Editing Dwarf Fortress Wiki talk:Quality

==Downgrade from Fine to Tattered==
Now that xTatteredx has been implemented, all of the -Fine- articles which are definitely not fine should be downgraded. I suggest we all go through a letter of the alphabet from [http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/Category:DF2010:Fine_Quality_Articles here] and rate all the articles properly. I've already done so for letters A and B... 24 more to go. If you have extra info to add, don't hold back.

Go and rate!

: What's the difference between fine and tattered? At present you have the exact same criteria listed for both categories. --[[User:Doctorzuber|Doctorzuber]] 18:58, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
::I had changed Tattered to be different from Fine, but VengefulDonut apparently disagreed and reverted them back to being identical. So Yeah. --[[User:Quietust|Quietust]] 19:20, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

:::Either you two didn't read them or we disagree over what the word identical means. [[User:VengefulDonut|VengefulDonut]] 19:43, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
::::Okay, ''nearly'' identical. Out of the 5 properties on each one, 3 are the same. --[[User:Quietust|Quietust]] 20:52, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

:::::Alright. What about this? [[User:VengefulDonut|VengefulDonut]] 21:04, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
:::::: It's apparently been edited since I said something. I assure you it was identical when I posted, which was very confusing. --[[User:Doctorzuber|Doctorzuber]] 00:58, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
::::::It wasn't identical, there was a slight difference. Too small but it was there. [[User:Speed112|Speed112]] 01:23, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

==Stone, gem and similar articles==
Any thoughts on how to rate these? Many of them seem to be tagged as stubs, but the stone template in particular seems to me to cover most of the salient information. [[User:Oddtwang of Dork|Oddtwang of Dork]] 20:20, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

:In my view, quality should be a reflection of the percentage of the total information about a given subject that exists. So if we're talking about non-special stones, there is very little information aside from their basic properties, colours, locations etc. Thus if an article encapsulates all of those, it should be rated fairly high quality. I can see that there could be an argument for adding like a little descriptive sentence on the page or something, but surely brevity and simplicity are features that suggest a higher quality of article. In addition, if you look at the current definition for Masterwork Quality articles, these basic stone articles are comprehensive on the subject, contain no unverified information, have an appropriate number of outbound links, do not have any redlinks and are properly categorized. The only feature I am not sure on is whether the links are in the right format, but I'd be willing to bet that it is. If that is the case, the only problem with them, and the only thing holding them back from being Masterwork (by the current definition) is the fact that they do not have multiple editors. Surely then, if we go through the pages and quickly check if the information is correct, we can then reclassify them as Masterwork. [[User:Pie|Pie]] 00:36, 17 May 2010 (UTC)


:  Adding the real life information is just extraneous nonsense that doesn't help anything. Every mineral article has a link to the wikipedia page on the same subject already (in the side chart), we simply do not require a chemical formula and a crystal matrix diagram for every mineral on a wiki devoted to Dwarf Fortress gameplay. 
:  For vermin articles, it makes sense to have a longer article for the economically important cave spider. For mineral articles, it makes sense to have a longer article for the rare and game specific adamantine. A D for Dwarf section for minerals like chert is simply unreasonable, and would take away from the specific purpose of the wiki, which is information first. 
:  All of the mineral articles fulfill the masterwork obligations. They are as comprehensive on the subject at hand as necessary, because this is a game, not a geology lesson. If players are interested in geology, they can find the information they need more effectively elsewhere. [[User:JohnnyMadhouse|JohnnyMadhouse]] 22:54, 21 May 2010 (UTC)


:It seems that rating these articles removes the gamedata properties. The template is in place, but the actual information (i.e. layer, melting point, boiling point, etc.) is gone. I'm not sure how to recover it. [[User:Shadowfury333|Shadowfury333]] 00:55, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
::What browser are you using? [[User:VengefulDonut|VengefulDonut]] 14:39, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
:::Mozilla Firefox 3.6.3 [[User:Shadowfury333|Shadowfury333]] 18:51, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
::I see that you've rated 2 stone pages (Chalk and Chert), and both of them are still showing all of the appropriate information. --[[User:Quietust|Quietust]] 16:24, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
:::Hmm. Going back they appear to have the information again. Maybe it just takes a little while to update it with the rating. [[User:Shadowfury333|Shadowfury333]] 18:52, 8 June 2010 (UTC)


:Well, I'm done fleshing out layer stones and vermin with descriptive phrases, and raised them all to ≡Exceptional≡ quality. I know the necessary information is there in the infoboxes and the raw files, but I would imagine newcomers to the game and wiki would appreciate an easy to read sentence or two giving a broad overview of the item in question. --[[User:Shadowfury333|Shadowfury333]] 01:46, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

:Okay, done trees and plants. Not sure what to do next. Probably any old skills not properly described. --[[User:Shadowfury333|Shadowfury333]] 21:37, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

==who rates those articles==
who rates those articles?
::I have been.  If I shouldn't be, someone say so now.  Also, should ~100% of content articles be rated? --[[User:StrongAxe|StrongAxe]] 18:42, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
:::As there isn't much of a vandalism thing going on here, I think it should be the original author of the article who rates it, with some admin verification following--[[User:Smd|Smd]] 15:25, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
::::Anyone and everyone should be rating the articles.  Don't agree with an article rating?  leave a note why on the talk page and re-rate the page in question. --[[User:Briess|Briess]] 01:35, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

:Anybody can rate an article, it's a wiki and we're ''supposed to'' all work together. Just try to correct or update anything that needs changing. If you spot vandalism, go to the '''history''' tab next to the discussion/edit tabs and revert the page to a pre-vandal version. [[Special:Contributions/97.90.193.201|97.90.193.201]] 17:57, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

== Changing levels ==
:There was a discussion [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=54970.msg1183319#msg1183319 on the forums] involving changing the quality levels to Fine, Exceptional, and Masterwork.  Yes/no?--[[User:Draco18s|Draco18s]] 17:29, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
::I think this is a great idea. [[User:Mason11987|Mason]] <sup>([[User talk:Mason11987|T]]-[[Special:Contributions/Mason11987|C]])</sup> 17:31, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
::I second.  The forum thread linked above garnered broad support for -Fine-, +Exceptional+, *Masterwork* after discussing several options. -Grae
:::Agreed, with the quality modifiers in place, they're awesome for this wiki.  I mean, what's more Dwarf Fortressy than having a good *article*? --[[User:Aescula|Aescula]] 21:32, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
::Indeed, it seems to fit the game better rather than fit with common player perceptions of the races in game.[[User:Vattic|Vattic]] 20:51, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
::Although I think the Fine, Exceptional, Masterwork is a better grading scheme I have to question the need for more than two levels. Either an article doesn't have enough information (currently Elven) or it does (currently Human or Dwarven. The distinction between the top too levels is mostly in how it links to other articles which I think is a poor way to grade. For example you could make a Human article Dwarven by removing any red links or badly formed links but arguably this reduces the quality of the article itself. So I'd suggest just having a rating for poor pages and leaving good ones without any tag. --[[User:Shades|Shades]] 14:51, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
:::I think there is some value to pointing out articles that are not only accurate and full of all the information, but also easy to navigate within and between.  Hence the distinction between what is good and great. [[User:Mason11987|Mason]] <sup>([[User talk:Mason11987|T]]-[[Special:Contributions/Mason11987|C]])</sup> 16:28, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
::::But that is not what we are doing as by removing the links on a Human article you can end up with a Dwarven article. That is not a good reinforcement. --[[User:Shades|Shades]] 07:50, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
:::::I added another category requirement for an Exceptional article now. --[[User:Briess|Briess]] 00:15, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

== Template/method ==

I see that this was set up with different templates for each quality level.  Is that really the best way to go?  Couldn't instead of <nowiki> {{elven}} {{dwarven}} {{human}} </nowiki> could we do <nowiki> {{Quality|<low>}} {{Quality|<med>}} {{Quality|<high>}} </nowiki> (for whatever those three are)?  Thoughts? [[User:Mason11987|Mason]] <sup>([[User talk:Mason11987|T]]-[[Special:Contributions/Mason11987|C]])</sup> 17:50, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
:That seems far more sensible to me. The three tags are now very confusing if you don't happen to have been around while the quality thing's been introduced. [[User:Oddtwang of Dork|Oddtwang of Dork]] 15:47, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
::I also agree - it would centralize the formatting rules, and even potentially allow people to set what kind of label they want to see. --[[User:Krenn|Krenn]] 07:06, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
:::Feel free to implement this if you feel so inclined. --[[User:Briess|Briess]] 00:15, 2 May 2010 (UTC)
::::Alright, I'll try to work on this tonight. [[User:Mason11987|Mason]] <sup>([[User talk:Mason11987|T]]-[[Special:Contributions/Mason11987|C]])</sup> 19:30, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

This started out as a project to point what needs fixing. Fine is a '''terrible''' name for the bottom quality rank. If you are hell-bent on driving the DF reference all the way, make the lowest rank XShoddyX [[User:VengefulDonut|VengefulDonut]] 12:39, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

:Also, the comments on the forums seem to be more objections than suggestions. Perhaps the original elven/human/dwarven ranking would work. [[User:VengefulDonut|VengefulDonut]] 12:45, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
::I'd also like to nitpick that the current labels, "-Fine-" "+Exceptional+" and "*Masterwork*", are wrong - they ''should'' be "+Fine+" "≡Exceptional≡" and "☼Masterwork☼". --[[User:Quietust|Quietust]] 13:00, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

:I think the purpose of pointing to what needs fixing works just as fine regardless of names.  Anyone who cliks those links (which anyone who wants to fix things on the wiki probably will) understand what fine pages need more work.
:I don't think elven/human/dwarven was any better at showing what needs improvement.  While fine/exceptional/masterwork might not accurately measure the bottom level, at least it shows a gradient which elven/human/dwarven does not.  I have no objection to bumping it to 4 levels (I think something LIKE stub could be there, shoddy isn't bad) that seems like a very good idea to me.
:Vengeful, I know there are a lot of objections but when asked for some suggestions this change seemed very highly requested.  I simply implmented it because I agreed that "elven" doesn't really equal "bad" or even "worse then human".
:Yeah, Agreed Quiest, I'll change that. [[User:Mason11987|Mason]] <sup>([[User talk:Mason11987|T]]-[[Special:Contributions/Mason11987|C]])</sup> 14:30, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

::We don't need more levels. We just need the labels for the current levels to match their purpose. The bottom level, which represents "needs improvement" articles, needs to have a tag that sounds '''bad'''. xTatteredx and xShoddyx would fit the current theme. Replacing it all with number ranks would solve it (say, level of magma). As long as the label doesn't directly conflict with the purpose of the category, the way fine does. [[User:VengefulDonut|VengefulDonut]] 14:54, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

:::Sounds good, it was a little work to make sure the shift happened correctly.  If you want to do the change to "Shoddy" or "Tattered" then cool, otherwise I'll maybe do it sometime this week. [[User:Mason11987|Mason]] <sup>([[User talk:Mason11987|T]]-[[Special:Contributions/Mason11987|C]])</sup> 17:24, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

::::Something a little negative about that, isn't there? "Stub" says 'this needs more adding to it' whereas "shoddy" says 'what's here isn't much cop'. I agree that "Fine" is probably a bit generous. Offhand, however, I don't have another suggestion for the lowest level.
::::There's probably an argument to make that the middle level would be better as "Fine" if the lowest is changed - I think there's a clearer distinction then between it and the top level. [[User:Oddtwang of Dork|Oddtwang of Dork]] 21:02, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

::::I just noticed the addition of "xTATTEREDx". Now we have a brand new problem: There's absolutely nothing in between "poor" (tattered) and "good" (fine). We need something neutral. Poor - Neutral - Good - Great is a fine progression, but we don't have anything that sounds "neutral".[[User:G-Flex|G-Flex]] 07:47, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

::::::Yeah. Fine really isn't a neutral word. What would be a good replacement? [[User:VengefulDonut|VengefulDonut]] 12:30, 16 May 2010 (UTC)
:::::::How about Adequate (no -decorations-), to mirror the no-adjective change to skill levels? --[[User:Onul Rigothzas|Onul Rigothzas]] 03:47, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

:::::Well tbh fine is fine, not good, as in it's not bad but it isn't good either = neutral. Exceptional = good and Masterwork = great. I was in fact thinking that, rating-wise, Masterwork is really close to Exceptional, and Exceptional is pretty far away from Fine, so it would be a good idea to turn Fine into Well-crafted and Exceptional into Superior, to have them all 2 levels apart: Tattered(0), Well-crafted(2), Superior(4), Masterful(6... or 12). --[[User:Speed112|Speed112]] 12:14, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

==Quality categories by version namespace==

Is there a relatively simple way to view a list of, say, all DF2010 articles of Fine quality?  If not, could there be?  It would be quite handy for targeting articles to be improved. --[[User:FunkyWaltDogg|FunkyWaltDogg]] 03:29, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
:Doing so would require editing the {{tl|Quality}} template itself, though it might not be a bad idea. --[[User:Quietust|Quietust]] 04:04, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
::I was thinking of doing that.  We'll leave this here for a little so people can comment on it, but then if noone opposes I'll make the change. [[User:Mason11987|Mason]] <sup>([[User talk:Mason11987|T]]-[[Special:Contributions/Mason11987|C]])</sup> 17:22, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
:::With this in place, would calculating the "Overall quality rating" for each version not be more useful? Either for each namespace or for each + the articles in the mainspace, maybe? [[User:Oddtwang of Dork|Oddtwang of Dork]] 21:05, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
::::I've just updated the progress bar template to allow it to focus on a single namespace. 40d has a reasonably high rating, while 23a is way worse than even DF2010. I've also tweaked this Quality page to list the quality stats for all 3 namespaces - it's a bit busy, but the information should be useful. --[[User:Quietust|Quietust]] 13:57, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
:::::Looks great IMO, thanks!  --[[User:FunkyWaltDogg|FunkyWaltDogg]] 15:02, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
:::::My god, stats.  Stats everywhere!  I love it.  Well done. [[User:Mason11987|Mason]] <sup>([[User talk:Mason11987|T]]-[[Special:Contributions/Mason11987|C]])</sup> 15:27, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

There's no mention of the "Version:Quality" style categories on [[Dwarf_Fortress_Wiki:Quality|the quality page]]. Should those be added immediately, or are we waiting until we've reached a decision on if ratings will differ between versions? Because I would add them, but I don't want to screw things up. [[User:SenorPwnage|Señor Pwnage]] 02:36, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

==Drop in overall quality rating==
Why has the quality rating seen on the main page dropped so precipitously?  It was at over 20% a week or two ago, now it is at 11%.  Is this due to articles being rerated downward, or due to the hundreds of nearly-stub pages such as [[DF2010:Aquamarine]]?  Has the calculation method changed?  Or another cause?<br/>&mdash;[[User:0x517A5D|0x517A5D]] 20:19, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
:Almost certainly the latter, and probably partially my fault - whenever I find a page that has no rating at all, I just give it a "Fine" rating so it at least has a rating ''at all'' - I'm of the opinion that it's better for a page to be underrated than completely unrated. --[[User:Quietust|Quietust]] 21:33, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
::And I agree, the lowest rating should be applied to the worst articles. [[User:Mason11987|Mason]] <sup>([[User talk:Mason11987|T]]-[[Special:Contributions/Mason11987|C]])</sup> 17:21, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
:::Given that a bunch of the articles have been blindly categorized as "Fine", I'm going through and rerating a bunch of them as "Unrated" which will place them in a distinct category so other users can provide more accurate ratings. It would probably be beneficial to make the template recognize this rating and list it on this project page (and somehow include them on the progress bar thingy). --[[User:Quietust|Quietust]] 19:36, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
::::I'd suggest not doing that.  Fine is currently the "bottom" rating.  We can that name if we want, but having to go back and change unrated to "new bottom rating" will be a lot of unnecessary work, imo.  Don't you think? [[User:Mason11987|Mason]] <sup>([[User talk:Mason11987|T]]-[[Special:Contributions/Mason11987|C]])</sup> 22:50, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
:::::"Unrated" was '''not''' intended to be a "new bottom rating", but a way of denoting that an article ''needs to be (re-)rated'' - since the intent is that every page (or at least all of those in the DF2010 namespace) should have a quality rating, it's useful to be able to explicitly categorize an article as needing a rating without having to rate the article yourself (for those who are very poor judges of quality). --[[User:Quietust|Quietust]] 22:55, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
:I'm also rather shocked at the brutal re-rating of everything. Not one Masterwork article?  Seriously?  If everything's just going to end up in a morass of Fine, where Fine can be anything from a pointless stub to a half-decent, usable article, then the system really isn't helping. --[[User:Krenn|Krenn]] 05:08, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
::Ah - replying to my own post in case anyone else has the same confusion I did; the problem is that the links to the categories from the Quality page go to '''non-version specific''' categories of Fine, Exceptional, and Masterwork, and nothing is in those anymore.  All articles are now of a quality rating specific to their own namespace, IE: [[:Category:DF2010:Masterwork Quality Articles]].  I still think rating is being too harsh, though, as there's only 3 masterwork right now and that seems low. --[[User:Krenn|Krenn]] 05:14, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
:::I'll fix this.  Also, the count is just how many articles are labeled masterwork, if you can find some other than those three that are masterwork, please label them such :). [[User:Mason11987|Mason]] <sup>([[User talk:Mason11987|T]]-[[Special:Contributions/Mason11987|C]])</sup> 06:15, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
::::There are only 2!!! masterwork articles now for some reason. Don't know if the 3rd one deserved being downgraded or not, but this makes me kind of sad. We need to do something about all these "fine" articles which are anything but fine, and bump more-than-decent exceptional articles with some extra stuff to make them masterwork... guides maybe? I don't know. But I don't really like it. I'm trying to do stuff but I'm new (so I suck) and don't have time... the answer is for everyone to do small things and not let it to a few good members.

== Criteria ==

Currently, having a "substantial number of redlinks" is grounds for an article being rated as Fine. While this is okay for new pages, it's a bit unfair to articles in the 23a namespace, where most of the content is concrete but simply hasn't been imported from the Archive wiki yet. Should this distinguish between redlinks due to incorrect formatting versus redlinks due to pending creation of other pages? --[[User:Quietust|Quietust]] 19:48, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
:I tend to think the rules should be ''substantially'' different in the 23a namespace, as it is essentially historical content being ported into the current wiki for reference purposes.  So I would actually argue that 23a pages should not be rated at all, nor taken into account in the quality rating.<br/>Speaking of that, it used to be wiki policy to make minimal edits &mdash; don't these repeated ratings lead to extra entries in the page histories and extra disk space consumed?  Or are the ratings handled thru a database entry maybe?<br/>&mdash;[[User:0x517A5D|0x517A5D]] 19:57, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
::By that argument, should not 40d articles also be exempt from being rated? --[[User:Quietust|Quietust]] 20:20, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
:::Disk space is not a concern.  However, fine as the bottom rating of articles is not fine. --[[User:Briess|Briess]] 20:22, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

== Proposal: No ratings for 40d and 23a ==
Those parts of the wiki are mostly static (and hopefully generally complete) and increasingly of historic interest only. The way I understand the rating, it's mostly to show the ongoing process of completing a new version and telling a user how to evaluate an article.

We could alternatively introduce separate rating templates for 40d and 23a.. --[[User:Höhlenschreck|Höhlenschreck]] 21:52, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps just alternate categories? [[User:Mason11987|Mason]] <sup>([[User talk:Mason11987|T]]-[[Special:Contributions/Mason11987|C]])</sup> 22:48, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

:Specifics of implementation aside, I think a ratings system that only counts current version and mainspace articles in the overall wiki score is a good idea. --[[User:FunkyWaltDogg|FunkyWaltDogg]] 00:39, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
::This is now implmented, the "score" is DF2010 only.  Hohlenschreck, does this meet your ideas?  Or do you not want labels on older articles at all? [[User:Mason11987|Mason]] <sup>([[User talk:Mason11987|T]]-[[Special:Contributions/Mason11987|C]])</sup> 06:30, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
:::I think this is fine --[[User:Höhlenschreck|Höhlenschreck]] 00:43, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

== Quality is not updating itself ==

I've been testing something, and looking at a preview via edit, it shows a different quality than normal, like it's not updating the quality at all. I'm not sure if this is a bug, or as possible as a wiki can go. Any ideas as to why this is happening? --[[User:Hugna|Hugna]] 07:10, 22 May 2010 (UTC)
:The quality won't update itself automatically while you preview.  From Recent Changes it looks like (maybe) there is now something which automatically updates rating based on some script?  Interesting if that's the case.  But it definitely won't have any impact while you are previewing (also not immediately after you save either). [[User:Mason11987|Mason]] <sup>([[User talk:Mason11987|T]]-[[Special:Contributions/Mason11987|C]])</sup> 11:12, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

:What do you mean by a different quality than normal? If you hit preview when on the edit page, it will show whatever quality tag is currently on the page. Also Mason, the rate script is just an easier method to add/update a quality tag -- shouldn't have anything to do with what he's talking about, I hope. [[user:Emi|<span style="color:#8a4e4e">Emi</span>]] [[user_talk:Emi|<span style="color:#6a3e4e">[T]</span>]] 11:54, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

== Difference between exceptional and masterwork ==

I've noticed there has been some talk about exceptionals/materworks over on the [[Black diamond]] page. I'm continuing the topic here, to have everything in centralised discussion... My two cents: I think "exceptional" should be the standard for an article that contains all in-game information. Masterworks should then be articles that for some reason exceed the standard value and add something extra - like guides (great example it the [[Cave spider]] page) or massive amounts of information organised in a convenient way (like the generic [[Tree]] page). I'm saying this mostly as a user, who expects masterworks to be something worth reading. Having masterworks that are basically just stubs (eg. the [[Black diamond]]) is very counterintuitive, even if nothing remains to be said.
Yes, I'm aware this would mean rearranging the quality criteria. --[[User:Markus cz|Markus cz]] 11:38, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
:Makes sense to me. --[[User:Nahno|Nahno]] 12:53, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
::That's the way I view it too.  Since we've now got xTatteredx for useless articles and +Fine+ for mediocre ones, putting ≡Exceptional≡ as "complete" and ☼Masterwork☼ as "over and beyond" seems appropriate. --[[User:DeMatt|DeMatt]] 01:42, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
:I agree, Masterwork articles need to be something particularly special.  I don't think it's a problem if some articles, by their nature, may never be able to be "masterwork". [[User:Mason11987|Mason]] <sup>([[User talk:Mason11987|T]]-[[Special:Contributions/Mason11987|C]])</sup> 12:43, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
::I just want to point out that if Exceptional is the goal, it should score as 100%, not 60%, in the math for the quality rating.  (I think Fine should also be bumped upward from 30%, and Tattered bumped up from 0% to maybe 10%.)  I won't make the change myself, as my last edit to the math was reversed.<br/>&mdash;[[User:0x517A5D|0x517A5D]] 14:51, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
:::Your [http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php?title=Dwarf_Fortress_Wiki:Quality/rating&diff=prev&oldid=110861 last edit to the math] was reversed due to said change consisting of ''adding a random number from -30 to +40 to the rating'', as well as outright labeling it as "'''malicious'''". --[[User:Quietust|Quietust]] 16:31, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
::::Do you have a point?<br/>&mdash;[[User:0x517A5D|0x517A5D]] 16:45, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
:::::The point is, your suggested contribution here is useful.  The addition of a random element to the rating value was not judged as useful.  One was reverted, the other is very unlikely to be reverted unless another better idea comes along. --[[User:Briess|Briess]] 18:51, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
:::And there in lies the problem (perhaps the only among all the positives) of a rating system like this.  It doesn't let you specifically point out impressive achievements without marking everything else as missing something.  I mean it takes away the benefit of highlighting the best work we've (well, not really me, but other people) came up with as a group in order to assign a score.  But I can't think of another way of doing it. [[User:Mason11987|Mason]] <sup>([[User talk:Mason11987|T]]-[[Special:Contributions/Mason11987|C]])</sup> 05:21, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

:Let's add the following requirement (or something along these lines) for an article to be considered masterwork:
:* This is enlightening.
:or maybe something like this:
:* All DF players should read this article.
:It would be good to have something that says the page is an important one, and not just a comprehensive one. [[User:VengefulDonut|VengefulDonut]] 05:32, 2 June 2010 (UTC)
::::I agree. Maybe not specifically these criteria, but something along those lines. Masterwork articles should shine among other great articles (Exceptional) and be, indeed, masterwork. 
::::Another idea would be to tweak the rating so that Exceptional articles are complete (100%) and Masterwork are complete with a spark of awesomeness. What I mean is that they should still count as 100% on the rating percentile, but there should be another counter of awesomeness which says how many Masterwork quality articles there are. [[User:Speed112|Speed112]] 10:58, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

== Problem with the timestamp via "rating page" ==

It's a little odd nobody noticed it until now. The timestamp the automated "Qualityrator" creates, is always '''08:00, 22 May 2010 (UTC)'''. I don't think this should be like it is. Why do we have the timestamp when ist is alwasy the same? Do I get anything worng? --[[User:Used|Used]]
:Looks like the [[User:Emi/review.js|rater script]] just included the exact text <nowiki>"~~~~~"</nowiki> instead of splitting it into 2 strings, meaning it got substituted when the page was actually saved. I must admit, it's quite amusing that nobody noticed it until now. --[[User:Quietust|Quietust]] 12:46, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
::Yeah, thank you! You are great =). Now this can be fixed soon. --[[User:Used|Used]] 08:25, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

== Auto rate ==

the 'rate' feature hangs for me at 
Automatic Criteria:
Is page orphaned.... NO
Is page deadend...... 
How many redlinks does page contain...... 

is this expected behavior? I've been working around by manually editing the quality, and adding the appropriate timestamp. [[User:Decius|Decius]] 02:55, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
Addendum: looking at the script, it seems to be counting the number of ways that a page can be reached from the index. Would it be faster to stop as soon as one route was found, or is the cnt there more than a go/no go? [[User:Decius|Decius]] 03:08, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
:The count does affect the rating guidelines, and the script seems to work fine for me.  I'll look into it and see what I can or can't figure out.  What browser is this on? --[[User:Briess|Briess]] 12:24, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
::IE 8.0, using a marginal wireless network. If there's a significant data transfer involved, it will probably be interrupted. [[User:Decius|Decius]] 01:24, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

== <nowiki>{{l|linkname}}</nowiki> ==

This requirement for *Masterwork* is a little absurd, unless pages need to be created for every variation of the name of the article. Not only is the improper link formatting, but there are many possiblites when the use of <nowiki>{{l|linkname}}</nowiki> simple doesn't work properly. The requirement does say "except where a link to another namespace is required," which I suppose covers my previous statement; even then, if there is going to be such a huge exception, why even use it at all? Not only would it be easier to just use proper link formatting, but articles would be more standardized (which this Wiki '''badly''' needs). 

This wiki is in sad shape, not only would this Quality page would be considered tattered (in my opinion,lacks information, information is unclear), there isn't even a <s>[[Manual of Style]]</s> [[Dwarf Fortress Wiki:Manual of Style|Manual of Style]] here! 

I won't change any of the current <nowiki>{{l|linkname}}</nowiki> links on pages I edit, but until there is actually some standardization here, I'll be using <nowiki>[[pagename|linkname]]</nowiki> [[User:Gzalzi|Gzalzi]] 20:09, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
:You're supposed to use <nowiki>{{l|linkname}}</nowiki> the same way you use <nowiki>[[linkname]]</nowiki>.  You can format it <nowiki>{{l|pagename|linkname}}</nowiki>, just as with the standard link formatting.  The reason for using the L-template is because of the versioning process - when DF2011 comes around, they're gonna '''copy''' all the DF2010 pages into the new DF2011 namespace, and then change the L-template so DF2011 links bounce around in DF2011 pages, while DF2010 links bounce around in DF2010 pages.  You can already see this at work in the 40d pages - clicking on an L-template link in [[40d:Stone]], like the links in the first paragraph, causes you to go to the 40d versions of the pages.
:I disagree with you on the quality of the Quality page. I'd put it at Exceptional. You'll have to explain what information you're looking for to convince me otherwise; unfortunately, these ratings are a little subjective, so trying to apply the "rules" as rules doesn't work very well.
:I'm reasonably, fairly, confidently, sure that the links in the Article Version template don't count towards the guidelines for Masterwork. --[[User:DeMatt|DeMatt]] 21:04, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
::Ah, well the reasoning because the use of the "L" template does make sense, and I will use it.
::The subjectiveness of the Quality page is the problem I have with it. If you're going to define rules, they should be able to be applied as rules. The definitions of what makes an article good and what makes it bad need to be much more clear, or some of the requirements needs to be changed around, though I don't have any specific suggestions at this time. --[[User:Gzalzi|Gzalzi]] 21:40, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
:::The <nowiki>{{L}}</nowiki> template has been obsoleted (by integrating its functionality into MediaWiki itself), so this should no longer be an issue. --[[User:Quietust|Quietust]] 17:54, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

== Quality Scale Reword? ==

I'm fairly new to editing, but I'd like to be able to contribute better. I've tried my hand at the "tattered" articles, but most of those have no info because you can't get the info. Most of the articles labelled "fine" usually fall under the criteria for "exceptional" (in my opinion) but the "exceptional" title seems misfit (which is probably why they're labelled "fine"). The criteria for "fine" seems to be an extremely poor, but moderately long article. "Contains little to no accurate information" feels like it should be under "tattered" not "fine." 

It looks like there are either major flaws with almost half of the articles, or the quality criteria for page quality is skewed. I feel the definition of "Fine" should be revised to fit an average article, not have the description sound like the article needs great improvements when in reality it is a decent article. [[User:Williamrmck|Williamrmck]] 17:09, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

== Many current 'Tattered' articles should be 'Fine' ==

Looking through the pages currently categorized as being of Tattered quality, it seems that most of them deserve to be considered Fine, or even Exceptional in some cases. As was discussed in the older discussion [[#Stone, gem and similar articles|'Stone, gem and similar articles']], pages for stones and miscellaneous animals (where there is little notable variation from other identical creature types to speak of) should probably be upgraded to Fine as long as they have proper information, since Tattered should be reserved for articles that genuinely lack important content. The rating script seems to agree with me on this. I'll start rating such articles as Fine from now on, if that's alright. [[User:August|August]] 06:27, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

: Yes, that's correct. According to [[Dwarf_Fortress_Wiki:Quality#Tattered|this page]], vermin, stones, and creatures shouldn't be rated "tattered" unless they are missing the information box on the left. Maybe [[User_talk:Quietust#Bot_Requests|QuietBot]] (or another bot) could do this, but feel free to go ahead and fix articles that you feel need it. 
: Also check [http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Category:DF2012:Tattered_Quality_Articles| this list] if you haven't already. (It looks like all the A's and B's are gone, so you probably did). --[[User:Lethosor|Lethosor]] ([[User_talk:Lethosor|talk]]) 17:50, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

:: Alright, sounds good. One thing I did notice that was missing from many of the animal pages was butcher yield information. I'll still go ahead and rate those as Fine, but at some point later I'll try and get that info. [[User:August|August]] 16:15, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

== Timestamps ==

While I understand the original intent of including timestamps in quality ratings, a quick glance at the statistics shows that the vast majority of the articles about the current version have "missing" or "outdated" timestamps. Naturally the results are even worse for prior versions:

{| {{prettytable}} width=75%
|- bgcolor="#ddd"
|Version
|Old timestamps
|Missing timestamps
|Total articles
|Percent old/missing
|-
|DF2012
|1246
|238
|1795
|82.7 
|-
|v0.31
|1148
|231
|1382
|99.8
|-
|40d
|507
|555
|1065
|99.7
|-
|23a
|506
|118 
|646
|96.6
|}
::''Historical data as of 19:49, 2 April 2013 (UTC)''
	 		 	

In the case of prior versions, requiring our articles to be less out-of-date than the game itself is rather ridiculous. Since it is abundantly clear that these timestamps are not actively motivating improvement of the wiki, I am suggesting that the timestamps be dropped from the quality template. --[[User:Loci|Loci]] 20:03, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

: Makes sense to me. Timestamps should definitely be removed from the old namespaces at least (or simply not calculated as being "outdated"). However, I think timestamps could still serve some amount of purpose for the current version. Perhaps it would be best to simply extend the length of time required for quality ratings to be considered "outdated"? Or, if such a thing is possible, make it so that quality ratings are only stamped as outdated once significant changes have been made to the article since the last time it was last rated. This might make the most sense, since logically the rating shouldn't change unless the article changes first. [[User:August|August]] 22:40, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

:: Personally, I don't pay much attention to the "outdated" category either. I don't think an article, even one covering a 9-month old release, needs to be re-ranked every 10 weeks, particularly if the rating doesn't change. The only use I've found for the "missing timestamp" category is locating articles created by [{{fullurl:Special:ListUsers|group=bot}} bots], but this can also be checked by looking at their contributions. If it turns out that nobody uses these categories, I agree that they may as well be removed. --{{User:Lethosor/sig}} 23:18, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

::: Agreed, I never pay attention to them either. (btw this is really off-topic but that's an awesome rainbow signature) [[User:August|August]] 23:36, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

:I removed the timestamp categorization in [http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php?title=Template:Quality&diff=183096&oldid=182089 this edit]. --[[User:Loci|Loci]] 20:00, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

== Proposal: Add a fifth quality ranking ==

As pointed out in [[#Template/method|this topic]], there is a fairly large jump between "fine" and "exceptional" in-game, as well as in the category descriptions. [[#Quality Scale Reword?|This topic]] also points out the large gap between the two. The current descriptions make it hard to classify articles that fall between "fine" and "exceptional", leading to inconsistencies between some articles on similar topics (e.g [[DF2012:Armadillo]] and [[DF2012:Conger eel]] are "fine", [[DF2012:Badger]] is "exceptional", and [[DF2012:Coyote]] and [[DF2012:Cow]] are similar in content but have different ratings). I propose a new rating (*Superior* seems to fit according to [[DF2012:Quality]]). I know it would probably require a lot of reorganization for some articles, but I think it would provide a more accurate description of article quality. --{{User:Lethosor/sig}} 01:55, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
:Makes sense to me.  --[[User:Briess|Briess]] ([[User talk:Briess|talk]]) 06:55, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

:I agree too. I am not entirely happy with naming it "superior", as I occasionally have to look up if superior or exceptional is actually the better quality but hey, that's what the game uses ;) Another concern I have is with the rating script: right now there is enough wiggle room to have an article go either way if one wants. We should find a marker for all 3 qualities that is decisive. Exceptional could probably be some sense of "complete", fine could be "missing important information", with superior being "incomplete, but no wrong or disputed content, no missing important information. Well, this has been discussed before, just my 2 cents. --[[User:Old Ancient|Old Ancient]] ([[User talk:Old Ancient|talk]]) 17:57, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

I added a fifth ranking to the template. [http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php?title=Template:Quality&diff=183992&oldid=183800]. --{{User:Lethosor/sig}} 21:46, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

==Definition of "Superior"==
We need to come up with an accurate definition of "superior", to fill the gap between "fine" and "excepional". A few potential guidelines have been suggested, which I'll post here as a reference (along with a couple of my own):
* No important information missing (includes templates/infoboxes, obvious facts, etc.)
* May be missing some, less-important information
* Few redlinks
* Templates are "completed", in cases where not all information is easily extracted from the raws ([http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php?title=DF2012:Reader&oldid=159901], [http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php?title=DF2012:Aye-aye&oldid=180424]).
Again, these are mostly tentative suggestions, to get an idea of what "superior" means before adding it to [[DF:Quality|the description page]].   --{{User:Lethosor/sig}} 21:46, 16 April 2013 (UTC)
----
Mixing Fine and Exceptional with the suggestions above:

* No important information is missing (includes templates/infoboxes, obvious facts, etc.) 
** May be missing some less-important information 
* Has a substantial number of links, and very few red links
* Standard templates are included, and "completed" if necessary 
* Is properly categorized
* Contains no inaccurate information, but may have a small amount of information that needs to be completely verified.

--[[User:Loci|Loci]] ([[User talk:Loci|talk]]) 19:31, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

===Working copy===
If there aren't any objections, I'll copy this over in a few days. We can always make changes afterwards too. --{{User:Lethosor/sig}} 22:38, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
* No important information is missing (includes templates/infoboxes, obvious facts, etc.) 
** May be missing some less-important information 
* Has a sufficient number of links
* Has very few red links
* Includes all standard templates
** Templates are completed when necessary (including butchering returns for creatures, labors for workshops, etc.)
* Is properly categorized

==Quality score calculation==
The quality score calculation needs to be updated to include Superior.--[[User:Loci|Loci]] ([[User talk:Loci|talk]]) 19:31, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
:Do you mean the script or the template? I think I updated [[DF:Quality/rating]] correctly, but it only changed the overall rating by 0.1% (I'm reluctant to increase the Superior weighting any further). If you're referring to the script, it has a few problems with the new wiki already, and I'm not sure when they'll be fixed. --{{User:Lethosor/sig}} 20:51, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

== Rating tab not working anymore? ==

This article says: "In order to rate articles, click the "rate" tab when on the page you wish to rank, then fill out the form in order to suggest an appropriate rating. If you feel the suggested rating is incorrect, you may override it and force a specific rating." but at the moment there is no "rate tab" anywhere, so the only way to rate an article (a necessary task with the addition of v50 pages) is doing it manually. Does anyone now what happened and/or how to add it again? - [[User:Kaly2|Kaly2]] ([[User talk:Kaly2|talk]]) 10:14, 11 January 2023 (UTC)