Shortcut: WP:NRHPA

Welcome to the Assessment Division of the National Register of Historic Places WikiProject. This department focuses on assessing the quality of Wikipedia's National Register of Historic Places articles. The resulting article ratings are used within the project to aid in recognizing excellent contributions and identifying topics in need of further work, and are also expected to play a role in the WP:1.0 program,

The assessment is done in a distributed fashion through parameters in the {{WikiProject National Register of Historic Places}} project banner; this causes the articles to be placed in the appropriate sub-categories of Category:National Register of Historic Places articles by quality.

Contents 1 FAQ 2 Assessment instructions 2.1 Quality scale for articles 2.2 Quality scale for List-Type-Articles of NRHP sites (Proposed) 3 Requests for assessment

[edit] FAQ

1. What is the purpose of the article ratings? 

The rating system allows the project to monitor the quality of articles in our subject areas, and to prioritize work on these articles. It is also utilized by the Wikipedia 1.0 program to prepare for static releases of Wikipedia content. Please note, however, that these ratings are primarily intended for the internal use of the project, and do not necessarily imply any official standing within Wikipedia as a whole.

2. How do I add an article to the WikiProject? 

Just add {{WikiProject National Register of Historic Places}} to the talk page; there's no need to do anything else.

3. Someone put a {{WikiProject National Register of Historic Places}} template on an article, but it doesn't seem to be within the project's scope. What should I do? 

Because of the large number of articles we deal with, we occasionally make mistakes and add tags to articles that shouldn't have them. If you notice one, feel free to remove the tag, and optionally leave a note on the talk page of this department (or directly with the person who tagged the article).

4. Who can assess articles? 

Any member of the National Register of Historic Places WikiProject is free to add—or change—the rating of an article. Editors who are not participants in this project are also welcome to assess articles, but should defer to consensus within the project in case of procedural disputes.

5. How do I rate an article? 

Check the quality scale and select the level that best matches the state of the article; then, follow the instructions below to add the rating to the project banner on the article's talk page. Please note that some of the available levels have an associated formal review process that must be followed; this is documented in the assessment instructions.

6. Can I request that someone else rate an article? 

Of course; to do so, please list it in the section for assessment requests below.

7. What if I don't agree with a rating? 

You can list it in the section for assessment requests below, and someone will take a look at it. Alternately, you can ask any member of the project to rate the article again. Please note that some of the available levels have an associated formal review process that must be followed; this is documented in the assessment instructions.

8. Aren't the ratings subjective? 

Yes, they are somewhat subjective, but it's the best system we've been able to devise. If you have a better idea, please don't hesitate to let us know!

9. What if I have a question not listed here? 

If your question concerns the article assessment process specifically, please refer to the discussion page for this department; for any other issues, leave a message on the talk page.

[edit] Assessment instructions

An article's assessment is generated from the class parameter in the {{WikiProject National Register of Historic Places}} project banner on its talk page (see the project banner instructions for more details on the exact syntax):

{{WikiProject National Register of Historic Places| ... | class=??? | ...}}

The following values may be used:

• FA (adds articles to Category:FA-Class National Register of Historic Places articles)

should only be used for articles that passed through the Featured Article peer review process and are currently listed as featured articles

• A (adds articles to Category:A-Class National Register of Historic Places articles)

should only be used for articles that have A-Class status

• GA (adds articles to Category:GA-Class National Register of Historic Places articles)

should only be used for articles that passed through the Good Article peer review process are currently listed as good articles

• B (adds articles to Category:B-Class National Register of Historic Places articles)
• Start (adds articles to Category:Start-Class National Register of Historic Places articles)
• Stub (adds articles to Category:Stub-Class National Register of Historic Places articles)
• Cat (adds category pages to Category:Category-Class National Register of Historic Places articles)
• Dab (adds disambiguation pages to Category:Disambig-Class National Register of Historic Places articles)
• Redirect (adds redirection pages to Category:Redirect-Class National Register of Historic Places articles)
• NA (for pages, such as templates or disambiguation pages, where assessment is unnecessary; adds pages to Category:NA-Class National Register of Historic Places articles)

Articles for which a valid class is not provided are listed in Category:Unassessed National Register of Historic Places articles. The class should be assigned according to the quality scale below.

[edit] Quality scale for articles

The following grading scheme is generic, not customized to WP:NRHP articles.

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: Shortcuts: WP:ACLASS WP:A? 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. (a) Visual appeal. It makes suitable use of text layout, formatting, tables, and colour; and it has a minimal proportion of red links. (b) Media files. It has images and other media, if appropriate to the topic, that follow Wikipedia's usage policies, with succinct captions and alternative (alt) text if necessary. Non-free images and other media satisfy the criteria for the inclusion of non-free content and are labeled accordingly. 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)

[edit] Quality scale for List-Type-Articles of NRHP sites (Proposed)

List-Type-Articles in WP:NRHP are articles that are lists of NRHP and other sites, but which are beyond mere lists. Class=list should be used to indicate something that is merely a list, e.g. as in a mere category. List-type-articles, instead, can advance in quality rating from Stub to Start to B to FL.

Examples are:

• Most of the 54 state-wide lists indexed inList of National Historic Landmarks by state, most currently rated Stub or Start,
• List of Chicago Landmarks, the only WP:NRHP list-type-article that has achieved Featured status, and
• List of Civil War Monuments of Kentucky MPS.

The goal of this quality scale proposal is to objectively recognize progress towards goal of FL status. Per WP:WIAFL, a Featured List is "useful, comprehensive, factually accurate, stable, uncontroversial and well-constructed". It meets manual of style guidelines, and any guidelines of relevant wikiprojects. It includes some photos where relevant. (Note, a photo for each list item is not required. Some FL's have very few photos. List of Chicago Landmarks has about 28 photos for its 220 or so sites. List of mammals of Canada is a FL with ~116 photos and ~85 no-photo entries. FL List of Dartmouth College faculty has about 100 entries but just 1 photo.)

A proposed set of criteria for Stub, Start, and B articles that are primarily lists within WP:NRHP is as follows:

Stub class is for any list that include WP:NRHP in its talk page but fails to meet all of the "Start" class criteria. Some items listed may only be red-links. These may optionally be given either "class=stub" or "class=list".

Start class is for any list

1. that is useful in the sense described at WP:WIAFL
2. that is factually accurate as far as it goes. Support for description of items can be supported by an item's article, or can be footnoted separately (although support by the articles is preferred and required by this proposal to achieve B class rating).
3. that is nearly comprehensive
4. there should not be controversy about its scope, for example what items are to be listed
5. displays photos of some of its items
6. has an article of at least Stub class for every item on the list that is an NRHP
7. reference(s) supporting near-completeness must be provided.

B class is for any list that

1. meets Start criteria
2. that is comprehensive, with no controversy about its completeness
3. has an article of at least Start class quality for every item that is an NRHP
4. has support for all statements. In descriptions of items, support is to be found in the corresponding articles for the items, not in separate footnotes. This is to improve readability and to direct reader attention to Wikipedia articles, not to outside sources.
5. displays a separate photo for a substantial number of its items
6. reference(s) supporting comprehensiveness must be provided

Good class does not exist. An article that is primarily a table or list of NRHP sites will be rejected by Good Article review processes, and directed to try for Featured List instead. There is no provision in Wikipedia for a "Good List".

A class for lists, likewise, cannot exist in Wikipedia.

Featured List must meet WP:WIAFL and get through the wikipedia defined review process, outside of WP:NRHP. In that Featured List review process, NRHP project members can seek to ensure that the listmeet B class criteria defined above. It may be useful for nominators of an article to include a checklist of support for how the B class rating is met, in the Talk page, to communicate to evaluators outside of WP:NRHP what it takes to get concurrence on Featured List rating in WP:NRHP.

That is the entire proposal. It was not officially adopted as policy by WP:NRHP, which in fact has no official process for making a decision to adopt any given proposal. It is just the only proposal that has been put forward which provides guidance for NRHP list-type-article evaluation, and it is one that articulates a graduated approach up towards FL status.

Comments/suggestions on this proposal were invited, and some discussion is available in Archive 5 of WP:NRHP's Talk page (which was paired with Wikipedia talk:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places/Archive 4#Quality rating of NHL articles. It was commented that this proposal is perhaps too arbitrary, too detailed, too bureaucratic, and that it would not necessarily carry weight in the FL decision process. It may be that this proposal's criteria are too stringent, yielding lower ratings than some might prefer. However, these are just guidelines for lower level ratings. It was suggested that any list-type-article achieving the criteria for a given level justifies WP:NRHP support in its rating being at least that high. Further, the FL decision process criteria states that FL candidates should meet criteria of relevant wikiprojects, and it remains to be shown if WP:NRHP evaluation carries weight in any proposal there. The criteria have been applied in rating the state-wide lists of NHLs indexed in List of National Historic Landmarks by state, and it was found to be relatively easy to evaluate any one list quickly using these criteria. To reiterate, however, this is not an official policy, and anyone may choose to reset ratings of any wikipedia article below the level of Good Article, at any time. It is hoped that this guideline is helpful to evaluators and to list authors, so that all can see a coherent set of rating criteria here and understand what would generally be accepted as sufficient to justify a given rating.

[edit] Requests for assessment

If you have made significant changes to an article and would like an outside opinion on a new rating for it, please feel free to list it below, in reverse chronological order.

Add new requests at top and sign with ~~~~.

• Union Avenue Historic Commercial District, creation of article, Hell in a Bucket, 3 December 2009
• Big Sable Point Light and DeTour Reef Light. Expanded & Revised. Not a stub or a start. Thank you. 7&6=thirteen (talk) 18:05, 2 November 2009 (UTC) Stan
• Ile Aux Galets Expanded & Revised. Thank you. 7&6=thirteen (talk) 17:11, 16 September 2009 (UTC) Stan
• Marquette Harbor Light Expanded & Revised. Thank you. 7&6=thirteen (talk) 18:55, 16 September 2009 (UTC) Stan
• Spectacle Reef Light Expanded & Revised. I would think this is at least a "B", not a "C" 7&6=thirteen (talk) 13:46, 14 September 2009 (UTC) Stan
• Expanded and revised Old Mackinac Point Light and Round Island Light (Michigan) Thank you. 7&6=thirteen (talk) 16:55, 13 September 2009 (UTC) Stan
• New Redmond Hotel - New article--Orygun (talk) 15:15, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
• N. P. Smith Pioneer Hardware Store - New article--Orygun (talk) 15:15, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
• O'Kane Building - New article--Orygun (talk) 15:15, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
• Bly Ranger Station - New article--Orygun (talk) 15:17, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
• Daniel Cragin Mill - New article.--Doug Coldwell ^talk 23:14, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
• Willow Prairie Cabin - New article.--Orygun (talk) 00:58, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
• Old Bend High School - New article.--Orygun (talk) 02:22, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
• Suffolk County Historical Society Building and U.S. Post Office (Riverhead, New York) -- Two articles from 2008 that have yet to be assessed. Requesting NRHP, NY, LI, and Museum project assessments, since I'm sick of seeing the bot that runs through WikiProject:Long Island saying that "No changes today." ----DanTD (talk) 05:48, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
• George Washington's Gristmill - New article.--Orygun (talk) 20:48, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
• Purple Point-Stehekin Ranger Station House - New article.--Orygun (talk) 20:48, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
• Hotel del Coronado is currently rated as a start-class article. Much needs to be done and may contain too many sections, but would appreciate an assessement review. As an aside, is it common for the main editor of an article to provide the assessment if no one else does it? Or should I wait for another editor to assess? Regards ---- Ljmajer (talk) 08:32, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
• Jefferson Memorial - Should be reassessed. Currently it is B-Class article under NRHP, but all other assessments have at C-Class or lower. IMO, definitely not deserving of a B-Class. Wadester16 (talk) 01:04, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
• Huron Lightship This is not s "STUB" anymore, nor do I think it is a "Start". Substantially rewritten and fortified. Please reassess. 7&6=thirteen (talk) 21:09, 4 May 2008 (UTC) Stan
• St. Helena Island Light This is not s "STUB" anymore. Substantially rewritten and fortified. Please reassess. 7&6=thirteen (talk) 01:26, 14 September 2008 (UTC) Stan
• Granite Island (Michigan) This is not s "STUB" anymore. Substantially rewritten and fortified. Please reassess. Thank you. 7&6=thirteen (talk) 01:32, 14 September 2008 (UTC) Stan
• User Brad101 (talk · contribs) has substantially expanded and improved the USS Constitution article. It was assessed as B-class prior to his efforts along with assistance from several others and is now rated GA by some of the other projects. The article deserves a reassessment, thanks in advance for your help. Sswonk (talk) 02:05, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
• Windsor, Connecticut (Amtrak station) -- Recently redirected from the article Hartford & New Haven Railroad Depot when they were found to be the same structure. Previously, the former version was rated a Stub, and the existing article is rated that way by WikiProject Trains, but I'd rather that any NRHP-related elements be judged here. ----DanTD (talk) 02:47, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
• I would appreciate it if someone would assess the following articles I have recently created: Capitol View/Stifft's Station, Lamar Porter Athletic Field, Thomas R. McGuire House, Dunaway House, Mount Holly Mausoleum, and Gazette Building. Thanks, Broooooooce (talk) 05:31, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
  • I commented on most of these about their referencing of NRHP inventory/nomination documents, and I expanded on NRHP infoboxes for a couple of them. But I have not rated the articles. I am myself not too sure on distinction between Start vs. B-class ratings. doncram (talk) 05:50, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
• Requesting assessment for U-Drop Inn. This article was originally created in February as an NPOV attack piece and was almost deleted until it was discovered that the building is a historic place. So the attacks were removed, and a rescue effort began in which I completely overhauled the article. I have reassessed it to Start, but I would like an outside opinion before taking it any higher. Feedback and suggestions for additional improvements would also appreciated as historic places articles are not my normal forte. Collectonian (talk) 04:41, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
• Requesting assessment for Belair Mansion made by Toddst1 (talk) 18:22, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
• The 147 articles covered in List of National Historic Landmarks in New York, which have mostly been developed from stubs, hopefully merit at least Start rating now. Re-ratings would be helpful towards nomination of the NHL list to FL list status.doncram (talk) 06:36, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
• I did a big cleanup, reorganization, and expansion of Hanford site. What do you think? Is this ready to be moved up the assessment scale? I would like to take this to Good Article status eventually. Northwest-historian (talk) 07:05, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
  • It is showing at B-rating for NRHP. I provided suggestions on its Talk page, and commented that technically, in my opinion, for this to be rated above STUB status within WP:NRHP, I personally think it needs to mention year of listing in the National Register of Historic Places and to describe what was found to be significant about the site, in the official recognition. Other comments there would be helpful I am sure. doncram (talk) 08:03, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
    • Thanks for this feedback. I added some NRHP info to the article. However, I am wondering if the NHRP tag should be removed from the main Hanford site article, as it technically belongs more with B reactor. See Talk:Hanford Site. Northwest-historian (talk) 19:44, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
• Grand Hotel (Mackinac Island) has been substantially edited and should be moved from Start class to A or B. 67.149.103.119 01:07, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
  • This is an NHL, but lacks NRHP infobox and lacks NHL and NRHP references. I downrated it from B to Stub, and explained why on its Talk page. doncram 03:51, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Added the infobox, so on it's way back up the scale. :) -Ebyabe 17:36, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

• Completed requests for assessment