Wikipedia:WikiProject Philosophy/Assessment

WikiProject Philosophy Assessment

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Welcome to the assessment department of the Philosophy WikiProject! This department focuses on assessing the quality of Wikipedia's Philosophy related articles. 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 {{Philosophy}}
project banner; this causes the articles to be placed in the appropriate sub-categories of Category:Philosophy articles by quality and Category:Philosophy articles by importance.

Current status

Philosophy task force assessment statistics Philosophy articles by quality and importance Quality Importance Top High Mid Low NA ??? Total FA 2 3 20 16 41 FL 4 4 GA 2 36 62 88 188 B 3 195 375 701 1 1,275 C 10 387 925 2,311 11 3,644 Start 6 213 1,040 5,534 11 6,804 Stub 13 448 4,925 11 5,397 List 32 99 191 1 323 Category 4,315 4,315 Disambig 1 78 79 File 260 260 Portal 103 103 Project 207 207 Redirect 2 59 223 1,056 1,340 Template 353 353 NA 1 1 Other 1 119 120 Assessed 23 881 3,029 13,994 6,493 34 24,454 Unassessed 3 3 Total 23 881 3,029 13,994 6,493 37 24,457 WikiWork factors (?) ω = 85,163 Ω = 4.91 statistics • log • category

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 Philosophy 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.

Instructions

Quality assessments

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

{{Philosophy|class=???}}

The following values may be used for the class parameter to describe the quality of the article (see Wikipedia:Content assessment for assessment criteria):

FA (for featured articles only; adds articles to Category:FA-Class Philosophy articles)		FA
A (adds articles to Category:A-Class Philosophy articles)		A
GA (for good articles only; adds articles to Category:GA-Class Philosophy articles)		GA
B (adds articles to Category:B-Class Philosophy articles)		B
C (adds articles to Category:C-Class Philosophy articles)		C
Start (adds articles to Category:Start-Class Philosophy articles)		Start
Stub (adds articles to Category:Stub-Class Philosophy articles)		Stub
FL (for featured lists only; adds articles to Category:FL-Class Philosophy articles)		FL
List (adds articles to Category:List-Class Philosophy articles)		List

For non-standard grades and non-mainspace content, the following values may be used for the class parameter:

Category (for categories; adds pages to Category:Category-Class Philosophy articles)		Category
Disambig (for disambiguation pages; adds pages to Category:Disambig-Class Philosophy articles)		Disambig
Draft (for drafts; adds pages to Category:Draft-Class Philosophy articles)		Draft
File (for files and timed text; adds pages to Category:File-Class Philosophy articles)		File
Portal (for portal pages; adds pages to Category:Portal-Class Philosophy articles)		Portal
Project (for project pages; adds pages to Category:Project-Class Philosophy articles)		Project
Redirect (for redirect pages; adds pages to Category:Redirect-Class Philosophy articles)		Redirect
Template (for templates and modules; adds pages to Category:Template-Class Philosophy articles)		Template
NA (for any other pages where assessment is unnecessary; adds pages to Category:NA-Class Philosophy articles)		NA
??? (articles for which a valid class has not yet been provided are listed in Category:Unassessed Philosophy articles)		???

After assessing an article's quality, comments on the assessment can be added either to the article's talk page or to the /Comments subpage which will appear as a link next to the assessment. Adding comments will add the article to Category:Philosophy articles with comments. Comments that are added to the /Comments subpages will be transcluded onto the automatically generated work list pages in the Comments column.

Quality scale

WikiProject article quality grading scheme

Class	Criteria	Reader's experience	Editing suggestions	Example
FA	The article has attained featured article status by passing an in-depth examination by impartial reviewers from WP:Featured article candidates. More detailed criteria The article meets the featured article criteria: A featured article exemplifies Wikipedia's very best work and is distinguished by professional standards of writing, presentation, and sourcing. In addition to meeting the policies regarding content for all Wikipedia articles, it has the following attributes. It is: well-written: its prose is engaging and of a professional standard; comprehensive: it neglects no major facts or details and places the subject in context; well-researched: it is a thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature; claims are verifiable against high-quality reliable sources and are supported by inline citations where appropriate; neutral: it presents views fairly and without bias; 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; and compliant with Wikipedia's copyright policy and free of plagiarism or too-close paraphrasing. It follows the style guidelines, including the provision of: a lead: a concise lead section that summarizes the topic and prepares the reader for the detail in the subsequent sections; appropriate structure: a substantial but not overwhelming system of hierarchical section headings; and consistent citations: where required by criterion 1c, consistently formatted inline citations using footnotes—see citing sources for suggestions on formatting references. Citation templates are not required. Media. It has images and other media, where appropriate, with succinct captions and acceptable copyright status. Images follow the image use policy. 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 and uses summary style where appropriate.	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.[under discussion]	Cleopatra (as of June 2018)
FL	The article has attained featured list status by passing an in-depth examination by impartial reviewers from WP:Featured list candidates. 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) statements are sourced where they appear, and they provide inline citations if they contain any of the four kinds of material absolutely required to have citations. (c) In length and/or topic, it meets all of the requirements for stand-alone lists; does not violate the content-forking guideline, does not largely duplicate material from another article, and could not reasonably be included as part of a related article. Structure. It is easy to navigate 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; and a minimal proportion of items are redlinked. (b) Media files. It has images and other media, if appropriate to the topic, that follow Wikipedia's usage policies, with succinct captions. Non-free images and other media satisfy the criteria for the inclusion of non-free content and are labeled accordingly. (c) Accessibility. It uses proper formating to be accessible to all readers. Bulleted and unbulleted lists and tables are structured correctly. Visual media, if included, utilize alternative (alt) text. 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.	List of dates predicted for apocalyptic events (as of May 2018)
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 the A-Class criteria: Provides a well-written, clear and complete description of the topic, as described in Wikipedia: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 a featured 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 meets all of the good article criteria, and has been examined by one or more impartial reviewers from WP:Good article nominations. More detailed criteria A good article is: Well-written: the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct; and it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation. Verifiable with no original research: it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline; reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose); it contains no original research; and it contains no copyright violations or plagiarism. Broad in its coverage: it addresses the main aspects of the topic; and it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style). Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio: media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content; and media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.	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 existing featured 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 meets all of the B-Class criteria. It is mostly complete and does not have major problems, but requires some further work to reach good article standards. More detailed criteria The article is suitably referenced, with inline citations. It has reliable sources, and any important or controversial material which is likely to be challenged is cited. Any format of inline citation is acceptable: the use of <ref> tags and citation templates such as {{cite web}} is optional. 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 does not need to be "brilliant". The Manual of Style does not need to be followed rigorously. The article contains supporting materials where appropriate. Illustrations are encouraged, though not required. Diagrams, an infobox etc. should be included where they are relevant and useful to the content. The article presents its content in an appropriately understandable way. It is written with as broad an audience in mind as possible. 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. Expert knowledge may be needed. The inclusion of supporting materials should be considered if practical, and the article checked for general compliance with the Manual of Style and related style 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 substantial cleanup. 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 solve cleanup 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: A useful picture or graphic Multiple links that help explain or illustrate the topic A subheading that fully treats an element of the topic Multiple subheadings that indicate material that could be added to complete the article	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.	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 a stand-alone list or set 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

Importance assessment

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

{{WikiProject Philosophy| ... | importance=??? | ...}}

Top

High

Mid

Low

???

The following values may be used for importance assessments:

• Top - The article is about one of the core topics of philosophy. Adds articles to Category:Top-importance Philosophy articles
• High - The article is about the most well-known or culturally or historically significant aspects of philosophy. Adds articles to Category:High-importance Philosophy articles
• Mid - The article is about a topic within the philosophy field that may or may not be commonly known outside the philosophy community. Adds articles to Category:Mid-importance Philosophy articles
• Low - The article is about a topic that is highly specialized within the philosophy field and is not generally common knowledge outside the community. Adds articles to Category:Low-importance Philosophy articles
• Unknown - Any article which has not yet been assessed on the importance scale is automatically added to the Category:Unknown-importance Philosophy articles.

Importance scale

Label	Criteria	Reader's experience	Editor's experience	Example
Top	The article is one of the core topics about philosophy. Generally, this is limited to those articles that are included as sections of the main Philosophy article.	A reader who is not involved in the philosophy field will have high familiarity with the subject matter and should be able to relate to the topic easily.	Articles in this importance range are written in mostly generic terms, leaving technical terms and descriptions for more specialized pages. No biographies of individual philosophers are included at this level.	Philosophy, Epistemology, Ethics, Medieval philosophy
High	The article covers a topic that is vital to understanding philosophy.	A reader who is not involved in the philosophy field will likely recognize the subject matter and have some familiarity with the topic.	Articles at this level will cover subjects that are well known but not necessarily vital to understand philosophy. Articles about individuals known for philosophy by the general public will be rated at this level.	Aristotle, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Pragmatism, Applied ethics
Mid	The article covers a topic that has a strong but not vital role in the history of philosophy.	Many readers will be familiar with the topic being discussed, but a larger majority of readers may have only cursory knowledge of the overall subject.	Articles at this level will cover subjects that are well known but not necessarily vital to understand philosophy. Due to the topics covered at this level, Mid-importance articles will generally have more technical terms used in the article text. Articles about most significant individuals in the history of philosophy will be rated in this level.	Divine command theory, Embodied cognition, David Lewis, Judith Butler, Hypatia
Low	The article is not required knowledge for a broad understanding of philosophy.	Few readers outside the philosophy field or that are not philosophy students may be familiar with the subject matter. It is likely that the reader does not know anything at all about the subject before reading the article.	Articles at this range of importance will often delve into the minutiae of philosophy, using technical terms (and defining them) as needed. Topics included at this level include most practices and infrastructure of philosophy.	Cyrenaics, Bohr–Einstein debates, Lambda calculus

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 at the bottom below.

• On Bullshit article, the stub tag was removed but an updated assessment has not been given. Could someone please assess the article. 451blue (talk) 00:58, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
• Appeal to the stone article, the stub tag has been removed but major changes have been made on this article. Could someone please assess this article? Thank you! Covidking (talk) 04:56, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
• Empirical limits in science article, the stub tag was removed and changes have been made to the article, can someone assess please? Airstarfish (talk) 09:39, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

• Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel has been revised with extensive reference to the scholarly literature. I don't know what class it should be, but it is certainly better than start-class. Suggestions for further improvement very much welcome. Many thanks! PatrickJWelsh (talk) 18:40, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

  I think that B-class makes sense, there doesn't seem to be anything important missing and it looks well cited.(In the interests of full disclosure I've contributed a small bit to this article but I feel comfortable assessing it as B-class as I have not worked on the majority of it. I would not be eligible to perform a good article review though were it nominated for that). - car chasm (talk) 19:43, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

• Gerard Heymans: I expanded this article and added references. I think it is no longer a stub article.
• Historiography of the Christianization of the Roman Empire has been revised. I would like to see a reassessment of its importance. Jenhawk777 (talk) 18:52, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
• Colin Murray Turbayne has been revised with additional credit references to scholarly articles, additional text regarding his biographical history and publications, photograph, and External links. The article is currently rated as a "Start" as of ten years ago but seem to have progressed further along and should be reassessed in light of these improvements since he is an internationally recognized scholar on the works of George Berkeley (whenever you have time). Many thanks and Happy Editing!160.72.80.178 (talk) 23:40, 15 February 2023 (UTC)NHPL

  I think it meets all the B-class criteria, and it seems reasonably complete and well referenced. Nice work! - car chasm (talk) 06:16, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

  Ciao Car Chasm --many thanks for your speedy assessment and kind compliments. It was a pleasure to assist in the development of this biography about one of my mentors at the University of Rochester. Turbayne's tireless research into the use and abuse of metaphorical epistemological constructs within ordinary language throughout the modern world in the 20th century gives new meaning to both the ancient philosophical adage from Lau-Tzu's ancient work the Tao Te Ching - To know that you do not know is best -- to think that you know when you do not know is a disease. Recognizing this disease as a disease is to be free of it , as well, of course, as the Socratic paradox: I am wiser than this man, for neither of us appears to know anything great and good; but he fancies he knows something, although he knows nothing; whereas I, as I do not know anything, do not fancy I do. In this trifling particular, then, I appear to be wiser than he, because I do not fancy I know what I do not know.(Plato, Apology 22d), as well as Joseph Campbell's investigations into the evolution of mythology in his book The Masks of God It was a pleasure collaborating with you. Happy editing & Meliora! 160.72.80.178 (talk) 22:01, 24 February 2023 (UTC)NHPL

• I have done some work on the article about Heidegger's Black Notebooks, and I'm wondering if it has yet escalated to the dizzy height of "Start" from Stub? I recognise that it is pretty much a backwater in the big scheme of things, but if anyone has a moment ... ? It is also still in need of much care and attention, but my name is featuring on the history list more than I am comfortable with, so I'm going to vacate the scene, so to speak, for a while. Dinkenfunkle 05:27, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

  I think it does, it's certainly longer than a normal stub, and it cites at least one reliable secondary source, so I've marked it start-class. Nice work! - car chasm (talk) 15:35, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

  Thanks! Dinkenfunkle 23:50, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

• Heidegger_Gesamtausgabe (collected works) after my success on the last item ... I've gone all WP:Bold and done some major copy-edits to this (EDIT: unrated list-rated) article, and I'm wondering if somebody could have a look, either to provide a rating/comment, or just to give me some feed back. I'm particulary wondering if the 'wall of text' that is the list of works broken up by section and volume is worth keeping at all? Thanks in advance Dinkenfunkle 23:53, 13 August 2023 (UTC)
• Hi! I have been working on improving Paradox of tolerance. It was initially rated as C class and I would appreciate some external input on whether or not the improvements should bump it up a grade or two. Ddevault (talk) 13:11, 11 December 2023 (UTC)