Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Council/Assessment working group/Archive 3

Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3

Second task

Initial discussion point: What is the need for something like A-Class?

What is the need for something like A-Class?

  • Q1: Many WikiProjects are choosing to bypass A-Class at the moment, though it does work well in some larger projects. Does this indicate that there is no need for A-Class, or is it simply that there isn't a good system that is appropriate for smaller projects? Can we rely instead on WP:GAN and WP:FAC to take care of issues like article content and completeness? Walkerma (talk) 07:04, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
  • A-Class works well for a project with a large group of active editors. For projects with very concentrated workloads A-Class is not always feasible. I feel a good A-Class review gets about five discussants at least three of which voice opinions on the promotion. This is not possible for projects where there are barely five active participants. Nonetheless, when and where it works, it is a good system. I think it should continue to be a project based assessment where you can be sure a submission is going to be reviewed by people of a known interest.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 07:25, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
We need something that works for all articles. No clue what that would be. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 07:29, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
  • First thing, we should keep A review. The issue is to reach the critical mass, quantity & quality wise, to make A review work. However not every article need to be A reviewed that is especially true for small projects articles. Small projects should only resort to A Class review only for article too big to chew for the usuals contributors who often will admit the non-completeness issue. --KrebMarkt 07:45, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
  • Well, I don't think we need A-Class, but it is certainly nice to have. I am of the opinion however, that A-Class should only be awarded after an internal review focus on content rather than style, as well as a decent, but certainly not perfect, compliance with the MOSNUM. Just the big things like the order of the section, images being captioned, etc.). Of course WikiProjects would opt-out of the class on a voluntary basis, as we shouldn't force anyone to do something they don't want to. Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 08:02, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
  • For WP:USRD this is the project's chance to "endorse" an article before it goes to FAC. This is our chance to ensure that it meets both Wikipedia-wide standards and USRD standards before it goes to FAC. We tend to make our A-Class reviews difficult so that getting through FAC is easier. Since frequently GA-class reviews are all over the place, this also helps us to ensure that quality stuff is going to FAC. Now, A-Class review is not mandatory for FAC, but many of our articles that have skipped A-Class review and gone right to FAC have failed. --Rschen7754 (T C) 08:04, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
    • If it's prepping for FA, it doesn't sound like a content assessment, but a general one. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 08:10, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
      • A-Class reflects that the article is of a higher quality than a GA, and could be sent to FA. (Sort of like the new B-Class). --Rschen7754 (T C) 08:24, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
  • I'm struggling to see the need in my own project (WP:AUS) and we have only 6 out of 68,152 articles in this category, all of which are cross rated from either MILHIST or BIO, but I can see that other projects may well have a need or use for it (as KrebMarkt and Rschen7754 have expressed above). It should be an optional level to be decided per WikiProject. Orderinchaos 08:43, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
  • First off, thanks for the invitation! I always favor less transition classes. In my opinion, less there are, the better, but there should certainly be enough that members can use the classes as attainable goals. Articles generally start off at a stub, start, or C-Class level, and work their way up. B-Class is often attained (often unintentionally) by one or two dedicated editors, as well as a slew of anonymous ones. GA-Class is the first class that you really need to begin actual organizing and working towards. All these things considered, I am not a huge fan of a stepping stone level between GA-Class and FA-Class. If an article is GA-Class, one should simply shoot to make it FA-Class, and if that fails, we don't need a class for failed FA-Class attempts. --♥pashtun ismailiyya 08:52, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
  • I find myself in agreement with Pashtun's comment. MegX (talk) 09:16, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
  • I feel that Class A is unnecessary in for most articles however for the remaining articles A Class review in the only serious avenue to fix the completeness issue. That why i said keep A and mothball it until you need it. A Class review should happen when the few dedicated editors who brought the article to B are not enough to go further. For small project that would be likely their core articles, that would need the concerted effort and resource of those projects editors gathered during A Class review --KrebMarkt 10:24, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
  • For a project as small as the one I work on, A-Class seems redundant as we only maintain one and that was through an assessment from WP:TV. For us, an optional progression to use GA→FA over GA→A→FA would work out better. treelo radda 10:53, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
  • Coming from a small, reasonably new wikiproject I can say that we have no A class articles and I do agree with a number of statements above that in small projects the class is pretty much redundant. However, maybe a reshuffling is needed? Make GA criteria slightly harder and drop A class criteria then go stub -> start -> C -> B -> A -> GA -> FA. Looking forward to see how this turns out. Cabe6403 (Talk•Sign!) 11:50, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
  • Personally, I think a GA→FA scale would be disastrous for the encyclopedia. We would effectively be telling editors in small projects "you don't need to think about article completeness because the reviewers at FAC will do it for you". Yet FAC is not set up to comment effectively on completeness, nor could any centralised process make that call across all areas of human knowledge.
I also work at a small, fairly inactive project, WP:MEASURE. The lead-editors on the two best articles I've found in the field of measurement do not want their articles to go for FAC: one even believes quite strongly that FAC is detrimental to the project, the other feels that it's simply not worth the hassle, that the negligible quality improvement wouldn't justify the work. I would be quite happy to help either of those editors with a FAC nomination, dispite my well-known opposition to the FAC process in general, but I'm not going to do it behind their back. So I'm left with trying to improvise an A-class review process, which has just received its first article. Fortunately, as a small project, I don't expect we shall be assessing at A-class very often, so the additional work should not be too great. Physchim62 (talk) 12:11, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
  • I work with the reasonably inactive WP:Civil Engineering and we currently have no A-class articles out of a total of around 750. I can honestly not see the need for a project of our size and activity to have an A class review process. There would simply be too few participants to reach a consensus to promote or not (particularly as we currently have just one FA anyway). That said I have no objections to the wikiproject mirroring the assessment of A class articles made by other projects with a dedicated A class review. I do think that some form of A class review is required for some projects. For example I have had some very helpful reviews on two articles which I brought to the milhist A class and I value it both as an assessment of the quality of the articles and as a stage in the preparation for FAC. The problem I can see is that there is no real need for A class in smaller projects but it is an essential step in the review process for larger ones - Dumelow (talk) 12:29, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
    • I completely agree that a dedicated A-class review system (of the MILHIST or CHEM type) is not appropriate for the vast majority of WikiProjects, not just because of lack of editors but also a lack of throughput of articles to go through it. However there's nothing to stop you putting an article up at WP:PR and asking some of the other engineering projects to have a look at it. WikiProject Engineering also has an inactive "peer review department". Such an ad hoc A-class review is simply a means of saying "I/We think this article is effectively complete in its encyclopedic content, but I/we want to make sure by asking around a bit." Physchim62 (talk) 14:01, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
  • Comment Be careful to not miss the issue the question is Do we need A Class review and not Can we do A Class review. Most project articles don't need A Class review and use a reinforced B Class like WP:Anime or WP:Comics. Some projects may need Class A review but simply can't do it and i think we here here to discuss how to help the best possible way those projects. --KrebMarkt 13:03, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
    • I fail to see how WP:ANIME doesn't need A-class nor that it couldn't operate some sort of A-class review. The project assessment criteria say that B-class assessments require project consensus, so there is already a mechanism there. Articles already go to WP:PR quite regularly, and issues of completeness are already addressed there. Take an article such as Free Collars Kingdom, currently at WP:PR here: if the completeness objections at peer review were addressed, why should that not be A-class? The only reason seems to be that the project has decided not to use A-class, leading to grade deflation throughout its entire assessment scheme. Physchim62 (talk) 13:49, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
      • This is because there would not be enough assessment staff. B-class requires 1 assessor in most cases. A-class would require multiple ones. While WP:ANIME is a large group, our assessment one is quite small and has not really grown as other parts of the project have.じんない 05:24, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
  • At current, it does seem like most articles skip the A-Class process; going from GA- to FA-Class. But I don't think of this as a failure of the A-Class process so much as a failure of the WikiProjects to promote A-Class review (including WP:HORROR, which I am representing here). I've been considering a discussion within WP:HORROR to forgo GA- and FA-Class on the banner, as these are quality assessments handed to us rather than by us. I'd keep the categorization the same (since that's the manner in which it is set-up), but make the banner display things like "This article has received a Featured A-Class rating…" or "…a Good B-Class rating…" or similar. GA- and FA-Class are important, but they reflect how Wikipedia members as a whole perceive the article, while the banner rating is meant to reflect how the project rates the article. So, I guess, my answer is that A-Class serves a very important purpose; one I hope to start bringing to wider use within WP:HORROR. hornoir (talk) 14:43, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
    • I don't think this would help wikipedia. You should view your project as part of a larger project.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 16:09, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
      • This is kind of like my idea, below. -Drilnoth (talk) 16:13, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
  • I agree with some of the opinions above that A-class should be used in the projects that want it. In other words it should be optional. If a project decides that the A-class is needed it can organize a project based A-class review process. However majority of the projects have no need for it, and have not enough resources to conduct A-class reviewers. Ruslik (talk) 15:31, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
  • Clearly there is a need for A-Class as some projects are actively making good use of it (WP:MILHIST being the most obvious example), but it seems to be the case that a majority of smaller and/or less organised projects cannot sustain their own A-Class reviews and so the class ends up going unused. This isn't a major problem that requires us to reinvent the wheel; why not simply make it an opt-out class, or better still an opt-in class for those projects that are prepared to do their own reviews in house? In fact this would only be a formalisation of current practise; projects are afforded a certain amount of latitude with regards to their assessments, and I know of at least one project that currently does not support A-Class at all. That said, while WP:KOREA does not have the resources to conduct it's own A-Class reviews, I would have no problem handing out an A-Class assessment if an article had passed a review elsewhere. PC78 (talk) 16:56, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
    • I concur with the above comments. The project which I represent (WP:PHILLIES, and I suppose, as a subproject of WP:BASEBALL, I'm representing their interests too absent another coordinator stepping up) does not have the resources to sustain A-Class review. I have no problem promoting an article to A-Class if it's passed an independent review, though I would certainly look over the article myself in addition to reading all comments made by an external reviewer. WP:BASEBALL likely has the resources to sustain A-Class review; it's a matter of finding volunteers. More and more featured baseball content is coming in the form of featured lists, which rarely have the opportunity to be anything-Class, much less "A"-class. However, I have seen some exceptions in that, because lists are not eligible for GA, and because there is no "GL" category, lists which are too short to meet the FL criteria but are otherwise complete and perfectly constructed have been peer reviewed and listed as "A"-class lists based solely on size. These lists do have the later option to be featured if they grow in size, but it depends on the list and how often it grows. Because of my involvement at WP:FLC, I think that having the "A"-class option available is necessary and valuable as an opt-in. KV5 • Squawk box • Fight on! 19:07, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
  • What is the need for something like A-Class? We don't need anything. We don't need GA or FA. However, each process furthers specific objectives. We don't need A-class to duplicate what FA/GA already do (identify quality articles, convenient dumping off point, etc.). A-class can be used to accomplish a specific objective, as well. So, what would be the objective of A-class? Is it to groom articles/editors for FA? Is it an MOS/prose check? The best use of A-class I read above is to use it to gauge comprehensiveness. The use of A-class (as a Peer review-style comments, FA-style group review, a GA-style single editor review, check-list certification, collaboration/adoption-style grooming, etc.) depends on the objective. --maclean 19:27, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
  • The aim is the completeness of the article as GA and FA reviewers are unlikely to notice something missing. --KrebMarkt 21:03, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
  • i still haven't understood the problem enough. It seems to me that if an article is thought by the WikiProject not to be complete enough to be a GA, then it shouldn't be a GA, and part of the GA process allows the WikiProject to make that call. Ga and FA aren't handed out to the WikiProject by the community, the WikiProject isn't a separate division from the community, and if there are doubts about whether the article meets the GA criteria, in this instance it would be whether the article is broad in its coverage, then it won't get promoted. I'm not sure what the issue is, and why the current system can't carry on working the way it has previously. We're free to pick and choose how we want to do this from within a structured framework. I think we should be allowed to retain that freedom. Hiding T 20:45, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
  • The completeness issue is elusive as it's to prove that something is missing so unless you are well versed on the article subject you won't notice the difference. To give an example you can write a manga article that omit something like a TV Drama adaptation, I doubt that GA & FA reviewers can point out a such omission. --KrebMarkt 21:03, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
  • Yes, but then the next step, as I said above, is that it gets delisted because it hasn't met the criteria. It's similar to when a stub article is assessed as A-Class, isn't it? I'm sure we've all experienced drive-by assessments. I don't understand this aspect of the discussion one bit. Hiding T 22:32, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
  • I think it's a problem for the community as a whole that so many WikiProjects don't use A-class at the moment. That means it needs scrapping as a community-wide system, or explaining better, or adapting to better suit the needs and capabilities of the encyclopedia. GA and FA are not good fora for discussing issues of completeness, however useful the contribution is that they currently make. The reviews are too short and intense, and give too much weight to the objections of individual editors, for them to promote calm consensus among differing views. They are certainly not desgned to weigh up opinion from editors who are active in the subject area of the article. To suggest that they are the only valid quality ratings above B-class is a big one-finger salute to the idea that encyclopedic content matters at Wikipedia. Physchim62 (talk) 21:23, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
  • Our experiences of the processes tend to differ dramatically then. And I don't find the big finger salute statement very big, very clever or very helpful. It felt like a big finger salute to me, and other people who may disagree with you, and a big finger salute to the calm consensus I would imagine we're striving for. GA and FA fora are a good avenue for discussing completeness, given that they are a part of the criteria, so I find that face of your argument a little nonsensical. Maybe they don't often do that in your experience, but in my experience it is something discussed. And I completely refute the idea that they do not weigh the opinion from editors who are active in the subject area of the article. I've found the complete opposite. And as I haven't suggested they are the only valid quality rating above B-Class, so I am not sure where that comes from. A-Class currently exists, and those WikiProjects who desire to use it are free to do so. Hiding T 22:32, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
  • If completeness is the objective, then perhaps a certification system would be better. Like, this article version meets completeness guideline - though it could only used when progressing to FA or GA. --maclean 00:44, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
I like the idea of a certification system. "This article meets the completeness guideline." "This article follows the MOS." "This article is reliably sourced." etc. They would obviously need to refer to particular revisions. I think this could be applied to any articles that are B-class and up. cmadler (talk) 13:54, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
Interesting idea. One problem is that there are at least as many "completeness guidelines" as there are defined subject areas. The second is that the assessment is only as good as the people who do the assessment (and even that should be taken as a theoretical maximum "goodness" in practice). Which leads me to the following radical proposal: if we removed the "well structured" part of the current A-class criteria (something which is now assessed at WP:GA at roughly the same level, but which wasn't when then criteria were first written) we are left with
Project A-class = This article meets the completeness guideline
That makes it clear who's completeness guidelines are being followed. Physchim62 (talk) 14:25, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
  • One very important, yet noticably absent point, is that A-class also serves to lessen the load on the reviewers at FAC. FAC is packed with articles from all manner of projects, and those contributers who vote oppose frequently have to be dragged back to the articles upon which they !voted to update and reassess their positions on the articles passing or failing. The odds of an article passing raise steadily for projects whose editers endovour to use the PR and GA systems, and as each system is designed to catch problems for editors to address the odds of an articles passing FAC quickly go up for each process cleared. In this sense then, A-class is merely one more attempt by editors to have the article reviewed by even strictor critera prior to FAC in the hopes that by the time the article in question reaches FAC those who frequent the page will support or comment, rather than oppose. In this manner then, A-class could be said to ease the FAC pains for Raul654 and SandyGeorgia by allowing others to hit upon as much problematic material as possible prior to FAC. Sandy herself once stated that she was grateful for milhist article - most A-class at the time of nomination - becuase they frequently required very little work to make FA class, which somewhat lessened the workload she had to do FAC. Given that the Deputy FAC director states this, IMO, A-class is something worth keeping. TomStar81 (Talk) 03:14, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Second task: Initial discussion on A-Class (continued)

Continued from #Second_task:_Initial_discussion_on_A-Class above.

The third part of the discussion is now taking place here, on "expanding the appropriate use of A-Class."

Summary of yesterday's discussion - What is the need for something like A-Class?

Note: I've also taken into account this and this.

  • It seems that there is a large group of people who are in small WikiProjects, who see an A-Class peer review as inappropriate for them. Most of these people don't mind others using A-Class, they just don't see it's value for their own project. There are a fair number of people, mostly from medium to large projects, who support A-Class, but there are a couple of people who believe that it is better to use the GA and FA schemes, and abolish A-Class.
  • There was also a side discussion on proposals for reorganizing the assessment scale.

Walkerma (talk) 08:02, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Response

There is clearly no clear consensus to abolish A-Class, but there is a clear impression that A-Class is unsuitable for many smaller projects. So it seems appropriate to combine both of the "question two" ideas. Walkerma (talk) 08:02, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Second discussion point: Getting a system that works for all

How can we ensure completeness in our best articles? Should promotion to A-Class require WikiProject-based peer review? If so, what sort of review would be appropriate, and for whom?

Question 2 discussion
  • It seems unlikely that we will have a "one size fits all" solution. Some solutions, however, have been proposed:
    • Turn small "child" projects into task forces of an (active) parent project, so that A-Class review can be performed with a "critical mass" of reviewers. Of course, incorporated task force will also help to make the parent's review system more viable.
    • Agree that a "light" review is acceptable for A-Class, perhaps three reviewers in total, with two reviewers largely uninvolved in writing the article.
    • It seems likely that some small projects will simply ignore A-Class, which may well be the most suitable solution in some cases. However, if those projects produce articles are on specialized topics, how will they make sure that their best work (GAN, FAC) is complete in content? It may be that a "stronger B" approach (as used at WP:ANIME) would be the best solution for such cases. Walkerma (talk) 08:02, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
    • For projects with few participants but with high potential knowledgeable reviewers, a reservist list of A Class reviewers could be created. Example is myself, i'm French and do not participate to WP:FR but i still qualify as potential A Class reviewers for that project. --KrebMarkt 08:40, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
    • Projects may also decide to peg their A-Class assessments to external reviews, such as requiring a trip through WP:PR before A-Class may be awarded (or maybe even as the condition for granting A-Class). Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 10:28, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
      • That would be my preferred method, running articles through WP:PR to gain A-Class status. I'd be incredibly happy recommending that for WP:COMICS and for other WikiProjects. I think it would make good use of the peer review process too. Our peer review process pretty much died at WP:COMICS because of lack of reviewers, so if we can get a critical mass of reviewers at the central peer review, that would be great. Hiding T 11:02, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Let's break down the decision process into three steps:

  1. An editor decides that an article covers pretty much all the encyclopedic material on a given topic. Ideally this should be an editor who isn't the person who wrote the article, but we simply can't be pedantic on this point when we're talking about many of the smaller subject areas.
  2. That editor asks around a bit to see if his or her judgment is shared by other editors. This asking around could be done at WP:PR or at the A-class review of a "parent" project or on the project talk page for a medium-size active project. If it's done at WP:PR, I think it's important to get the review question right and to seek out people to answer it, as the "default" peer review is as a preliminary to FAC and mostly based on style rather than completeness.
  3. If there are disagreements, there should be an attempt to reach consensus. If there are no disagreements, the article is de facto "essentially complete" according to what Wikipedia can judge at a particular moment.

I think it's important to insist that we're making a subjective judgment call when we assess a completeness criterion. Opinions and consensus on a particular topic might well change in the future, but we shouldn't let that prevent us from making a decision for the present day. Also, A-class is a class of articles, so some articles will be "better" than others in the eyes of any given editor. Putting these two ideas together strongly suggests that there be room for some disagreement over the result of the A-class review process, rather than operating a FAC-type review where the opposers have a systematic advantage. Physchim62 (talk) 12:12, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

  • Ok, I tend to be in broad agreement with your points. It looks like Peer Review is going to be a dead-end, so from my end I think the solution would be to instigate a community wide WikiProject Review process of some sort. So okay, I guess I'm on board for promotion to A-Class, and for a review, and for a review by peers of any description. I guess it might make sense to separate out into, what, arts, geography and the sciences? Although really, I'd like to have the widest input of editors, because I think there are areas we can bring to each others work. One thing I think is hindered by being a subject specialist is writing an article that is accessible to a non-specialist, for example. Hiding T 12:50, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
      • I don't think the WP:PR option is a dead end at all. It brings a new and additional use to an existing structure, which is surely a Good Thing. I agree that all A-class reviews need to be open, including those done within the realms of a large WikiProject, because that is the best way to find the editors who actually know something about a given subject area, whose input is vital to getting a robust criterion of "completeness". Physchim62 (talk) 13:31, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
    • The only issue I have is that some editors see the structure as GA-FA, and I guess there's a sort of cachet with an article being GA, what with the paraphernalia that goes with being a GA. I'd imagine there'd be a desire to see some sort of cachet afforded to an A-Class article to emphasise it is better than GA, if you see what I mean? Hiding T 13:01, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
      • The GA vs. A-class debate will never go away, but I think it's self obvious that (GA+A)-class is better than GA on its own. To make GA a prerequisite for A-class seems to me to be adding an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy to the process, but if some WikiProjects wished to do that I'd have no objection in principle. A-class was developed before GA existed, but my own personal idea of the "well structured" criterion is very close to what is assessed very well at GA. I think the "cachet" awarded to an article should be that it is seen as a benchmark for other articles in its field. A-class shouldn't be trying to do the same thing as GA (or FA for that matter), that would be pointless duplication. I strongly believe that A-class has a role as a sort of quality criterion that can be rolled out over the whole encyclopedia, and that can only be done through the WikiProjects (even if that means promoting a greater collaboration among the WikiProjects, which is probably a Good Thing in itself but which cannot be done by a diktat from the centre). Physchim62 (talk) 13:31, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
  • Perhaps a better discussion would be what qualifies as a project and what qualifies as a task force. Should WP:ALIEN be a separate project? What about WP:TOWER? We might get a better idea for what a proper project can handle (in terms of A-Class review) if we first look at how many projects currently in existence aren't really independent projects. hornoir (talk) 13:27, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
    • I don't think anyone can change what people actually do simply by changing the name of the group they work in. If WP:CHEMICALS changed from being a daughter project to a task force of WP:CHEMISTRY, it would remain the more active branch (accounting for half of all tagged articles in the entire field of chemistry). To give a guestimate, I would reckon that it's not worthwhile having a separate WikiProject bureaucracy for A-class review at less than 10,000 assessed articles. That's not to say that smaller but active projects couldn't do their own reviews, but simply that there would be no real need to use anything other than the project talkpage (or an ad hoc subpage) to do them on. Physchim62 (talk) 15:44, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
      • Not quite, but what can be changed is the level at which certain processes take place. In other words, the question is not whether, for example, Chemicals is a task force of Chemistry or a separate project, per se; it's whether or not Chemicals maintains a separate assessment and review process from Chemistry.
      • In practice, pushing labor-intensive processes up the WikiProject chain tends to result in an increased manpower pool, simply because the proportion of editors participating in these processes is small relative to the overall membership. Suppose that project A and its child projects A1, A2, and A3 each have two members willing to devote significant time to reviewing articles. None of the four projects have enough reviewers to sustain an internal review process; but if the projects are consolidated such that project A has the only remaining review, and articles from A1/A2/A3 are automatically sent there, then there's a pool of eight reviewers—enough to keep a process running.
      • The key, here, is to cluster projects upwards until there's a viable pool of meta-editors—people who are willing to spend time reviewing others' articles rather than writing their own—and then eliminate any competing processes below that level. There are various ways to do this even without formally changing the relationship between the projects (i.e. turning one into a task force of the other); but, in my personal experience, I've found that such outright absorption is the neatest way to keep all the projects in sync in the long run. Kirill [pf] 02:01, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
        • Thanks, Kirill, as you aptly and accurately explained my reasoning for the above statement. A task force inherits assessments from their parent project, but a descendant does not inherit assessments from their parent. That's a huge difference in a discussion concerning quality assessments. If someone from The Dark Tower WikiProject came on here and was complaining that his/her project couldn't handle doing A-Class reviews, shouldn't we consider the fact that the project in question has less than 30 listed members (let alone how many active members) and that the scope of their project would never pass as a stand-along project nowadays? But if they were a task force of WP:LIT, WP:NOVELS, WP:WFs, or WP:HORROR, then they wouldn't need to worry about it… they'd inherit the parent project's A-Class review. hornoir (talk) 10:56, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

"Strong B-class assessments"

What I really can't understand from this discussion are the projects (either "represented" here or not) which use a "strong B-class assessment" but which don't use A-class. WP:MATH even has a B+-class listed as an example at Template:WPBannerMeta/class. What do they think they need to do to do an A-class assessment?

What is the block in using A-class? Is it that these Projects think they should do a mini-FAC on all candidates? If so, I would say that's a waste of time: if you want a FAC assessment, go to FAC! Is it that they think that they cannot assess "completeness"? If so, then Wikipedia as a whole cannot assess "completeness" by any objective scale, we just have to do the best we can with the resources we have, and that goes for WikiProjects as well: the important part is to try to assess it and to learn from mistakes to help in overall article improvement. Physchim62 (talk) 16:40, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Just musing, but there's more to A-Class than assessments. Putting an assessment procedure in place requires editors who have the expertise and desire to review (and maintain the mechanisms that go with it), and others who are willing to put in the non-trivial amount of work to get their articles up to standard. In a cost/benefit approach, a project may see a greater benefit in turning many stubs and starts into C- and B-Class articles rather than expending greater effort to turn a lesser number of B's into A's. We've been having this discussion on Milhist recently, and there's certainly good arguments for concentrating on the lower end of the quality scale. EyeSerenetalk 18:17, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
On a cost/benefit analysis, the benefit for the encyclopedia is getting editors in a particular subject area (let's call them "WikiProjects" for the sake of argument) to ask themselves "what should a complete encyclopedic article in our subject area contain?" and "does this particular article seem to be 'effectively complete'?" The cost is the time it takes our volunteers to do that, but it shouldn't be so excessive that they don't do it at all, nor should it seems so excessive that they choose to do it without telling people about it. Physchim62 (talk) 18:40, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
I think EyeSerene hit the nail on the head with that comment. Many editors would rather get many articles up to "good enough" (aka C- or B-class) than improve already "good enough" articles further. So it's probably not just that assessors don't want to deal with A-class assessment, but also that editors working on articles may be hesitant to put in the extra effort to bring articles up to that quality. Obviously this varies by WikiProject, but at least in some places this seems to be the case. cmadler (talk) 19:26, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
Personally I think that such editors are doing more for the encyclopedia than the so-called "FA writers". But, given that we will always have editors who wish to strive for "excellence" without realising that the concept is purely subjective, what should be the direction in which the Community as whole tries to guide them? Physchim62 (talk) 20:29, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
This is (a small) part of the reason I support the detachment of FA and GA from the WikiProject assessment scale. If - and of course it's up to whichever project itself - a project adopts the "Featured status confers automatic A-Class" idea, they don't need to review for A-Class themselves. This could suit the smaller or more specialised projects very well, although I fully agree with your comment above regarding completeness. If the expertise to assess this doesn't exist in the project, it may be difficult to find elsewhere, including at FAC. It also erroneously implies an equivalence between A-Class and FA that could potentially be confusing. However, none of the alternatives suggested so far have been completely convincing, but discussion is still at an early stage... EyeSerenetalk 21:13, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
In quite a few projects, FA and A-class essentially *are* equivalent, and there's been very little reason to change that. It works for a lot of them. I can see the rationale for having one that assesses value to Wikipedia and another that assesses value to the project - but seriously, who has the time to do all this? Many people who have the ability to do comprehensive reviews have busy jobs and careers which they've earned and come into with those very same abilities and would much rather work on content itself than participating in a parallel bureaucratic process which results in a rating (A-class within a project) which is essentially meaningless. There is also a history of copying ratings across - and even bots that have done it. So for example an A-class in Military history might end up becoming an A-class in Biography and in Australia even though noone from those two projects has reviewed it. It still, to be honest, to me often ends up being a bit of a power trip within a very small pond. Orderinchaos 01:55, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
One question, are you even a member of a wikiproject? Because all your comments strike me as completely uninformed about what really goes on in Wikiprojects. Accusations of bureaucracy, powertrips, claims that assessment are useless, ... Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 03:03, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
Headbomb, please try to assume good faith by not calling other users' personal opinions as being "uninformed about what really goes on in Wikiprojects", especially since a quick search turns up this and this. -Drilnoth (talk) 03:11, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
Indeed, my major commitments have been to WikiProject Australia (managing 68,000+ articles) and its various subprojects , especially the state-based geographical ones. I'm fairly heavily involved at WP:AWNB and often make suggestions with regards to the WP's operation. My efforts saw several smaller, non-viable ones merged into more functional entities in 2007. I've created articles at every level from Stub to FA, I've rated others' efforts, I helped drag an FAC kicking and screaming to a positive conclusion when it was nominated possibly a bit early for promotion, and have pretty positive relations with the FAC team. Many of the areas I work in, I've struggled to get any kind of review mechanism going, even though I believe on principle in having my own work reviewed, and the times it has been by an appropriately qualified person have proved positive, but it has also convinced me that a formal review process outside of very committed (or time-rich) projects would be near impossible. Orderinchaos 16:42, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
I really question how many wikiprojects will be able to adequately screen for "completeness". My guess is very, very few. There are a lot of us who write about history but there are relatively few individuals who might know whether an article on a given topic is truly "complete" or not (and chances are they already helped with that article). I suspect most of the WikiProjects I'm involved in would not have their own A-class review, simply because there's a) not enough interest in having a separate assessment scale and b) not enough expertise to be able to judge at all. Karanacs (talk) 21:20, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
In that case, how do you think the issue of completeness should be handled on Wikipedia? If we want to improve the quality of our articles, we can't duck the issue. If you recall the Nature study, where reviewers were asked to "look for three types of inaccuracy: factual errors, critical omissions and misleading statements." (my emphasis) How can we avoid these critical omissions? Walkerma (talk) 21:55, 2 March 2009 (UTC
The edit button is there. If you don't want to do the work yourself, writing an informal note on the talk page is also easy. If you are the author of the article, simply sending a message to one or two members who are interested in this topic is probably enough as well. Plus, there is nothing that the community will miss that the A/B/C-class reviewers won't as well. NuclearWarfare (Talk) 22:19, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
Surely that's an argument for the abolition of all article assesment, and especially the bureaucratic comminity-wide processes of GAN and FAC. Is that really what you're suggesting? Physchim62 (talk) 22:30, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
Well, no not really. The difference between A-class and FA though is that FAC attracts reviewers from all over the encyclopedia. Though theoretically A class reviews can be attended by anyone, no one will really go through and browse every wikiproject, so A-class reviews will essentially only be reviewed by the members of that Wikiproject. And keeping reviews of article worthiness within a small group of editors doesn't seem like good idea to me. It is always best if we keep things as open as possible. Plus, if a Wikiproject feels that an article is missing vital information, FARC and GAR would remove it pretty quickly for failing criteria 1b and 3 respectively. So all this is doing is adding an extra layer of review for Wikiprojects that really need people to edit their articles more than anything. I'd take two articles article that were at 80% completeness over one at 98% completeness for sure. NuclearWarfare (Talk) 22:41, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) How many editors actually go through and browse all the articles at FAC and GAN? I guess that Sandy browses most of those at FAC but, with all due respect, Sandy is not an expert in all subject areas. Good Articles are currently passed by a single reviewer; Featured articles are passed by whoever turns up during a seven-day period at FAC. Between them they have assessed 15–20 thousand articles. With a more flexible system, including longer reviews in many cases for the highest levels, the WikiProjects have assessed 1½ million articles. I think it's clear which system is the more relevant to the encyclopedia as a whole, and which system has the greater participation of editors. Physchim62 (talk) 23:09, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, 1) FAC is fourteen days+. Not seven. 2) I think that they do a good job at assessing content. See The Sword of Shannara for an example of mine. —Ed 17 (Talk / Contribs) 00:39, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
  • Th block on using A-Class is o0ne I thought I'd outlined above. I think you're missing something here, in that a number of WikiProjects take their articles to FA for FA review. It isn't just the case that articles are nominated for FA and the WikiProject knows nothing about it. One thing I would like to suggest though, and I think the article alerts bot is a good step in the right direction, is a bot that would notify each Project talk page when an FA or GA review is opened. Hiding T 13:19, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Plea in favour of content

We simply cannot ignore the question of content. If we have wonderfully formatted junk, we become MySpace; if we have badly formatted, badly referenced encyclopedic content, we are no worse than the Wikipedia of 2005, probably better. To say that just because we can't do something perfectly, we shouldn't do it at all… that is completely against the spirit which got this encyclopedia to where it is today. It also implies that the things which we do do, we pretend to do them perfectly, when it practice that is patently untrue. As Walkerma points out, if we don't judge completeness ourselves, there are plenty of other people willing to do it for us, just not as politely or constructively.

One thing I've learnt from the last 36 hours of discussions is that many small projects which supposedly don't have the expertise to judge completeness are actually doing just that, but that they are not labelling it as A-class. In which case, all their effort goes unnoticed by the rest of the community. Perhaps it's time to give true recognition to those efforts. Physchim62 (talk) 22:14, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Review guidelines

Donkey Joté and his two socks offer themselves as the imperfect A-class review team.

Is it possible to come up with some basic guidelines for a project that wants to do an A-class review of a specific article even if it doesn't have a dedicated A-class review system (as most projects don't and can't have)? Where should I have looked when I dreamt up the system at WP:MEASURE/A? Physchim62 (talk) 01:37, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

  1. It should be aiming to look for gaps in the encyclopedic coverage of the article. (to reflect the most valued point about A-class from the above discussion, and so as not to duplicate other processes)
  2. It must be open to all editors. (policy point, but also essential to achieve the above)
  3. It should be based on consensus. (policy point, but also essential as there may be differing views of "completeness")

Are there any other guidelines which are necessary? Physchim62 (talk) 01:49, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure if this even merits saying, but if the WikiProject has content standards for lower classes (e.g. the "strong B" criteria), then an A-Class review should check that all of those are also met. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 07:10, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
LOL. You never know, though. :) —Ed 17 (Talk / Contribs) 07:17, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
LOL indeed! But see this thread at the talk page of the meta-banner: currently, there's no (simple) way in project banners for projects to ensure that their A-class articles meet B-class criteria! Physchim62 (talk) 13:07, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
  • I think the plurality of reviewers is implicit the the above guidelines. I don't like the idea of the explicit criterion for two reasons:
  1. The "me and my two mates" approach will provide a three-editor review, which is then harder to challenge because it "fulfills the guidelines". Note that "me and my two mates" will provide a consensus at most Wikipedia fora, and has managed to pass at least one spectacularly bad featured article.
  2. It discourages small projects from even attempting A-class review: how to you get a three-editor review team when the project is basically just "me and myself"? The answer is you have to ask around, but it's the asking around that is more important than any given number of reviewers.
So while I agree with the sentiment behind the current criterion, I deliberately left it off the list above. Physchim62 (talk) 14:30, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
Note

In case anyone is interested, the MILHIST requirements for A-class articles are these five points (also, an FAQ page is here):

  • A1. The article/list is consistently referenced with an appropriate citation style, and all claims are verifiable against reputable sources, accurately represent the relevant body of published knowledge, and are supported with specific evidence and external citations as appropriate.
  • A2. The article/list is comprehensive, factually accurate, neutral and focused on the main topic; it neglects no major facts or details, presents views fairly and without bias, and does not go into unnecessary detail.
  • A3. The article/list has an appropriate structure of hierarchical headings, including a concise lead section that summarizes the topic and prepares the reader for the detail in the subsequent sections, and a substantial but not overwhelming table of contents.
  • A4. The article/list is written in concise and articulate English; its prose is clear, is in line with style guidelines, and does not require substantial copy-editing to be fully MoS-compliant.
  • A5. The article/list contains appropriately licensed supporting visual materials, such as images or diagrams with succinct captions, and other media, where relevant.

See also the A-Class assessment & criteria FAQ.

—Ed 17 (Talk / Contribs) 08:56, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I pretty much plagiarised was inspired by MilHist for the draft guidance at Wikipedia:WikiProject Comics/Assessment/A-class FAQ. Hiding T 13:11, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
Looks a lot like B class with some improvements or tightening of the criteria. Vegaswikian (talk) 20:24, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
(@ Hiding) - LOL.
(@ Vegaswikian) - it's supposed to. The FAQ page says "The A-Class criteria cover the same ground – A1 is a stricter version of B1, A2 is a tighter definition of comprehensive than B2 – and so forth." (of the MILHIST B-class, btw). —Ed 17 (Talk / Contribs) 22:14, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Summary of second discussion point: Getting a system that works for all

  • A suggestion was made that WP:PR might provide a useful review and second opinion, particularly since it is organized by general subject area. There was some question of the value of WP:PR, since it traditionally focuses on style more than content.
  • Another suggestion was made for a pool of general reviewers who might not be WikiProject members actively writing in a particular subject area, but who retain some expertise in that area.
  • There was some discussion on task forces, and the viable size for a WikiProject or an A-Class review scheme.
  • Smaller projects therefore have several options besides internal peer review - parent/sister projects, WP:PR, a pool of floating A-Class reviewers (and also, perhaps, passing at WP:FAC?), and some review guidelines were floated.
  • Some strongly believe that the GAN and FAC systems work more effectively, because they are very active, and draw on people from across the whole community rather than from a narrow group; others are unconvinced that GAN/FAC can effectively review completeness and specialist content.
  • Many editors do not think getting an article up to A-Class is worth the trouble; with the stronger B-Class, many would rather get an article to be "good enough" (B-Class) instead. This has led to A-Class becoming inactive in some projects, and B-Class becoming quite a high standard.
  • The A-Class system was seen by some as drawing reviewers away from FAC, but others pointed out that an A-Class review often reduces the burden at FAC, as Sandy herself has mentioned.
  • Foreshadowing the third discussion point, some believed that A-Class might work better if it carried more "cachet", like GA and FA.
  • In a side discussion, there was a proposal to allow general readers (not aligned with a project) to post assessments, but the consensus seemed to be that this scheme would be too complex to work well in practice.

Walkerma (talk) 08:16, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Third discussion point: Expanding the appropriate use of A-Class

How can we get WikiProjects to use A-Class in a way that is useful & productive to them and the community?

Question 3 discussion
  • The consensus so far seems to favour keeping A-Class, and some good ideas were floated yesterday for making A-Class more viable for small projects that want to use it (though it would be optional). So, how can we get the message out to the projects, and how do we get new mechanisms to work effectively and unbureaucratically?
    • It is understood that A-Class may simply be inappropriate for some projects.
    • Some of this will involve a simple feel-good incentive, for individual editors and for WikiProjects, and perhaps for reviewers too, if we want to get participation. This will allow A-Class to become a viable "goal".
    • If this is to be done, it is probably necessary to prevent the use of single-reviewer A-Class assessments; we especially don't want editor X to write an article, then "award" themselves A-Class for it. This could be done using the bot and a logging system - the same way we track people tagging their own articles as GA, but a system will probably be needed.
    • Having a person (or people) to promote and guide the effective use of A-Class - this could help projects get their A-Class reviewing off the ground. Drilnoth and myself are currently jointly acting in that role, though we'd welcome help from others.
    • Are there other ways to promote appropriate use of A-Class?
  • I'll post a question 4 tomorrow, we'll see how today goes. Walkerma (talk) 08:41, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
Walkerma - not responding to that right now, but thanks for doing this (summarizing and asking questions in this way). It helps to prod us along and not just have an infinite block of discussion. :) —Ed 17 (Talk / Contribs) 08:53, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
  • I don't think you can get WikiProjects to use A-Class if they don't want to, much like some projects don't use B-Class criteria or internal Peer Review. I think A-Class can be a great double-safety method for Wikipedia, meaning that if an article passes FA- but then all the projects the article fall under are listing it as B-Class that the article might need another look for FA-Classification. This is, primarily, why I dislike inherited GA- and FA-Classes (projects using those classes that are handed to them)… I think it makes the project less-attentive to the article until that class is forcibly removed from it. Of course, the same will probably happen when an article reaches FA- and all projects associated grant it A-Class, but the amount of input at that point should guarantee a higher quality. Maybe I'm alone in this view, but an article is never done, no matter what classification it obtains; and, I think, the more eyes quality rating it leads to more probable accuracy. hornoir (talk) 10:42, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
  • I don't think I've got too much to offer here. I think you need a critical mass of involved editors to get this running at a WikiProject. It's taken WP:COMICS years to get to B-Class reviews, and we're losing a reviewer right now, so there's just two of us handling the reviewing that I can see. And we're not even "specialist" on all the fields WP:COMICS covers. I couldn't tell you if some of the comics articles are complete, because I'm not that up on superhero comics. So if people have ideas on how to engage people, that'd be great. Hiding T 12:45, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
  • Having said that, I've just checked up on the thread were we're discussing this at WP:COMICS and it looks like my pessimism is unfounded. There's a consensus among the contributors to the discussion, well, the three of us mentioned above, that we should look to push for A-Class after GA. So we're still looking at entrenching the GA-A-FA chain. It was also suggested again to make use of peer review for help with assessing, to cover things we might miss. So it does seem to be coming back, from our end, to getting outside commentary through peer review. I think one problem is this: in my experience in an FA or GA review, the reviewers never get their hands dirty doing hard work on the articles. But with WikiProject reviews, it's the complete opposite. We're sitting there, and we say, right, this is C-Class, but look, we just need to cite this, this and this, add this and that, and we're B-Class and we can put it in for GA review. And then in the GA review, we pretty much cover anything that comes up. And the same for FA reviews, although we haven't really got a chain set up to get there yet. Hiding T 12:53, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
  • There are only ten wikiprojects that currently have A-class reviews. I am highly skeptical that anything this group comes up with is going to increase that number very significantly. Even if we get up to 20 or 30 wikiprojects having these reviews, that leaves hundreds which don't, so there is no critical mass. It's hard to get reviewers for any process (hence why PR/GAC/FAC are always somewhat backlogged), and I suspect that a lot of wikiprojects feel it makes much more sense for them to improve articles rather than review them. We've been trying for a while to attract new reviewers to FAC with little luck; I see the same problems here. I also don't appear to fully understand why we want to encourage this? Karanacs (talk) 15:49, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
    • Erm, where do you get that number 'ten from (your emphasis)? Category:WikiProject A-Class Review lists 28 pages which, between them, cover more than half of all assessed articles on Wikipedia, and about half of all articles in total. I'm of the strong opinion that no changes to A-class should stop projects improving articles. I'm also of the strong opinion that no centralised body can carry out article assessment over the whole of Wikipedia: the task is simply too big! Experience at WP:FAC shows that, and WP:GAN isn't looking too good these days either, dispite its "lighter" assessment criteria. So either we do no assessment at all (bad), or we only do it partially (worse), or we do it through the WikiProjects (better idea). Physchim62 (talk) 23:06, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
      • Most of those projects have inactive A-Class reviews; a list of active or otherwise major A-Class review pages can be seen here. -Drilnoth (talk) 23:10, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
        • And what does "active" or "inactive" mean? We're quite capable of doing an A-class review at WP:CHEMS, after all we invented the damn thing, but haven't done one for a while because of a lack of candidates. On the other hand, I am currently doing an A-class review at WP:MEASURE, which isn't on your list either. Physchim62 (talk) 23:31, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
          • I was basing this based mainly on two things: What the most recent activity was on the A-Class review page, and the number of A-Class articles that the project currently has. WP:CHEMS hasn't had some activity for quite awhile, so I didn't include it. WP:MEASURE, on the other hand, has only one currently A-Class article. Feel free to edit the userpage if you'd like to add a missing project; I did that page fairly quickly, so didn't have the chance to study each project. -Drilnoth (talk) 23:39, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
  • I think one thing that needs to be stressed is that projects don't have to run the A-class review system in the same way as WP:MILHIST or WP:CHEMS. One size doesn't fit all. There is a discussion about review guidelines above, if anyone wants to join in. I think it would be appropriate to tweak the WP1.0 A-class criteria as well, to emphasise that A-class is not just as step on the way to FA, but a quality class in its own right. Projects are welcome to use it as a step on the way to FA, of course, but I think it's a Bad Idea for them to use FA as a substitute for A-class. The only reviewers we have for completeness are those who are editing articles in a given subject area. Tough luck for those who want an objective criterion, but we shouldn't ignore the views of the expertise we actually have at our hands. Physchim62 (talk) 00:17, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
  • I don't see how it's a "Bad Idea" to use FA as a substitute for A-class; to be frank, in most cases, I see more merits in doing it that way. A-class (a WikiProject grade) is quite clearly characterised between GA and FA (two community assigned grades); in the interests of ensuring a consistent high standard is maintained for higher grades as deemed by the wider community, and in the interests of compelling editors to move all the way through to FA than stop at A-class, it's worthwhile. For FACs that become former feature candidates, WikiProjects can play A-class against FA in the same way equity (law) against common law. That's at the WikiProject's discretion. Personally, I'd rather a system of that sort that works in comparison to an almost totally inactive comprehensive A-class review system of its own. In other words, one size doesn't fit all. So I don't think it would be appropriate to tweak the A-class criteria at WP1.0 in that way, unless you're aiming for less consistency between the quality scales of WikiProjects and the editorial team - I don't think that was the aim of having this working group. Ncmvocalist (talk) 02:07, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
  • I'm glad you think A-class is "clearly characterised", because most people in this discussion don't seem to think so. There are several reasons for not using FAC as a substitute for A-class:
  1. While FAC can do useful work in picking up content problems (see here for a current example), it certainly doesn't do that all the time, nor is it set up to do that.
  2. A project which doesn't do it's own A-class assessment is basically saying "we have no idea what we're aiming for, we'll just let those nice people at FAC decide for us".
  3. On the other hand, a project tha assesses at A-class is publicising it's idea of what an "essentially complete" article should include, helping all editors in that area and inviting constructve comments from readers and other editors as to what might be done to futher improve those articles.
  • This is also why I think it is suboptimal for projects to use A-class as some sort of stepping stone on the way to FA: A-class is a separate assessment, intended to be useful both to the project and to outside editors. Physchim62 (talk) 15:51, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I was reading a bit Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Archive 29#A-Class versus GA-Class, and I wonder what the history of GA and A class is with MILHIST? Sounds like they've talked about this over the years. Maybe a summary of that can help us. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 03:58, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

  • I think one of the most important things we can do is keep a readily available list of active A-Class reviews. Smaller projects can get assistance from other projects that have active reviews.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 04:29, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
  • As a drive-by reviewer (see below) I think the thing that would make A-Class reviews easier is to reduce the coordination required. Rather than going to some central WikiProject review page, a template that can be dropped into the talk page that can be filled out by three reviewers in turn, over any amount of time allows the load to be spread across anyone who happens across that page. Having to coordinate a review with other people interactively over a set period of time (as FAC requires) reduces the chances of interested parties contributing. I'm sure I'm not alone in contributing to Wikipedia in spurts, and it's not fair that an A-Class review should rely upon casual WikiProject members being constantly available. TRS-80 (talk) 06:16, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
      • This is an interesting idea, I'll suggest we look at it further (see below). Walkerma (talk) 09:14, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
    • Drive-by reviewing: I generally review articles that are unreviewed, or worse, without a project at all, that I see while reading Wikipedia thanks to the metadata script that I'd encourage everyone to turn on ("Display an assessment of an article's quality as part of the page header for each article." in Preferences/Gadgets/User interface gadgets). I'd also like to discuss whether every article should be assigned a WikiProject and assessed, and how the WikiProject Council should evangelise that subject experts are welcome on Wikipedia (contrary to what Sanger etc. claim) as part of WikiProjects which are the driving force behind improvements to Wikipedia's content, but these can wait until the current topics are resolved. TRS-80 (talk) 06:16, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
      • The WP:WVWP project at WP:1.0, which set up the assessment scheme originally, now oversees articles with no project. Frequently I add a WikiProject tag to such things with no assessment, but if that's not easy you can use the 1.0 template with "orphan=yes" as a parameter. We can talk over at the WVWP page if you want to help with that effort, which went quiet after our active person went on wikibreak. As for evangelism, yes, we should do that (I already do that in my field, chemistry); I think we need to discuss how we could make WP a friendly place for (non-pompous/condescending) subject experts. I think it's another discussion for another day, but please don't forget about it, it's an excellent idea!

Summary of the third discussion point: Expanding the appropriate use of A-Class

  • Many people remain unconvinced that an A-Class review system is practicable outside of a few large, active projects, though one person noted a change at WP:COMICS where a small WikiProject is going to try A-Class review. This reinforces earlier discussion that suggested that use of A-Class should be optional. (All levels are of course optional, but perhaps we need to state this explicitly when we talk about a review system). Some of the "unconvinced" simply regard it as accepting the reality of the situation, while others regard GA and FA as adequate methods for assessing completeness already.
  • The discussion on #Review_guidelines has generated some ideas on how reviews might be done - this could be made easier to find for a new project.
  • We should maintain a central set of active A-Class reviews (perhaps using Drilnoth's very useful list as the starting point, with the understanding that such a list will always be incomplete and "active" may be hard to define.
  • One late suggestion was to allow A-Class review to occur on the article talk page.

This discussion was harder to bring together. Have I missed anything major? Walkerma (talk) 09:03, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

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