The following system is used by the Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team for assessing how close we are to a distribution-quality article on a particular topic. The system is based on a letter scheme which reflects principally how factually complete the article is, though language quality and layout are also factors. Once an article reaches the A-Class, it is considered "complete", although edits will continue to be made.

The quality assessments are mainly performed by members of WikiProjects, who tag talk pages of articles. These tags are then collected by a bot, which generates output such as a log and statistics. For more information, see Using the bot. (Note that when more than one WikiProject has rated an article, the bot will take the best rating as the rating of the overall article.) The WP:1.0 team is now^[when?] setting up to use a second bot to select articles, based on the assessments performed by WikiProjects.

Two levels, GA (Good Article) and FA (Featured Article), are assessments made by independent editors, rather than by WikiProjects. GAs are generally reviewed by a single editor, and FA by a panel. Candidates are nominated by listing them at WP:Good article nominations and WP:Featured article candidates. Judgments are made according to the criteria at WP:Good article criteria and WP:Featured article criteria, and the results are listed at WP:Good articles and WP:Featured articles.

It is vital that editors not take these assessments of their contributions personally. It is understood that we each have our own opinions of the priorities of the objective criteria for a perfect article. Generally an active project will develop a consensus, though be aware that different projects may use their own variation of the criteria more tuned for the subject area, such as this. More active WikiProjects have an assessment team. If you contribute a lot of content to an article you may request an independent assessment.

At present this assessment system is in use in the Wikipedia 1.0 project, and in several hundred WikiProjects on the English Wikipedia. As of May 2017, over 5.1 million articles have been assessed. Several other languages are also using this assessment system or a derivative thereof.

Grades

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 WikiProjects, who tag talk pages of articles. These tags are then collected by a bot, which generates output such as a log and statistics. For more information, see Using the bot. (Note that when more than one WikiProject has rated an article, the bot will take the best rating as the rating of the overall article.) The WP:1.0 team is now[when?] setting up to use a second bot to select articles, based on the assessments performed by WikiProjects. Two levels, GA (Good Article) and FA (Featured Article), are assessments made by independent editors, rather than by WikiProjects. GAs are generally reviewed by a single editor, and FA by a panel. Candidates are nominated by listing them at WP:Good article nominations and WP:Featured article candidates. Judgments are made according to the criteria at WP:Good article criteria and WP:Featured article criteria, and the results are listed at WP:Good articles and WP:Featured articles. It is vital that editors not take these assessments of their contributions personally. It is understood that we each have our own opinions of the priorities of the objective criteria for a perfect article. Generally an active project will develop a consensus, though be aware that different projects may use their own variation of the criteria more tuned for the subject area, such as this. More active WikiProjects have an assessment team. If you contribute a lot of content to an article you may request an independent assessment. At present this assessment system is in use in the Wikipedia 1.0 project, and in several hundred WikiProjects on the English Wikipedia. As of May 2017, over 5.1 million articles have been assessed. Several other languages are also using this assessment system or a derivative thereof. WikiProject article 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 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; and 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. 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 (<ref>Smith 2007, p. 1</ref>)—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 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; all inline citations are from reliable sources, including those for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons—science-based articles should follow the scientific citation guidelines; it contains no original research; and it contains no copyright violations nor 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 fair 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 (but not equaling) the quality of a professional encyclopedia. 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. Discovery of the neutron (as of April 2019)  B  The article is mostly complete and without major problems but requires some further work to reach good article standards. More detailed criteria The article meets the six B-Class 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 it does not need to be "brilliant". 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. Although Wikipedia is more than just a general encyclopedia, 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. Human (as of April 2019)  C  The article is substantial but is still missing important content or contains much 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; need editing for clarity, balance, or flow; or contain policy violations, such as bias or original research. Articles on fictional topics are likely to be marked as C-Class if they are written from an in-universe perspective. It is most likely that C-Class articles have a reasonable encyclopedic style. 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. Wing (as of June 2018) Note: Some WikiProjects omit some of the standard classes, most often A-class, especially when they lack an assessment team. Non-standard grades Shortcut WP:NONSTANDARDCLASS Some WikiProjects use other assessments for mainspace content that do not fit into the above scale: Other WikiProject assessments Label Criteria Reader's experience Editing suggestions Example Current A topic where details are subject to change often. The article covers an event or topic that is currently ongoing, such as a natural disaster or sports season. Amount of meaningful content varies over time as the projected event goes on. Material added might quickly become obsolete. 2019–20 South-West Indian Ocean cyclone season (as of August 2019) Future A topic where details are subject to change often. The article covers a future topic, e.g. an forthcoming election or album release, and article content may change as new information arises. Amount of meaningful content varies over time as the projected event draws near. Material added might be speculative and should be carefully sourced. Next United Kingdom general election (as of October 2019) SL A list article that would otherwise be regarded as a stub. Used only by a few WikiProjects. May be incomplete or provide little context. Any editing or additional material can be helpful. The provision of meaningful content should be a priority. Pink flowers (as of July 2019) SIA Any set index article (SIA) page falls under this class. These are list articles about a set of items of a specific type that also share the same (or similar) name. The page lists related items of the same name. An SIA need not follow the formatting rules for disambiguation pages USS Yorktown (as of May 2018) Disambig Any disambiguation page falls under this class. The page directs the reader to other pages of the same title. Additions should be made as new articles of that name are created. Jackson (as of August 2019) Redirect Any redirect falls under this class. The page does not display any article content and redirects to a related topic. Ensure that the redirect is appropriately categorised. American breakfast (as of October 2016) Merge Any redirect that is the result of a page merge and has non-trivial history. Used only by a few WikiProjects. The page does not display any article content and redirects to a related topic. Tag the redirect page with {{R from merge}} Tamara (Dungeons & Dragons) (as of August 2018) Needed May be used to identify redirects that could be expanded into articles, or articles with content that could be split off to form a new page. Content may not yet exist for the desired topic. Editors are encouraged to be bold when updating the encyclopedia. Free City of Mainz (as of March 2018) Deferred Used where quality assessments have been deferred to other WikiProjects. Only WikiProject Firearms uses this grade. Does not affect the reader. Should be used sparingly when project coverage is redundant. Gary Kleck (as of January 2019) NA A page that does not fit into any other category. Used as a "catch-all" by all WikiProjects. Depends on the type of page. Depends on the type of page. N/A See also Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment which utilises a parallel scheme of "CL-Class", "BL-Class" and "AL-Class" for list articles. Non-mainspace content Further grades are commonly used by WikiProjects to categorise relevant pages in other namespaces. The precise application of these grades may vary depending on their usage by individual WikiProjects. Non-mainspace assessments Label Criteria Example Book Any Wikipedia book falls under this class. Book:Canada Category Any category falls under this class. Category:George Orwell Draft Any draft falls under this class. These are typically found in the Draft namespace, but may also be in the User namespace. Draft:Example File Any file falls under this class; may also include timed text pages. File:Flag of Australia.svg FM Any file which has attained featured picture status. File:Felis silvestris silvestris.jpg Portal Any portal falls under this class. Portal:Biography Project Any project page falls under this class; may also include help pages. Wikipedia:WikiProject Japan Template Any template falls under this class; may also include modules or userboxes. Template:Magnapop User Any user page falls under this class. User:Legoktm/afcnew.js Note that some WikiProjects deal exclusively with non-mainspace content and may use their own customised assessment schemes tailored to a specific purpose: see Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals/Assessment for one such example. For an index of all WikiProject assessment pages, see Category:WikiProject assessments. Evolution of an article – an example See also: outreach:Life of an Article This clickable imagemap, using the article "Atom" as an example, demonstrates the typical profile for an article's development through the levels. Hold the mouse over a number to see key events, and click on a number to see that version of the article. Please note that until 2008, a C-class rating did not exist on the project, and as such this grading is retroactive. Also, in 2006 references were much less used, and inline references were quite rare; a barely-B-Class article today would typically have many more references than this article did in late 2006.