Halopedia:Standards Council of Halopedia/Legislative Branch/Standards/Article Quality Levels Standard

Proposal
In the interests of encouraging the development of all articles to the highest level of quality possible and acknowledging that it is impossible for some articles to achieve the Featured Article status, this Standard hereby defines a quality level structure.

General
There shall be 4 levels of quality added in addition to the Featured Article level of quality: Poor, Mediocre, Good, and Excellent in order of increasing quality. Each level will have an equal number with Poor being 1, Excellent being 4 and Featured Article being given 5. This will be represented as "Article Quality Level N: (Quality level)", for example: "Article Quality Level 3 (Good)"

Each Article containing content shall be tagged with a level of quality. All editors are encouraged to modify the article quality as it changes and improves assigning a value as they can best determine lines up with the defined levels. The sole exception is in regards to the Featured Article level of quality which can only be assigned solely by the Monitors of Halopedia. If there is a dispute about what level of quality is appropriate for a particular article, the Executive Branch of the Standards Council of Halopedia will mediate. Articles will be tagged using an Era tag with the appropriate quality level (Era tags to be defined: if someone would be so kind). These era tags will include the inclusion of the quality level category.

Poor
A poor article is generally poorly written or a stub. It may have numerous grammatical and spelling errors, a severe lack of references, or negligable content for what is possible considering the subject matter. Articles that have no references - regardless of their quality elsewhere - fall into this category.

Mediocre
A mediocre article is relatively undeveloped and poorly written. It may contain various grammatical and spelling errors but still be relatively intelligible English and show clear signs of attempts at proper English. Articles with chat speak or leet do not qualify for this level of quality. Generally speaking, articles that fall under this category will have few references and while they may go over some basic or general details of the subject, it is not as indepth as it could be. Articles that have numerous violations of several standards fall under this category.

Good
A good article is relatively developed and fairly well written. It may contain a few grammatical and spelling errors and broken links, but not too many. Generally speaking, articles that fall under this category are fairly well documented but likely still need further documentation, have covered most of the content regarding the subject matter, and follow nearly all of the standards defined for Halopedia. If there are images available for the subject, the article must have at least one placed appropriately. This is the highest possible level of quality for short (under 1000 characters) articles.

Excellent
An excellent article is well developed and written. It contains very few grammatical or spelling errors and has almost no if-not no broken links. Articles under this category are well documented, cover the subject matter to the deepest reasonable extent, are in compliance with all Halopedia standards and, if available, have multiple well placed images. This is the highest possible level of quality for medium articles (1000-10,000 characters) or articles of relatively unimportant topics such as side characters and minor battles.

Featured Article
Featured Article level quality is, for the most part, decided by the members of the Monitors of Halopedia, but in general these are articles that near or are at encyclopedic level. In general, they have no noticeable grammatical errors, are well structured, provide considerable depth of the subject matter, have no broken links, have several well placed images, and are fully documented to the highest reasonable extent.

Comments/Discussion
Well, I like the idea, and it sounds completely necessary. This is how I would put it (from lowest to highest).
 * Vandalized: The article is beyond terrible condition, and has stuff like "STFUBBQROFLCOPTERlolllllllllllllllllllll" ect. replacing the real information. Immediately check the recent contributions and report the vandal. Then revert the article to its previous condition for further examination.
 * Neglected/Poor: The article has not be given a decent overhaul in weeks/months, and has little information/detail. Request improvement drive.
 * Decent: The article has most of the necessary information (the basics), but lacks real detail. Also has multiple repeats of information and grammar errors.
 * Acceptable: The article has most-if not all-of the necessary information, with some details and a comprehensive analysis. Occasional grammar error, some paragraphs not well written, some sentences do not flow well. Read sections and check to see if something is missing, or if it flows well, or for grammar/spelling errors.
 * Very Good: The article is long, well written and comprehensive. Very few errors created by occasional edits, little monitoring needed. Possible candidate for Article of the Month.
 * Article of the Month: The article has all of the information, a comprehensive analysis, and is beautifully well written. No errors on page, the standard that all articles should reach.

What do you think? It would probable work well.


 * Oh and here is how one would categorize stubs:


 * Incomplete article: Simply missing known facts, most likely falling into the category of Neglected/Poor.
 * New article: The article is knew and should be updated as knew information arrives.
 * Little information: The article has so little information, that nothing can be done until Bungie/Microsoft/insert company name here answer questions.


 * Vandalized should not be a category for vandalized articles should not exist long enough for someone to tag it as such. I'd also go Acceptable->Good and Very Good->Excellent and I would aim for some slightly more concrete levels to distinguish.  Oh - and Article of the Month->Featured Article. --forgottenlord 23:58, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I also think that we should have artilces with reapeted information labled as "poor", and should suggest that the user should check for unnessesary categories. Just some more detail if people have questions. I personaly think that before we pass this standard, we should try and have every last detail worked out, so that we can work on making the other standards more spesific, eliminating the need to ammend anything. The US house of representetives messes this up all the time, rushing to get something out their, but leaving multiple loopholes to be exploited. I don't want to follow their example.--Notanoob 08:47, 20 October, 2008 (EST)