Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Assessment

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What is this all about? The aim of this sub-project is to assess mathematics articles for their quality and importance (or priority), and to classify them broadly by field. These ratings are intended to help the project track its progress, identify weak spots in its coverage, and highlight articles which could become Good Articles or Featured articles. They also link with the Wikipedia 1.0 project to produce a CD-ROM with the best of Wikipedia, and similar ratings are used by over 100 WikiProjects.

The table summarizes information about the articles that have been assigned ratings.

How to assess articles

Any article can be assessed for its mathematical content and anybody can assess an article simply by adding the {{maths rating}} tag to the article's talk page and filling in the class and importance and parameters (see below). These ratings can be modified by all editors, with disputes discussed on the article's talk page. The most important component of this assessment is the quality of the article, given by the class parameter. If this parameter is omitted, the {{maths rating}} tag will place the article in the unassessed category, which is a signal for other editors to grade its quality.

The quality criteria for articles in this project follow the WP 1.0 assessment. A log of new ratings and changes can be found at Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Mathematics articles by quality log.

The {{maths rating}} template

To classify an article, place the template {{maths rating}} on the article's talk page. Anyone can add a maths rating or change an existing rating. The template can be used to assess the importance (or priority) and quality (or class grading) of the article using the importance and class parameters respectively. Specifying these parameters will place the article in the appropriate subcategory of Category:Mathematics articles by priority and Category:Mathematics articles by quality. There is also a field parameter to define the subject area of the article.

For full details please visit Template:Maths rating/doc.

Assessment summary and list of fields

Summary of {{maths rating}} importance, and class parameters
Importance: the importance (or priority) of the article/subject, regardless of its quality. Class: the current quality of the article.
Top Extremely important, even crucial, to its field, and very significant beyond it FA This is a featured article.
High Contributes a substantial depth of knowledge with significant impact in other fields A Essentially complete, well written and referenced; possible featured article candidate.
Mid Adds important further details within its field, with some impact beyond it GA This is a good article.
Low Contributes more specific or less significant details, or is mainly of specialist interest B A decent article, but it needs further editing to extend coverage or accessibility
C Some cleanup or expansion needed.
Start Significant cleanup or expansion needed.
Stub Article has very little content, or is a stub.

Quality grading scheme

A more extensive description of the quality grading criteria is given in the table below. This is based on the WP 1.0 Assessment.

[edit table]
Quality Criteria Reader's experience Examples
Editor's experience
FA
{{FA-Class}} 		Reserved exclusively for articles that have received featured article status after peer review, and meet the current criteria for featured articles. Definitive. Outstanding, thorough article; a great source for encyclopedic information. Monty Hall problem (Oct 25, 2008)

Leonhard Euler (Mar 2, 2007)

No further editing is necessary unless new published information has come to light; but further improvements to the text are often possible.
GA
{{GA-Class}} 		This class is for articles of at least B quality which have also passed through the good article nomination process, in which a peer reviewer assesses the article against the good article standards. The article has all the positive elements of a B-class article, and may be regarded as a complete article. It is broad in its coverage, while staying focused on the topic; it is factually accurate, verifiable and neutral; and it is well presented, both in terms of grammar, and adherence to the main points in the Manual of Style. The article is well-referenced, and is illustrated, where appropriate, by an image or images which comply with copyright guidelines. Among mathematics articles these are some of the best. Useful to nearly all readers. A good treatment of the subject which attempts to be as accessible as possible, with a minimum of jargon. No obvious problems, gaps, excessive information. Has a more polished presentation, more illustrations (as appropriate), more detailed history, and more references that typical B-class. Homotopy groups of spheres (Oct 25, 2008)

Ordinal number (Mar 2, 2007)
Znám's problem (Oct 25, 2008)

Further editing may be helpful, but is not necessary for a good reader experience.
B
{{B-Class}} 		The article is generally complete and well written, as described in "How to write a great article". It is of a length appropriate to the topic, clearly organized with a well-written introduction, and all major aspects of the subject at least mentioned. It strives to be accessible, as described in "Make technical articles understandable". It has sufficient external literature references, from text-books or peer-reviewed papers, rather than websites. Has some illustrations, with no copyright problems. A B-class article should be at least at the "Wikipedia 0.5" or "usable" standard. Useful to most readers, a reasonably complete treatment of the subject. May miss a few relevant points. Consider peer review or nominating for good article status. Set (Mar 2, 2007)
Limit (mathematics) (Mar 2, 2007)
Vector space (Mar 2, 2007)
Further editing is still welcome, including filling in gaps in essential sections, finding sources, adding illustrations, and copyediting.
C
{{C-Class}} 		The majority of the material needed of a complete article is included, but there are significant areas that are not yet covered. The article may be poorly organized or still include questionable or irrelevant material. Good general references have been provided, but citations for some aspects or individual facts may still be missing or unclear. The text is at least readable enough for someone to understand the material, though there may be serious conflicts with Manual of Style guidelines. Diagrams essential for understanding the text are included. Useful to many readers. A reader would feel they generally understood the basics of the topic, but there are noticeable gaps in the material presented. There may be questionable or irrelevant material or the material may not be organized in a way that makes the subject easy to understand. Right Angle (Mar 23, 2010)
Ratio (Feb 23, 2010)
Sections covering significant aspects of the subject may still need to be added. Existing material may be poorly organized, so gathering material into meaningful sections or ordering the material to make an effective presentation may be necessary.
Start
{{Start-Class}} 		The article has a meaningful amount of good content, but it is still weak in many areas, and may lack a key element such as a standard infobox. For example an article on groups might cover the theory well, but be weak on history and motivation. Has at least one serious element of gathered materials, including any one of the following:
  • a particularly 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
 Useful to some, provides a moderate amount of information, but many readers will need to find additional sources of information. The article clearly needs to be expanded. Hypergraph (Mar 2, 2007)
Esther Szekeres (Mar 2, 2007)
Theorem (Mar 2, 2007)
Substantial/major editing is needed, most material for a complete article needs to be added. This article still needs to be completed, so an article cleanup tag is inappropriate at this stage.
Stub
{{Stub-Class}} 		The article is either a very short article or a rough collection of information that will need much work. It is usually very short, but can be of any length if the material is irrelevant or incomprehensible. Ideally should at least contain a clear definition. Possibly useful as a basic definition or source of a few relevant references, but inadequate as an encyclopedia article. Selig Brodetsky (Mar 2, 2007)
Parallel curve (Mar 2, 2007)
Algebraic number theory (Mar 2, 2007)
Any editing or additional material can be helpful.
Label Criteria Reader's experience Examples
Editor's experience

Priority scale

Assessing the priority or importance level of mathematics articles is not straightforward. It is discussed in more detail here. The following table adds a little more detail about priority levels for mathematics articles.

Article importance/priority rating scheme
Priority Importance within field Impact Need for encyclopedia Examples
Top Article/subject is extremely important, even crucial, to its field Widespread and very significant An absolute "must-have" for any reasonable mathematical encyclopedia Trigonometric function, Manifold, Special relativity
High Article/subject contributes a substantial depth of knowledge Significant impact in other fields Very much needed, even vital 3-manifold, Linear combination, Poisson distribution
Mid Article/subject adds important further details within its field Some impact beyond field Adds further depth, but not vital to encyclopedia Homotopy groups of spheres, Second order logic, Generalized hypergeometric function
Low Article/subject contributes more specific or less significant details Mainly of specialist interest Not at all essential, or can be covered adequately by other articles Area of a disk, Abel transform, Companion matrix
(None) Article/subject may be peripheral May be too highly specialized May not be relevant or may be too trivial in content to be needed Comment: such articles are not relevant enough to the mathematics project to need a maths rating.

Articles to include

The prioritization of mathematics articles has been motivated by: articles highlighted in Mathematics; those linked from Portal:Mathematics#Topics in Mathematics; a selection of the most linked-to maths articles (see talk page); Wikipedia:Vital_articles#Mathematics; and anything else an editors felt should be included as important.

The lists of articles have split into subpages organised by mathematical field, and are linked via the navigation box at the top and bottom of this page. (The exceptions are the "Core" articles, detailed below.) The lists are not meant to be exhaustive or definitive and editors are encouraged to make additions.

Core Articles

See Mathematics Core Articles.

See also

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