Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Wikipedia 1.0

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What is this all about? The aim of this sub-project is to assess mathematics articles for their quality and importance (or priority), and to classify them broadly by field. These ratings are intended to help the project track its progress, identify weak spots in its coverage, and highlight articles which could become Good Articles or Featured articles. They also link with the Wikipedia 1.0 project to produce a CD-ROM with the best of Wikipedia, and similar ratings are used by over 100 WikiProjects.

[edit] Summary table

The following table, along with the subpages it links to, summarizes information about the articles that have been assigned ratings.

Mathematics article ratings
Priority Quality
Featured article FA A Good article GA A-BB+ B Start Stub UA Total
Top 7 9 10 31 107 57 3 0 224
High 3 2 5 28 185 282 67 0 572
Mid 5 2 9 16 288 720 314 2 1356
Low 4 1 1 3 104 603 874 1 1591
UA 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 8 9
Total 19 14 25 78 684 1663 1258 11 3752
Last updated: Sat Jun 14 01:10:02 UTC 2008
Math articles by field and quality
Field Quality
Featured article FA A Good article GA A-BB+ B Start Stub UA Total
Algebra 0 1 2 7 76 260 272 0 618
Analysis 3 0 2 12 86 206 119 0 428
Applied mathematics 1 0 0 4 40 63 32 2 142
Basics 1 1 4 5 40 78 18 0 147
Discrete mathematics 0 0 1 6 28 87 66 1 189
Foundations, logic, and set theory 0 1 1 14 86 182 141 0 425
Frequently viewed 13 10 15 41 227 176 17 0 499
General 0 1 3 4 24 50 39 0 121
Geometry 0 3 1 7 114 231 221 1 578
History 1 1 1 5 18 23 5 0 54
Mathematical physics 2 1 3 3 24 30 13 0 76
Mathematicians 9 2 5 7 41 163 134 0 361
Number theory 0 1 2 2 31 104 83 0 223
Probability and statistics 3 0 0 7 68 130 61 0 269
Theorems and conjectures 1 4 0 6 42 96 74 1 224
Topology 0 3 1 1 28 75 57 0 165
Vital articles 3 0 2 9 28 20 0 0 62
Last updated: Sat Jun 14 01:10:02 UTC 2008

Additional tables are located at Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Wikipedia 1.0/Table.

[edit] How to assess articles

Any article can be assessed for its mathematical content and anybody can assess an article simply by adding the {{maths rating}} tag to the article's talk page and filling in the class, importance and field parameters (see below). These ratings can be modified by all editors, with disputes discussed on the article's talk page. The most important component of this assessment is the quality of the article, given by the class parameter. If this parameter is omitted, the {{maths rating}} tag will place the article in the unassessed category, which is a signal for other editors to grade its quality.

For the most part, the quality criteria for articles in this project follow the WP 1.0 assessment; however there is also an additional B+ quality grading for articles which are very close to the GA (Good Article) standard and have a good layman's explanations, history and illustrations.

The articles which have been assessed by field (the area of mathematics in which they broadly belong) can be found in subpages linked by the {{WP MATH 1.0}} banner above.

The overall summary of mathematical articles by quality can be found at

Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Mathematics articles by quality

and a log of new ratings and changes can be found at

Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Mathematics articles by quality log.

[edit] The {{maths rating}} template

To classify an article, place the template {{maths rating}} on the article's talk page. Anyone can add a maths rating or change an existing rating. The template can be used to assess the importance (or priority) and quality (or class grading) of the article using the importance and class parameters respectively. Specifying these parameters will place the article in the appropriate subcategory of Category:Mathematics articles by importance and Category:Mathematics articles by quality. There is also a field parameter to define the subject area of the article.

The full syntax of the maths rating template is:

{{maths rating 
 |nested=
 |small=
 |class=
 |importance=
 |field=
 |historical=
 |vital=
 |comment= (deprecated, see below for how to add comments)
 |frequentlyviewed= (not for manual use, see below)
 |ACD= 
 }}
  • nested=yes can be used when nested with other compliant projects inside a {{WikiProjectBannerShell}}
  • small=yes can be used when a page has lots of templates, producing a more compact version. Any other value for small parameter is ignored, and the standard template results.
  • class must be one of:
    FA (for Featured Articles only)
    A (for A-class articles only)
    GA (for Good Articles only)
    Bplus
    B
    Start
    Stub
    Dab (mathematical disambiguation pages)
    Cat (mathematics categories)
    Image (mathematics images)
    Template (mathematics templates)
  • importance must be one of:
    Top
    High
    Mid
    Low
    NA (for non-articles only)
The synonym priority is also available for the importance parameter.
  • field must be one of:
    general (information about mathematics not related to a particular field)
    basics (elementary material and terms used throughout mathematics)
    analysis
    algebra
    geometry
    applied
    probability and statistics
    number theory
    discrete
    foundations (logic and set theory)
    mathematical physics
    topology
    history (see the "historical" parameter below)
    mathematicians
  • the historical parameter, if nonempty, places the article in Category:History of subject mathematics articles. It is recommended to use this parameter instead of the history field. In particular, this allows a historical article to be assigned another field.
  • the vital parameter, if nonempty, places the article in Category:Vital mathematics articles. However, this should be coordinated with the list of Wikipedia:vital articles.
  • the ACD parameter, if nonempty, places a notice that the article has been nominated for the A-class quality rating.
  • the frequentlyviewed parameter is used to mark the 500 most frequently viewed articles, based on collected data. This marking is done via a bot, and the frequentlyviewed parameter should not be added manually.

Comments may be left in the /Comments subpage of the article talk page (for example, Talk:Abacus/Comments). These brief comments usually contain suggestions on how the article could be improved to bring it up to the next grade. It is helpful to at least put ~~~~ as a comment, so that the date of the rating can easily be seen. Comments can be added by following the "Add comments" link on the template, and may edited by following the "Comments" link on the template.

If either class or importance is missing, then the article will be placed in Category:Unassessed quality mathematics articles or Category:Unassessed importance mathematics articles respectively. If field is missing, then the article will be placed in Category:Unassessed field mathematics articles.

[edit] Assessment summary and list of fields

Summary of {{maths rating}} importance, field, and class parameters
Importance: the importance (or priority) of the article/subject, regardless of its quality. Field: the article's subject area within mathematics. Class: the current quality of the article.
Top Extremely important, even crucial, to its field, and very significant beyond it Featured article FA This is a featured article.
High Contributes a substantial depth of knowledge with significant impact in other fields A Essentially complete, well written and referenced; possible featured article candidate.
Mid Adds important further details within its field, with some impact beyond it Good article GA B+ quality, and also a good article.
Low Contributes more specific or less significant details, or is mainly of specialist interest A-BB+ Detailed, clear and accessible, often with history or images; possible good article nominee.
B A decent article, but it needs further editing to extend coverage or accessibility
Start Significant cleanup or expansion needed.
Stub Article has very little content, or is a stub.

[edit] Quality grading scheme

A more extensive description of the quality grading criteria is given in the table below. This is based on the WP 1.0 Assessment.

[edit table]
Quality Criteria Reader's experience Examples
Editor's experience
Featured article FA
{{FA-Class}}		 Reserved exclusively for articles that have received featured article status after peer review, and meet the current criteria for featured articles. Definitive. Outstanding, thorough article; a great source for encyclopedic information. Trigonometric function (Mar 2, 2007)

Leonhard Euler (Mar 2, 2007)
No further editing is necessary unless new published information has come to light; but further improvements to the text are often possible.
A
{{A-Class}}		 Provides a well-written, reasonably clear and complete description of the topic, as described in "How to write a great article". It should be of a length suitable for the subject, with a well-written introduction and an appropriate series of headings to break up the content. It should have sufficient external literature references, from text-books or peer-reviewed papers, rather than websites. Should be well illustrated, with no copyright problems. At the stage where it could at least be considered for featured article status; corresponds to the "Wikipedia 1.0" standard. Very useful to readers. A fairly complete treatment of the subject. A non-mathematician would typically find nothing wanting. May miss a few relevant points. Fermat's last theorem (Mar 2, 2007)

Regular polytope (Mar 2, 2007)
Manifold (Mar 2, 2007)
Minor edits and adjustments would improve the article, particularly if brought to bear by a subject-matter expert. In particular, issues of breadth, completeness, and balance may need work. Peer-review would be helpful at this stage.
Good article GA
{{GA-Class}}		 This class is for articles of B+ quality which have also passed through the good article nomination process and meet the good article standards. Note that the good article designation is not a requirement for A-Class. A-Class articles which meet good article standards should be considered for featured article status. As good as a B+ article, but may also have more polished presentation, more illustrations, more detailed history, and more references. Euclidean geometry (Mar 2, 2007)

Ordinal number (Mar 2, 2007)
Homotopy groups of spheres (Mar 2, 2007)
Further editing will clearly be helpful, but not necessary for a good reader experience.
A-BB+
{{Bplus-Class}}		 The article has most of the elements described in "start" and may be regarded as a complete article. It is broad in its coverage, while staying focussed on the topic; it is factually accurate, verifiable and neutral; and it is well presented, both in terms of grammar, and adherence to some of the main points in the manual of style. The article is well-referenced, and is illustrated, where appropriate, by an image or images which comply with copyright guidelines. It has the potential to become a good article. Among mathematics articles these are some of the best; however, Wikipedia 1.0 does not currently have a B+-Class. Useful to nearly all readers. A good treatment of the subject which attempts to be as accessible as possible, with a minimum of jargon. No obvious problems, gaps, excessive information. René Descartes (Mar 2, 2007) Introduction to general relativity (Mar 2, 2007)
May be improved by input from experts to assess where coverage is still missing, and also by illustrations, historical background and further references. Consider peer review or nominating for good article status. If the article is not already fully wikified, now is the time.
B
{{B-Class}}		 The article has several of the elements described in "start", and usually a majority of the material needed for a complete article. Nonetheless, it has significant gaps or missing elements or references, needs substantial editing for English language usage and/or clarity, balance of content, or contains other policy problems such as copyright, neutral point of view (NPOV) or no original research (NOR). With NPOV a well written B-class may correspond to the "Wikipedia 0.5" or "usable" standard. Articles that are close to GA status but don't meet the good article criteria should be B- or B+-Class articles. Useful to many, but not all, readers. An interested reader flipping through the article may feel that they generally understood the topic. However, it may not be as accessible as as it could be, or it may be inadequate for a serious student or researcher trying to use the material, who might have trouble or risk error using the article in derivative work. Set (Mar 2, 2007)
Limit (mathematics) (Mar 2, 2007)
Vector space (Mar 2, 2007)
Considerable editing is still needed, including filling in some important gaps or correcting significant policy errors. Articles for which cleanup is needed will typically have this designation to start with.
Start
{{Start-Class}}		 The article has a meaningful amount of good content, but it is still weak in many areas, and may lack a key element such as a standard infobox. For example an article on groups might cover the theory well, but be weak on history and motivation. Has at least one serious element of gathered materials, including any one of the following:
  • a particularly 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
 Useful to some, provides a moderate amount of information, but many readers will need to find additional sources of information. The article clearly needs to be expanded. Hypergraph (Mar 2, 2007)
Esther Szekeres (Mar 2, 2007)
Theorem (Mar 2, 2007)
Substantial/major editing is needed, most material for a complete article needs to be added. This article still needs to be completed, so an article cleanup tag is inappropriate at this stage.
Stub
{{Stub-Class}}		 The article is either a very short article or a rough collection of information that will need much work. It is usually very short, but can be of any length if the material is irrelevant or incomprehensible. Possibly useful to a mathematician who has no idea what the term meant. May be useless to a non-mathematician, or a reader only passingly familiar with the term. Ideally it is at least a brief, informed definition. Selig Brodetsky (Mar 2, 2007)
Parallel curve (Mar 2, 2007)
Algebraic number theory (Mar 2, 2007)
Any editing or additional material can be helpful.
Label Criteria Reader's experience Examples
Editor's experience

[edit] Importance rating scheme

Assessing the priority or importance level of mathematics articles is not straightforward. It is discussed in more detail here. The following table adds a little more detail about priority levels for mathematics articles.


Article importance/priority rating scheme
Priority Importance within field Impact Need for encyclopedia Examples
Top Article/subject is extremely important, even crucial, to its field Widespread and very significant An absolute "must-have" for any reasonable mathematical encyclopedia Trigonometric function, Manifold, Special relativity
High Article/subject contributes a substantial depth of knowledge Significant impact in other fields Very much needed, even vital 3-manifold, Isomorphism, Poisson distribution
Mid Article/subject adds important further details within its field Some impact beyond field Adds further depth, but not vital to encyclopedia Homotopy groups of spheres, Second order logic, Hypergeometric series
Low Article/subject contributes more specific or less significant details Mainly of specialist interest Not at all essential, or can be covered adequately by other articles Area of a disk, Abel transform, Companion matrix
(None) Article/subject may be peripheral May be too highly specialized May not be relevant or may be too trivial in content to be needed Comment: such articles are not relevant enough to the mathematics project to need a maths rating.


[edit] Articles to include

The prioritization of mathematics articles has been motivated by: articles highlighted in Mathematics; those linked from Portal:Mathematics#Topics in Mathematics; a selection of the most linked-to maths articles (see talk page); Wikipedia:Vital_articles#Mathematics; and anything else an editors felt should be included as important.

The lists of articles have split into subpages organised by mathematical field, and are linked via the navigation box at the top and bottom of this page. (The exceptions are the "Core" articles, detailed below.) The lists are not meant to be exhaustive or definitive and editors are encouraged to make additions.

[edit] Core Articles

Article Need Rationale Links Quality Comments
Mathematics Top WP:CORE. Our top-level article 6487 A Also a good article
Algebra Top WP:CORE B Only history, classes, meanings, no examples
Geometry Top WP:CORE 979 B Needs refs, C20th section
Information Top WP:CORE also covered by Information technology 664 B Needs a lot of work
Logic Top WP:CORE also covered by Philosophy 1300+ A-BB+ Very good but needs a pic or two. Short but OK
because many sub-pages e.g. Mathematical logic
Mathematical proof Top WP:CORE (originally as Proof theory) 250 Start
Measurement Low WP:CORE Not really our domain as covered by Science 700+ Start Needs much more, e.g. errors,
precision vs. accuracy, sig figs etc
Number Top Listed in WP:CORE 400+ A Former GA, 4/13/06 - This has been removed from the GA list.
Statistics Top WP:CORE 1164 A-BB+ Former GA, see the reasons. Could use more background/historical information

[edit] See also