Wikipedia:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places/Assessment
Welcome to the Assessment Division of the National Register of Historic Places WikiProject. This department focuses on assessing the quality of articles under the scope of the National Register of Historic Places project. The resulting article ratings are used within the project to aid in recognizing excellent contributions and identifying topics in need of further work.
The assessment is done in a distributed fashion through parameters in the {{WikiProject National Register of Historic Places}} project banner. The banner automatically adds articles to categories based on quality and importance.
FAQ
[edit]- 1. What is the purpose of the article ratings?
- The rating system allows the project to monitor the quality of articles in our subject areas, and to prioritize work on these articles. Please note, however, that these ratings are primarily intended for the internal use of the project, and do not necessarily imply any official standing within Wikipedia as a whole.
- 2. How do I add an article to the WikiProject?
- Just add {{WikiProject National Register of Historic Places}} to the talk page; there's no need to do anything else.
- 3. Someone put this project's banner on an article, but it doesn't seem to be within the project's scope. What should I do?
- Because of the large number of articles we deal with, we occasionally make mistakes and add tags to articles that shouldn't have them. If you notice one, feel free to remove the tag, and optionally leave a note on the project's talk page (or directly with the person who tagged the article).
- 4. Who can assess articles?
- Any member of the National Register of Historic Places WikiProject is free to add or change the rating of an article. Editors who are not participants in this project are also welcome to assess articles, but should defer to consensus within the project in case of procedural disputes.
- 5. How do I rate an article's quality?
- Check the quality scale below and select the level that best matches the state of the article; then, follow the instructions below to add the rating to the project banner on the article's talk page. Please note that some of the available levels have an associated formal review process that must be followed; this is documented in the assessment instructions.
- 6. How do I rate an article's importance?
- Check the importance scale below and select the level that best matches the subject of the article; then, follow the instructions below to add the rating to the project banner on the article's talk page. Please note that for an article to be added to some of the higher importance levels, the project must be notified in advance on the project talk page.
- 7. What if I don't agree with a rating? Can I request that someone else rate an article?
- Of course; to do so, simply remove the current quality or importance rating already present on the article's talk page. If no rating is currently there, be patient; a member of this project will eventually get around to rating it. If you'd like, you can drop a note at the project talk page to bring the specific article to the attention of our volunteers.
- 9. What if I have a question not listed here?
- For any other issues not covered in this FAQ, leave a message on the project's talk page, and someone will respond to your query directly.
Assessment instructions
[edit]By quality
[edit]An article's quality assessment is generated from the class parameter in the {{WikiProject Banner Shell}}. Articles that have the {{WikiProject National Register of Historic Places}} project banner on their talk page will be added to the appropriate categories by quality.
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 National Register of Historic Places articles) |  FA |
|
| A (adds articles to Category:A-Class National Register of Historic Places articles) |  A |
|
| GA (for good articles only; adds articles to Category:GA-Class National Register of Historic Places articles) |  GA |
|
| B (adds articles to Category:B-Class National Register of Historic Places articles) | B | |
| C (adds articles to Category:C-Class National Register of Historic Places articles) | C | |
| Start (adds articles to Category:Start-Class National Register of Historic Places articles) | Start | |
| Stub (adds articles to Category:Stub-Class National Register of Historic Places articles) | Stub | |
| FL (for featured lists only; adds articles to Category:FL-Class National Register of Historic Places articles) | FL |
|
| List (adds articles to Category:List-Class National Register of Historic Places articles) | List |
For non-standard grades and non-mainspace content, the following values may be used for the class parameter:
Quality scale
[edit]| Label | Criteria | Reader's experience | Editing suggestions | Examples | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FA |
The article has attained featured article status by passing an official review. 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.
|
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. | |||
| 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. More detailed criteria
The article meets the A-Class criteria:
|
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. | Examples needed | ||
| GA |
The article has attained good article status by passing an official review. More detailed criteria
The article meets the good article criteria:
A good article is:
|
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. | |||
| B | The article is mostly complete and without major problems, but requires some further work to reach good article standards. All major aspects of the topic are covered in a good amount of detail, with no major omissions in coverage, even if the article is not complete. No major issues with prose or references, and the article could be improved to GA-quality without too much additional work. More detailed criteria
The article meets the six B-Class 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 also be considered if practical, and the article checked for general compliance with the Manual of Style and related style guidelines. | |||
| C | The article is substantially developed, but may still lack content or contain 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 is better developed in style, structure, and quality than Start-Class, but fails one or more of the criteria for B-Class. All major aspects of the topic (history, design, key buildings or location where relevant) are covered in some detail. The sections on each aspect may be incomplete, and there may be issues with sourcing or prose quality, requiring editing for clarity, balance, or flow. The article may contain policy violations, such as bias or original research.
|
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 and improve prose quality. | |||
| Start | An article that is partially developed, but which is quite incomplete and may lack adequate reliable sources. More detailed criteria
At least one important aspect of the topic covered in reasonable detail, ideally but not necessarily in a structured section. In practice, this will usually be its history, though it could be architecture or key buildings depending on the article.
|
Provides some meaningful content, but most readers will need more. | Provide references to reliable sources. The article also needs substantial improvement in content and organization, including covering multiple aspects of a single listing. | |||
| Stub | A very basic description of the topic; minimal content, no structured information. More detailed criteria
May explain the nature of the property and why it is significant, and perhaps a bit of its history and design, but little more (and often less). 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 confirming the site is listed on/related to the NRHP. | Any editing or additional material can be helpful. The provision of meaningful content should be a priority. | |||
| FL |
The article has attained featured list status. More detailed criteria
The article meets the featured list criteria:
|
Professional standard; it comprehensively covers the defined scope, 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 | Any list of sites listed on the NRHP. | Organization of the list should be logical and useful to the reader. | Lists should link to Wikipedia articles (existing or not), appropriately named and organized. |
|
||
| Category | Any category falls under this class. | Categories are mainly used to group together articles within a particular subject area. | Large categories may need to be split into one or more subcategories. Be wary of articles that have been miscategorized. |
|
||
| Disambig | Any disambiguation page falls under this class. | The page serves to distinguish multiple articles that share the same (or similar) title. | Additions should be made as new listings of that name are listed. Redlinks are acceptable, so long as they conform to WP:MOSDAB by including an accompanying bluelink. | |||
| File | Any page in the file namespace falls under this class. | The page contains an image, a sound clip or other media-related content. | Make sure that the file is properly licensed and credited. | |||
| Redirect | Any redirect falls under this class. | The page redirects to another article with a similar name, related topic or that has been merged with the original article at this location. | Editor involvement is essential to ensure that articles are not mis-classified as redirects, and that redirects are not mis-classified as articles. | |||
| Template | Any template falls under this class. The most common types of template include infoboxes and navboxes. | Different types of template serve different purposes. Infoboxes provide easy access to key pieces of information about the subject. Navboxes are for the purpose of grouping together related subjects into an easily accessible format, to assist the user in navigating between articles. | Infoboxes are typically placed at the upper right of an article, while navboxes normally go across the very bottom of a page. Beware of too many different templates, as well as templates that give either too little, too much, or too specialized information. | |||
| NA | Any non-article page that fits no other classification. | The page contains no article content, and is probably not useful to any casual reader. | Look out for misclassified articles. Currently many NA-class articles need to be re-classified. |
By importance
[edit]An article's importance assessment is generated from the importance parameter in the {{WikiProject National Register of Historic Places}} project banner on its talk page:
- {{WikiProject National Register of Historic Places|importance=???}}
The following values may be used for the importance parameter to describe the relative importance of the article within the project:
| Top (adds articles to Category:Top-importance National Register of Historic Places articles) | Top | |
| High (adds articles to Category:High-importance National Register of Historic Places articles) | High | |
| Mid (adds articles to Category:Mid-importance National Register of Historic Places articles) | Mid | |
| Low (adds articles to Category:Low-importance National Register of Historic Places articles) | Low | |
| Related (adds articles to Category:Related-importance National Register of Historic Places articles) | Related | |
| NA (adds articles to Category:NA-importance National Register of Historic Places articles) | NA | |
| ??? (articles for which a valid importance rating has not yet been provided are listed in Category:Unknown-importance National Register of Historic Places articles | ??? |
The importance parameter should be assigned according to the importance scale below.
Importance scale
[edit]| Label | Criteria | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Top |
|
National Register of Historic Places National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 State Historic Preservation Office National Park Service National Register of Historic Places listings in the United States |
| High |
|
Manzanar Greek Revival architecture Frank Lloyd Wright List of National Historic Landmarks in Alabama |
| Mid |
Click [show] for more information. Most NRHP-listed sites are of low importance. However, as a rule of thumb, 10%-15% of sites in a state or region should be rated at higher importance. These sites could include:
Nearly all of these sites should be rated mid-importance. However, a very few exceptional sites may merit a high-importance rating. Please propose these exceptions at the project talk page.
|
Atalaya Castle Herkimer Home State Historic Site Boundary Markers of the Original District of Columbia Land of the Cross-Tipped Churches Shingle Style architecture Albert Kahn National Register of Historic Places listings in North Side Chicago |
| Low |
|
Los Angeles Plaza Historic District Ward Wellington Ward List of properties in Hartford City Courthouse Square Historic District List of bridges on the National Register of Historic Places in New York National Register of Historic Places in Yosemite National Park |
| Related |
|
Soulé Steam Feed Works Kinzua Bridge List of plantations in the United States Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire (event at the Brown Building) Great Fire of 1910 (motivation of North Idaho 1910 Fire Sites TR) |
| NA |
|
Template:Infobox NRHP Category:National Register of Historic Places articles by importance |