Class | Criteria | Reader's experience | Editing suggestions | Example | ||
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FA | The article has attained featured article status. More detailed criteria
The article meets the featured article criteria:
A 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.
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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. | Tourette Syndrome (as of March 2009) |
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A | The article is well-organized and essentially complete, having been reviewed 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:
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Very useful to readers. A fairly complete treatment of the subject. A non-expert in the subject matter would typically find nothing wanting. | Expert knowledge may be needed to tweak the article, and style issues may need addressing. Peer-review may help. | Batman (1989 film) (as of October 2008) |
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GA | The article has attained good article status. More detailed criteria
The article meets the good article criteria:
A good article is:
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Useful to nearly all readers, with no obvious problems; approaching (although not equalling) 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. | Usain Bolt (as of May 2009) |
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B | The article is mostly complete and without major issues, but requires some further work to reach good article standards. More detailed criteria
The article meets the six B-Class criteria:
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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, and expert knowledge is increasingly needed. The inclusion of supporting materials should also be considered if practical, and the article checked for general compliance with the Manual of Style and related style guidelines. | Jammu and Kashmir (as of September 2007) |
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C | The article is substantial, but is still missing important content or contains a lot of irrelevant material. The article should have some references to reliable sources, but may still have significant issues or require substantial cleanup. More detailed criteria
The article is better developed in style, structure and quality than Start-Class, but 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.
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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 address cleanup issues. | Exeter Cathedral (as of June 2008) |
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Start | An article that is developing, but which is quite incomplete and, most notably, lacks adequate reliable sources. More detailed criteria
The article has a usable amount of good content but is weak in many areas, usually in referencing. Quality of the prose may be distinctly unencyclopedic, and MoS compliance non-existent; but the article should satisfy fundamental content policies such as notability and BLP, and provide enough sources to establish verifiability. No Start-Class article should be in any danger of being speedily deleted.
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Provides some meaningful content, but the majority of readers will need more. | Provision of references to reliable sources should be prioritised; the article will also need substantial improvements in content and organisation. | Real analysis (as of November 2006) |
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Stub | A very basic description of the topic. More detailed criteria
The article is either a very short article or a rough collection of information that will need much work to become a meaningful article. It is usually very short, but if the material is irrelevant or incomprehensible, an article of any length falls into this category.
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Provides very little meaningful content; may be little more than a dictionary definition. | Any editing or additional material can be helpful. The provision of meaningful content should be a priority. | Geodia gibberosa (as of July 2009) |
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FL | The article has attained featured list status. More detailed criteria
The article meets the featured list criteria:
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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. | Avatar: The Last Airbender (season 3) (as of February 2009) |
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List | Meets the criteria of a stand-alone list, 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. | List of aikidoka (as of June 2007) |