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WikiProject Westerns
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The assessment of articles on Wikipedia is essential to help editors improve and maintain quality standards. Within the scope of a WikiProject, members with shared interests can identify and assess articles, in order to appraise editor contributions, using an established quality grading scheme. In addition to standard ratings, articles can also be assessed, independent of WikiProjects, as Good articles and Featured articles, allowing editors to produce work at a professional encyclopedic level. What follows are the assessment standards offered by WikiProject Westerns.

Frequently asked questions[edit]

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 Westerns WikiProject is free to add or change the rating of an article, up to and including B-Class without need for a formal review process. See instructions below.

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!

Project members may grade articles up to and including B-Class without need for a formal review process. Editors should enter the class they feel the article meets using the {{Westerns}} project banner. Editors may also raise or lower an article's class, accordingly, if the article appears over-rated or has been developed to a higher quality grade.

• Template and Category pages that are related to the project should be tagged with the {{Westerns}} project banner and given the appropriate class. No further action is required.
• The project does not identify Disambiguation, Book, or FM (featured media) pages, at present.
• Articles that have been reviewed as FA/FL or GA class should also be identified as such within the project banner.
• Editors may tag and assess articles which they have created up to B-Class, although a second opinion should normally be made at B-Class requests to avoid bias.

Quality assessments[edit]

WikiProject Westerns uses the same criteria for grading articles as set out by the Version 1.0 Editorial Team. If you are not sure what class an article falls under, leave a note on the WikiProject's talkpage, and someone will help you out.

An article's quality assessment is generated from the class parameter in the {{WikiProject Westerns}} project banner on its talk page: {{WikiProject Westerns|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 Westerns articles)		FA
A (adds articles to Category:A-Class Westerns articles)		A
GA (for good articles only; adds articles to Category:GA-Class Westerns articles)		GA
B (adds articles to Category:B-Class Westerns articles)		B
C (adds articles to Category:C-Class Westerns articles)		C
Start (adds articles to Category:Start-Class Westerns articles)		Start
Stub (adds articles to Category:Stub-Class Westerns articles)		Stub
FL (for featured lists only; adds articles to Category:FL-Class Westerns articles)		FL
List (adds articles to Category:List-Class Westerns articles)		List

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

For a non-article, such as a Category, File, Template, or Project page, placing the {{WikiProject Westerns}} banner on the talk page, without a class parameter, will automatically put the page in the appropriate class category.

Quality scale[edit]

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: Afeatured 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 plagiarismortoo-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.	The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.
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; further improvements to the prose quality are often possible.	List of Gunsmoke television episodes
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.	—
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 Agood 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 violationsorplagiarism. 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.	Clint Eastwood
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.	High Noon
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.	Cheyenne (1955 TV series)
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.	Geronimo (1962 film)
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.	Alias Billy the Kid
List	Meets the criteria of a stand-alone listorset 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.	John Wayne filmography (1961–1976)
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.	Western (genre)
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 templates include infoboxes and navboxes.	Different types of templates 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.	—

Importance assessment[edit]

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

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):

Importance scale[edit]

Don't worry too much about assessing for Importance. It's helpful to have the most vital westerns genre articles tagged as Top importance so they can be easily identified as the highest priority, but less influential television articles don't really need to be tagged for importance.

Note: The "importance" of an article is to be assessed for its importance within this WikiProject.

Article importance grading scheme[edit]

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. Please add new entries to the bottom of the list and sign with four tildes (~~~~).

2022[edit]

2023[edit]

• Pages related to the Yellowstone franchise: Yellowstone (American TV series), 1883 (TV series), 1923 (TV series), Bass Reeves (TV series), and likely more in the near future. Some, but not all, are approaching or exceeding B class. For at least the main Yellowstone article another question needs to be asked: isn't this mid importance - this show is easily the most influential Western on (US) television in recent times, and it is definitely one of the biggest (American) show full stop, across all time and all genres (production budgets, guest star actors, articles written etc) in recent times. CapnZapp (talk) 07:16, 8 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I would agree that Yellowstone for sure should be at least mid importance - at least as far as the Westerns project is concerned (the other projects have their own criteria). Our criteria for importance actually needs to be reviewed (and probably revised) as it is rather unclear. For the Westerns project, the imporance assessment is intended to be based on what the work means to the genre. Audience response and big production budgets are not all that important to that - they're an influence, but not the deciding factor. What Sheridan is doing for the genre itself - that's what makes it a more important work. Taylor Sheridan is not only widening the audience of the neo-Western genre, he's also pushing the boundaries of Contemporary Westerns and Revisionist Westerns (IMO). ButlerBlog (talk) 14:44, 8 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

As articles are assessed they are categorized in Category:Westerns articles by quality and Category:Westerns articles by importance. From this, WP:1.0 creates a quality statistics table and a quality log of articles assessed using the project {{WikiProject Westerns}} banner.

Review assessment log

Westerns articles by quality and importance
Quality	Importance
	Top	High	Mid	Low	NA	???	Total
FA	1		3	1			5
FL		1		2			3
GA	5	9	14	17			45
B	11	43	46	41		6	147
C	27	185	326	357		18	913
Start	1	62	452	1,947		62	2,524
Stub		2	974	3,476		58	4,510
List		6	26	61			93
Category					585		585
File					444		444
Project					21		21
Redirect			1	70	59		130
Template					65		65
NA					1		1
Other			1	2	5		8
Assessed	45	308	1,843	5,974	1,180	144	9,494
Unassessed				1			1
Total	45	308	1,843	5,975	1,180	144	9,495