Wikivoyage:Article status

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Wikivoyage articles evolve and mature, as they are edited by various contributors, over time. When assessing an article's status, many factors must be taken into account. The following subjective guidelines are to assist editors in making this assessment, considering the amount of information in an article, and its quality and usefulness. The article's compliance with Wikivoyage's goals and Manual of Style should also be considered.

Status criteria

The status is on a 5-point scale:

  1. Stub – An article with little or no information in it, or not formatted even close to the manual of style. An article with no skeleton template would have this status, which tends to be short-lived: If the article's subject is valid, adding the standard section headers will quickly bring it to "outline" status. If the page has no real chance of ever becoming an article (or even being redirected or merged to an existing article) that meets Wikivoyage's goals, it will typically be tagged {{delete}} and removed. An article unrelated to travel, or a page of graffiti with a nonsense title would be speedily deleted; an article whose ability to meet the criteria is merely questionable or borderline could be nominated for {{vfd}}.
  2. Outline – Has at least an introduction and a template outline laid out for the article, but not much more. Some of the sections may have content, but others are empty. You can tell what this article is going to be about, but it doesn't have enough information to be useful (e.g. get you to a destination and keep you alive there) or it needs major content or Manual of Style fixes.
  3. Usable – An adventurous person could use the article without recourse to other information sources. For most articles, this means they could probably get to the destination, eat, and sleep with just this information. It would probably enable them to find at least the most prominent attraction there. For countries and regions, linked sub-destinations like cities and other destinations should have meaningful content too.
  4. Guide – The article would be helpful for the average voyager, offering alternatives (where applicable) for where to stay and eat, what to see and do, how to get in and out, etc. It provides enough information for at least a few days there, but at least a few things are missing to make this a star article. It follows the manual of style in spirit if not in detail.
  5. Star – The article is essentially complete. It meets all of the above criteria. It follows the manual of style exactly or is the exception that proves the rule. Prose is not only near-perfect grammatically but also tight, effective, and enjoyable. It has appropriate illustrations, such as photos and a map. Enough breadth and depth of material is presented that anyone familiar with the subject of the article would have little to point out as absent. Future changes to this kind of article would reflect changes in the subject (e.g. a museum closes, a hotel price changes, a new airport is built) more than they'd require improvements in the coverage.

Objective criteria for each status vary depending on the kind of article it is. For more concrete guidance on assigning status, see:

A similar system for article status exists on Wikipedia, however the categories have different names:

Wikivoyage Wikipedia
Disambiguation Disambiguation
Stub Stub
Outline Start
Usable C-Class
Guide B-Class
Star Good
Destination of the month Featured articles

Changing status

Only articles in the main namespace have a status. Extra-hierarchical regions, disambiguation pages and redirects do not have one.

The status is expressed by the status tags at the end of the articles, such as {{guidecity}} and {{usablecountry}}. In these templates the status is the first word and the article type is the second word, with no space between the two words. See the links above for the full article status list.

Anyone is strongly encouraged to plunge forward and update the status tag of articles to stub, outline or usable as appropriate. If you're not sure, or if you don't feel comfortable judging your own work, then you can ask on the article's talk page or on a help page such as the Travellers' pub. If you do change the status and somebody objects and reverts your change, that does not mean you have made a faux pas: on the contrary, as anyone can revert you, don't be too concerned about whether others agree with your assessment.

Don't ever edit war over borderline cases. Someone might rate the page a little generously or a little stingily, and the borderline cases are just not important. If you think the status should be raised, then address any deficiencies by adding listings, contact details or whatever the other party thought was needed for the higher status. If you don't see any significant deficiencies, or those you see cannot be addressed because of the nature of the destination, ask or explain on the article talk page (or in the Pub) and try to reach a consensus. If you think the status should be lowered, similarly express your concerns (or improve the article to meet the higher rating!).

Upgrading to guide can also be done by anybody, though it is common to ask on the talk page whether there still are improvements to be done before upgrading.

To change an articles status to or from star status they must go through a nomination process.

Statistics

Type/Status
Matrix
Stub Outline Usable Informative Guide Star Unranked Total (line) Total (auto)
   Outline    Usable    Informative    Guide    Star
District 158 od 655 ud 21 id 200 gd 28 sd of 128 hc 1062 1,062
City 12,234 oc 7,750 uc 18 ic 670 gc 27 sc 20699 20,699
Airport 35 oa 45 ua 0 ia 16 ga 0 sa 96 96
Park 998 op 609 up 15 ip 82 gp 6 sp 1710 1,710
Rural area 354 or 280 ur 1 ir 18 gr 1 sr 654 654
Dive guide 89 od 120 ud 0 id 95 gd 7 sd 311 311
Region 2,526 or 683 ur 2 ir 45 gr 1 sr 329 er 3586 3,586
Country 155 oc 52 uc 1 ic 6 gc 1 sc 215 215
Continent 2 on 5 un 0 in 0 gn 0 sn 7 7
Destinations 16,551 10,199 58 1,150 72 329 A discrepancy exists between this total and the automatic total to the right. If this total is higher than the total to the right, one or more articles lack the {{IsPartOf}} template. If it is lower, one or more articles lack a status evaluation template. To find such articles, see the respective What's missing links in the Standard templates section above.  28,340 28,352 ip
Itinerary 205 oi 214 ui 1 ii 54 gi 5 si 479 484 it
Travel topics 542 ot 446 ut 4 it 111 gt 2 st 1,105 1,100 pt
Events 1 oe 0 ue 0 ie 0 ge 0 se 1 1
Phrasebooks 203 op 55 up 0 ip 46 gp 1 sp 305 306 pg
Unspecified 0 sb 0 ur 0 0 ghost articles (help/edit)
Gallery 2 gp 2
Disambiguation 2,208 da 2,208
Inactive 11 h 11
Title/Index 22‎ ti 22
Ghost articles 0‎ 0‎
Total (column) 0 17502 10914 63 1343 79 2572 A discrepancy exists between this total and the total to the lower right. There may be uncategorized pages, pages missing required templates, or redirect pages which include templates/categories, or the number of ghost articles may need to be recalculated. See the note on ghost articles above right.  32,473 A discrepancy exists between this total and the total below. There may be uncategorized pages, pages missing required templates, or redirect pages which include templates/categories, or the number of ghost articles may need to be recalculated. See the note on ghost articles above right.  32,474
Total (auto) 0 17,502 10,913 63 1,343 79 2572 A discrepancy exists between this total and the total to the right. There may be uncategorized pages, pages missing required templates, or redirect pages which include templates/categories, or the number of ghost articles may need to be recalculated. See the note on ghost articles above right.  32,472 32,476