Wikipedia:WikiProject Law/Assessment
Welcome to the assessment department of WikiProject Law! This department focuses on assessing the quality of Wikipedia's articles about the law and legal system. 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 recognising excellent contributions and identifying topics in need of further work.
The ratings are done in a distributed fashion through parameters in the {{WikiProject Law}} project banner; this causes the articles to be placed in the appropriate sub-categories of Category:Law articles by quality and Category:Law articles by importance.
Contents
Frequently asked questions[edit]
- How do I add an article to the WikiProject?
- Just add {{WikiProject Law}} to the talk page; there's no need to do anything else.
- How can I get my article rated?
- Please list it in the section for assessment requests below.
- Who can assess articles?
- Any editor, or member of the Law WikiProject is free to add a rating to an article if they wish. However, the Assessment Team (from this department) may overrule the rating of an article if they see fit.
- Aren't the ratings subjective?
- Yes, they are (see, in particular, the disclaimers on the importance scale), 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!
- Did the reviewer leave any comments?
- If the reviewer leaves a comment, it will be found on the talk page of the article.
- Why didn't the reviewer leave any comments?
- Unfortunately, due to the volume of articles that need to be assessed, you may not receive detailed comments in all instances. If this is the case, you might ask the person who assessed the article if you have any particular questions; they will usually be happy to provide you with their reasoning.
- To what extent will the Assessment Dept. give feedback on an article after grading it?
- If you wish, the Assessment Dept. (for WikiProject Law) will attempt to keep giving feedback until the Assessment Dept. believes that the article in question is at least; slightly above a "B" grade. After reaching this stage, the Assessment Team are likely to recommend that your article be peer-reviewed.
- How can I keep track of changes in article ratings?
- A full log of changes over the past thirty days is available here. If you are just looking for an overview, however, the statistics may be more accessible.
- How does this all work?
- See Using the bot and WikiProject Council Guide.
If you have any other questions not listed here, please feel free to ask them on the discussion page for this department.
Requesting an assessment[edit]
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 Wikipedia:Peer review instead. Completed requests are usually placed in the archive.
Please place new requests (in the format, # [[article name]] -- ~~~~ ) at the bottom of the list.
- International Food Policy Research Institute -- ND Eowyn (talk) 06:30, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
- Washington v. Confederated Bands and Tribes of the Yakima Indian Nation -- GregJackP Boomer! 01:14, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
- Armed Forces (Parliamentary Approval for Participation in Armed Conflict) Bill -- iComputerSaysNo 04:27, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
- Google+ Hangouts -- Wild mine (talk) 13:48, 26 May 2013 (UTC)
- Maha Abouelenein -- Wild mine (talk) 13:48, 26 May 2013 (UTC)
- Ungoogleable -- Wild mine (talk) 13:48, 26 May 2013 (UTC)
- Judiciary of Russia -- Int21h (talk) 03:18, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
- Costs (English law) -- D-Notice (talk) 11:04, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
- Faculty of Law, University of Oxford -- Mnsrea (talk) 19:51, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
- Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy -- Bdushaw (talk) 05:11, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
- Environmental law -- Ado2102 (talk) 23:30, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
- Legal awareness -- Mahitgar (talk) 01:58, 22 November 2014 (UTC)
- Circuit split -- Notecardforfree (talk) 18:47, 27 June 2015 (UTC)
- Schmerber v. California -- Notecardforfree (talk) 09:32, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
Instructions[edit]
An article's assessment is generated from the class and importance parameters in the {{WikiProject Law}} project banner on its talk page:
{{WikiProject Law |class= |importance= |attention= |needs-infobox= |peer-review= |old-peer-review= }}
The following values may be used for the class parameter:
- FA (adds articles to Category:FA-Class law articles)
- A (adds articles to Category:A-Class law articles)
- GA (adds articles to Category:GA-Class law articles)
- B (adds articles to Category:B-Class law articles)
- Start (adds articles to Category:Start-Class law articles)
- Stub (adds articles to Category:Stub-Class law articles)
- NA (for pages, such as templates or disambiguation pages, where assessment is unnecessary; adds pages to Category:NA-Class law articles)
Articles for which a valid class is not provided are listed in Category:Unassessed law articles. The class should be assigned according to the quality scale below.
Quality scale[edit]
Class | Criteria | Reader's experience | Editing suggestions | Example | ||
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FA | The article has attained featured article status by passing an official review.
|
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. | Water fluoridation (as of August 2014) |
||
A | The article is well organized and essentially complete, having been reviewed by impartial reviewers from this WikiProject or elsewhere. Good article status is not a requirement for A-Class.
|
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. Peer review may help. | Battle of Nam River (as of June 2014) |
||
GA | The article has attained good article status by passing an official review.
|
Useful to nearly all readers, with no obvious problems; approaching (but 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. | YouTube (as of August 2014) |
||
B | The article is mostly complete and without major problems, but requires some further work to reach good article standards.
|
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 also be considered if practical, and the article checked for general compliance with the Manual of Style and related style guidelines. | Apple Inc. (as of August 2014) |
||
C | The article is substantial, but is still missing important content or contains much irrelevant material. The article should have some references to reliable sources, but may still have significant problems or require substantial cleanup.
|
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 solve cleanup problems. | Bishop (chess) (as of August 2014) |
||
Start | An article that is developing, but which is quite incomplete. It might or might not cite adequate reliable sources.
|
Provides some meaningful content, but most readers will need more. | Providing references to reliable sources should come first; the article also needs substantial improvement in content and organisation. Also improve the grammar, spelling, writing style and improve the jargon use. | Interval vector (as of February 2014) |
||
Stub | A very basic description of the topic. However, all very-bad-quality articles will fall into this category.
|
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. | Crescent Falls (as of February 2013) |
||
FL | The article has attained featured list status.
|
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. | List of National Basketball Association season assists leaders (as of April 2014) |
||
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 Guggenheim Fellowships awarded in 1947 (as of January 2013) |
Importance assessment[edit]
An article's importance assessment is generated from the importance parameter in the {{WikiProject Law}} project banner on its talk page:
- {{WikiProject Law| ... | importance=??? | ...}}
The criteria used for rating article importance are not meant to be an absolute or canonical view of how significant the topic is. Rather, they attempt to gauge the probability of the average reader of the English Wikipedia needing to look up the topic (and thus the immediate need to have a suitably well-written article on it). Thus, subjects with greater popular notability may be rated higher than topics which are arguably more "important" but which are of interest primarily to students of the law.
Further, generally notability should not be limited to the perspective of editor demographics, or one jurisdiction or country. Thus, topics which may seem obscure to a common law audience—but which are of high notability in other places—should still be highly rated. Generally, articles on the topic in one country should have the same importance rating as an equivalent topic in another country. For example, an article on criminal law in Canada, Germany, or China should receive the same importance rating as an article on criminal law in the US.
The following values may be used for importance assessments:
Status | Template | Meaning of Status |
---|---|---|
Top | {{Top-Class}} | This article is of the utmost importance to this project, as it forms the basis of all information. The article is about one of the core legal topics. Adds articles to Category:Top-importance law articles |
High | {{High-Class}} | This article is fairly important to this project, as it covers a general area of knowledge. The article is about the most well-known or historically significant aspects of the law. Adds articles to Category:High-importance law articles. |
Mid | {{Mid-Class}} | This article is relatively important to this project, as it fills in some more specific knowledge of certain areas. The article is about a topic within the legal field that may or may not be commonly known outside the profession. Adds articles to Category:Mid-importance law articles. |
Low | {{Low-Class}} | This article is of little importance to this project, but it covers a highly specific area of knowledge or an obscure piece of trivia. The article is about a topic that is highly specialised within the field of legal studies and is not generally common knowledge to lay people. Adds articles to Category:Low-importance law articles. |
None | None | This article has yet to be rated. Adds articles to Category:Unknown-importance law articles. |
Assessment Team[edit]
The list of members below make up the WikiProject Law Assessment team. Members of the team who are bolded (below) are currently the main, active member(s) of the assessment team - they are most likely to assess articles, so please direct any enquiries regarding assessment or the assessment department towards them.
- Ncmvocalist (talk · contribs) - maintenance of assessment dept. and currently, main member of assessment team
New members[edit]
If you would like to join the assessment team, please add your name below.
- Fladrif (talk · contribs)
- Tarun2k (talk · contribs) (special interest: tax laws, indian laws
- EECavazos (talk · contribs)
- Bearian (talk · contribs) tagging and improving all law stubs
- fashionethics (talk · contribs) (special interest: fashion law, nonprofit organizations law, ethics)
- JRBaldauf (talk · contribs) Interested in American criminal and constitutional law
Log[edit]
The full log of assessment changes for the past thirty days is available here. Unfortunately, due to its extreme size, it cannot be transcluded directly.