ABSTRACT
At the time of writing the English Wikipedia contained about two million bona fide articles, ranging widely in quality from the very short, incomplete articles classified as ‘stubs’ to the 2372 Featured Articles. 1 The first matter, therefore, for anyone consulting the encyclopaedia is to assess the particular articles they are interested in as to their quality, in order to establish how much faith to put in them. It is clearly possible, if one reads carefully and critically, to make a personal judgement on the merits of a particular Wikipedia article, even on a topic about which one is comparatively ignorant. What follows here is a suggested assessment scheme for grading, and awarding points to various features of an article. This scheme is geared towards articles on historical topics, though there is no reason why it could not be modified for other subjects. The scheme is largely based on the list of attributes said to be required to raise articles to Featured Article status. 2 Obviously, anyone can make their own assessments in a less schematic fashion, but what follows at least has the merit of reminding the reader of the general requirements for a competent and useful article, and might also help when it comes to comparing one article with another.
