| Class | Criteria | Reader's experience | Editing suggestions | Example |
 FA | The article has attained featured article status. | More detailed criteria | | The article meets the featured article criteria: A featured article exemplifies our very best work and is distinguished by professional standards of writing, presentation, and sourcing. In addition to meeting the requirements for all Wikipedia articles, it has the following attributes. - It is—
- (a) well-written: its prose is engaging, even brilliant, and of a professional standard;
- (b) comprehensive: it neglects no major facts or details and places the subject in context;
- (c) well-researched: it is a thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature on the topic. Claims are verifiable against high-quality reliable sources and are supported with citations; this requires a "References" section that lists these sources, complemented by inline citations where appropriate;
- (d) neutral: it presents views fairly and without bias; and
- (e) 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) a lead: a concise lead section that summarizes the topic and prepares the reader for the detail in the subsequent sections;
- (b) appropriate structure: a system of hierarchical section headings and a substantial but not overwhelming table of contents; and
- (c) consistent citations: where required by criterion 1c, consistently formatted inline citations using either footnotes (<ref>Smith 2007, p. 1.</ref>) or Harvard referencing (Smith 2007, p. 1)—see citing sources for suggestions on formatting references; for articles with footnotes, the meta:cite format is recommended.
- Images. It has images that follow the image use policy and other media where appropriate, with succinct captions, brief and useful alt text when feasible, and acceptable copyright status. Non-free images or media must satisfy the criteria for inclusion of non-free content and be labeled accordingly.
- Length. It stays focused on the main topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).
| | 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. | L'incoronazione di Poppea
(as of December 2009) |
 A | The article is well-organized and essentially complete, having been reviewed by impartial reviewers from a WikiProject, like military history, or elsewhere. Good article status is not a requirement for A-Class. | More detailed criteria | The article meets the A-Class criteria:
Provides a well-written, clear and complete description of the topic, as described in Wikipedia:How to write a great article. It should be of a length suitable for the subject, appropriately structured, and be well referenced by a broad array of reliable sources. It should be well illustrated, with no copyright problems. Only minor style issues and other details need to be addressed before submission as a featured article candidate. See the A-Class assessment departments of some of the larger WikiProjects (e.g. WikiProject Military history, WikiProject Films). | | 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. | Cologne War
(as of October 2009) |
 GA | The article has attained good article status. | More detailed criteria | The article meets the good article criteria: - Well-written:
- (a) the prose is clear and the spelling and grammar are correct; and
- (b) it complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, jargon, words to avoid, fiction, and list incorporation.
- Factually accurate and verifiable:
- (a) it provides references to all sources of information in the section(s) dedicated to the attribution of these sources according to the guide to layout;
- (b) it provides in-line citations from reliable sources 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; and
- (c) it contains no original research.
- Broad in its coverage:
- (a) it addresses the main aspects of the topic; and
- (b) it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).
- Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without bias.
- Stable: it does not change significantly from day-to-day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.
- Illustrated, if possible, by images:
- (a) images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content; and
- (b) images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.
| | 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. | Typhoon Elsie (1989)
(as of November 2009) |
 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: - The article is suitably referenced, with inline citations where necessary. It has reliable sources, and any important or controversial material which is likely to be challenged is cited. The use of citation templates such as {{cite web}} is not required, but the use of <ref></ref> tags is encouraged.
- 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 certainly need not be "brilliant". The Manual of Style need not be followed rigorously.
- The article contains supporting materials where appropriate. Illustrations are encouraged, though not required. Diagrams and an infobox etc. should be included where they are relevant and useful to the content.
- The article presents its content in an appropriately accessible 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, 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. | KV55
(as of November 2009) |
 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. | | 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. | Architecture of Denmark
(as of November 2009) |
 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. | | 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) |
 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. | | 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) |
| FL | The article has attained featured list status. | More detailed criteria | The article meets the featured list criteria: - Prose. It features professional standards of writing.
- Lead. It has an engaging lead that introduces the subject and defines the scope and inclusion criteria.
- Comprehensiveness.
- (a) It comprehensively covers the defined scope, providing at least all of the major items and, where practical, a complete set of items; where appropriate, it has annotations that provide useful and appropriate information about the items.
- (b) In length and/or topic, it meets all of the requirements for stand-alone lists; it is not a content fork, does not largely recreate material from another article, and could not reasonably be included as part of a related article.
- Structure. It is easy to navigate through and includes, where helpful, section headings and table sort facilities.
- Style. It complies with the Manual of Style and its supplementary pages.
- Stability. It is not the subject of ongoing edit wars and its content does not change significantly from day to day, except in response to the featured list process.
| | 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) |
 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) |
