| Label
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Criteria
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Reader's experience
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Editor's experience
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Example
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 FA
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Reserved exclusively for articles that have received "Featured article" status, and meet the current criteria for featured articles.
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Definitive. Outstanding, thorough article; a great source for encyclopedic information.
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No further additions are necessary unless new published information has come to light, but further improvements to the text are often possible.
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U.S. Route 41 in Michigan as of December 5, 2010
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| FL
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Reserved exclusively for articles that have received "Featured list" status, and meet the current criteria for featured lists.
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Definitive. Outstanding, thorough list; a great source for encyclopedic information.
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No further additions are necessary unless new published information has come to light, but further improvements to the text are often possible.
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List of Interstate Highways in Texas as of March 4, 2008
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| FM
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Reserved exclusively for media that have received "Featured picture" or "Featured sound" status, and meet the current criteria for featured pictures or featured sounds.
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Outstanding media that adds to the quality of the articles where it is used.
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File:Cadillacsquareexcerpt.ogg as of December 12, 2010
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 A
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Reserved exclusively for articles that have passed a HWY A-Class review. 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, preferably from reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy (peer reviewed where appropriate). 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. The article has to pass through the Good article designation process to achieve A-Class status.
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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. May miss a few relevant points.
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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.
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Interstate 470 (Ohio – West Virginia) as of March 3, 2012
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 GA
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The article has passed through the Good article nomination process and been granted GA status, meeting the good article standards. This should be used for articles that still need some work to reach featured article standards, but that are otherwise acceptable.
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Useful to nearly all readers. A good treatment of the subject. No obvious problems, gaps, excessive information. Adequate for most purposes, but other encyclopedias could do a better job.
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Some editing will clearly be helpful, but not necessary for a good reader experience. If the article is not already fully wikified, now is the time.
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Interstate 476 as of June 7, 2010
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| B
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Commonly the highest article grade that is assigned outside a more formal review process. Article would most likely pass a GA review if nominated. For most articles, this means it has all of the "big three" sections: a "Route description", a "History", and a junction or exit list. Information is sourced, complete, and free of prose issues. Should correspond to the "Wikipedia 0.5" or "usable" standard.
|
Useful to many, but not all, readers. A casual reader flipping through articles would feel that they generally understood the topic, but a serious student or researcher trying to use the material would have trouble doing so, or would risk error in derivative work.
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Article still could be improved, but is believed that would pass a GA nomination.
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California State Route 70 as of November 14, 2008
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| C
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Article has a Route description, History, and a junction/exit list. However, it is not B-Class because at least one of the "big three" sections is incomplete, missing sources, or needs copyediting. The article has about 50-75% of the material that the finished product should have. Nonetheless, it has some gaps or missing elements or references, needs editing for language usage or clarity, balance of content, or contains other policy problems such as copyright, Neutral Point Of View (NPOV) or No Original Research (NOR).
|
Useful to most, provides a moderate amount of information, but many readers needing in depth information would need to find additional sources of information. Article is at a state where it could reach B status by somebody only moderately familiar with the subject and good copyediting abilities.
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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.
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Interstate 15 in Utah as of October 12, 2008
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| Start
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The article has a meaningful amount of good content, but it is still weak in many areas, and may lack a key element. If an article is missing one of the "big three" sections ("Route description," "History," or a junction/exit list), it goes here unless there is consensus (typically reached by way of a discussion on the article's talk page) that the missing section is not required for the given article.
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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.
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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.
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California State Route 237 as of August 4, 2007
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| Stub
|
The article is either a very short article or a rough collection of information that will need much work to bring it to A-Class level. It is usually very short, but can be of any length if the material is irrelevant or incomprehensible. Articles with none or one of the "big three" sections go here.
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Possibly useful to someone who has no idea what the term meant. May be useless to a reader only passingly familiar with the term. At best a brief, informed dictionary definition.
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Any editing or additional material can be helpful.
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West Virginia Route 5 as of January 5, 2011
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| List
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Meets the criteria of a Stand-alone List, which is a page that contains primarily a list.
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There is no set format for a list, but its organization should be logical and useful to the reader.
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Lists should be lists of live links to Wikipedia articles, appropriately named and organized.
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List of State Routes in New York as of April 11, 2010
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| Template
|
Is any type of template. The most common types of template used in the WikiProject are infoboxes and navboxes.
|
Serves different purposes depending upon the type of template. Infoboxes go at the upper right of a page and are a way of providing easy access to important pieces of introductory infomation about the subject. Navboxes normally go across the very bottom of a page, and are for the purpose of uniting a group of related articles into an easily accessible format for inclusion on every page listed in the navbox.
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Beware of too many different templates, as well as templates that give either too little, too much, or too specialized information.
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Template:U.S. Roads WikiProject as of May 30, 2010
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| Disambig
|
Is any disambiguation page.
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Serves to distinguish article titles that occur when a single term can be associated with more than one topic.
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Pay particular attention to the proper naming of disambiguation articles, they often do not need "(disambiguation)" appended to the title.
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Interstate 470 as of February 9, 2007
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| Category
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Is any category.
|
|
|
Category:M-28 (Michigan highway) as of January 8, 2010
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| NA
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Is not an article, and fits no other classification.
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Probably not useful to any casual reader and may not be useful to most editors. These are typically user pages that editors have tagged with the project banner.
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Use Project-Class for WikiProject pages and Portal-Class for Portals. Look out for misclassified articles and pages.
|
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WikiProject Hong Kong Roads
FA
A