Wikipedia:WikiProject Former countries/Assessment

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Welcome to the Assessment Department of the Former Countries WikiProject!

This department focuses on assessing the quality of Wikipedia's articles on now-defunct nations. While much of the work is done in conjunction with the WP:1.0 program, the article ratings are also used within the project itself to aid in recognizing excellent contributions and identifying topics in need of further work.

The ratings are done in a distributed fashion through parameters in the {{WPFC}} project banner; this causes the articles to be placed in the appropriate sub-categories of Category:Former country articles by quality, which serves as the foundation for an automatically generated worklist.

Contents 1 Frequently asked questions 2 Instructions 2.1 Quality scale 3 Requesting an assessment 3.1 Requests for A-Class status 4 Tag and Assess 2009 5 Assessment log

[edit] Frequently asked questions

How can I get my article rated? 

Please list it in the section for assessment requests below.

Who can assess articles? 

Any member of the Former countries WikiProject is free to add or change the rating of an article.

Why didn't the reviewer leave any comments? 

Unfortunately, due to the volume of articles that need to be assessed, we are unable to leave detailed comments in most cases. If you have particular questions, you might ask the person who assessed the article; they will usually be happy to provide you with their reasoning.

What if I don't agree with a rating? 

You can list it in the section for assessment requests below, and someone will take a look at it. Alternately, you can ask any member of the project to rate the article again.

Aren't the ratings subjective? 

Yes, they are, but it's the best system we've been able to devise; if you have a better idea, please don't hesitate to let us know!

If you have any other questions not listed here, please feel free to ask them on the discussion page for this department.

[edit] Instructions

An article's quality assessment is generated from the class parameter in the {{WPFC}} project banner on its talk page:

{{WPFC| ... | class=??? | ...}}

The following values may be used for the class parameter to describe the quality of the article:

• FA (adds articles to Category:FA-Class former country articles; should only be used for articles that are currently listed as featured articles)
• A (adds articles to Category:A-Class former country articles; should only be used for articles that have successfuly passed through the A-Class review)
• GA (adds articles to Category:GA-Class former country articles; should only be used for articles that are currently listed as good articles)
• B (adds articles to Category:B-Class former country articles)
• Start (adds articles to Category:Start-Class former country articles)
• Stub (adds articles to Category:Stub-Class former country articles)
• Needed (for articles that do not yet exist but have been identified as subjects that should be covered; adds articles to Category:Needed-Class former country articles)

For pages that are not articles, the following values can also be used for the class parameter:

• Template (for templates; adds pages to Category:Template-Class former country articles)
• Dab or Disambig (for disambiguation pages; add pages to Category:Disambig-Class former country articles)
• Cat or Category (for categories; adds pages to Category:Category-Class former country articles)
• List (for lists; adds pages to Category:List-Class former country articles)
• NA (for any other pages where assessment is unnecessary; adds pages to Category:NA-Class former country articles)
• Articles without a valid class are listed under Category:Unassessed former country articles)

The class should be assigned according to the quality scale below.

After assessing an article's quality, comments on the assessment can be added to the article's talk page.

[edit] Quality scale

WikiProject article progress grading scheme [  v • d • e  ]

Class	Criteria	Reader's experience	Editing suggestions	Example
FA	The article has attained featured article status. More detailed criteria The article meets the featured article criteria: A featured article exemplifies our very best work and features professional standards of writing, presentation and sourcing. In addition to meeting the requirements for all Wikipedia articles, it has the following attributes. It is— (a) well-written: its prose is engaging, even brilliant, and of a professional standard; (b) comprehensive: it neglects no major facts or details and places the subject in context; (c) well-researched: it is characterized by a thorough and representative survey of relevant literature on the topic. Claims are verifiable against high-quality reliable sources and are supported with citations; this requires a "References" section in which sources are listed, complemented by inline citations where appropriate; (d) neutral: it presents views fairly and without bias; and (e) stable: it is not subject to ongoing edit wars and its content does not change significantly from day to day, except in response to the featured article process. It follows the style guidelines, including the provision of: (a) a lead—a concise lead section that summarizes the topic and prepares the reader for the detail in the subsequent sections; (b) appropriate structure—a system of hierarchical section headings and a substantial but not overwhelming table of contents; and (c) consistent citations—where required by Criterion 1c, consistently formatted inline citations using either footnotes (<ref>Smith 2007, p. 1.</ref>) or Harvard referencing (Smith 2007, p. 1) (see citing sources for suggestions on formatting references; for articles with footnotes, the meta:cite format is recommended). Images. It has images that follow the image use policies and other media where appropriate, with succinct captions, brief and useful alt text when feasible, and acceptable copyright status. Non-free images or media must satisfy the criteria for inclusion of non-free content and be labeled accordingly. Length. It stays focused on the main topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).	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.	Byzantine Empire (as of April 2009)
FL	The article has attained featured list status. More detailed criteria The article meets the featured list criteria: Prose. It features professional standards of writing. Lead. It has an engaging lead that introduces the subject and defines the scope and inclusion criteria. Comprehensiveness. (a) It comprehensively covers the defined scope, providing at least all of the major items and, where practical, a complete set of items; where appropriate, it has annotations that provide useful and appropriate information about the items. (b) In length and/or topic, it meets all of the requirements for stand-alone lists; it is not a content fork, does not largely recreate material from another article, and could not reasonably be included as part of a related article. Structure. It is easy to navigate through and includes, where helpful, section headings and table sort facilities. Style. It complies with the Manual of Style and its supplementary pages. (a) Visual appeal. It makes suitable use of text layout, formatting, tables, and colour. (b) Media files. It has images and other media, if appropriate to the topic, that follow Wikipedia's usage policies, with succinct captions and "alt" text if necessary. Non-free images and other media satisfy the criteria for the inclusion of non-free content and are labeled accordingly. Stability. It is not the subject of ongoing edit wars and its content does not change significantly from day to day, except in response to the featured list process.	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.	none (as of April 2000)
A	The article is well organized and essentially complete, having been reviewed by impartial reviewers from a WikiProject or elsewhere. Good article status is not a requirement for A-Class. More detailed criteria The article meets the A-Class criteria: Shortcut: WP:A? Provides a well-written, clear and complete description of the topic, as described in Wikipedia:How to write a great article. 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 a featured article candidate. See the A-Class assessment departments of some of the larger WikiProjects (e.g. WikiProject Military history, WikiProject Films).	Very useful to readers. A fairly complete treatment of the subject. A non-expert in the subject matter would typically find nothing wanting.	Expert knowledge may be needed to tweak the article, and style issues may need addressing. Peer-review may help.	none (as of April 2009)
GA	The article has attained good article status. More detailed criteria The article meets the good article criteria: Well-written: (a) the prose is clear and the spelling and grammar are correct; and (b) it complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, jargon, words to avoid, fiction, and list incorporation. Factually accurate and verifiable: (a) it provides references to all sources of information in the section(s) dedicated to the attribution of these sources according to the guide to layout; (b) it provides in-line citations from reliable sources for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons; and (c) it contains no original research. Broad in its coverage: (a) it addresses the main aspects of the topic; and (b) it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style). Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without bias. Stable: it does not change significantly from day-to-day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute. Illustrated, if possible, by images: (a) images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content; and (b) images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.	Useful to nearly all readers, with no obvious problems; approaching (although not equalling) the quality of a professional encyclopedia.	Some editing by subject and style experts is helpful; comparison with an existing featured article on a similar topic may highlight areas where content is weak or missing.	Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic (as of April 2009)
B	The article is mostly complete and without major issues, but requires some further work to reach good article standards. More detailed criteria The article meets the six B-Class criteria: The article is suitably referenced, with inline citations where necessary.It has reliable sources, and any important or controversial material which is likely to be challenged is cited. The use of citation templates such as {{cite web}} is not required, but the use of <ref></ref> tags is encouraged. The article reasonably covers the topic, and does not contain obvious omissions or inaccuracies.It contains a large proportion of the material necessary for an A-Class article, although some sections may need expansion, and some less important topics may be missing. The article has a defined structure.Content should be organized into groups of related material, including a lead section and all the sections that can reasonably be included in an article of its kind. The article is reasonably well-written.The prose contains no major grammatical errors and flows sensibly, but it certainly need not be "brilliant". The Manual of Style need not be followed rigorously. The article contains supporting materials where appropriate.Illustrations are encouraged, though not required. Diagrams and an infobox etc. should be included where they are relevant and useful to the content. The article presents its content in an appropriately accessible way.It is written with as broad an audience in mind as possible. Although Wikipedia is more than just a general encyclopedia, the article should not assume unnecessary technical background and technical terms should be explained or avoided where possible.	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, and expert knowledge is increasingly needed. The inclusion of supporting materials should also be considered if practical, and the article checked for general compliance with the manual of style and related style guidelines.	Irish Republic (as of April 2009)
C	The article is substantial, but is still missing important content or contains a lot of irrelevant material. The article should have some references to reliable sources, but may still have significant issues or require substantial cleanup. More detailed criteria The article is better developed in style, structure and quality than Start-Class, but fails one or more of the criteria for B-Class. It may have some gaps or missing elements; need editing for clarity, balance or flow; or contain policy violations such as bias or original research. Articles on fictional topics are likely to be marked as C-Class if they are written from an in-universe perspective.	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 address cleanup issues.	Aztec (as of April 2009)
Start	An article that is developing, but which is quite incomplete and, most notably, lacks adequate reliable sources. More detailed criteria The article has a usable amount of good content, but it is weak in many areas, usually in referencing. Quality of the prose may be distinctly unencyclopedic, and MoS compliance non-existent; but the article should satisfy fundamental content policies such as notability and BLP, and provide enough sources to establish verifiability. No Start-Class article should be in any danger of being speedily deleted.	Provides some meaningful content, but the majority of readers will need more.	Provision of references to reliable sources should be prioritised; the article will also need substantial improvements in content and organisation.	British Mandate of Mesopotamia (as of April 2009)
Stub	A very basic description of the topic. More detailed criteria The article is either a very short article or a rough collection of information that will need much work to become a meaningful article. It is usually very short, but if the material is irrelevant or incomprehensible, an article of any length falls into this category.	Provides very little meaningful content; may be little more than a dictionary definition.	Any editing or additional material can be helpful. The provision of meaningful content should be a priority.	Bidar Sultanate (as of April 2009)
List	Meets the criteria of a stand-alone list, 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 kings of Urartu (as of April 2009)

[edit] Requesting an assessment

If you have made significant changes to an article and would like an outside opinion on a new rating for it, please feel free to list it below. If you are interested in more extensive comments on an article, please use the peer review department instead. (please note that this department is currently undergoing renovations, so please post your peer review requests here, but make sure to note that you wish for a peer review, not just a regular review)

1. Duchy of Florence I wrote a new artilce. (Jack1755 (talk) 00:01, 25 May 2009 (UTC)) very good work on yet another article! I originally assessed it as Start-Class as I found some grammatical errors. However, as I have already fixed the grammatical erros in the article, I re-assessed it as B-Class.
2. Republic of Florence I wrote another new artilce. (Jack1755 (talk) 00:01, 25 May 2009 (UTC)) Very good work on another article! I originally assessed it as Start-Class because I found some grammatical errors. However, as I have already fixed the grammatical errors in the article, it has been re-assessed as B-Class. Laurinavicius (talk) 21:45, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
3. Grand Duchy of Tuscany I completely over-hauled the article-user:Jack1755 Very good work on greatly expanding the article and adding and fully completing the infobox! However, I only assessed it as Start-Class as I found some grammatical errors within the text of the article. However, once these errors are corrected, then the article will be re-assessed as B-Class. I'll get to work on fixing these mistakes up as soon as possible. Laurinavicius (talk) 21:50, 20 May 2009 (UTC) Re-assessed as B-Class as all of the aforementioned grammatical errors have been fixed. Laurinavicius (talk) 20:46, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
4. Kingdom of Italy (1861-1946) - re-assessed from Stub to B-class. Nominated for GA assessment - 52 Pickup 21:39, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
5. Republic of Entre Ríos Just a stub I wrote, not much to it as I'm pretty unfamiliar with it. Hopefully someone else can expand it. faithless (^speak) 01:51, 18 September 2007 (UTC) rated to start
6. Moldavia - an old article I just put on a semi-standard form for old states. Madalinfocsa (talk) 10:59, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
7. Request assessments for Batavian Republic and Vlieter Incident.--Ereunetes (talk) 00:36, 3 April 2008 (UTC) Both articles are very well done I really don't like the length of the Batavian Republic, but that's the only problem I have with it. I suggest that you submit both articles for GA review if you agree with me that they are of GA quality. Laurinavicius (talk) 16:58, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
8. Karl Friedrich von dem Knesebeck - an article on a Prussian field marshal that I started some time ago. FWTTVK (talk) 12:54, 22 April 2008 (UTC) The article is good but, as the assessment on the discussion page states, the article needs to be suitably referenced and cited, while at the present time it has no citations at all. Laurinavicius (talk) 00:37, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
9. Request assessment for Economic History of the Netherlands (1500 - 1815), First Stadtholderless Period and Financial history of the Dutch Republic--Ereunetes (talk) 00:03, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
10. Sparta The article is currently a B-Class article for it needs "more sources for chronological/historical verification", as quoted from the banner on the article's discussion page. I must also state that I agree with the banner. Laurinavicius (talk) 00:37, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
11. New Netherland-have done considerable work on this article, but question whether it is appropriate for this project, as it was a colonial province of existing countryDjflem (talk) 05:36, 13 January 2009 (UTC) Very good article and I must congratulate you for the exceptional work you and several partners did. I also suggest that you should nominate this article for GA-status as I feel that it, most assuredly, belongs there. And for future reference, colonies are considered to be in the scope of our WikiProject. Laurinavicius (talk) 02:57, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
12. Principality of Stavelot-Malmedy — I've just completed considerable work to this article, which was previously a stub. I've also just nominated it for Good-article review. All constructive criticism welcome. — OwenBlacker (Talk) 01:37, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Requests for A-Class status

If you have made significant edits to an article within the scope of the project and would like another member to give the article an A-Class Review, please list it here.

[edit] Tag and Assess 2009

A Tag and Assessment drive is currently being planned so as to examine the thousand-plus un-assessed articles that are within the focus of our project, to re-assess all of the articles currently assessed by our project, and to find, tag, and assess all other articles that may also fit under our radar. More details will be posted here in the near-future.

[edit] Assessment log

Former country articles: Index · Statistics · Log

The logs in this section are generated automatically (on a daily basis); please don't add entries to them by hand.

The log for the last 30 days can be seen here. It is not transcluded here due to its length.