Wikipedia:WikiProject Skepticism/Assessment

Skepticism articles by quality and importance
Quality	Importance
	Top	High	Mid	Low	NA	???	Total
FA	2	4	9	9			24
FL			1	1			2
GA	5	13	21	51		2	92
B	30	85	171	309		20	615
C	19	108	323	795		33	1,278
Start	8	55	253	1,322		60	1,698
Stub			7	107		19	133
List	2	15	30	73		3	123
Category					1,661		1,661
Disambig					9		9
File					27		27
Project					26		26
Template					52		52
NA		8	10	46	199		263
Other					2		2
Assessed	66	288	825	2,713	1,976	137	6,005
Unassessed				2		26	28
Total	66	288	825	2,715	1,976	163	6,033
WikiWork factors (?)		ω = 16,429			Ω = 4.28

Welcome to the assessment department of the Skepticism WikiProject! This department focuses on assessing the quality of Wikipedia's Skepticism 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 {{WikiProject Skepticism}} project banner; this causes the articles to be placed in the appropriate sub-categories of Category:Skepticism articles by quality and Category:Skepticism articles by importance, which serves as the foundation for an automatically generated worklist.

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 Skepticism 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 recorded using the |class= parameter in the {{WikiProject banner shell}}. Articles that have the {{WikiProject Skepticism}} banner template on their talk page will be added to the appropriate categories by quality.

The following standard grades may be used to describe the quality of mainspace articles (see Wikipedia:Content assessment for assessment criteria):

FA	(for featured articles only; adds them to the FA-Class Skepticism articles category)		FA
FL	(for featured lists only; adds them to the FL-Class Skepticism articles category)		FL
A	(for articles that passed a formal peer review only; adds them to the A-Class Skepticism articles category)		A
GA	(for good articles only; adds them to the GA-Class Skepticism articles category)		GA
B	(for articles that satisfy all of the B-Class criteria; adds them to the B-Class Skepticism articles category)		B
C	(for substantial articles; adds them to the C-Class Skepticism articles category)		C
Start	(for developing articles; adds them to the Start-Class Skepticism articles category)		Start
Stub	(for basic articles; adds them to the Stub-Class Skepticism articles category)		Stub
List	(for stand-alone lists; adds them to the List-Class Skepticism articles category)		List
NA	(for any other pages where assessment is unwarranted; adds them to the NA-Class Skepticism pages category)		NA
???	(articles for which a valid class has not yet been provided are listed in the Unassessed Skepticism articles category)		???

For non-mainspace content, the following values may be used:

Category	(for categories; adds them to the Category-Class Skepticism pages category)		Category
Draft	(for drafts; adds them to the Draft-Class Skepticism pages category)		Draft
File	(for files and timed text; adds them to the File-Class Skepticism pages category)		File
Portal	(for portal pages; adds them to the Portal-Class Skepticism pages category)		Portal
Project	(for project pages; adds them to the Project-Class Skepticism pages category)		Project
Template	(for templates and modules; adds them to the Template-Class Skepticism pages category)		Template

The following non-standard assessment grades for mainspace content may be used at a WikiProject's discretion:

Disambig	(for disambiguation pages; adds them to the Disambig-Class Skepticism pages category)		Disambig

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

Quality scale

WikiProject content 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.	Charles Darwin (as of September 2015)
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 and includes at minimum eight items; 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; further improvements to the prose quality are often possible.	List of awards and nominations received by Penn & Teller: Bullshit! (as of September 2015)
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.	Merseyside Skeptics Society (as of September 2015)
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 does not need to be of the standard of featured articles. 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.	Susan Gerbic (as of September 2015)
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.	Repressed memory (as of September 2015)
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. Improve the grammar, spelling, and writing style; decrease the use of jargon.	Holistic veterinary medicine (as of September 2015)
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.	Occult science (as of September 2015)
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 skeptical podcasts (as of September 2015)
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 articles of that name are created. Pay close attention to the proper naming of such pages, as they often do not need "(disambiguation)" appended to the title.	Extraterrestial (as of September 2015)
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.	File:JREFGerbicTAMaward.jpg (as of September 2015)

Importance assessment

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

{{WikiProject Skepticism|importance=???}}

The following values may be used for the importance parameter to describe the relative importance of the article within the project (see Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Priority of topic for assessment criteria):

Top (adds articles to Category:Top-importance Skepticism articles)		Top
High (adds articles to Category:High-importance Skepticism articles)		High
Mid (adds articles to Category:Mid-importance Skepticism articles)		Mid
Low (adds articles to Category:Low-importance Skepticism articles)		Low
NA (adds articles to Category:NA-importance Skepticism articles)		NA
??? (articles for which a valid importance rating has not yet been provided are listed in Category:Unknown-importance Skepticism articles)		???

Importance scale

WikiProject article importance scheme

Importance	Criteria	Example
Top	Subject is extremely important, even crucial, to its specific field. Reserved for subjects that have achieved international notability within their field.	Scientific skepticism
High	Subject is extremely notable, but has not achieved international notability, or is only notable within a particular continent.	Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science
Mid	Subject is only notable within its particular field or subject and has achieved notability in a particular place or area.	Steven Novella
Low	Subject is not particularly notable or significant even within its field of study. It may only be included to cover a specific part of a notable article.	Bates method

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.

• Conspiracy Theory Still C class. There's a quote repeated a few times, and the Examples section should have at least some of the more famous. Jerod Lycett (talk) 06:41, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
• Rod (cryptozoology) It's a B class. Not sure it's any higher, but still, nice article. Jerod Lycett (talk) 06:41, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
• Gerovital (possibly also categorizable under alternative medicine?) It's written well enough, but needs too many citations, C class. Jerod Lycett (talk) 06:41, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
• Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science - still under development and discussion, but an assessment would be helpful That was a read, but B class it is. Jerod Lycett (talk) 07:32, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
• Creation and evolution in public education Unrated It's been rated a B since. Jerod Lycett (talk) 07:32, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
• Amazing Meeting has recently been significantly rewritten It's at a B level now, and I'd say even higher. @Sgerbic: you may wish to use peer-review to ask for a higher level. Jerod Lycett (talk) 07:32, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
• Narconon Assessed for us. Jerod Lycett (talk) 08:07, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
• Diploma mill It's assessed correctly as B class. Jerod Lycett (talk) 08:07, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
• Anneliese Michel - recently brought within this projects fold, has some improvement but not assessed so far. Assessed it as B, not sure it's higher though. Jerod Lycett (talk) 08:24, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
• Jere H. Lipps Checked: After the update I have assessed as B. The article suffers from a lack of photos. Lipps has some important research that could be expanded in a future update. Kyle^(talk) 02:18, 12 February 2016 (UTC) 02:18, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
• Tyler Henry reality show "medium" in USA Vesuvius Dogg (talk) 08:45, 30 January 2016 (UTC)
• Rommel myth -- new article. K.e.coffman (talk) 03:39, 4 April 2016 (UTC)
• James Oberg -- expanded, please assess. Akumiszcza (talk) 12:19, 22 September 2016 (UTC)
• List of superstitions - Converted from redirect to stub, assessed as Mid importance taking a clue from Superstition, which has a Top rating. Paradoctor (talk) 14:32, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
• Fad diet - entire revision using WP:MEDRS sources for health claims (guidelines, reviews), and reviews and encyclopedias for the history section + cleaning/deleting primary sources + illustrations. Was rated a start class a long time ago, should be reassessed. --Signimu (talk) 19:28, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
• Roberto Burioni Expanded from a stub. Please assess. JohnnyBflat (talk) 15:44, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Assessment log

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

June 6, 2025

Assessed

• Justin Trudeau–Fidel Castro conspiracy theory (talk) assessed. Quality assessed as Unassessed-Class. (rev · t) Importance assessed as Unknown-Class. (rev · t)

June 5, 2025

Assessed

• Category:Books by Richard Dawkins (talk) assessed. Quality assessed as Category-Class. (rev · t) Importance assessed as NA-Class. (rev · t)

June 4, 2025

Reassessed

• Forever Labs (talk) reassessed. Quality rating changed from B-Class to Start-Class. (rev · t)
• Objections to evolution (talk) reassessed. Quality rating changed from GA-Class to B-Class. (rev · t)

Assessed

• Category:People associated with tarot (talk) assessed. Quality assessed as Category-Class. (rev · t) Importance assessed as NA-Class. (rev · t)

Removed

• Category:People associated with the tarot (talk) removed.

June 3, 2025

Renamed

• Ancient Aliens (TV series) renamed to Ancient Aliens.
• Empath (parapsychology) renamed to Empath.

Reassessed

• Big Sur UFO (talk) reassessed. Quality rating changed from Unassessed-Class to Start-Class. (rev · t)
• Malmstrom UFO incident (talk) reassessed. Quality rating changed from Unassessed-Class to C-Class. (rev · t) Importance rating changed from Unknown-Class to Low-Class. (rev · t)
• Paul Saladino (talk) reassessed. Quality rating changed from Unassessed-Class to Start-Class. (rev · t)
• Thomas Allen LeVesque (talk) reassessed. Quality rating changed from Unassessed-Class to C-Class. (rev · t) Importance rating changed from Unknown-Class to Low-Class. (rev · t)

Assessed

• A Secular Humanist Declaration (talk) assessed. Quality assessed as Stub-Class. (rev · t) Importance assessed as Unknown-Class. (rev · t)
• Amsterdam Declaration (talk) assessed. Quality assessed as Start-Class. (rev · t) Importance assessed as Unknown-Class. (rev · t)
• Ancient Aliens (talk) assessed. Quality assessed as C-Class. (rev · t) Importance assessed as Mid-Class. (rev · t)
• Empath (talk) assessed. Quality assessed as Start-Class. (rev · t) Importance assessed as Low-Class. (rev · t)
• Siderella (talk) assessed. Quality assessed as B-Class. (rev · t) Importance assessed as Low-Class. (rev · t)

June 2, 2025

Assessed

• Category:Cocaine-related deaths in the United States (talk) assessed. Quality assessed as Category-Class. (rev · t) Importance assessed as NA-Class. (rev · t)
• Paul Saladino (talk) assessed. Importance assessed as Unknown-Class. (rev · t)

June 1, 2025

Renamed

• Template:Skepticism renamed to Template:Philosophical skepticism.

Reassessed

• Unplanned (talk) reassessed. Importance rating changed from Low-Class to Mid-Class. (rev · t)

Assessed

• Muhammad Qasim ibn Abd al-Karim (talk) assessed. Quality assessed as Start-Class. (rev · t) Importance assessed as Low-Class. (rev · t)
• Template:Philosophical skepticism (talk) assessed. Quality assessed as Template-Class. (rev · t) Importance assessed as NA-Class. (rev · t)

May 31, 2025

Renamed

• Ancient Aliens renamed to Ancient Aliens (TV series).
• Empath renamed to Empath (parapsychology).
• List of skeptical conferences renamed to List of scientific skepticism conferences.
• List of skeptical magazines renamed to List of scientific skepticism magazines.
• List of skeptical organizations renamed to List of scientific skepticism organizations.
• List of skeptical podcasts renamed to List of scientific skepticism podcasts.
• Lists of skepticism topics renamed to Lists of scientific skepticism topics.

Reassessed

• Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine (talk) reassessed. Quality rating changed from Start-Class to B-Class. (rev · t)

Assessed

• Template:Atheism sidebar (talk) assessed. Quality assessed as Template-Class. (rev · t) Importance assessed as NA-Class. (rev · t)
• List of scientific skepticism conferences (talk) assessed. Quality assessed as List-Class. (rev · t) Importance assessed as High-Class. (rev · t)
• List of scientific skepticism magazines (talk) assessed. Quality assessed as List-Class. (rev · t) Importance assessed as High-Class. (rev · t)
• List of scientific skepticism organizations (talk) assessed. Quality assessed as List-Class. (rev · t) Importance assessed as High-Class. (rev · t)
• List of scientific skepticism podcasts (talk) assessed. Quality assessed as List-Class. (rev · t) Importance assessed as High-Class. (rev · t)
• Lists of scientific skepticism topics (talk) assessed. Quality assessed as List-Class. (rev · t) Importance assessed as High-Class. (rev · t)
• Pastafarianism (talk) assessed. Quality assessed as NA-Class. (rev · t) Importance assessed as NA-Class. (rev · t)
• Theosophy (talk) assessed. Quality assessed as B-Class. (rev · t) Importance assessed as Mid-Class. (rev · t)