 | This page documents an English Wikipediaediting guideline. Editors should generally follow it, thoughexceptions may apply.Substantive edits to this page should reflectconsensus. When in doubt, discuss first onthis guideline's talk page. |
 | This page in a nutshell: Anyone can add a quality assessment below GA-class, regardless of WikiProjects. Higher ratings require more formal processes and consensus. |
The following system is used to assess the quality of a Wikipedia article. The system is based on a letter scheme that reflects principally how factually complete the article is, thoughlanguage quality andlayout are also factors.
The quality assessments are mainly performed by Wikipedia editors, who tag Talk pages of articles;some bots set theclass tag for assessment based on other Talk tags or based on editor selected values. Editor assistance tools likeRater apply automatedORES orLift Wing article assessments, offering a prediction based on structural characteristics of the page (e.g. sectioning and references) that correlate with quality, for the class tag. These tags are thencollected by a bot, which generates output such as alog andstatistics. For more information, seeUsing the bot. In 2023,project-independent quality assessments were introduced, so editors only have to rate an article once and it applies to all associated projects.
Most grades are assessed by individual editors according to the criteria on this page. Generally speaking, all editors, including editors who have written or improved an article, are encouraged toboldly set any quality rating that they believe is appropriate, except for the GA, FA, and A-class ratings. GAs (Good Articles) are generally reviewed by a single independent editor after a nomination atWP:Good article nominations. FAs (Featured Articles) are reviewed by several editors atWP:Featured article candidates. Be aware thata few projects have opted out of the standard quality scale, and use their own variation of the criteria more tuned for the subject area, such asWikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment.
It is vital that editors not take these assessments of their contributions personally. It is understood that we each have our own opinions of the priorities of the objective criteria for a perfect article. If there is disagreement over the quality rating of an article, then it should be discussed on the article's talk page.
As of August 2024,over eight million articles have been assessed. Several other languages are also using this assessment system or a derivative thereof.
Note that theassessment ratings mentioned here haveno relationship whatsoever tograding in education orreview scores like A/B/C/D/F or other rating systems (10-point scale, 5-star system, etc.) that you might see onhomework andproduct reviews. They solely represent the amount of work needed to bring the article to the next rating, which depends on both the quality of the writingand the depth of coverage of the topic, which greatlyvaries by subject.
The differences betweenStub,Start, andC classes are fairly subjective; at those ratings, the best way to improve the article is to look at the specific criteria forB-Class and aim to satisfy those. Specific feedback can often be sought on the talk pages of the relevantWikiProject, found on the talk page of the article. However,searching for them can often reveal more topical projects; for instance, if an article is about a Kenyan astronomer, you might want to search for "Biography", "Kenya", and "Astronomy" to findWikiProject Biography,WikiProject Kenya, andWikiProject Astronomy.
Some WikiProjects omit standard classes, most often A-Class, especially when they lack an assessment team.
| Class | Criteria | Reader's experience | Editing suggestions | Example |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 FA | The article has attainedfeatured article status by passing an in-depth examination by impartial reviewers fromWP:Featured article candidates. More detailed criteria The article meets thefeatured article criteria: Afeatured article exemplifies Wikipedia's very best work and is distinguished by professional standards of writing, presentation, and sourcing. In addition to meeting thepolicies regarding content for all Wikipedia articles, it has the following attributes.
| Professional, outstanding, and thorough; a definitive source for encyclopedic information. | No further content additions should be necessary unless new information becomes available; further improvements to the prose quality are often possible. | Cleopatra (as of June 2018) |
| FL | The article has attainedfeatured list status by passing an in-depth examination by impartial reviewers fromWP:Featured list candidates. More detailed criteria The article meets thefeatured list criteria:
| Professional standard; it comprehensively covers the defined scope, usually providing a complete set of items, and has annotations that provide useful and appropriate information about those items. | No further content additions should be necessary unless new information becomes available; further improvements to the prose quality are often possible. | List of dates predicted for apocalyptic events (as of May 2018) |
| FM | Pictures that have attainedfeatured picture status by passing an in-depth examination by impartial reviewers fromWikipedia:Featured picture candidates. More detailed criteria Afeatured picture:
| The page contains a featured image, sound clip or other media-related content. | Make sure that the file is properly licensed and credited. | File:American World War II senior military officials, 1945.JPEG (as of January 2012) |
 A | The article is well organized and essentially complete, having been examined by impartial reviewers from a WikiProject or elsewhere. Good article status is not a requirement for A-Class. More detailed criteria The article meets theA-Class criteria: Provides a well-written, clear and complete description of the topic, as described inWikipedia:Article development. It should be of a length suitable for the subject, appropriately structured, and be well referenced by a broad array of reliable sources. It should be well illustrated, with no copyright problems. Only minor style issues and other details need to be addressed before submission as afeatured article candidate. See the A-Class assessment departments of some of the larger WikiProjects (e.g.WikiProject Military history). | Very useful to readers. A fairly complete treatment of the subject. A non-expert in the subject would typically find nothing wanting. | Expert knowledge may be needed to tweak the article, and style problems may need solving.WP:Peer review may help. | Battle of Nam River (as of June 2014) |
 GA | The article meetsall of thegood article criteria, and has been examined by one or more impartial reviewers fromWP:Good article nominations. More detailed criteria Agood article is:
| Useful to nearly all readers, with no obvious problems; approaching (though not necessarily equalling) the quality of a professional publication. | Some editing by subject and style experts is helpful; comparison with an existingfeatured article on a similar topic may highlight areas where content is weak or missing. | Discovery of the neutron (as of April 2019) |
| B | The article meetsall of theB-Class criteria. It is mostly complete and does not have major problems, but requires some further work to reachgood article standards. More detailed criteria
| Readers are not left wanting, although the content may not be complete enough to satisfy a serious student or researcher. | A few aspects of content and style need to be addressed. Expert knowledge may be needed. The inclusion of supporting materials should be considered if practical, and the article checked for general compliance with theManual of Style and relatedstyle guidelines. | Psychology (as of January 2024) |
| C | The article is substantial but is still missing important content or contains irrelevant material. The article should have some references to reliable sources, but may still have significant problems or require substantialcleanup. More detailed criteria The article cites more than one reliable source and is better developed in style, structure, and quality than Start-Class, but it fails one or more of the criteria for B-Class. It may have some gaps or missing elements, or need editing for clarity, balance, or flow. | Useful to a casual reader, but would not provide a complete picture for even a moderately detailed study. | Considerable editing is needed to close gaps in content and solvecleanup problems. | Wing (as of June 2018) |
| Start | An article that is developing but still quite incomplete. It may or may not cite adequate reliable sources. More detailed criteria The article has a meaningful amount of good content, but it is still weak in many areas. The article has one or more of the following:
| Provides some meaningful content, but most readers will need more. | Providing references toreliable sources should come first; the article also needs substantial improvement in content and organisation. Improve the grammar, spelling, and writing style; decrease the use of jargon. | Ball (as of September 2014) |
| Stub | A very basic description of the topic. Meets none of the Start-Class criteria. | Provides very little meaningful content; may be little more than a dictionary definition. Readers probably see insufficiently developed features of the topic and may not see how the features of the topic are significant. | Any editing or additional material can be helpful. The provision of meaningful content should be a priority. The best solution for a Stub-class Article to step up to a Start-class Article is to add in referenced reasons of why the topic is significant. | Lineage (anthropology) (as of December 2014) |
| List | Meets the criteria of astand-alone list orset index article, which is an article that contains primarily a list, usually consisting of links to articles in a particular subject area. | There is no set format for a list, but its organization should be logical and useful to the reader. | Lists should be lists of live links to Wikipedia articles, appropriately named and organized. | List of literary movements |
SomeWikiProjects use other assessments for mainspace content that do not fit into the above scale:
| Label | Criteria | Reader's experience | Editing suggestions | Example |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Future | A topic for which details are subject to change often. The article covers a future topic, e.g., a forthcoming election or album release, and article content may change as new information arises. | Amount of meaningful content varies over time as the projected event draws near. | Material added might be speculative and should be carefully sourced. | Next United Kingdom general election (as of October 2019) |
| SIA | Anyset index article (SIA) page falls under this class. These are List articles about a set of items of a specific type that also share the same (or similar) name. | The page lists related items of the same name. | An SIA need not follow the formatting rules for disambiguation pages | USS Yorktown (as of May 2018) |
| Disambig | Anydisambiguation page falls under this class. | The page directs the reader to other pages of the same title. | Additions should be made as new articles of that name are created. | Jackson (as of August 2019) |
| Redirect | Anyredirect falls under this class. | The page does not display any article content and redirects to a related topic. | Ensure that the redirect is appropriatelycategorized. | American breakfast (as of October 2016) |
| NA | A page that does not fit into any other category. Used as a "catch-all" by all WikiProjects. | Depends on the type of page. | Depends on the type of page. | N/A |
See alsoWikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment which utilises a parallel scheme of "CL-Class", "BL-Class" and "AL-Class" for list articles.
Further grades are commonly used by WikiProjects to categorize relevant pages in othernamespaces. The precise application of these grades may vary depending on their usage by individual WikiProjects.
| Label | Criteria | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Anycategory falls under this class. | Category:George Orwell |
| Draft | Anydraft falls under this class. These are typically found in the Draft namespace, but may also be in theUser namespace. | Draft:Example |
| File | Anyfile falls under this class; may also includetimed text pages. | File:Flag of Australia.svg |
| Portal | Anyportal falls under this class. | Portal:Biography |
| Project | Anyproject page falls under this class; may also includehelp pages. | Wikipedia:WikiProject Japan |
| Template | Anytemplate falls under this class; may also includemodules oruserboxes. | Template:Magnapop |
| User | Anyuser page falls under this class. | User:Legoktm/afcnew.js |
Note that some WikiProjects deal exclusively with non-mainspace content and may use their own customised assessment schemes tailored to a specific purpose: seeWikipedia:WikiProject Portals/Assessment for one such example.
For an index of all WikiProject assessment pages, seeCategory:WikiProject assessments.
 | Parts of this Wikipedia page (those related to the fact thatAtom has been downgraded to B-Class) need to beupdated. Please help update this Wikipedia page to reflect recent events or newly available information. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page.(July 2023) |
This clickable imagemap, using the article "Atom" as an example, demonstrates the typical profile for an article's development through the levels. Hold the mouse over a number to see key events, andclick on a number to see that version of the article. Please note that until 2008, a C-Class rating did not exist on the project, and as such this grading is retroactive. Also, in 2006 references were much less used, and inline references were quite rare; a barely-B-Class article today would typically have many more references than this article did in late 2006.
There is a (inactive)separate scale for rating articles forimportance orpriority, which is unrelated to thequality scale outlined here. Unlike the quality scale, the priority scale varies based on the project scope. See also the template{{importance scheme}}.
TheWP 1.0 bot tracks assessment data (article quality and importance data for individual WikiProjects) assigned via talk page banners. If you would like to add a new WikiProject to the bot's list, please read the instructions atWikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Using the bot.
The global summary table below is computed by taking the highest quality and importance rating for each assessed article in the main namespace.
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|class=B in the banner. Again, the "FA" and "GA" labels should not be added to articles unless they are currently designated as such. Tools in theSee also section can help with the assessment process.