Wikipedia:WikiProject Primates/Assessment

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Welcome to the assessment department of WikiProject Primates! This department focuses on assessing the quality of Wikipedia's Primate articles. The article ratings are used to aid in recognising excellent contributions and identifying topics in need of further work.

The ratings are done in a distributed fashion through parameters in the {{WikiProject Primates}} project banner; this causes the articles to be placed in the appropriate sub-categories of Category:Primate articles by quality and Category:Primate articles by importance.

Frequently asked questions

How do I add an article to the WikiProject?: Just add {{WikiProject Primates}} to the talk page; there's no need to do anything else.
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 Primate WikiProject is free to add—or change—the rating of an article. Please add your name to the list of participants if you wish to assess articles on a regular basis.
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.
Where can I get more comments about my article?: The Status requester can conduct more thorough examination of articles; please submit it for review there.
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 (see, in particular, the disclaimers on the importance scale), 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!
How can I keep track of changes in article ratings?: There is an overview at the statistics page, though there is no accurate way to keep track as of yet.

If you have any other questions not listed here, please feel free to ask them on the discussion page for this department.

Instructions

An article's assessment is generated from the class and importance parameters in the {{WikiProject Primates}} project banner on its talk page (see the project banner instructions for more details on the exact syntax):

{{WikiProject Primates| ... | class=??? | importance=??? | ...}}

The following values may be used for the class parameter:

FA (adds articles to Category:FA-Class Primate articles)
A (adds articles to Category:A-Class Primate articles)
GA (adds articles to Category:GA-Class Primate articles)
B (adds articles to Category:B-Class Primate articles)
C (adds articles to Category:C-Class Primate articles)
Start (adds articles to Category:Start-Class Primate articles)
Stub (adds articles to Category:Stub-Class Primate articles)
NA (for pages, such as templates or disambiguation pages, where assessment is unnecessary; adds pages to Category:NA-Class Primate articles)

Articles for which a valid class is not provided are listed in Category:Unassessed Primate articles. The class should be assigned according to the quality scale below.

The following values may be used for the importance parameter:

Top (adds articles to Category:Top-importance Primate articles)
High (adds articles to Category:High-importance Primate articles)
Mid (adds articles to Category:Mid-importance Primate articles)
Low (adds articles to Category:Low-importance Primate articles)

The parameter is not used if an article's class is set to NA, and may be omitted in those cases. The importance should be assigned according to the importance scale below.

Quality scale

Importance scale

The criteria used for rating article importance are not meant to be an absolute or canonical view of how significant the topic is. Rather, they attempt to gauge the probability of the average reader of Wikipedia needing to look up the topic (and thus the immediate need to have a suitably well-written article on it). Thus, subjects with greater popular notability may be rated higher than topics which are arguably more "important" but which are of interest primarily to students of India.

Note that general notability need not be from the perspective of editor demographics; generally notable topics should be rated similarly regardless of the country or region in which they hold said notability. Thus, topics which may seem obscure to a Western audience—but which are of high notability in other places—should still be highly rated.

Importance standards

The assessment of an articles importance should be objective in nature and follow some basic guidelines. Listed are some of the issues that need to be factored in:

Recognizability/Generality: How broadly recognizable is the subject and/or how applicable is it to primates in general? The more recognizable and general, the higher the importance.
Page popularity: Pages most frequently visited by Wiki patrons should have this factored into their importance rating. This can be checked at: Wikipedia:WikiProject Primates/Popular pages. Consideration has to be given for temporary bumps a page might get due to various reasons, such as media attention.
Captive representation: Whether in zoos or in research facilities, animals in captivity may be of slightly higher interest and importance. This can be checked (loosely) at: ISIS Species Holdings
Representation in academic literature: Heavily researched subjects (including model organisms, highly published researchers, key research facilities) deserve extra emphasis.
Flagship/umbrella/indicator species: Species labeled as flagship species, umbrella species, or indicator species deserve extra attention because of their status. They were chosen for a reason, often due to public appeal. (Ideally, this status should be mentioned on a species' page along with a reliable reference.)
Parent taxa of "important" species: Genera, families, etc. of popular species should also merit attention, especially when they immediately contain model organisms or highly recognized species.
Media coverage: This, of course, drives temporary and long-term interest from the public, but can be hard to judge, especially if the assessment is occurring during a bubble of popularity. Consider this factor with caution.
IUCN rating: Species at risk of extinction require special attention to help educate the public, regardless of whether or not they are a flagship species. Extinct species (evaluated by IUCN only) indicate recently lost opportunities. Near Threatened primates could join the Threatened species quickly. Least Concern or (more questionably) Not Evaluated indicate either high abundance (and possibly already high recognizability) or insufficient information to begin with (meaning we need more research). This can be checked at: IUCN Red List

Unfortunately, some of this can still be quite subjective. The rule of thumb is that the number of articles in each category should relate as such:

# Top < # High < # Mid < # Low

In other words, "Low" importance articles should be the most common, and each rank above it should contain fewer and few articles. "Top" importance articles should be the fewest in number.

For most (~2/3) of the project's articles, importance assessment should be fairly easy since they will have "Low" importance. A small handful will merit "Top" importance for equally obvious reasons. In cases where importance is not so obvious or there is a dispute over the importance, a point system has been developed. For details on how to quantitatively measure an articles importance, expand the text below.

Quantitative assessment for handling disputes or articles that are difficult to assess

If we use a simple point system, bias is less likely to strongly affect importance assessments. The ratings can be assigned ranges as follows:

Score ranges: 0–12

Suggested ranking scores:
Top = 9–12
High = 6–8
Mid = 3–5
Low = 0–2

The following five categories should loosely characterize most—if not all—of the articles within the scope of this project. Each factor is explained, and points are assigned based on specific criteria. Examples are also provided for comparison.

1) Lower taxa (including individual species and subspecies):

Recognizability: +3 for highly recognizable species or subspecies (i.e. Ring-tailed Lemur, Black-and-white Ruffed Lemur, Bonobo, Mandrill, etc.)
Page popularity: +3 for articles in the top 10 of the project's most popular pages
+2 for articles in the top 100
+1 for articles in the top 200
Captive representation: +1 if the species is represented in captivity, such as zoos or research facilities, per ISIS holdings (searchable online)
Representation in academic literature: +1 if heavily studied (model organism, i.e. Gray Mouse Lemur or Ring-tailed Lemur)—use Google Scholar if needed—or is a popular subject in most textbooks (i.e. Bonobo)
Flagship/umbrella/indicator species: +1 for species or subspecies that are flagship species, umbrella species, or indicator species
IUCN rating: +3 for threatened species (CR, EN, and VU)
+2 for IUCN-classified extinct species (please verify at IUCN Red List)
+1 for NT (near threatened)

Examples:

2) Higher taxa (taxonomic genera, families, etc. up to order Primates):

Recognizability: +3 for highly recognizable higher taxa (i.e. Lemur, Gorilla, Sifaka, Chimpanzee, etc.), even if the name itself is not (i.e. Lemuridae for the Ring-tailed Lemur, ruffed lemurs, and brown lemurs)
Page popularity: +3 for articles in the top 10 of the project's most popular pages
+2 for articles in the top 100
+1 for articles in the top 200
Parent taxa of "important" species: +3 for higher taxa that immediately contain model organisms, flagship species, umbrella species, indicator species (i.e. Ruffed lemur for two flagship/umbrella/indicator species, Mouse lemur for model organism: Gray Mouse Lemur)
+1 for genera represented in captivity per ISIS holdings (searchable online)
Media coverage: +3 for semi-regular media coverage
+1 for sporadic media coverage

Examples:

3) Historic taxa (including all taxa levels):

Recognizability: +3 for highly recognizable taxa, (named) fossils, or common names (i.e. Homo erectus, Neanderthal, etc.)
Page popularity: +3 for articles in the top 10 of the project's most popular pages
+2 for articles in the top 100
+1 for articles in the top 200
Representation in academic literature: +2 if heavily studied (i.e. Homo erectus, etc.)—use Google Scholar if needed—or is a popular subject in most textbooks (i.e. Neanderthal)
Media coverage: +1 if there is moderate media coverage or better
Evolutionary importance: +3 for key transitional fossils

Examples:

4) Subjects:

Generality: +3 for subjects that encompasses all or most primates or is a popular subject (i.e. Monkey, Human evolution, Brachiation, etc.)
+1 for subjects that encompass several medium to large groups of primates (i.e. toothcomb, toilet-claw, prehensile tail, etc.)
Page popularity: +3 for articles in the top 10 of the project's most popular pages
+2 for articles in the top 100
+1 for articles in the top 200
Research mention: +3 if the subject is popular in most textbooks on primates or in academic literature
+1 if mentioned occasionally
Media coverage: +3 for frequent media coverage (i.e. human evolution)
+2 for semi-regular media coverage
+1 for sporadic media coverage

Examples:

5) Famous primatologists/primates:

Recognizability: +3 for highly recognizable primatologists/anthropologists, animals, and organizations (i.e. Jane Goodall, Koko (gorilla), etc.)
+1 for being generally recognizable (i.e. Duke Lemur Center, Bubbles (chimpanzee))
Page popularity: +3 for articles in the top 10 of the project's most popular pages
+2 for articles in the top 100
+1 for articles in the top 200
Widely published (primatologists): +3 for widely published researchers, research subjects, or major research facilities
Media coverage: +3 for frequent media coverage (i.e. Jane Goodall)
+2 for semi-regular media coverage
+1 for sporadic media coverage (i.e. Bubbles (chimpanzee))

Examples:

If disputes over importance ratings cannot be settled using this detailed point system, they should be discussed on the Project talk page.

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. If you are interested in more extensive comments on an article, please use the peer review department instead.

Assessment requests

Ornate titi (Link if needed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ornate_titi). I have made extensive additions to this article, and think it should be moved above stub-class. Scotth1001 (talk) 20:34, 5 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Gabon talapoin Hi! I've expanded this article I'm hoping to improve it to at least a B-class! Would really appreciate it if anyone could take a look at it in the next few days. Thank you! NoEsPu102 (talk) 14:21, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hey there, I have added a lot of information onto this article White-nosed saki as part of an education course at university and would appreciate if someone could conduct a new assessment on it for quality and importance. It is currently sitting as a 'stub' but I would love for someone to check it out and reassess it if possible. Vikster28 (talk) 06:31, 12 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Example assessments

To assess an article, paste one of the following onto the article's talk page.

Quality

{{WikiProject Primates|class=FA}} - to rate an article at FA-Class
{{WikiProject Primates|class=FL}} - to rate an article at FL-Class
{{WikiProject Primates|class=A}} - to rate an article at A-Class
{{WikiProject Primates|class=GA}} - to rate an article at GA-Class
{{WikiProject Primates|class=B}} - to rate an article at B-Class
{{WikiProject Primates|class=Start}} - to rate an article at Start-Class
{{WikiProject Primates|class=Stub}} - to rate an article at Stub-Class
{{WikiProject Primates|class=List}} - to identify an article as List-Class
{{WikiProject Primates|class=Category}} - to identify an article as Category-Class
{{WikiProject Primates|class=Disambig}} - to identify an article as Disambig-Class
{{WikiProject Primates|class=Image}} - to identify an article as Image-Class
{{WikiProject Primates|class=Portal}} - to identify an article as Portal-Class
{{WikiProject Primates|class=Project}} - to identify an article as Project-Class
{{WikiProject Primates|class=Template}} - to identify an article as Template-Class
{{WikiProject Primates}} - to leave the article un-assessed.

Importance

{{WikiProject Primates|importance=Top}} - to rate an article at Top importance
{{WikiProject Primates|importance=High}} - to rate an article at High importance
{{WikiProject Primates|importance=Mid}} - to rate an article at Mid importance
{{WikiProject Primates|importance=Low}} - to rate an article at Low importance