Page Quality Rating FAQs
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Why do we have to do all these steps? This takes forever!

With practice, the amount of time needed for accurate PQ ratings will decrease. The steps are important and are designed to help you assess many different aspects of PQ. You may be surprised by what you find. Pages which initially look low quality may turn out to be medium or high quality with careful inspection. The reverse may happen as well. We want your most informed, thoughtful opinion.

Are we just giving high quality ratings to pages that "look" good?

No! The goal is to do the exact opposite. These steps are designed to help you analyze the page without using a superficial "does-it-look-good?" approach.

You talked about expertise when rating MC. Does expertise matter for all topics? Aren't there some topics for which there are no experts?

Remember - we are not just talking about expertise. High quality pages involve time, effort, expertise and/or talent. But since you ask, pretty much any topic has some form of expert, though there are some topics or types of pages where expertise is less important than other aspects for MC quality rating.

For most page purposes and most topics, you can find experts, even when the field itself is niche or non-mainstream. For example, there are expert alternative medicine websites with leading practitioners of acupuncture, herbal therapies, etc. There are also pages about alternative medicine written by people with no expertise or experience. The MC quality ratings should distinguish between these two scenarios.

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Aren't there some types of pages that always have low quality content?

For almost any type of page, there is a range of content quality. Remember - high quality content is defined as content that is very satisfying, useful, or helpful for its purpose.

For example, there are high quality celebrity gossip pages and low quality celebrity gossip pages. Often, the purpose of a gossip page is to share scandalous, but plausibly true personal information about well-known people, so the MC of a gossip page is high quality when it is juicy and from a somewhat plausible source. Gossip pages are not judged by their accuracy. And, yes, there are high quality gossip pages!

I've never seen a high quality page of type X. If there are no high quality pages of this type, why are we giving existing pages a low quality rating?

For some topics or page purposes, there may not be many (or any!) high quality pages now, but in the future there may be. We need a uniform set of standards that apply to all pages, even for pages that have not yet been created.

Some of these criteria seem unfair. For example, some art pages do not have a purpose. Are these pages low quality?

Art pages have a purpose: artistic expression. Certainly, pages created for artistic expression do not deserve the low quality rating simply because they have no other purpose. Artistic expression, humor, and entertainment are valid page purposes.

Are forum pages always low quality?

No. Forum pages vary. We need to evaluate forum pages using the same criteria as all other pages. There are some forum pages with detailed information on specific issues written by people who are experts in the topic being discussed. There are also shallow discussion threads with very little content. No type of page (news, forum, shopping, encyclopedia, etc.) is automatically high or low quality.

Are Q&A pages necessarily low quality?

No. Q&A pages vary. We need to evaluate these pages with the same criteria as all other pages. Sometimes, it can be difficult to assess the accuracy of the information or the expertise/knowledge of the person answering the question. In these cases, you may need to do a bit of research. If the page is asking for medical advice, be skeptical about the expertise of the participants in the discussion. If the question is about daily life, then it is far more likely that the participants in the discussion have the necessary experience/expertise.

Some Q&A pages are detailed and have accurate and reliable information. Many others have little participation or inaccurate/incomplete information. On some Q&A pages, the question itself is incomplete or fragmented. We must evaluate these from the perspective of web users, not the participants in the discussion on the page.

Remember - no type of page (such as news, Q&A, store, etc.) is automatically high or low quality.