Contributing to Wikipedia: Content Assessment

The purpose of content, or article assessment, is to monitor the quality of articles in subject areas to identify areas for improvement.

The quality of articles range from Stub to "good articles" (GA) or "featured articles" (FA): Stub, Start, C, B, GA, A, FM, FL, FA.

Three aspects of articles are assessed:

• Prose: Is the article well-organized, easy to read and easy to understand, avoiding needless jargon, with no spelling or grammar errors?
• Technical style: Does the article cite reliable sources to support what it says? Does it have appropriate formatting, wikilinks, categories, etc.?
• Coverage: Does the article give detailed and in-depth coverage of all significant aspects of the subject?

(Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Assessing_articles)

The best way to improve Stub, Start, and C class articles is to aim to satisfy the criteria for a B-Class article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Content_assessment/B-Class_criteria

The criteria for each grade can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Content_assessment#Quality_scale,

Editors who have written or improved articles can set the quality grade they think appropriate in the article's talk page, except for GA, FA, and A-class ratings, which go through a separate nomination/review process. Instructions for adding a grade can be found on this page under "How do I asses an article?" here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Content_assessment

In general, high-quality articles have five elements:

• A lead section that gives an easy-to-understand overview
• A clear structure
• Balanced coverage
• Neutral content
• Reliable sources

(Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/52/Evaluating_Wikipedia_brochure.pdf)

• The article has a warning banner at the top. Most warning banners are only information or requests, such as asking you to help expand the article if it is very short. But warning banners can also represent an unresolved dispute about the article’s neutrality or the quality of its sources.
• Several language problems are in the lead section of the article. Problems in the lead usually indicate problems with the whole article. A very short lead section may indicate an article that has grown up piece-by-piece, without much attention to the overall work.
• The language contains unsourced opinions and value statements, which are not neutral and should be removed. For example, instead of saying: “She was the best singer,” the text should say: “She had 14 number one hits, more than any other singer.”
• The article refers to “some,” “many,” or other unnamed groups of people. These statements are too general and should be replaced with facts.
• There seem to be aspects of the topic that are missing from the table of contents and the article. For instance, a biography that skips an entire period of its subject’s life may be missing important facts.
• Some sections seem overly long in proportion to their importance. For example, a big “criticism” section in an otherwise short article about a company suggests that the article is biased against the company.
• The article has very few references, or substantial parts of the article lack footnotes. If an article is based on too few sources, it may have been written without complete information about the subject.
• The Talk page is filled with hostile dialogue. If the editors working on the article are not finding common ground, the article may be heavily biased in one direction, or may reflect too much detail about the controversial aspect of its subject without sufficient attention to less controversial aspects.

(Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/52/Evaluating_Wikipedia_brochure.pdf)