This article is considered a "Stub" in quality level by WikiProject Biography, but this article (not much different than the first, if less robust) that utilizes only a single reference source is rated a "C" in quality level -- fully two notches above a "Stub".

Is the quality rating system on Wikipedia broken? I've never paid much attention to it, but having looked a bit at it tonight, there is almost more exception than rule.

The rating system is widely ignored, as far as I can tell. Worse yet, every "wikiproject" and loose gang of nuts has their own rating system. Most of them simply cut-pasted the general boilerplate, some of them messed with it. Some examples:

UK Trams

Ohio

Birds

Dentistry

This is not a "standard". This is random bunches of nerds, pretending they follow a "standard".

The whole WikiProject rating system has always been subjective. It's far worse on the popular culture and music article where fans of a subject invariably give unreasonably inflated higher scores.

Moved to Annex because I can't move it to Wikipedia where it belongs.

This is beginning to irritate me. Why do some forms of criticism of Wikipedia belong on Wikipedia, and others not? If I criticise a BLP- does that belong on Wikipedia? So all BLP goes in the Annex? Why?

Or is it that criticism that moderators feel is not compatible with the lofty purposes of Wikipedia Review belongs here? So criticism of random administrators goes here, but not criticism of SlimVirgin?

Can someone explain? (My view is that criticism where you are allowed to the word 'nutjob' or 'crankpot' does not belong in the Annex, because you would be blocked for expressing it. Wikipedia Review is just the place for criticism, or the natural and appropriate mode of expressing it, would not be allowed on WP).

In this case I'd probably have to agree - it's a lightweight thread to be sure, and it should hardly surprise anyone that the "WikiProject" quality-rating system is basically a joke of inconsistency and non-objectivity... but it's not really Annex material.

Let me just check where it was to begin with...

Ah, the BLP subforum. Maybe that was the problem, some of us would probably rather that (now this) subforum concentrated more on victimization of article subjects, which to be fair was (and still is) its intended purpose.

Nevertheless...

I wonder to what extent the rating systems are used as a kind of weapon? Do articles about unpopular figures sometimes get higher (and/or inflated) ratings, because their authors tend to be adversarial towards the subject and have a bigger stake in article-defense, so they try to boost the ratings as an intimidation tactic against people who might want to change them to be more in the subject's favor?

It's not like any of the levels below GA and FA matter anyways. And since GA and FA have a standardized process, it really doesn't matter how the Wikiprojects rate their types of articles. It's not like reader see and/or care about the rated level of an article as it is.

Okay - so you never see people telling new arrivals (or old arrivals, for that matter) that they "can't touch this article because it has an A rating from WikiProject Whatever"? I coulda sworn I've seen that occasionally with Featured Articles, but I could easily believe that mere WikiProject ratings are ignored, even by complete n00bs.

Quality rating is subjective and prone to abuse by whoever has the most time on their hands and will to bicker and fight online.

Regarding the article-rating system, I remember that a few months after I wrote my first article, someone came by and rated it "start class and low-importance." It's probably a good thing that happened months after the fact, in that if I'd seen this right after I wrote my first article, I'm not sure I would have written a second one.

In terms of where this thread belongs, it's on-topic in the sense of "it's criticism of Wikipedia," but non-core in the sense of "it's not criticism that will matter much to non-Wikipedians." I always thought of that as more-or-less what the Annex was designed for, but I gather there's not complete agreement about that.

That's not where I initially put it.

I think GBG is getting a little bit out of control. The Annex is for personal and petty bickering about some fight on Wikipedia. The more general topic folders are for items that will be of interest (acute or chronic) to anyone who wants to learn more about the general flaws of Wikipedia, its editors, and its governors.

For what it's worth, this subject came to me last night when a client of mine asked specifically how we move an article "up the ladder" on the quality scale. My reaction was to respond that there's very little importance in that letter grade, that our focus should just be on quality and completeness.

Since I took a (slight) interest, a number of FAs are blatent plagiarisms.

TYFFI

???? Non-Wikipedians are generally not interested in the punch-ups and bickering and pissing matches that go on perpetually. They are more likely to be interested in the quality control of the project, since some of them believe the object is a comprehensive and reliable reference work. The truth has to be told.



I have always solved this by going to the talk page and editing the relevant part of the template to the intended grade. This immediately gets it up the ladder, and with minimal or no work on the article itself. The majority of Wikipedians will not be able to tell.

I don't know if "broken" is the right term, but, like many aspects of WP governance, it's pretty easy to manipulate with an organized group, especially if the group includes some "important" editors. The intelligent design article was pushed through to featured article status, despite the lead being a complete muddled, redundant mess at the time (Note, in particular, the second paragraph, which consists almost entirely of the same sentence repeated four times, with slightly different wording and sourcing each time.) This passed FA, and remained after a later review as well.

It really only obtained FA through the efforts to attain that status as part of an activist mentality, rather than any actual effort to make sure the quality of the writing and information was good.

Amazingly enough, the lead actually looks significantly better these days. It flows more logically and drops the ridiculous amount of repetition.

Once in awhile someone will try to make ratings a point of contention for political purposes. One of our favorite Israel fanboys used to whine about the Israeli apartheid only being "start" class as a justification to rewrite or remove; Talk:Allegations_of_Israeli_apartheid/Archive_29#Rewrite_tag (T-H-L-K-D). I posted at a few of the associated wiki-projects asking how/when they assessed articles, got pretty much zilch in response, so I upped it to "C" myself. So, it is meaningless, but some will try to game it anyways.

Oh look, one of our favorite Mohammedans.