCIL, WP:CBB, WP:CENT, and I'm trying to get this on {{Watchlist-notice}}. I'm not sure where else this could have been put. As for notification on talk pages: I wasn't sure whether that would be WP:CANVASSing or not (as I did make the original proposal), so I didn't do it, but I wouldn't object to it being done. We're not trying to hide anything here. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 04:04, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

    I stand greatly corrected. My forthright apologies. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 04:47, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

12. Strongly oppose Unnecessary hair-splitting that will be a nightmare to implement. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 04:35, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
13. Oppose The system is complicated enough. We don't need yet another article class to make it even more confusing. I don't see how a C-class would be beneficial. - • The Giant Puffin • 08:38, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
14. Oppose Sorry, but no. Just not enough difference. I've done some assessment before, and B and Start class are just fine, thank you. Maybe if we just renamed Start to C... Noble Story (talk • contributions) 11:37, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
15. Oppose I've had a nagging discomfort with WP:GA anyway, so unless you combine A-class and GA, this is just a waste of energy and potentially confusing. How much energy, time and edits will you need to reclassify thousands of present and future articles? It also makes people go the extra mile in their effort to improve, rather than considering a move from C to B as enough for the time being. Vishnava _talk 12:23, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

    Why is it potentially confusing only if GA and A remain separate? I'm not sure I understand. As for the need to reclassify, let's not that all articles should be being reassessed on a constant basis anyway, at grassroots editor level if nothing else: there's neither any rush to organise a massive high-speed reassessment of all 400,000-some Starts and B-Class articles. Like everything else on-wiki, it will sort itself out over time. The only thing I would think useful after implementing this would be to help go through Category:B-Class Foo articles for the projects I'm involved with (WP:HP, WP:DISK and WP:MUSICALS in my case) looking for things to downgrade. Individual editors, of whom we have hundreds of thousands, can certainly be trusted to upgrade articles of their own accord as and when they find/improve them. As for downgrading, well, we only have 50,000 B-Class articles; how many editors do you think would be willing to do a hundred reassessments? More than the 500 that would be needed. Like everything else on-wiki, it sounds like a lot of effort, but with division of labour and some technical assistance like bot scripts and Kingboyk's AWB plugin, it's actually very doable. Plus, of course, it's something we should be doing on a rolling basis anyway. Happy‑melon 13:08, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

    Well I can assure you that you don't have an army that works with discipline and produces results on orders. In an all-volunteer project, nobody can assume/take for granted how many editors you'll actually have doing the work or how many are needed or how much time it won't take. My personal opinion is that a "GA" is a waste, because with a little more effort, you can make it an FA. All this classification breakdown seems to me like grading a book report or a test. Being an all-volunteer project with talented people lacking time, classify things as clearly and simply as you can, with the focus being on the work to achieving peak quality. How much better it would be if you apply those 500 editors working to convert references/ELs into inline citations for those 50,000 articles? How much better would the encyclopedia be if a 1,000 stubs were expanded by a few hundred characters and reliable sources to meet DYK criteria and appear on the main page? Those are the real achievements, the kind of work you should be doing. Those "A", "B", "C", "F", "Z" class tagging don't make the article no better - looking at DYK criteria and moving up a stub to it would be an achievement. I just think that we're focusing on the problems instead of looking at the goal, the solution. Vishnava _talk 20:42, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

    I know I don't, and this proposal would be doomed if such a force were vital to its implementation. Fortunately, that's just not the case: although some editors (those who like doing that sort of thing... and another thing that you can guarrantee on an all-volunteer project like this, is that you can find people who like doing just about anything :D) will work systematically through Category:B-Class articles, and I take my hat off to them. But even if no one did that, the reassessment would still take place, because like everything else here the whole grading system builds on the countless incremental contributions of editors who are in the main entirely unconnected to WP:1.0, and in many cases aren't even involved with the WikiProjects. In principle, you're quite right to say that more overall good would come to the project if any edit which changed |class=Start to |class=C was instead adding a reliable source to the article itself. But by exactly the same 'all-volunteer' principle, no one can or should therefore mandate that they should or shouldn't do anything. I personally just don't agree that assessments do no good to the article, but that's another issue, and is only tangentially relevant to this particular proposal. I think it's obvious, though, that they can't do any harm. And isn't that the whole point of the free, open project? That you can do whatever takes your fancy, as long as it does no harm? Happy‑melon 13:46, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

    Although we fundamentally disagree, I do agree with several things - fishes are free to swim wherever they please in a pond - but the point is why create more stratification and tasks that aren't really necessary nor directly beneficial to developing content here. Vishnava _talk 00:47, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

16. Oppose I believe the current assessment scale is sufficient, and don't believe adding a new class is necessary. Each WikiProject who uses the scale can work to better broadcast the differences between the Start and B classes to help prevent confusion. I'd think if we're trying to go with an "ABC" format, then replace Start with "C", but I see no need to add a whole new class in between the two. --Nehrams2020 (talk) 23:42, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
17. I think we need to agree on the criteria for the grading classes we have now before we go adding any new ones. As others have said, if you want a C-class, replace Start-class. shoy 12:52, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

    I don't think that the problem is just in the naming of levels; there is a fairly large gap between start-class and B-class, so even with a rename the levels would have to be adjusted. --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 16:19, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

18. Oppose the more difficult it is to achieve an assessed class other than Start or Stub the more encouraged are editors to be ambitous and create material of higher quality. Wandalstouring (talk) 07:36, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
19. Oppose while well intentioned and possibly useful, this seems to be an example of guideline creep and I don't think that it's needed as the difference between start class and B class is fairly linear at present. Nick Dowling (talk) 08:43, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
20. Oppose I'm another who'd be happy to support the replacement of Start-Class with C-Class, but not the introduction of C-Class as yet a further assessment level. We have enough as is, methinks. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 13:32, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
21. Oppose Unnecessary, current system is sufficient. KISS --Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 20:09, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
22. Oppose Not sure I can add anything that someone hasn't already said. -- llywrch (talk) 21:36, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
23. I'm not opposed in principle to the idea, but it would create far too much work and bureaucracy with virtually no benefit. There is some borderline start and b articles that I've wondered about, but I don't need to be deciding between start and c, and c and b, now too. Wizardman 23:58, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
24. Strong Oppose Just thinking about the hell this is going to unleash is enough to give me an ulcer. All the added whining and complaining that will follow with a new rating tab coupled with the fallout across the various projects here as the members debate the merits of implementing such a system does not, in my opinion, justify adding anoth notch to the rating system. KISS. TomStar81 (Talk) 00:01, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

    Hell?? Fallout?? Are you sure you're at the right discussion? Armageddon is that way :D. In seriousness though, I think you're significantly overestimating the amount of disruption this will cause. Why would having an alternative such that an editor's hard work didn't have to be called a "start" lead to more "whining and complaining"? Surely editors would be delighted to be able to mark an article of theirs as more than a start, without it incorrectly being labeled a B-class. The 1.0 scale is not a legal requirement for WikiProjects; projects have created a host of classes which are not part of the 'official' 1.0 scale, and many do not use classes which are on the official scale (see Category:Classification templates). There is absolutely no requirement for existing projects to adopt the C-Class if they think that the moderate effort required to reassess their Start- and B-Class articles does not yield sufficient benefits. This proposal is simply to give them the ability to use a C-Class within the 'official' 1.0 scale if they want to. The biggest change this proposal implements is to make using C-Class the default position for new WikiProjects, and there, none of these "extra effort/work/hassle" arguments apply. A new wikiproject will have to assess all of its articles anyway. Why shouldn't they have the opportunity to assess them that much more effectively? Happy‑melon 12:21, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

    In my professional opinion, offering editers the choice to upgrade from the gheotto to the slums as opposed to the suburbs does not constitute a brilliant idea. Moreover, I think some of the supporters may lack the apreciation to see how this could backfire: if you move the goal post you have to consider that those who worked hard to get the article up the rating chart and now find that they have "another damn bar to overcome" my quit in disgust rather than edit toward a better rating. Turning editers off the concept of upgrading by flooding the assessment scale with unissicary ratings designed to essentially to keep articles in perment suspense does not, in my opinion, justify implementing any lower classes. On the issue of projects: I apreciate what you are saying with regards to the old and the new, but I think you haven't read the warning essay at Esperanza. The essay there explicitly notes that all projects need to be open and transparent to thier users, and from where I sit that means inviting project memebers to discuss implementing this proposal within any given project, since failure to do so could arguably be construed as making a binding descion in the absence of external input. I don't think our contributers will go for C-class (as a MILHIST coordinator, we have been monitering this closely to see what happens), but other projects may choose to implement the system. Have you thought about that at all? TomStar81 (Talk) 03:44, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

    I would argue not from the ghetto to the slums, but from the ghetto to RDP housing. But to be honest, the gap between start class and B class is extremely wide: Would you rather that there is no "reward" for dividing a start class article into sections, adding a proper lead and inline citations[1] (Note that the example was written before the days of inline citations)? This does not constitute moving the goalpost, merely adding one between the second and the fourth mile. G.A.S 05:19, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

    I don't think that analogy helps the situation: I think of it more like treking to Timbuktu. It's a hard journey across an unrewarding desert: yes, the ultimate goal is the gold-paved streets, but every oasis in the desert along the way is a welcome relief in itself; and the more oases there are, the more likely one is to survive the journey. If a significant number of editors worked on an "I'll improve this article by one grade, and then move on" method, then there would be validity in your concern, but I really don't think that that's the case: I think most editors work on topics that interest them, and work to get the best improvement they can from one or a few articles. I know I personally try to take individual articles from Start to GA, or from GA to FA, one at a time. Which means there is a much greater chance of an editor giving up on an article when they reach the level where C-Class should kick in and it doesn't, than if it did.

    I fully agree with your comment vis discussion at project-level; as you can see from my post in the "comments" section below, I don't think this vote is a very good, or even a tenable, way of making this decision. I really don't care whether Milhist goes for C-Class or not: your articles aren't the ones causing the problem. As I've said above, I applaud that project for enforcing proper B-Class standards without any prompting from WP:1.0. I'm not concerned about this proposal being "forced" upon unwilling projects if it passes, because that's quite clearly not the way we do things on-wiki. I'm concerned about this proposal "failing" and thereby being denied to those projects that do want it. We easily lose track of the scope of this proposal: it is essentially a question of whether C-Class should be built into the infrastructure of the assessment system - Template:Grading scheme, WP 1.0 bot, {{WPBannerMeta}}, etc - not whether it should be forcibly implemented wiki-wide; because of course the latter is impossible. If the proposal passes, C-Class will become like List-Class or FL-Class: they're built into the infrastructure, but not every project uses them. If it does not, it will just become like Redirect-Class, Portal-Class, etc - grades that aren't supported by 1.0 bot etc, but are still widely used. So I don't think you need worry about how this will impact Milhist or any other projects you are personally involved in; the worst effects that this proposal can have on a project is no effect at all. Happy‑melon 14:30, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

    Just to stick in my two cents' about whether editors always try to take articles from Start to GA: An important exception is when an editor lacks subject matter depth. An experienced editor might transform a rough Start-class article into a well-written, well-structured, Wikified C-class article that still requires attention by experts, who can then provide good in-line citations, technical exegesis, etc. In fact, this may be the most valuable contribution that an experienced Wikian can make: Structuring an article so that hit-and-run edits can steadily improve its quality. (To use a programming analogy: Think of a systems programmer who sets up a device driver class, with which hardware experts can easily craft interfaces for individual devices. The original driver framework contains much of the system's true value – despite the fact that it does little without the experts' table entries and detailed additions for individual applications.) Trevor Hanson (talk) 19:42, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

25. Oppose Unnecessary, current system is sufficient. Much ado about nothing. - Canglesea (talk) 00:26, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
26. Oppose. While I do see the niche which C-Class will fill, I really don't think that the 'problem' can't be solved by possibly renaming Start class or educating the community to the purpose of it. The scale is working admirably as it is; a new class won't really help things enough to justify the amount of re-assessment and reviewing its inclusion would necessitate. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 09:21, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
27. This does not seem necessary. –thedemonhog talk • edits 20:15, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

    Question - Are there any actual arguments other than "It's not necessary"? Adoption of such a class would be entirely up to a project's discretion. I'd like to hear some arguments against this based on possible effects of such an inclusion, instead of merely whether such an inclusion is necessary or not. --.:Alex:. 21:11, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

    This is an excellent point, and one I've been arguing above. This proposal is not going to 'force' C-Class on any existing project, and it would be silly to think that it would. If a project doesn't want to use C-class (and there are several projects, WP:MILHIST in particular, which definitely don't need it) then they can make that decision at a project level and no one is going to argue with that. Are there any real arguments other than "not necessary" and "too much work"? Happy‑melon 21:26, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

    Yes, it seems that these are the main arguments. (I don't think that A-class is necessary either.) –thedemonhog talk • edits 02:53, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

28. Strong oppose. The current system is more than adequate, and easy for assessors to understand. Introducing new levels, with unclear boundaries will make it much harder for people to assess articles and will only cause confusion. There are very few of us doing the assessments as it is. Why make things more difficult? Dahliarose (talk) 23:25, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

    Do you claim, then, that the borders between Start- and B-class are clear as they stand? They are only well-defined in a small number of well-organised projects, and even in these cases the distinction results in a broad spectrum of article qualities sorted as being a short way from stub—which is what "start-class" implies—frustrating many of the editors working on them. This lack of sensibility in the system might as well deter valuable contributors from engaging in article classification. I am sure that many editors are quite unwilling to work on a system which they deem unsatisfactory in so evident a fashion; making it more intuitive and moving it closer to common sense will encourage many of them to participate, more or less regularly. Waltham, The Duke of 01:40, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

29. Oppose. I don't think this will accomplish anything useful. The system is already convoluted enough. Kaldari (talk) 14:54, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
30. Oppose. Adding an additional class will make the assessment process even more confusing/complicated. If the distinctions between Start and B-class are not clear now, it seems to me that they would be even less so with an additional class. And I agree with Wandalstouring that a large gap at the bottom of the scale motivates editors to push extra-hard towards the upper end of the scale instead of staying at a B-level and lower. --Jh12 (talk) 18:06, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

    I'd say the distinctions between Start and B-class are quite clear, but reviewers encountering articles that are in the wide chasm between the two classes either push up to B or down to Start when neither is appropriate. As for a large gap being a motivating factor, I believe this is unrealistic. All work in the world is done in increments, and Wikipedia is no exception. A ladder missing four rungs from the middle, is, if anything, a disincentive toward reaching the upper rungs.--Father Goose (talk) 21:21, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

    That's a valid point, but I just don't see it as being unrealistic. Unlike prominent tags that appear on the article page itself, these are internal assessments made by Wikipedia editors about the quality of the article. We can afford to be critical. Having a goal of achieving a high quality article seems much more attractive and satisfying than going from Start to C-class. My own analogy is a bit of a reach, but this is how I see it: It's like saying you're going to improve your term paper from D to C. While C may be considered passing in most cases, neither grade would be considered good enough for entry into the best graduate programs. And to me, assessments help push editors towards the upper rungs without intruding on the article itself. --Jh12 (talk) 20:42, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

    If we had 40,000 GAs instead of 4,000, I would agree with you, because then we'd be in the position to 'write off' all our B-Class articles as "not there yet". The problem is that, in their quest to improve the article, editors 'jump the gun' and promote to B-Class when they reach the limit of their improvement endurance, not when the article actually merits B-Class status. If there were no qualitative difference between B-Class and the rest, that wouldn't be a problem, but because we have to put the divide between "presentable" articles and "not-yet-presentable" articles at the Start/B boundary in order to catch a reasonable number of "presentable" articles, things are getting promoted over that boundary when they shouldn't be. Having a C-Class puts another stepping stone on the "not-yet-presentable" side, which means the arduous journey from single sentence to near-GA doesn't have to be made in just two stages. If the "upper end of the scale" you mention consisted only of GA/A/FA, then I would be opposed to C-Class. But in fact, we have four grades in the "upper" end, and just two in the lower end. That's the inequality that really needs addressing, or articles are going to be floating into the upper levels when they don't merit it, until the end of time. Happy‑melon 21:12, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

    You're going to have to forgive me, because I am a simple man, but isn't the obvious solution, then, simply to do what MilHist has already done - which is to codify the requirements for B-class across the board? Meet the requirements? Wonderful - you're B-class. Don't? Well, I guess you'll have to remain Start. There's nothing ambiguous about it. As the classes move further up the hierarchy, the criteria become more stringent and therefore the range of article quality allowable within the class presumably narrows. It is only natural that the Start and Stub classes have the widest quality ranges within their classes. The WikiProject I'm most involved with - Films - actually goes so far as to include class-specific advice in the banner as to what needs to be done to move the article up to the next class. All that we need are clear instructions here, not another class with no specific prescriptive function which only exists to further differentiate articles that all agree are sub-par. If you don't like that your article remains in Start-class, then the answer is to work at meeting B-criteria (and have those made clearer), not create another level of assessment to give yourself a pat on the back for having gotten a promotion. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 22:03, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

    While that would normally be true, I would argue that by the time an article is "B Class", most cleanup banners are redundant (Except maybe {{Expand-section}} and {{Copy-edit}}), and by the time they are "A Class" or higher, this should have been addressed already. Adding cleanup banners to start class articles are useless, they are obviously incomplete. This is where I argue the C class assessment should come in: This is the stage where it becomes helpful to add cleanup templates such as {{Articleissues}}. G.A.S 05:30, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

    It comes back to the "volunteer project" point again: in a community like this, you just can't take such an aggressive approach to solving the problem. The "stick" of tighter B-Class standards (which are an absolute necessity if this proposal passes) must be balanced by a "carrot"; in this case, the "pat on the back" you mention. We can't just drop a note on all wikiproject talk pages saying "oh, by the way, WP:1.0 wants you to enforce WP:MILHIST's B-Class standards from this point forth; any projects that don't comply will be firebombed". Of course I'm exaggerating for comic effect, but you can see the point: enforcing proper entry criteria for B-Class is something that primarily benefits WP:1.0, not individual projects and certainly not individual editors. C-Class provides the counterbalance of a benefit for wikiprojects (a clearer picture of the state of their 'domain') and for editors (the "pat on the back" that they rightly deserve after working hard on an article). Happy‑melon 13:55, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

    (reset indent) Although encouraging editors ("a pat on the back") is certainly a good thing, I feel the most useful aspect of the proposed C class is in identifying articles that are near the 1.0 standard (i.e., print-worthy). Distinguishing between "not printworthy" and "just needs a little more work" is, I would say, more useful to the goals of the Version 1.0 project than the distinctions between B, A, GA, and FA. Improving C-class articles (whether we adopt the class formally or not) is exactly where the 1.0 project can recognize the greatest return on its efforts; identifying such articles (and reducing the incidence of "false Bs") seems to me the single best thing the project could do to further its goals.--Father Goose (talk) 06:17, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

    potential content for the 1.0 project in the entire encyclopedia.--Father Goose (talk) 06:17, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

    But this hits the heart of the matter for me. The way I see it, the "upper end of the scale" is GA/A/FA. I realise that we aren't there yet judging by the numbers, but I'm not convinced adding a C-class would solve that problem. Because B-class is the last grade before a more formal review process, that's always been the dividing line for me as an editor; a GA article is acceptable, whereas a B still has some issues. Putting more sub-par B-class articles in a C still doesn't solve the issue that B class articles and lower are assessed on a project level, and GA+ class articles must have gone through a more transparent peer review/nomination process at least once. Conversely, limiting B-class to a higher quality still doesn't make them GA-class, the truly "presentable, printworthy" level. I've always believed that over time, articles that deserve to be presented will become GA+. Maybe that's an unrealistic pipe dream. But on a basic level, I don't see a resulting improvement in actual article quality, making the benefits of a C-class seem superficial. In regards to people moving articles to higher classes when inappropriate: I'm afraid that problem will exist no matter how many classes there are. --Jh12 (talk) 09:26, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

31. The current system has enough "ranks", we don't need it to be any more complicated then it already is. NanohaA'sYuri^{Talk, My master} 23:38, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
32. Oppose. The ranking system as it currently exists is applied rather inconsistently, and adding a class will only complicate matters. --Blanchardb-^{Me•MyEars•MyMouth}-timed 01:18, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

    On the contrary, adding a C-class will result in the system being applied more consistently if anything. The point at which the system is most often applied inconsistently is in the B/start range. The reason for this is that B-class and start-class are far enough apart that the significant number of articles in this large gap must be assessed as one or the other, resulting in inconsistency as editors must roughly estimate what category these articles fall into. With a new class in the middle, the majority of such articles can simply be assessed as C-class; they will clearly fall into one category rather than floating around in between two. Pyrospirit (talk · contribs) 01:30, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

    To second what you said, I think it's not just that articles are "floating" in between the two, but truly in limbo: clearly not belonging in either class. Thus, the problems of misclassification between these two classes could easily be solved by inserting the missing rank.--Father Goose (talk) 06:47, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

33. Strong oppose I think it is quite unnecessary. Our current system is sufficient. Masterpiece2000 (talk) 14:24, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

    Could you elaborate on why you believe it's sufficient? I really would like to see a comment that isn't just "not necessary" or "current system is sufficient". I'd like more information on why you think that,and reasons based on issues possibly caused by the inclusion of such an assessment level. --.:Alex:. 15:04, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

34. Strong oppose I don't believe this is necessary. I think using the B class criteria checklist in combination with the Start Class designation should be enough to indicate what needs to be done to improve an article. --dashiellx (talk) 15:19, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

    The problem is that a significant number of reviewers do not use such a checklist, and most WikiProjects are not very organised as far as B-class evaluation is concerned, anyway. And even when the system does work, it relegates many articles to an arguably low class (just above "Stub"), despite many of these being much better than what "Start" implies. Generally speaking, most of the opposes here are focusing on one of the problems "C-class" is planned to solve; this will not do, however, because there are several such problems. Waltham, The Duke of 18:21, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

35. Strong Oppose I don't believe that adding a C-class will solve anything, and will most likely confuse editors more then help them. I believe a better solution would be to clarify exactly what makes an article a Start or B class, not to add another poorly-defined class. This solution seems to skirt the real issue at hand and I predict it will only make matters exponentially worse. Drewcifer (talk) 01:03, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
36. Oppose. 1) The current system is already too confusing, and adding another class will make it worse. I see lots of article assessments while crediting DYK articles, and WikiProject's assessments are all over the place. Many contributors incorrectly assess 3000 character start class articles as stubs even though they are start class with decent references. 2) Implementing this change will take up too much time. Most WikiProjects are strapped for time and contributors have better things to do with their time than reassessing many articles. The articles in some inactive WikiProjects will never get done. Royalbroil 01:35, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

    The population of C-class does not have to be massive or organised; it will occur gradually, naturally. Plus, the problem which you state is actually an indication of why we need C-class: editors see the extent of Start-class and assume that it starts from higher-quality articles than it really does, thus tagging the lowest Start articles as stubs. I find it very reasonable; it's hard to explain that, while Start-class is just above stubs—the very lowest-quality articles that we have—it extends all the way to B-class. Apart from that, the scale (with the exception of GA) progresses step by step, and should not be hard for editors to use. Mistakes happen when the system is not sensible and intuitive; if it makes sense, it will be easier to learn and apply. Waltham, The Duke of 02:26, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

37. Strong Oppose Is completely unnecessary. We don't a C-Class on top of a start-class, for the following reasons:

    1) It gets rid of the relatively clear line between Start & B-Class articles, allowing even further for non B-Class articles to slip under the radar.

    2) It creates more confusion within the assessment departments of multiple wikiprojects.

    3) An absolute nightmare to re-assess every start & B-Class article as to whether it's a start, C, or B-Class.

    Because of this, I see absolutely no reason to support this proposal. Cheers! Cam (Chat) 01:45, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

    1) The line of what is B-class and what not remains as clear as ever; the proposal a) divides the over-large field of Start-class into two, and b) enforces B-class standards more effectively by giving editors an additional class where to place articles better than what "Start" indicates, but still not B-class level.

    2) Confusion? How? C-class essentially covers a gap, and remains below B-class, the standards for which do not change.

    3) As has been mentioned multiple times, there absolutely no need for any re-assessment drive; the re-classification will occur naturally and in time. Ever heard of eventualism? Waltham, The Duke of 02:26, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

38. Oppose This poorly-defined additional article class needlessly complicates the system. tgies (talk) 02:11, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

    This is far from needless; the reasons have been explained in depth above. Waltham, The Duke of 02:26, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

    I have read and assessed the reasons given and found them somewhat poorly thought out. The reasons for my opposition have been explained in depth above. tgies (talk) 11:33, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

    I respect your view, but your phrasing made it look as if the additional class was proposed just for the sake of it. There are arguments in its favour, just as there are arguments against it, and the editors' opinions of them cannot change this fact. In any case, there are no messages by you on this page. Waltham, The Duke of 03:22, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

39. Oppose. While it would be nice to recognize small increments of improvement, I think having too many levels is counterproductive. Time spent evaluating an article to determine if it's really a "B" or just a "C" would be better spent making positive contributions. -- Tcncv (talk) 02:16, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
40. Oppose Stub, Start, and B class are already pretty arbitrary, no need to add yet another arbitrary level. Mr.Z-man 02:36, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

    See my reply below. G.A.S 05:22, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

    I might support this if we also did away with the "assessment drives" but as long as we have those, any rating lower than GA might as well be completely arbitrary. This proposal would likely increase the number of assessment drives as projects try to re-assess all their Stub, Start, and B class articles to re-assess some as C class. However, even if we did do away with the assessment drives, the quality assessments are [supposed to be] based on so many different aspects that it would still appear quite arbitrary. The lower levels of assessments aren't even all that useful or reliable either. Mr.Z-man 06:24, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

41. Oppose No compelling reason or need for anything between Start and B. Jclemens (talk) 02:52, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

    See my reply below. G.A.S 05:22, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

42. Oppose Having been a part of several WikiProjects, I think that even the current system might be more complicated than it should be, especially for newbies who are so unsure about how to classify an article that they just don't do it. Also, an article can change so significantly over a short period of time and the class that it has been given not change accordingly, that the class eventually does not reflect the article's status anymore. I think that the system should actually just be Featured Article, Good Article, and Regular Article—at least, something along those lines. Of course, it would require a lot of push and shove to get that far, I have no doubt. Also, the more classes we have, the more thinly we draw the boundaries between classes. If one editor considers an article to be C-class, then another might consider it B-class. There are just too many problems that can easily arise from an overly complicated system. To be fair, I completely understand the angle that the Supporters are coming from—I just have a totally different view on the very foundation of this system. Gary King (talk) 03:05, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
43. Oppose So we have: Stub, Start, C-Class, B-Class, A-Class, GA and FA. Yeah that is really over doing it. → Ãlways Ãhëad (talk) 03:56, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

    Of those you listed, 4 classes are at the higher end of the scale (GA, A, FA, which, with the exception of A class, rated by the community), and only two classes at the lower end (B, Stub, and start). Considering that stub is seen as no more than a dictionary entry, this only leaves two classes in which the majority of articles can be rated. Given now that B class already has very high standards, this leaves start to contain everything else. The proposal is merely to divide start into two sections, that instead of the choice being B (high standard) or start (medium and low standard), the choice is high, medium or low. No-one will be forced to use the new scale, but it would provide the option to assessors.

    Take Military history for example, which since they have a team of assessors, these all "B class" articles are "B class" as defined, the rest being start class. One of these start class articles are .22 Long Rifle, rated during April 2008. Would you now argue that this falls into the same category as SFOR, or the sample start class article? G.A.S 05:22, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

44. Oppose - Unnecessary gradation. Amend Start and B classes to cover any "holes" between them (although I don't really see anything). --EEMIV (talk) 04:29, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
45. Oppose. The criteria that differentiates the current levels are actually quite unclear since articles can be rated on numerous orthogonal parameters (e.g., breadth of scope, depth of content, quality of references, readability of prose, manual of style adherence, etc.). In my experience, the assignment of B-, Start- is already haphazardly done and the addition of yet another level complicates an already arbitrary system. Yes, I realize that WikiProjects are supposedly not obligated to follow or use all of the levels, but as I understand it, the current WP 1.0 assessment system for quality is meant to be across the whole English Wikipedia--it's only the Importance parameter that matters to individual WikiProjects. (That's why I think I'm free to upgrade a Stub article to a Start article on all the article's project banners even if I'm not a member of all of those projects.) As I see it, the only role of WikiProjects in the quality assessment is to provide subject-expert opinion on whether the articles meet the breadth of scope, depth of content, quality of references parameters (other people can check for readability, MoS, etc.). So I'm not really buying the "WikiProjects are not obligated to use C-class" argument, otherwise, why are we having this poll? --seav (talk) 05:04, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

    See my reply above. G.A.S 05:31, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

    You said that B-class already has a very high standard. Why is that? Even the WP:MILHIST assessment FAQ says that B-class is not a high bar to meet. What happens is that B-class just squeezes the GA-A-FA levels. Why not relax the B-class criteria a bit? As the guidelines say B-class articles "has some gaps or missing elements or references." That's not a very high standard. --seav (talk) 06:16, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

    MILHIST's B-class criteria include "proper sourcing" (inline citations for all major points). That's what makes it pretty a high standard; sourcing is not always easy to track down. However, complete sourcing is still the minimum standard all printworthy articles should meet, even if other criteria are relaxed. Thus, B shouldn't be relaxed any further (it should in fact be upgraded to MILHIST's standards), but that leaves lots of quite good articles that are missing some sourcing (or inline citations) in the overly-broad Start class.--Father Goose (talk) 09:07, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

46. Oppose - Current system is already convoluted and capricious enough. I'm aware of several articles that should be rated B-class but are rated Start, or are rated Stub that should be rated at least Start and possibly even B-class, based on the current rating systems - and I emphasise the plural, since every project is different. Adding another level will not improve a single article. The current rating system is significantly based on cosmetic points, is often applied by people who know little or nothing of the specific subject, and sets unrealistic expectations. It has become a bureaucracy in its own right, with competing ratings and demands from different Wikiprojects. There are many short articles that should be more highly rated because the article is well written, thoroughly researched and discussed but will forever languish because their three or four paragraphs don't include a colour coordinated infobox (incidentally, not required for FA) or an image of a book 200 years out of print. Before changing the article assessment system, wikiprojects would do well to actually do the work on their stub and start articles to pull them up a level. It's just one more way to annoy the few subject matter experts we have around here. 06:51, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
47. IMO the difference between start and B is not yet that major. (Not watchlisting this page for now; please leave me a talk page not if you reply here and I'll take another look.) giggy _(:O) 08:49, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
48. As it stands, the distinction between start and B is not that great, and from the given examples, I'd consider it better to just merge start and C. This seems like over-classification. The B class is good because it means that it is a decent article, but still not GA. Start means that it is an article with important shortcoming, but longer than a stub. No need for levels in between the two. B exists so that people can say "well, it isn't quite GA yet, but with some work...". The C would mean "it isn't GA, but with some work, it would be B, thus still not GA". -Lilac Soul ^{(talk • contribs • count)} 09:01, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
49. Oppose, as navel-gazing. Use the talk page to figure out what's wrong with the article. Fix the article. Move on to the next article. To prioritize, use the pageview tool and fix the articles that have more views. Phlegm Rooster (talk) 09:34, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
50. Oppose -- much confusion still exists regarding A class articles. Adding another level of assessment isn't going to help. - Longhair\^talk 09:57, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

    See my reply above.

51–100

1. Strong OpposeAdding an additional class will make the assessment process even more complicated and adds only confusion and overhead . I strongly recommend combineing A-class and GA to GA -- TinuCherian ^{(Wanna Talk?)} - 10:18, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

   See my reply above.

2. Strong Oppose Besides being used for WP 1.0 etc, assessment is mostly a tool to facilitate a road to improvement. C-class will not improve it in that capacity, and may just make it worse as it will add confusion and complication. User:Krator (t c) 10:25, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
3. Oppose - Assessing articles is already difficult as it is without having another level to think about. The extra level will mean that re-assesment will have to be more frequent to maintain the grading as articles change. It is much easier to spot changes from Start to B when there is a gap between them. I think that the A-class problem needs addressing first. Keith D (talk) 10:49, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

   See my reply above. G.A.S 11:41, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

4. Strong oppose Unnecessary and time-wasting complication. DrKiernan (talk) 10:51, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

   Since this does not require a new assessment drive, why would it be a time-wasting complication? This is only needed for future ratings within the normal schedule, or ad hoc assessments. G.A.S 11:41, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

5. Strong oppose I appreciate the arguments for the proposal, but the current system is fine. Despite the advices of proponents, adopting the proposal would create a massive amount of reassessment work. Why not leave the current system the way it is and let editors spend that extra time, you know, actually improving articles? No need to WP:OVERCAT article quality, anyway. — Bellhalla (talk) 11:13, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

   See my reply above. On a second note: There is no time limit, nor does everything have to be reassessed immediately. This would probably only be used in future ratings within the normal schedule, or ad hoc as needed. G.A.S 11:41, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

6. oppose adding another level if it doesn't bring increased feedback to the author. I view assessment that just counts what we have as not very useful, and would prefer assessment systems whose goal is to give constructive feedback to an author on what is lacking and what should be improved. I like the scale used at Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment (and have tried to introduce it at Wikiproject Germany), as it gives the author some hints as to why the article isn't B-class. Assessment must be useful to the authors, otherwise it feels to much like a slap in the face to have your nice article assessed as (something bad)-class without an indication as to what the reason might be. Kusma (talk) 11:48, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

   I agree that these assessments should be supported by comment, but this is also a matter of organising the articles for Wikiprojects to identify the amount of work that is required to upgrade articles. Military history for example, has a team of assessors and all "B class" articles are "B class" as defined, the rest being start class. One of these start class articles are .22 Long Rifle, rated during April 2008 and another is SFOR. Which one of these, if you found them in Category:Start-Class military history articles, would be easier to upgrade to B class? G.A.S 12:06, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

7. Oppose. We already have too many levels and should be looking at ways of simplifying the system instead of making it more complicated. I suggest getting rid of A-class. If some people don't see a clear difference between start and B, the difference between start and C or between B and C will be even fuzzier and more subjective. --Itub (talk) 11:50, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

   The problem between start and B class is not a matter of fuzzyness, but the fact that the range is too great. Consider that Military history has a team of assessors, and that all "B class" articles are "B class" as defined, the rest being start class. One of these start class articles are .22 Long Rifle, rated during April 2008. Would you now argue that this falls into the same category as SFOR, or the sample start class article? G.A.S 12:06, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

   I would rate it as a B. We already have problems with GA standards becoming nearly indistinguishable from FA, and now people want to raise the B level so until it becomes indistinguishable too? --Itub (talk) 12:19, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

   I do agree with you on that one, but I could add a lot more examples. Also look at the example B class article, and compare it with the sample start class article. Note that the B class article has almost no issues—there is only one banner template in a single section. That and a few other items being fixed, the article could probably be listed as a GA class article. Now consider that it is also inappropriate to add banner (or other) cleanup templates to start class articles since they are incomplete. This actually renders most cleanup templates obsolete, due to the high standard of B class. This is why I would argue that the line between start and C class is the point where these templates are actually worthwhile to use (esp. {{issues}}). G.A.S 12:33, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

8. Oppose. Note that in the table right above, Jammu and Kashmir is listed as both C and B class. Obviously, adding an extra class will serve only to create chaos and confusion, as even the Start/B-Class border was somewhat vague already. · AndonicO ^Engage. 12:25, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

   That table was not updated:) Compare the example B class article to the sample start class article. Where does vague come into the picture? G.A.S 12:36, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

9. Oppose Adding another rating level for articles that are not rigorously reviewed (such as A-class, GA or FA) is pointless. We will have batches of people reviewing articles and applying the standards inconsistently across WikiProjects which will defeat the purpose of the ranking. Also, I'm not quite sure why we need to know that we have so-many thousand "terrible" articles and so-many thousand "not-quite-so-terrible" articles. We should be improving the articles rather than tagging them, IMO. We already know they have to be improved - we don't need a ranking to tell us that! Awadewit (talk) 13:42, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
10. Oppose Any classification system needs to be simple, otherwise it's bureaucracy for its own sake, surely. Applying the careful discrimination necessary to allocate articles to the new grade would be better spent on fixing them up. --Old Moonraker (talk) 14:08, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
11. Oppose The current system in place is both effective and efficient. There is no need to add another layer to a system that is complex enough, and more importantly, not in need of another level. Not to mention that "C" is an overrated letter anyways..cosme. (talk) 14:17, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
12. Oppose. This isn't a strong oppose; I won't leave the project if this passes. But I've read through the arguments, and fail to see any real benefit. From my vantage point, the class system has three main tiers: stubs (the worst of the worst), GA (the realistic goal for short articles and a minimum goal for the majority of articles, since realistically, the day is never going to come when every article is FA, but many can be brought to GA with just a little effort) and FA articles (the ideal). In between those tiers we have start (better than a stub), B-class (worse than a GA) and A class (in the final stretches before becoming an FA or FL. What exactly does C-class bring? And more importantly, how distinguishable is it from start and B? Wont' we just end up with a lot of C-class articles that are really start or B class? Honestly, in most cases, an article can be brought from a start-class to a B-class or even a GA with a strong two to three day push -- I've done it before and seen it done as well. The GA-class is (to be honest) not all that rigorous, especially for experienced Wikipedians, who are the only ones who care about this stuff anyway. I think adding additional levels below GA is a step in the wrong direction. We need to spend more time scouting for start-class articles that can be brought to GA.--Esprit15d • talk • contribs 14:26, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

    "Can be brought to GA with just a little effort"? Not usually. It's a miracle for a lot of articles to get to B, especially if they fall under a small project. The project I'm most involved with only has about five regular editors and about the same amount of editors who do some edits, but not major ones. Sure, we only have a few articles, but I don't think any of the articles in our Wikiproject "could be brought to GA with just a little effort". Most wouldn't even be B-class, which I why I support a C class. It's not that they're poor articles, they just need a bit of work before they're ready for B. And they aren't exactly "Start" articles, either! They're quite expansive articles, just ones that need work. Alinnisawest (talk) 00:24, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

13. Strongly Opposed. There is no gap if the standards are adjusted accordingly. This was already elaborated in my vote on the previous poll and my stance has not changed. Then calling it a C-class - something that would be associated with whether something 'minimally passes' or not. We hold the philosophy that if an article has been created, it passes - putting a C class on top of that is just going to be more problematic, particularly for newer editors. The reality: the current system is fine as it is. If one does not look at both the criteria and examples combined carefully, then of course one is going to perceive some sort of big 'gap'. Ncmvocalist (talk) 15:17, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

    That will be done independently, regardless of what happens here. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 16:12, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

14. Per Mr.Z-man. krimpet✽ 17:41, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
15. Oppose. I have rated several dozen articles in the quality range from Start to B and I have not seen a need for another rating level in between. A rater should be able to explain why a rating was chosen and by introducing a "C" rating the explanation job can become more difficult. PKT (talk) 18:28, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
16. Oppose. How much will really be gained by adding yet another level? As noted above, the lines between Start and B are well defined, and muddling them won't do a great deal of good. --Wikiacc (¶) 19:27, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
17. Oppose Start and B are informal self-assessments anyway, so there should be no expectation of consistency of application. Introducing C just creates another boundary to argue about, which I would not have felt strongly about until I came across this flamewar. To avoid copyvios getting into 1.0, filter on copyvio tags. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 20:14, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
18. Oppose Enough classes now. I cannot see a benefit in another "low level" category. Finavon (talk) 21:07, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
19. Oppose I have rated hundreds of articles, mostly for assessment against the rules of the WP:CHEMS wikiproject (the original assessment rules, if anyone thinks history might be relevant), and I find it hard enough to categorize with just the four relevant levels (Stub, Start, B, A). The C-Class would imho not add any useful distinction. Wim van Dorst (talk) 22:24, 12 June 2008 (UTC).
20. Oppose Unnecessary overcomplication. An article is start class until it is B. No need to distinguish further. Doceirias (talk) 22:38, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
21. Oppose I agree with User:Bibliomaniac15. Another level won't help us any more. Assessment is already somewhat difficult as it is. Spencer^T♦C 23:58, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
22. Oppose The current system is adequate, another level will just complicate the issue. If it is not a GA then it is a B and if it is not B then it is only a start. - Shiftchange (talk) 00:06, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
23. Oppose as unnecessary. Really anything below a GA could ultimately be described as "inadequate". How many gradations of unfinished articles do we need? The point of these grades is to alert editors to articles that need work. B-Class articles need work. Start-class articles need work too. I don't see how it helps anyone to add a classification between them. --D. Monack | talk 08:20, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
24. Oppose exactly per D Monack above me. Plus, I might be insulted and discouraged if someone called my hard days effort a "C-class" article. As people have suggested elsewhere, I'd prefer to see a reduction to 5 levels: Stub Start B GA FA, or something along those lines. -- Quiddity (talk) 08:41, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
25. Oppose The current assessment scale isn't used evenly, so I don't see how another level would help. Douggers (talk) 11:53, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
26. Oppose articles with core policy violations don't need an assessment category, rather they need to be deleted or fixed. Anything that has a fix template is easily identifiable as not-up-to B-class yet, and rather than assessing articles as "C-class", using a fix template would help direct improvements. Giving the community an unfocused, blanket assessment level which loads articles with a "grade"-style recognition when they are woefully unencyclopedic might be counter-productive with those editors motivated by such things ('hey look, my article passed a grade'). Davémon (talk) 12:40, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

    You are exactly highlighting the problem: By the time an article is "B Class", most cleanup banners are redundant (Except maybe {{Expand-section}} and {{Copy-edit}}), and by the time they are "A Class" or higher, this should have been addressed already. Adding cleanup banners to start class articles are useless ("This article still needs to be completed, so an article cleanup tag is inappropriate at this stage."—per definition). This is where I argue the C class assessment should come in: This is the stage where it becomes helpful to add cleanup templates such as {{Articleissues}}. G.A.S 12:54, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

    You are proposing a linear progression of improvement of an article based on: 1) someone writes an opinion. 2) someone adds theirs to that 3) someone sources the opinion / cleans it up. 4) Article has minimal work done to it. I disagree with this model having utility - articles must be encouraged to be clean and sourced from stub. "I've just started the article" is not a reason to accept core-policy violations. C-class seems to me to be formalising a way of working which goes against core policy. --Davémon (talk) 07:04, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

    Although you describe a preferred model for WP contribution, we must work in the context of how articles get written today. The progression you oppose is flawed, but in my experience it is the most typical process. "Good" editors like yourself, who pay attention to core policy and write beautiful well-researched prose, will create timeless articles that begin life at GA level. Such articles will never get Start- or C-class assessments. The problem is: What do we do with those many other articles written by authors with feet of clay? Moreover, what about articles that conscientious editors sketch out in good faith, as a framework, without adequate technical detail or citations? Is it a bad thing to create an article with accurate but unsourced information? In many (perhaps most) cases, such a rough Start-class article would be better than nothing – because it creates a placeholder for contribution. This is particularly true with highly technical subjects. If we want to prevent such contributions, we should require citations and other encyclopaedic content from stub level. (And while we're at it, we can start hiring professional editors, and judging them based on the quality of their contributions.) Spinality (talk) 07:32, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

    There is no 'proscriptive' vs. 'descriptive' debate, editors will react as if the assessment criteria were both. Formalising an approach that, as you say, has 'feet of clay' and uncited outlines, is a bad thing. Encouraging proper research (including citations) at the very start would save a lot of re-working of sub-par articles - some of which may have been entirely grown from received opinion by large groups of editors. Creating a "C-class" says that this is a fundamental, expected, stage of article development. It isn't, it's just lazy, and makes it more difficult to improve by validating its status ("We're only getting it to C-class right now, why do i need to cite everything?"). This doesn't mean everything instantly has to be an FA, because start and early B articles probably won't cover all aspects (technical articles may miss out on sociological and economic information, for example), but what it will do is help establish that the framework or stub itself isn't gross OR. Article improvement is rarely linear an formulaic, the current assessment criteria allows for that without creating a special place for articles with core-policy issues.--Davémon (talk) 12:46, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

    Trevor, I wholeheartedly agree with Davémon on this. The assessment system should not encourage early editors to define the shape of an article without being required to deliver a reasonable level of citations, in the hope that later editors will do the "99% perspiration" effort of finding and recording the references. It may not be "a bad thing to create an article with accurate but unsourced information", but is is certainly not a good thing, and the assessment system shouldn't reward it. This is why I support C-class, because it is a way to classify long articles that are inadequately sourced. That's also why I thought your suggestion of automatically demoting all B-class to C could be such a constructive move. Even without that, the ability to demote an existing A or B-class to C when new unreferenced material is added would be a valuable feedback loop IMO. - Pointillist (talk) 00:12, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

    Hmm, I expressed myself poorly. I do agree we don't want to encourage editors to abandon incomplete articles, blithely hoping that others will clean up after them. On the other hand, we want a system that can effectively characterize what editors actually do – even when they use undesirable methods – and thus I agree with you that being able to demote inadequate articles to C-class would be helpful. Realistically, I don't think that the assessment scale will really influence editor behavior. I regard it more as a tool for good editors, rather than a crutch for bad ones. Perhaps I'm wrong about that. Regardless, I think that, when articles are written "in public" through a collaborative process, the C-class would be useful "on the way up," and not just as a way to demote inadequate content. When creating a larger article, I think it is quite appropriate (after discussion) for one writer to take the lead, focusing on such matters as structure and didactic content, while others perform "hit and run" edits to add details and references. I'm thinking here primarily of large, survey articles, being written by subject-matter experts. Such a group should plan to take the article quickly to at least to B-class; but sometimes real-world schedules create an hiatus. (I recall writing one article where I had to leave several important sections unreferenced, while I waited for a dealer to ship me an out-of-print book that I bought for this specific purpose. And then of course I had to read the 1000-page tome. This delay was explained at the time on the talk page. During the few weeks that elapsed, a C-class rating would have been appropriate. I did not and do not feel this was a "wrong" way to write the article. I could have completed this process in private; but this way, the article remained available, and continued to evolve in public.) Spinality (talk) 02:02, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

    I fundamentally disagree that behaviour isn't influenced by assessment scales. I'm not an expert in pedagogy but there is a reason western education systems use these kind of grade scales to help students perform better (b-paper looks like this, a-paper looks like this, see how to up your grade). Even within this discussion people talk about taking an article from GA to A to FA, as if these are proscribed steps - if they really are intended to just measure 'the state of things' why do people do that? Of course progress can happen without assessment, but accepting that means that any positive outcome of assessment itself becomes negated (if not to help improve articles, why assess at all?). And you state the "the C-class would be useful "on the way up,"" surely implying a step in a process of editorial intent. There is nothing wrong with things proceeding in this manner, what is wrong is explicity creating this category, when it is realistically only one of many ways articles may proceed (which current B-class covers), but its also a sub-optimal goal to be set. --Davémon (talk) 14:11, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

    Sorry, of course behavior is influenced by scales. But I don't think that guiding behavior is either a main purpose or main impact of the WP assessment scheme. You seem to view the scale as (becoming) a prescription for how to develop articles – and fear that the scale will interpreted as a recommended sequence. I see the scale primarily as an attempt to classify the articles as they exist and as they are written – and fear that many editors will continue to view today's levels as discontinuous and nonintuitive. A good solution would address both issues. BTW, I do basically dislike rating scales, which attempt to rank using orthogonal properties. A pass/fail test for GA plus a small matrix of "work needed" properties would be much more useful. However, the only change under consideration here is the addition a single rank – and we can't collectively agree whether it is missing or not. Those who are confused by today's scale won't be persuaded simply by others saying "you shouldn't be." Spinality (talk) 21:50, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

    Intentionality and effect are two separate things. I'm more interested in the effects of putting measures into place than the reasons given as to why they are undertaken. If you're agreeing that assessment scales effect behavior - then surely the way they do that is through ratification of the behaviors described. Creating a single category which says "we expect articles to contain core-policy violations" is contrary the wider goals of the project. The "big mess" that is B-class is useful in this regard in that it covers a wide area, sure n-class(s) could be added to variegate this "mess" but name-wise I'd prefer to see neutral (non-hierarchical) and category not based on core-policy vs. not-core-policy, perhaps narrow/wide focus or thin/deep subject treatments.--Davémon (talk) 09:51, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

1. Oppose I believe the current assessment scale is sufficent. I think it will just complicate things. Printer222 (talk) 13:20, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
2. Oppose - much like Esprit15d said, this isn't a strong oppose, and I won't be incessed if the measure is introduced. That being said, I really don't see this as necessary. Simplicity is a pretty strong force to consider here, and if it's not broke, don't fix it. It's not like not having an extra category is really stopping us from doing anything. Look at G.A.S.'s comments above: it's not like you're expressly forbidden from having tags on start-class articles, and even if you are WP:IAR comes into effect. I think this is totally uinnecessary. --Ybbor^Talk 13:24, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
3. Weak Oppose - Keep things simple, as many have mentioned the whole rating system is arbitrary and the whole point is for people who rate to put comments on why articles get the ratings they do so that they can be improved. In practice, this (the most important step) is almost always skipped, particularly in the lowest rating where article need the help the most. Saying an article is C rather than START or B is pretty much just as worthless. On a positive note, many editors are goal oriented and enjoy seeing their artilces go up in rating as they edit them, so for that benefit it could be good. However, most of those people tend to shoot for GA and FA where the rating process is much more valid anyway. Thus weak oppose as unneeded. Peace Earthdirt (talk) 14:37, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
4. Oppose - It sounds like one more opportunity for wikilawyering and wikiarguing and wikiscreaming all to no avail. I sincerely wish that people would stop arguing about silliness like this and start improving the articles. Yes, I sound like a major curmudgeon about that, but the more I hang around Wiki the more I realize that it's easier to say that The Other Guy did a lousy job (say, C-) than to add material or revise the prose. If the purpose of the new grading system is to improve the articles, I don't think it will work. Adding layers of bureaucracy doesn't replace elbow grease. Hence, oppose. Timothy Perper (talk) 16:30, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
5. Oppose. This is an unnecessary complication to the assessment system. It would be better if editors devoted their time to improving the current Start-class (and Stub-Class) articles instead of this sort of navel-contemplation. Physchim62 (talk) 16:56, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
6. Oppose - I welcome changes to the system, but not this one. Macduffman (talk) 17:01, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
7. Oppose - The difference between Start and B isn't that great, thus I don't see a need to place another class between them. LaraLove|Talk 18:08, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
8. Oppose. The difference between Start and B should be elaborated upon before fixing more classes around. bibliomaniac15 21:54, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
9. Oppose The scale is too subjective and the differences will become too fine. It would distract people from the encyclopedia, and create edit wars over an internal (not significant to readers) classification. If it's between Start and B class, edit it up to B.--HereToHelp ^{(talk to me)} 22:20, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
10. Oppose. To be honest the system is confusing enough as it is without complicating things further. Yet, the gaps between Stub, Start and B are easily distinguishable as it is. weburiedoursecretsinthegarden 22:23, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

    Are they, though? I ask you to look at this, which I prepared for an unrelated purpose a couple of weeks ago. Every one of these articles has B-class rating, yet look at the sheer range of qualities - some I wouldn't trust at all while others (Brian Mulroney particularly) are almost "there" and could probably go GA with a project effort. Orderinchaos 23:54, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

11. Strong Oppose Only promotes more self assesment and removes levels of peer review required for full featured articles. Slysplace ^{talk ♫} 00:27, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
12. Oppose Better to rename Start class to C class and widen the scope of Stub class to include anything that doesn't meet the new C standard. Ozob (talk) 01:02, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
13. Oppose. Changes that cause us to focus more on assessment than improvement seem to me to warrant extra scrutiny. In this case the change is addressed to articles which need work put in to help them, not to assess them. Anyone who might go to a C class article in order to work on it can go to a Start class article just as easily, so I don't see much value here, I'm afraid. Mike Christie (talk) 01:54, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
14. Oppose Keep it simple. --Una Smith (talk) 02:50, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
15. Oppose We need rationalization of the assessment system, including an inspection of its viability and purpose. Complicating it makes no sense, and as others have said above, the benefits of a new "grade" are few in comparison to the amount of energy that will likely be put into implementing it - it's a distraction from improving articles. Isolation booth (talk) 03:12, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
16. Oppose. Rename and enlarge Start-class. I agree with the proponents that the B-class is too broad in its scope but introducing yet another assessment class would lead to too much unnecessary work and confusion. It would be better to rename Start to C-class and widen its scope to include articles which don't meet the narrowed B-class criteria. —dima/talk/ 04:47, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

    But the problem is NOT that B-class is too broad in scope. The problem is that reasonable editors have trouble deciding whether specific articles, that have progressed far beyond Stub-class, are ready to be considered as B-class. So it's not a question of adding bureaucracy, but of addressing a pragmatic need that many editors apparently see (based on the modest majority of opinions here). Today, there is not a simple pass/fail test between Start- and B-class. There are many different orthogonal factors, and some articles meet some but not all standards. For a 200-word article in a small project, having such a transition level is not important; but for a lengthy topic, being developed over weeks by many editors along dozens or hundreds of other articles, it could be helpful. So I don't think the idea is for MOST or even MANY articles to progress through all the Stub-/Start-/C-/B-/A-class stages. Rather, certain weightier articles would benefit from this transition phase. C-class would be a catch-all for articles that "need significant work" – as opposed to "need to be written" (Start) or "need editing" (B). Again, I don't see why so many people view this proposal as such a Bad Thing. It's a tool that many editors seem to want. Trevor Hanson (talk) 06:34, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

    And equally it's one that many editors don't want. I really see little need for shades of grey: best is to sharpen up the criteria for existing classes before introducing a new blurred one. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 07:53, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

17. For the sake of assessment, I don't think there's a big difference between a stub and a bad, slightly longer article. I think re-evaluating what "Stub-class" can encompass, and renaming "Start class" as proposed by others is a better way of handling this. Adding another class just adds to the confusion. Ral315 (talk) 07:08, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
18. Oppose as unduly complicated, as an unnecessary addition to a reasonable scale and as a diversion froma ctually improving articles. MikeHobday (talk) 10:02, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
19. Oppose as simply not neccessary. There is little distinction between three classes if this introduced. As Roger says: "I really see little need for shades of grey: best is to sharpen up the criteria for existing classes before introducing a new blurred one." We need to deal with the fluctuating criteria for B-Class and Start class before adding in a C-Class. That being said, renaming start to C could be useful. Woody (talk) 15:41, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
20. Oppose the system is confusing enough already. What no-one on either side seems to be considering is what we are trying to achieve with this. IMHO the aim should be to get articles improved. Stub-class tells editors there is nothing much there, you have a blank canvas. Start-class says there is some information but lots more needed. B-class says mostly complete article but could do with some polishing. What is C-class going to say? there is some-information-there-but-possibly-not-as-much-as-B-class-but-more-than-Start-class. That really tells you nothing - it's another article that needs more information - no need to distinguish the finer shades of grey to grab the attention of an editor who might have that information. On the other hand, if you are an editor looking for a good quality article to polish up with copyediting or wikilinking then you are going to pass over Start-class and C-class - no point in fine polishing anything that is going to get huge tracts added to it. In either case the editors decision was the same with or without the extra class. The extra class thus does nothing but add confusion. If there is a need for any extra class, it is one for articles that a full of complete crap but you could not immediately come up with a valid policy reason for deleting it. SpinningSpark 16:28, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
21. Oppose, for two reasons. First, I believe the requirements of an article of being Start-Class and B-Class are close enough together. A C-Class article wouldn't have a very wide range of articles, and most could be labeled either Start- or B-Class. Second, it would be a huge hassle to have to re-assess all the current Start- and B-Class articles to see if they would be C-Class. In addition to that, there would probably be quite a bit of edit conflicts over whether certain articles should be Start-, C-, or B-Class, due to how close together they would be in their requirements. Voyaging^(talk) 16:54, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
22. OpposeThe current difference between B class and start class appears sufficient. Valenciano (talk) 18:10, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
23. Oppose, since I'm not a big fan of assessment in the first place. Even the Good Articles can have very varying quality, and the stuff between them and stubs is a crapshoot. I really don't believe most article assessors could determine any meaningful difference between a start-class, c-class or b-class article in the 20 seconds or so it currently takes them to make an assessment. - Bobet 07:57, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
24. Strong oppose after reading what some people have said/written about the current system, this would just make it harder. Just my two-cents. CyclonicWhirlwind (talk) 19:24, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

101-150

1. Oppose. Does it really matter whether an article is Start-Class or C-Class? Really? Would it make any practical difference to any editor? --zenohockey (talk) 21:01, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

   On a particular article, I'd say "not really." But within a particular WikiProject, where work on hundreds of articles is being managed, such rankings would be helpful, separating articles based on how much and what kind of editing work is needed: (re-)writing/structuring, versus expansion, versus editing, versus polishing. To me, an article that is correctly judged to be in the middle of Start-class (i.e. barely an article) is radically different from one that is judged to be in the middle of B-class (nearly ready for GA review). The writing skills, research, and expertise needed to address articles in each category are very different. A generalist librarian might do a great job of chasing in-line citations needed by a B-class article; but a subject matter expert might be needed to write a good explanation of a technical topic at Start-class. (Note also that a subject-matter expert would typically write such material WITHOUT in-line citations, precisely because a subject matter expert doesn't refer to textbooks when explaining basic tenets of the field, any more than a good lecturer has to refer to crib sheets. In-line citations would follow afterward, and might be provided by a different editor.) And that brings us to the reason so many people want a C-class in the first place: Because there is a middle ground of "pretty good" articles – that are technically accurate, read well, and cover most of the necessary material – but that aren't yet encyclopaedic. If I were making a list of articles that need work, this is the kind of ranking system I would employ: Stub (placeholder), Start (major sections need to be written), C-class (some sections need subtantial editing), B-class (essentially complete, but needs tweakage), A-class (release candidate). I would probably only employ C-class for larger survey articles that have many subsections. Spinality (talk) 22:21, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

   I have to say that I profoundly disagree with you. Milhist, for example, has about 20,000 stubs and about 20,000 starts. I'm not sure how it is helpful to reclassify these as, say, 13,000 stubs, 13,000 starts and 13,000 Cs. Either way, the figures are so great as render the class system irrelevant for anything other than statistical purposes.

   I'll explain what Milhist does instead. For an article to pass B, it must score a "yes" on five B-Class criteria (called B1-B5): this is handled by the template. The B-Class criteria only appear on Start and B articles. Articles failing on specific criteria are automatically added to specific categories, indicating where attention is needed (graphics, prose, referencing etc). This is much easier to deal with than lumping everything together into a nebulous C-class.

   Clearly, Milhist does a commendable job, and the system works very well as it is. The question is, what can be done for smaller WikiProjects with fewer resources, and for unclaimed articles? Unless WP-wide standard classification is enforced (which few seem to want), we remain with a situation in which large number of editors (based on this evil poll) perceive the Start-/B-class gap as being too large and counter-intuitive.Spinality (talk) 21:35, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

   --ROGER DAVIES ^talk

2. Oppose. I'm fairly new to the intricacies of Wikipedia (tl;dr, this confuses me) and I don't think that adding a new category would really help matters. We should concentrate on better defining categories before we go about making middle grounds.Avnas Ishtaroth (talk) 05:30, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
3. Oppose - This is a great idea for another day. Right now, there are other fundamental flaws in the assessment system that should be fixed first. (Foremost is more consistent use of 'B' and some sort of reconciliation between B/GA and A/FA since the latter require peer review and the former does not, though 'A' is supposedly above 'GA'.) Once we have a level playing field, a C-class may be appropriate. As it stands now, I think it will be too difficult to implement with any consistency. JRP (talk) 13:24, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
4. Oppose If your casual reader is confused by the current assessment system, adding an extra class is not going to help. A small number of broad categories is helpful and adding more classes may have some logic but is of no help at all. I feel this proposal falls into the category of "How many angels can you get on the head of a pin?" - theoretically interesting but not in the real world!. Stephen Kirrage ^{talk - contribs} 13:50, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

   The casual reader probably doesn't care if there's no assessment system. The system is not for readers, it's for editors. And it is unlikely that regular editors of Wikipedia would be confused in any way by this. What's to get confused about? Alinnisawest (talk) 14:13, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

5. Oppose At least not now. The divisions are too foggy as is. Maybe when the lines between each are much clearer. Mastrchf (^t/_c) 16:23, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
6. Oppose I concur that the division is just too foggy. I haven't seen an article in the examples where I would ever hesitate between start and B, not to mention that some of those B's tend toward A's to me more than those C's tend toward either B's or Starts. Circeus (talk) 21:48, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
7. Oppose. If definition is unclear, amend meaning of B-class and Stub articles. There can be some in the middle in rare occasions, in which case a third opinion is needed, and more often than not, the result is a re-grading as B. Rudget (logs) 16:32, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Neutral

1. I continue to think it would be better to raise the bar on start class, so that it does not overlap as much with stub class. With that done, the start-B gap will shrink and/or the B class bar can be raised. In my eyes, most of the criteria for entering start class are not sufficient to remove the article from stub class; they merely amount to a stub that has at least one piece of content. Under the current scheme, it seems like very few articles would really merit a start; they mostly should go from stub to B. GRBerry 15:05, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

   The proposal also increases the criteria for B-Class. Titoxd^{(?!? – cool stuff)} 01:28, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

   And pushes Start-class a little lower, which is good, if we are to look at semantics; it's called "start", not "start-and-middle". Waltham, The Duke of 22:58, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

2. Sort out the problem with GA and A-class before you start adding new assessment classes -- Gurch (talk) 18:48, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
3. Switched from oppose; see above. EyeSerene^talk 17:05, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
4. I'm still going somewhat neutral on this one. While I do see some of the benefits in adding a new grading scale to the assessment scheme, I wonder how utilized this scale is to begin with? I'm referring here to the vast number of unassessed articles at wikiprojects (articles with no class or importance assigned). It appears that editors are quick to tag articles into a particular wikiproject, but whenitcomes down to the gruntwork of assessing them later on, everyone is quick to say, "not it". Perhaps we need to look into ways to increase the awareness and participation in the article assessment process first?

   However, perhaps adding a new C-class, and allowing wikiprojects to assess articles from A to B to C to start & stub, would help increase awareness here. With a clearer assessment scale, it makes the argument for decoupling both FA & GA from the wikiproject assessment scale stronger, since both processes are wiki-wide assessments done outside of the individual wikiprojects. Dr. Cash (talk) 15:35, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

   I think that Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Statistics is very heartening in this respect. It's basically the mother of all assessment summaries, combining the statistics for all projects. As you can see, we have over 1.2 million assessed articles, and only 350,000 unassessed ones. I know on paper that sounds like a huge number, but it represents just 20% of all articles within the assessment project. And let's not forget the huge number of pages marked as "Redirect-Class", "Future-Class", "NA-Class" and all the other 'unofficial' classes that don't make it onto that table. I actually think that awareness of the assessment scale is very good, with the exception of the real definition of B-Class, which is the problem we're really trying to solve here. Happy‑melon 15:55, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

   Of course, it doesn't count all the articles on wikipedia that are not tagged as part of a wikiproject,... Dr. Cash (talk) 16:28, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

   Indeed not, but we can estimate: the site banner currently claims 2,405,948 articles, and there are 1,640,642 articles assessed. That's very nearly 70%, which is actually very impressive coverage. As I said earlier, some of those (probably not many, but some) are also going to be marked with other classes. I think the assessment scale is actually doing very well indeed. Happy‑melon 16:42, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

5. I strongly support the exclusion of articles with copyright problems from B-class, and so to the extent that C-class addresses that, I do not oppose it. Articles with serious POV problems also should be placed in C- or start-class. Otherwise, the difference in quality between B-class and C-class articles is non-obvious; furthermore, if an article fails to meet B-class criteria then it might as well be placed in the start-class. I might offer a counter-proposal to rename "start-class" to "C-class." 69.140.152.55 (talk) 05:02, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
6. I'm not supporting because, as people said above, there is no clear cut boundary between Start-class and B-class and this isn't really a good solution; I'm not opposing because if this was added, I wouldn't see it as a major problem to deal with.   jj137 (talk) 00:55, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
7. On the fence between gap bridging and system complication. If this passes, will a D-class crop up? If this doesn't, how to decide between Start and B? 21655 ^{ταλκ/01ҁ} 02:02, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

   It seems to me that the proposed C-class is solving a special problem: resolving a gray area between well-defined endpoints. Such an argument would not apply to creation of a D-class. We seem to have good definitions (and intuitive understanding) of the low end of Start and the high end of B. The problem is in the gap between them. Moreover, I don't think we're so concerned about precise boundaries for the new C class (although desirable); but rather about having a logical place to reclassify inferior B-class articles – especially longer ones with significant good-quality content. Intuitively, these don't seem to belong in Start-class, yet shouldn't be left in B. It's an excluded middle problem. Trevor Hanson (talk) 03:31, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

   Yeah, stupid thing to say, but both sides are putting up too many good arguments for me to fall off said fence. I remain Neutral. Now for some Swiss chocolate... 21655 ^{ταλκ/01ҁ} 13:49, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

8. Neutral Both sides have good arguments. I suggest maybe removing A, and make it Stub-Start-B-GA-FA, and make the definition of B being the same though out Wikipedia as it is for the Military History WikiProject. That should be sufficient.--Bedford ^Pray 03:05, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

   Standardizing class definitions seems problematic, since these have hitherto been explicitly left to the discretion of individual WikiProjects. Moreover, many editors will continue to classify articles idiosyncratically. The most practical scheme is one that will make intuitive sense to new or casual editors. Trevor Hanson (talk) 03:31, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

9. Meh – I don't hold a strong opinion either way. I don't think it will become too complicated if C-class is added so long as it is well defined. On the other hand I don't think there is a real need for it. Personally I only worry about GA and FA because it requires a 3rd party review. James086^{Talk | Email} 05:03, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
10. Per Gurch, "Sort out the problem with GA and A-class before you start adding new assessment classes". But I am not opposed enough to a new C-class to oppose in general, and sometimes wikipedia has to work in little steps. – sgeureka ^t•c 06:25, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
11. Neutral. The system is already overly complicated and bureaucratic. Why do different projects need different ratings for the same article when 99% of the time those ratings are the same? Haukur (talk) 08:51, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
12. Gosh, if the man-hours that had gone into this discussion had gone into improving C-Class articles, we'd have been able to make them all into B classers by now!

    On a more serious note, the article grading table at the top of this page is needlessly wordy. The text ought really be trimmed down by a factor of two to make the scheme simpler and easier to implement. Smith609 Talk 09:26, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

13. While I see the need for a class between "Start" and "B" I'd rather see things get less complicated by resolving the GA and A-Class issue before things get more complicated with another class. ~ Eóin (talk) 19:36, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
14. This can be left to individual WikiProjects. Phil Sandifer (talk) 20:34, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
15. Well, here's the thing; we all know of the inconvenient gap between Class Start and B, and to make a great article we need to take small steps. But how we are classifying "C Class" seems to insignificant. I suggest we either lower start criteria, or raise B class's criteria and plop C Class in between. Though I do believe this opinion has already been expressed...--Sunsetsunrise (talk) 01:25, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Comments

• Wasn't there a C-Class before? I vaguely remember one.<3 Tinkleheimer TALK!! 05:35, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

  Not in the scale that was deployed on April 2006. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 05:49, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

• I believe Wikipedia's policy is to rely more heavily on discussion results than polling. If I review the discussions on this page I can see the need for a C-class has been explained and illustrated with several examples. I can also see, it has been clearly established that addition of a C-class won't create any additional work for WikiProjects that believe current grading scale is adequate. On the other hand, the only statement from those countering the proposal is: "I don't think it is necessary". May I request some more details from those countering it on exactly why they are opposing the proposal other than just being resistant to change. Arman ^(Talk) 05:58, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
• I have added this discussion to {{Cent}}, to try and attract more editors. Anthøny 08:42, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
• If implemented, the criteria need to be more tangible than those in the present draft version. Eliminate WP:WEASEL words such as "a few". LeadSongDog (talk) 17:52, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Clear explicit criteria are of course desirable. However, a major reason many people seem to want a C-class is to handle those articles that don't currently fit comfortably in either Start- or B-classes. In other words, they're not looking for inclusion rules for C-class, but want a catch-all for articles of intermediate quality that don't fit well in Start- or B-classes. From this perspective, even using weasel-ish, subjective rules for C-class would still be good, since it would allow enforcement of more stringent and objective rules for B-class. That is the real value that I see in this change. Trevor Hanson (talk) 19:05, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

I clearly see the distinction between stubs, starts and B articles. But to be completely honest, they all fall into a mass category called "not good enough", and when we encounter such articles, our next concern should be improving them, not grading them. Stubs exist almost as placeholders and really shouldn't (in an ideal world) exist for no more than a couple days. Starts should be targeted for improvement and B's should be peer-reviewed, refined and sent to GAN. Our minimal goal for every article is GA. That's the minimum. There are many projects that can churn out GAs daily. I've been able to take articles to GA in a couple days from start class. And I am not even close to being alone. So a C-class would really just be another dubious level of article that isn't good enough, and divert attention away from our minimal goal: GA.--Esprit15d • talk • contribs 14:41, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

• If this goes bots that work with article assessment will all need to be updated. Especially WP 1.0 bot. Someone may want to contact those bot owners. §hep • ¡Talk to me! 00:37, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

  I can tell you that Igor, at least, will need only a trivial change. – ClockworkSoul 00:38, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

  Unless the bot operator has done something really wierd with their code, it should only need a trivial change to any bot script. I know I can trivially add C-Class to both MelonBot and {{WPBannerMeta}}. Happy‑melon 10:11, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

• No problem supporting this on the technical side with WP 1.0 bot, once this poll is over and a decision is achieved. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 03:32, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
• Should we not notify the applicable Wikiprojects of this discussion, as they will have to update their guidelines, and since they assess the articles? A request for comment may also be a good idea. G.A.S 05:14, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Essential, I'd have thought. Milhist, for instance, has about 30,000 articles that potentially fall into this category. Recategorising them is a huge task. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 05:59, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

If any large-scale recategorisation needs to be done, I can help out with my bot, which was designed for such tasks. RichardΩ612 Ɣ ɸ 06:22, June 5, 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the offer but distinctions between start and C-class are unlikely to be easy to automate. Based on various epic tagging and assessing Milhist drives, I think they'll mostly need doing by hand (along with the million or so other affected articles). While I know that start covers a multitude of sins, nobody has yet provided a practical reason why it is desirable or beneficial – or indeed worth the Heruclean amount of work involved – to divide start in two. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 10:17, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

<nitpick>It's not a million; there are only 340,000 Start-Class and 50,000 B-Class total (plus there's a lot of duplication in there: you notice it claims we have 200 extra FAs?).</nitpick> On a more serious note, you really are lucky, Roger. Milhist has been the only large wikiproject to use the 1.0 assessment scale successfully: your B-Class assessment scheme is an ideal solution to the problem of mediocre B-Class articles. In a very real sense, Milhist doesn't need this extra class. But implementing B-Class assessments across all projects is an even more herculean task (and would be an ongoing herculean task, as I'm sure you're aware) than this solution. The assessment scale as used by the majority of WikiProjects is broken, as I hope you can see from the above. I think we all applaud Milhist for coming up with a working solution independently of WP:1.0. But I don't think that it's a solution that can be ported to other projects, let alone invoked from 'on high'; wheras this solution can. There's no fundamental requirement, of course, for Milhist to adopt the C-Class: it's your banner, you decide what it will and won't accept. A lot of projects don't use A-Class for precisely the reason of increased administration. But while this will be at worst an inconvenience to Milhist, and one easily minimised, it will have real and significant benefits to those projects which currently dump mediocre articles into Category:B-Class articles, and for 1.0 trying to sift through the slime at the bottom of the barrel for those articles that deserve to be called 'acceptable'. Happy‑melon 10:46, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Refer to my new comment above: Articles could probably automatically assessed by looking at cleanup banners: Those with it being "C-class" and those without it (but with inline tags), "B-Class". G.A.S 14:57, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

That's a very useful suggestion G.A.S. Arman ^(Talk) 01:55, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Also, the new scale would bring the new B-Class to be more similar to the MILHIST B-Class. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 03:58, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

I was just thinking, could someone set up a bot to notify the talk pages of all WikiProjects in this category? This is something all WikiProjects should know about, and there are far too many to completely notify manually (unless everyone wants to take a letter or two and notify all the projects in that letter section). Also, WikiProjects do indeed have a right to decide which parameters of the assessment scale they will use. Technically I don't think that a project even needs to use Start or Stub for example, it just happens that they are both incredibly useful and almost invaluable to project assesment. If Milhist does not wish to adopt the C-Class, then they will not be forced to. Nothing will be imposed on any of the WikiProjects. --.:Alex:.

Frankly, this whole thing was poorly organised. If a ratification for this was to be held it should have started with the notification of all projects independently so as to bring in all members for a broad opinion, a message to signpost so those not in projects but who read the post would be aware of it, and if at all possible one of those message bars we get when checking watchlists that inform us of proposed changes. From where I sit, this is a huge issue being decided by far to small a group of people, and it calls to mind the warning essay on the old Esperanza page that demands "...that existing projects must be open and transparent to all editors at all times...". For me, this vote is cause for much concern. TomStar81 (Talk) 00:18, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

• I know this is minor, but I can barely tell the color difference between C and B class as the templates are set up now. If we do this, would we be able to recolor the templates? Red Phoenix ^{flame of life...protector of all...} 03:44, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

  That's almost a given. I just picked the color as a temporary swath from {{storm colour}}. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 03:56, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

  If that's the case, I've got a suggestion, but it would involve recoloring three templates: Color Stub a dark red, Start a lighter red (not pink), and C-Class orange. Of course, this is all minor stuff, but I think it's the best option should this get implemented, and I have supported this. Red Phoenix ^{flame of life...protector of all...} 17:23, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

• Along with this, the A class really needs to be moved from between GA and FA to below GA, so that the progression for articles is stub-start-C-B-A-GA-FA on a seven point scale. That will also have the nice feature of providing seven categories or buckets, a good number for statistical analysis. The stub-start classes can be applied by any single established editor, the C-B-A classes by a WikiProject assessment process (which might be one project editor that does assessments for the C, consensus of two for the B, and a project assessment process for the A), and the GA & FA classes, as they are now, by a community assessment process. That makes the scale more canonical also. Also, how is this going to fit in with Flagged revisions? Or WP:FLAGREV with this. — Becksguy (talk) 13:48, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Wholeheartedly support this rearrangement. Cricketgirl (talk) 14:04, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
    • I think this is an argument debate we've yet to have; there are a few suggestions emerging re GA/FA/classes/etc, and once the current proposal is addressed I'm sure this will be up for discussion shortly afterwards ;) EyeSerene^talk 16:55, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
  • There has been much discussion on several pages about the A class and it's relationship with the other classes, especially with GA, and the processes to apply these classes to articles. But I think that adding a new class without clarifying the organic whole at the same time is backwards. In other words, we should be discussing the existing six article classes at the same time (leaving lists for later). People's understanding and the resultant discussions will be different depending on how the article classification scheme is structured, especially on what is below the two GA-FA classes. One of the major points brought up here is that the gulf between start and B is overly broad and that having another lower level gives a better progression for the articles to travel on their way to quality. I agree. One way is to add the C class, another way is to move A down below GA, and a third way (and from my view the best) is to do both and thereby close up the gaps between the resultant five classes below GA (stub-start-C-B-A). I personally really like the idea of adding the C class, but I think adding it and then figuring out the appropriate levels and structure doesn't make sense, as that looks a bit like spending a lot of time and energy figuring out how to travel from NYC to Boston, and then figuring out why and if you want to visit Boston, as they really need to be done together to balance feasibility and desirability. So lets discuss both adding C and moving A here as I think they are synergistic. — Becksguy (talk) 19:15, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

This is a valid point, but it reflects a top-down, prescriptive view of classification: "Here are the rules, now apply them consistently." However people will continue to use the classification scheme inconsistently and idiosyncratically, regardless of any rules – especially since the lower classifications are intended for WikiProject-specific interpretation. We thus also need a scheme that will tend to evolve in the right direction, despite bottom-up, descriptive application. A key problem today is that editors have very different ideas of where the line belongs between Start- and B-class. Introducing a "shade of grey" between them, despite the lack of prescriptive classification rules, should still foster evolutionary improvement of the classifications in use. To alter your NYC-to-Boston analogy, we're going from saying "Do you live near Boston or NYC?" to "Do you live near Boston, NYC, or Hartford?" Even without specifying county boundaries, having three options is much better than two. (Note also that four is NOT much better than three. Assuming that we have reasonable consensus about the lower end of Start- and the higher end of B-class articles, then having one catch-all class between them is the best structure for enabling good intuitive classification.) Trevor Hanson (talk) 20:19, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

• What if we automatically reclassify ALL existing B-class articles as C-class, and then wait for the good ones to bubble back up to B-class – as embarrassed or outraged editors review their pet articles for consistency with the (new) published standard? This would eliminate all the stated concerns about what it would take to reclassify all the existing articles. Instead of adding a new middle classification, and waiting for bad ones to get shifted from B- to C-class, all articles would be "presumed guilty" until some editor explicitly asserts that they truly deserve B-class. Articles that get (re-)promoted to B-class would all be held to a higher standard. Trevor Hanson (talk) 04:51, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Na, that's kind of pointy OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 05:19, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure that would be the best idea. It may be better to update the standards and allow each project to handle the change on its own. – ClockworkSoul 05:21, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
  • I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss Trevor Hanson's suggestion. If it is presented positively to the community, reclassifying all B's as C's could trigger a very useful round of article review and improvement. We've all seen B-classified articles that don't deserve that label (e.g. Software industry is one that I'm hoping to get stuck into when I have the time). - Pointillist (talk) 22:04, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

    Nobody liked this idea, and I do see why reclassifying a lot of articles would be a problem. However the same benefit would result if we added a B+ classification, which essentially would mean "release candidate." (OK, I hate how it sounds too; but still.) B-class articles that are "nearly good enough" would get bumped to this level, where they get final tweakage before submittal for GA. This would allow B-class to subsume a broader range of problems. So many "opposers" have said that they see no ambiguity between Start- and B-class. This is sort of true, because the rules are clear; but they ignore the many, many articles that meet B-class criteria in some but not all respects. Thus many have said "an article without proper sources should not progress beyond Start class." Yet an article can have excellent sources, yet be missing in-line citations for certain material; or it can have good sources overall, and many in-line citations, yet be missing references in certain sections. IMO such evolving articles, especially when long and complex, are really in a different category from a 300-word essay on a restricted topic, one that indeed may be relatively easy to assign to Start- or B-class without worrying about a grey area. The problem is, what should a conscientious editor working in good faith do when neither existing classification seems appropriate? Why should we deny a shade of grey? Oenophiles and movie reviewers use half stars when they think these apply, and they do so without confusing anybody. Spinality (talk) 07:35, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

• I'm becoming increasingly disenfranchised with the concept of a straightforward +/−/n vote on an issue as complicated as this. I've added a banner at the top reminding us all that voting is evil and that we should really just be looking to use the "vote" format as a way of organising discussions. Obviously I'm clearly very partisan in this thread, so if anyone thinks that the wording I added is leading, do feel free to change it. Happy‑melon 17:07, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Well the point of these things is usually to get people's opinions. Not just "Support" or "Oppose" but stating where they stand on the issue and most importantly why. The current problem is that most of the people opposing this have not stated any valid reasons why we should not do this (simply saying "not necessary" is not a valid reason unless you define exactly what you mean by it). If anyone has genuine concerns over this proposal, now is the time to speak so others can address these concerns and determine any possible problems. Currently it's a one sided argument (oh and good idea Melon). --.:Alex:. 17:17, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Really? I see far more content-less supports than opposes. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 18:08, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

I have to say I agree with you, GS: the supporters here aren't doing enough to explain the meta-arguments that should be making people at least think twice about posting a "clearly unnecessary" Oppose. It may be that after considering all the evidence people still consider it, on balance, to be unnecessary; but if you actually read the arguments it can't possibly be described as "much ado about nothing" or the current system as "more than adequate". I would like to see the opposers here being more active in challenging the plain 'support' votes to a more extensive discussion... but the only thing that annoys me more than a plain vote are the 'hit and run' votes: where an editor has made a vote, with or without a substantial comment, someone comes back with a response or question, and the voter ignores/doesn't check for the response. It's not good enough to consider it "mission accomplished" once you've put your vote in - in fact, that's just the start of (hopefully) a valuable discussion. People should be willing, even eager, to change their minds or be persuaded by opposing arguments. We've had a couple of people change their votes, in both directions; but not nearly enough. That's why voting is evil: it encourages people to dig themselves a hole (trench, shellscrape, call it what you will) wherever their opinions lie at the start of a proposal, and discourages them from moving from it, which basically kills discussion stone dead. Happy‑melon 18:24, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

As one of those who could be considered a "hit and run" voter, the reason I haven't participated in the conversation has been due to constraints of time, & what time I can devote to Wikipedia I'd rather use to improve articles. And, I hate to admit, other opposers have pretty much explained the reasons I have in opposing it -- it complicates what should be a simple system: the aim is not to create clear demarcations of quality, but to provide a guide to both readers & editors which articles need more work. However, I think Happy-melon is accurate in observing that the supporters haven't convinced the rest of us that the work of implementing a new assessment category will result in any improvements to Wikipedia; it might be accurate to consider all of those drive-by "oppose" votes as saying "If this passes, you're going to have to implement this by yourself & without any thanks from me." (FWIW, I'm the only one currently assessing Ethiopia-related articles, & to be blunt, re-assessing those articles to accommodate a "C-class" is at the bottom of my to do list.) As for the fact my vote won't be taken as seriously as others, well I know this & can accept that outcome -- but then again, I'd rather spend my time making measurable improvements to the content, rather than discussing how to better evaluate the quality of the content. -- llywrch (talk) 17:14, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

• • I agree with the proposal to move A below GA, so the progression is Stub, Start, C, B, A, GA, FA, and I think it's fine to rename B articles to C to encourage a review. NoDepositNoReturn (talk) 23:26, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

• Honestly, instead of trying to radically change somethign so cemented, wouldn't it be easier to just rename Start-class to C-class? It solves part of the argument the supporters have, as well as the argument the opposers have. Not ideal, but it's something. Wizardman 03:38, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

  The problem is the breadth of article qualities "Start" covers: everything from large blurbs to very good articles with one or two important shortcomings (citations, neutrality, MoS-compliance, etc.). Take a look at the difference between the examples given above for Start and B-class articles and consider that there are tens of thousands of articles that could probably be pushed up to B-class with an afternoon's worth of work; actual "Start"s, by comparison, will need several days' worth of research and writing. Identifying these fixer-upper articles ("C") is extremely worthwhile, IMO, and not something that would be achieved by just renaming "Start" class (though I support doing that as well).--Father Goose (talk) 06:44, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

  • • (edit conflict) Although there are difficulties in deciding and implementing such major changes, they have to be done when it is necessary, as happens with so many other things in Wikipedia. The current proposal suggests a material change to the system because that is planned to combat a tangible problem; although a part of the issue, semantics alone will not take us far. More specifically, one part of the problem is that Start-class is actually covering much more than fleshed out dictionary definitions starting to resemble articles; instead of removing this term, which is actually quite useful, another class is proposed to cover the middle ground: one including articles developed and refined enough to almost qualify as proper encyclopaedic articles, but not yet of acceptable quality due to gaps, lacking presentation, and/or major accuracy/bias/copyright problems. Waltham, The Duke of 06:53, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
• I seem to think that the reason why people see such a large gap between Start and B is because they seem to almost literally see Start as a starting article. In my opinion, Stub-class are the true starting articles and Start classes are any article that has "meaningful amount of good content" to quote the current guidelines. I might agree with renaming Start to something else to lose the connotation that such articles are just a start. --seav (talk) 05:27, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
  • I daresay stubs are not considered starting articles because they are not considered articles at all; they are more like dictionary definitions. Start-class is indeed supposed to refer to articles only now beginning to resemble articles. And then comes B-class... The gap is really there. Waltham, The Duke of 06:53, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
    • But stubs are considered articles. See WP:STUB. Anyway, we are now arguing about semantics here; not that there's anything wrong with it. --seav (talk) 08:31, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
      • Indeed. Now, I agree that stubs are theoretically articles (if only to help enforce the Wikipedia is not a dictionary policy, hehe), but on a more practical level they remain little more than dictionary definitions, if only sometimes rather extensive. Waltham, The Duke of 08:49, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
• The ranking templates need more information. The assessor looks at the article, forms a view as to why it merits a C rather than a B, gives a C, and all the assessment (needs pictures/needs references/needs expansion on...) is lost. The ranking system is supposed to help improve the articles, not to grade the authors, after all this is an encyclopedia, not grade school. A bald A/B/C is pointless, the template needs to provide guidance to the editors. Bazj (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 07:26, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

• I daresay stubs are not considered starting articles because they are not considered articles at all; they are more like dictionary definitions. Start-class is indeed supposed to refer to articles only now beginning to resemble articles. Herein lies one of the problems. I don't know of any assessors that consider two or three sentence articles to be a start, likewise B doesn't mean the article's 100% complete. While a gap between start and B is there, it's as large as it is because I think people are taking the word start too literally. Wizardman 12:37, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you, thus the solution to that is education and mentoring, not adding a C-class.--Esprit15d • talk • contribs 14:32, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. Ncmvocalist (talk) 16:11, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

A system is more easily misused if it makes less sense to the people who are supposed to use it. It does not matter what the intents of its creators where; the system will change however much is necessary to adapt to the needs of the encyclopaedia and its editors. We should not see so widespread confusion if the system were sensible and intuitive in the first place; the situation with Start- and B-class shows clearly that we have neither sensibility nor intuitiveness in this part of the grading scale. "Education" in this context and scale sounds more like enforcing a point of view. Waltham, The Duke of 03:39, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Woah! Who linked this to what?? The numbers have gone mad overnight :D!! Not that that's in any way a bad thing of course... Happy‑melon 17:10, 12 June 2008 (UTC) Or I could just look at my watchlist :D Happy‑melon 17:11, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

IMHO, even though we are proposing inserting a class between Start and B classes, this will help clear up another iffy case that I've been worried about. Previously, I've listed articles several paragraphs long as Stubs, just because they were unsourced or poorly organized. I felt guilty about it because, also IMHO, stubs should be just that: stubs. A paragraph or less with little or no sourcing. Now I can finally make undeveloped but significant articles start class, knowing that articles like this one will trend up towards C-class. -RunningOnBrains 17:28, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

• Here's another perspective. C-class was proposed as a tool to help editors who are having difficulty classifying certain articles – because they feel that either a) Start-class is overly broad, b) a gap exists between Start- and B-class, or c) it is difficult to classify a certain article as either Start- or B-class, due to orthogonal assessment factors. The observed symptom is that the Start-vs-B assessment does not correctly reflect the amount of work needed to reach FA/GA, because a) Start- and B-class each include too many articles of borderline quality, and b) appropriate coverage varies a great deal from topic to topic, in terms of article length and complexity; a narrow topic can progress from Stub to FA in a matter of days in the hands of a single author, but a rich one might take months of work by a team. Now, it's true that adding C-class will not automatically give us crisp boundaries between levels, nor suddenly cause consistent application. But here's what it will do. We can assume that both article quality and assessment quality within each level follows a bell-shaped curve – most articles will appear in the correct category, with outliers approaching neighboring levels either because they are wrongly assessed or truly on the borderline. Adding a C-class should essentially eliminate the pollution of B-class by Start-class articles, and eliminate the confusion faced today by some editors who can't decide between Start- and B. It doesn't matter so much if they puzzle over the lines between Start and C, or C and B. But if we can avoid any ambiguity between the roughest Start articles and the finest B articles, this seems like a very helpful step. Trevor Hanson (talk) 18:12, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
• The way things are going it appears like there will be no consensus to add a new class. But I think there is a rough consensus to clarify the existing levels and a wish that everything was applied more consistently. Maybe we should first crystalize what the levels exactly mean before determining if there's a need for a new class. --seav (talk) 02:08, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
  • This is a very good example of how the classes should be in the proposed system. I agree with the editors there that comparing different states of an article is more effective than comparing different articles. Waltham, The Duke of 03:39, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

• comment Things need to be clarified a bit. In the list, "A" is listed above "GA", as if it is higher, but "GA" has passed a formal review whereas "A" has not, if I understand it correctly. That doesn't make much sense. Bubba73 (talk), 15:47, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
• Personally, I find the whole idea of an assessment system, as well as almost all page-wide tags, as a nuisance. Separating articles out by grades (except for the absolute best), like a tag suggesting an article needs citations doesn't do anything useful, since most of the people pontificating in the assessment system are hardly ever the ones rewriting or improving the page their overlooking. In fact, I feel too much text is typed out into userspace as it is ABOUT articles as opposed to actually WRITING and IMPROVING articles. We don't need need another class, or in fact an assessment system at all, except for featured articles. SiberioS (talk) 06:57, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

• It is illuminating to look at the examples given in the table, versus the current versions for stub & start. Both have been drastically improved but are still 'start' class articles. --Nate1481(^t/_c) 14:22, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Voting is not appropriate

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Quality assessment scale is Wikipedia-wide

In the C-class poll above, there has been mention that WikiProjects are not forced to use the C-class if they don't want to. But reviewing the Assessment project page again, I'm under the impression that the grading scale is used throughout Wikipedia. If an article is rated as Stub-class on one WikiProject, it should also be Stub-class on other WikiProjects. So, all project banners on an article have to agree on their quality tags. It's only the importance parameter that's the prerogative of the individual WikiProjects. As the assessment page says: "Unlike the quality scale, the priority [or importance] scale varies based on the project scope."

So, if I deem a Stub-class article no longer a Stub, I'm free to update the project banners to Start (or higher) even if I'm not part of those projects. There's also a Bot that goes around updating project banners with no quality assessments if there is one other project banner with an assessment and copying that assessment to the unassessed project banners. And this is the reason why we are able to have that big Wikipedia-wide table counting how many articles have already been assessed and at what quality.

Therefore, it's really best to clarify what the quality levels really mean, maybe adopting the specific criteria used by some WikiProjects (like the Military history project). The argument that WikiProjects are not forced to use the C-class level is not true: either we all use it or not. Furthermore, there really is a need to sort out the GA-vs-A mess. That is most likely the next topic to be discussed after this C-class debate. --seav (talk) 03:06, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Except that's not actually true; there is no requirement, technical or otherwise, for projects to agree on a single grade for any article (there are many articles which are assessed at different levels by different projects), or to use the same scale (there's explicit provision for optional and project-specific levels), or even to agree on what each level in the scale really means.

And, to be quite honest, if there were any attempt to impose such a requirement at this stage, I rather expect a number of projects would simply secede from the 1.0 assessment framework, since requirements written to work for the less-developed projects would alienate more developed projects, and vice versa. Kirill ^(prof) 03:20, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

First of all, Assessment is not a policy and more of a guideline so nobody is actually forced to follow everything to the letter. But Wikipedia-wide assessment is an initiative of the Version 1.0 Editorial Team. The decision to involve the WikiProjects is to help the Editorial Team with subject-based expertise on the quality of the articles content-wise. In Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Work via Wikiprojects, it says there that "Quality assessments are fairly standard across all projects, but priority/importance are evaluated relative to the project's own priorities." So I still think that my impression of the quality scale is correct.

Second, the optional levels are a red herring since they are used to tag non-articles like dab pages, categories, images, and templates. As far as I know, only the Math WikiProject uses a non-standard B+ class and these are not recognized by the WP 1.0 Bot. If classes are truly optional and the quality scale is should not be a standard, then why are we having the C-class poll at all and why are we having a Wikipedia-wide quality statistics table?

Third, I don't think imposing such a requirement is a burden. Projects are quite able to tailor the quality scheme by adding an orthogonal tag (such as differentiating all B-class articles into high-mid-low by adding another parameter to their banners). --seav (talk) 04:41, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

The Math WikiProject actually doubly tags B+ articles as GA-class articles even if they are not GA. This seems wrong and would leave an unexplained discrepancy between the WP 1.0 counts for GA and the official GA count. B+ articles should instead be doubly tagged as B-class. --seav (talk) 09:07, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Bureaucratic overload. Common sense should apply - we have GA and FA as project-wide, others are within the project. Some do a better job of it than others, but that's a risk one has to contemplate with a rating system of this size. Many may choose not to incorporate C if it's adopted, while I don't doubt projects with the size and organisation of, say, Australia or milhist would probably adopt and appropriate them to their own schema. As for projects incorrectly using GA-class, that should be fixed. Orderinchaos 13:52, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

• WikiProjects are allowed to enforce their own criteria and grades, whether they fall below, in between, and/or above wide-community grades of GA and FA. However, GA and FA criteria are the only two grades that may not be changed among WikiProjects, even process-wise. Ncmvocalist (talk) 17:05, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Optional implementation... Reversed

Exactly how binding is this assessment scale? It has been said that the implementation of C-class, should it come to pass here, would be optional for each WikiProject.

Would the opposite be possible, then? Could individual projects use a C-class of their own, even without such a class present in the master page? Given that the B-class criteria are not supposed to change anyway, C-class articles could be considered Start-class for the purposes of general compiling of statistics.

Since many projects find C-class rather incompatible with their specialised assessment models, other projects might deem them equally necessary. It is obvious that there is support for the adoption of C-class on a global level, even though perhaps not overwhelming enough to ensure it; it is reasonable to assume that in a number of WikiProjects there is a great majority in favour of adding this article rank to their assessment schemes.

Even though the recent events in Ireland do not create a good precedent for watered-down versions of proposals (in real life, at least :-)), I still think that this is an idea worth discussing. Waltham, The Duke of 23:23, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

In short the answer to your question is - Yes, it is possible. WikiProject Mathematics has already initiated an extra class named B-plus to supplement the "official" grading scale. Unfortunately this requires significant programming skill and regular maintenance effort at WikiProject level. The greatest benefit of modifying the main grading scale is that every WikiProjct can take benefit of the bots run centrally. Arman ^(Talk) 00:22, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

This is why the whole (pseudo-)"poll" above is kind of a waste of everyone's time. Polling is sometimes useful to see what kind of support a binding matter has (notwithstanding that nothing on Wikipedia is fully binding anyway), but on questions of "what's a good way to do this?", discussion (not polling) is desirable though ultimately the proof is in the pudding: either an approach works or it doesn't. The WikiProjects will do what works; they do already and will do so regardless of this poll. Those that hate the idea of "C" will ignore it and those that find it useful will adopt it.

In retrospect, I'd have to say this "poll" should never have been run; a structured discussion of the issue would have been worthwhile, but since this thing was structured like a poll, everyone's treated it like a poll and ultimately everyone will be disappointed by the outcome. The "votes" will be ignored, and the projects will adopt what course of action suits them best. That is ultimately as it should be, though I wish the discussion had taken that into account in the first place. And at least some thoughtful discussion of what "C" should and shouldn't be used for has taken place during the "poll", so there is value in that.--Father Goose (talk) 03:51, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

On the other hand, the public attention garnered by this poll has raised attention to the issues. Clearly people feel strongly about it on both sides; though I remain puzzled why so many "opposers" feel threatened by the idea that some editors and some WikiProjects would want to use a C-class to help them manage their workloads. I may not want to use your particular tool of choice, but I wouldn't think of telling you that you can't use it. Trevor Hanson (talk) 06:34, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Suggestion: rename to Start and Average

The supporters correctly note that the gap between "Start" and "B" is too big. The opposers correctly note that we don't need more categories. The problem it seems is that the difference between "Stub" and "Start" is of little use and both are too insulting a name for people to want their hard work to be given that label. It has been suggested that "Start" be renamed. Let us do that and also rename "Stub" as "Start". Maybe instead of "C" we call it "Average". So a new article begins as "Start", progresses to "Average" quality, then the above average categories provide incentive for increasingly perfected work. WAS 4.250 (talk) 06:14, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

This is a reasonable comment; but it trivializes the argument for an additional step between Start- and B-class. I don't think most editors want this step because they view Stub- and Start-classes as "insulting." If we assume good faith and professionalism we should take these comments at face value: i.e. that many editors, attempting to do their classification duty, have problems assigning some articles between these two classifications. The classification boundaries are in fact fairly well defined, as the "opposers" say; but that still does not make all classifications easy. This is because the classes are not based on a linear scale, but consider a series of orthogonal factors. The bulk of substantive editing work (including most cleanup template use) occurs on the transition from Start- to B-class. Thus this confusion is not surprising. I agree that the existing classification name scheme is not intuitive, and that Start/Average might have been more logical than Stub/Start; but redefining "Start" won't happen (and would be pointy, as somebody reminded me earlier). Moreover, it would still leave a big gap between what we currently expect of B-class articles (i.e. very close to GA) and what we tolerate in Start-class articles (i.e. big problems). I don't see why it wouldn't be useful to have a placeholder for "good article that needs work," particularly because having this would help purify the set of B-class articles, which really should all be very close to GA. For an article in the proposed C-class, the technical work and level of writing commitment needed to restructure or expand the article is very different from the modest research and editing needed to tweak a B-class article. A professional writer might view this as the difference between getting co-author credit versus editor credit. Though of course we are all co-authors here. :) Spinality (talk) 07:08, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't see a consensus to add a category. I don't see a consensus to do nothing. Perhaps there will be a consensus for a renaming of one or more categories. WAS 4.250 (talk) 07:52, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Personaly, I would feel more insulted by an article of mine being labelled "average" than I would "start". Obviously, it is start class if I have only just started it, and "start" is emotionally neutral. To label it average would be making a value judgement on my efforts. SpinningSpark 16:12, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Or, alternatively, "Start" could be renamed to "C", removing any connotation from the ratings altogether, and removing the partial redundancy between start and stub. Kevin Baas^talk 16:40, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

As a person who's written many Start-class articles on various topics I don't see it as offensive. I think of "start" as being "post-stub". Sometimes I don't really have time (or sources) to get an article past a pretty limited point, and it makes sense to do the article then come back to it later. Once it starts gathering references and content and real sections, then it hits a B (I've also written a fair few of those). Once it ceases to be an incomplete article, it can run through the processes to be accredited. Orderinchaos 20:22, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

As an outsider to this whole deal, it seems to me that instead of naming B "average" you could just name Start "C". There already is a stub, and the C class above, to me, would just mean Start. Anyway, thems my two cent drive by opinion. Qb | ^{your 2 cents} 14:48, 16 June 2008 (UTC)