Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Good articles/Archive 4

This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

How do I cause transcluded GA reviews to update?

Apologies if this is an FAQ. After I have transcluded a GA review page on an article's talk page, I notice that further edits to the GA review are not reflected on the talk page. Presumably this is some sort of caching issue -- the question is, what do I have to do to cause the cache to be updated? Thanks for any info, Looie496 (talk) 17:54, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

WP:PURGE the talk page. Gimmetrow 17:57, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

link to GA reviews from GAN page

The nominations listed at WP:GAN include links to various aspects of each article, e.g. the article itself, talk, edit, history etc. but not a link to the actual GA review as far as I can see. I think it would be good if you could jump straight to the GA review, particularly if the article has a busy talk page and the review is transcluded right at the bottom. Would this be possible? --Jameboy (talk) 12:36, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't see an easy way to do it: the problem is working out which is the current review (/GA1, /GA2 etc.?) Geometry guy 13:13, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Flagged_revisions Trial

Dear All, as you may have seen from your watch page a straw poll on a trial implementation of FlaggedRevisions is now open.So please look at the proposal and then vote here. if you feel so inclined. I bring it to notice because my paranoria says it might make add other difficulties to GAs; but that's me! Edmund Patrick – confer 19:58, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

My feeling is that it will make the enterprise even more ball-breaking than it already is, for no discernable benefit. To the extent that some may choose to retire from the project, including me, if the idea is rolled out across the whole of the English wikipedia. Can you imagine the nightmare of coming along to make a simple edit, and then being faced with having to resolve a number of pending edits to an article? But the trial at least seems to be a done deal, so why bother? --Malleus Fatuorum 22:39, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

See WP:Flagged protection for a relatively acceptable implementation. Geometry guy 23:21, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

New elimination drive?

Would anyone be interested in another GA backlog elimination drive if I were to set one up? -Drilnoth (talk) 04:04, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, more like we need to cleanup the old ones first, which somewhat lost its steam since October. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 13:46, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I think that we should clear the nomination backlog before working on cleaning up the older ones, since the later backlog won't keep getting bigger. I also put in a question at WT:GAN, which has been garnering quite a bit of support. -Drilnoth (talk) 14:49, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I could also come up with a different system for maintaining old articles that might work better, and people might not get burnt out as easily. -Drilnoth (talk) 15:40, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Here's my idea: User:Drilnoth/Sandbox 2. -Drilnoth (talk) 22:31, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Clearing the GAN backlog won't do much because new nominations are ongoing. Cleaning up old articles yield better result and representation of the quality of GAs. While I agree we should open the door for more reviewers, we cannot let everyone review. The purpose of sweeps is to use experienced reviewers to catch any articles that fell through the cracks. Allowing everyone defeats the purpose of the sweeps. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 23:48, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

But anyone can review an article at GAN; why shouldn't a maintenance system be the same? Personally, I would happily maintain GA articles, but I think that the current sweeps system is too confusing and won't necessarily focus on the articles that I'd like to maintain, since it has them organized in blocks by theme.-Drilnoth (talk) 02:06, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

If that is the case, that the current sweeps system organizes articles in blocks by theme, then the backlog may not be significantly addressed. Only certain blocks have large backlogs, while others have no significant backlog. If sweeps competitors will be reviewing blocks that have no significant backlog, then they will be discouraging other willing editors who would normally be reviewing those articles. See Wikipedia:Good article nominations/Report for the disparity in backlog by block theme. —Mattisse (Talk) 02:48, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Drilnoth, the purpose of sweeps is to catch any poor quality GAs that fell through the cracks in GAN. For a better explanation, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles/Project quality task force/Sweeps#Participation OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 13:42, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

GA and WP Guidelines

This question relates to a GAR I'm currently involved in, but I'd like a general answer to the question rather than an opinion on the GAR.

My question is, if an article clearly violates a WP Guideline, such as WP:BLP can that be a criteria for removing it from the list of Good Articles? It seems to me that by definition, an article that violates guidelines cannot be classed as an official 'Good Article', but another has argued that unless it specifically contradicts Good Article Criteria (where it is not explicitly stated that Good Articles should follow basic WP guidelines), violating BLP is not an adequate reason to remove it from the list of Good Articles. Some clarification please! Riversider (talk) 20:17, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

BLP is a policy, not a guideline. However, its main tenet is strict adherence to the core policies of NOR, V and NPOV. The latter are all GA criteria. There is some subjectivity in interpreting the GA criteria, and policies such as BLP are very helpful in advising reviewers on how to interpret the criteria in individual articles. GAR exists to resolve this subjectivity by consensus: in this case, please comment. Geometry guy 21:07, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

New userbox

I'm not a member of this WikiProject, but I've created a userbox that you may be interested in. It's intended to let other users know when you're currently reviewing an article. Vantine84 (talk) 08:08, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

This user is currently reviewing the article article title for good article status.

Science FAC symposion

I'm letting you guys know about it because a lot of what is said there is also relevant for you guys. Plus your feedback would definitely be both relevant and appreciated. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 04:07, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Newsletter

is it inactive? ResMar 20:20, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

WikiProject Coordinators' working group

Hi! I'd like to draw your attention to the new WikiProject coordinators' working group, an effort to bring both official and unofficial WikiProject coordinators together so that the projects can more easily develop consensus and collaborate. This group has been created after discussion regarding possible changes to the A-Class review system, and that may be one of the first things discussed by interested coordinators.

All designated project coordinators are invited to join this working group. If your project hasn't formally designated any editors as coordinators, but you are someone who regularly deals with coordination tasks in the project, please feel free to join as well. -Drilnoth (talk) 00:29, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Cleanup templates on GA articles

Wikipedia:Good articles/Cleanup listing Ling.Nut.Public (talk) 08:28, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

fa

are featured articles also good articles? --98.162.148.46 (talk) 00:40, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

No. The terms are mutually exclusive, when a Good article achieves FA status it is removed from the list of good articles. Aptery gial 00:45, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

2009 Arab Capital of Culture

What would this article have to cover, as far as broadness is concerned, to be GA worthy? The article clearly needs expansion, but besides the sections it has now, what other sections would it need for a GA pass? --Al Ameer son (talk) 22:01, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

IMO going for GA right now would be premature as it's only just started and there would have to be some comment on its reception, and later on its consequences. There also some major gaps:

Objectives and target audience.
How the idea was conceived.
How it was financed.
People and / or groups involved in setting it up, publicising it and running it.

I hope this helps. --Philcha (talk) 20:44, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

The article says this started on March 21. Do we have any precedent for an ongoing event article becoming GA? I ask because I really don't know the answer. Looie496 (talk) 22:33, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

It would fail the 'stable article' criteria & possibly broadness (Wikipedia:Good article criteria). Pyrotec (talk) 07:45, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm shocked that such an article could be considered GA worthy. at best it's an events publicity leaflet, at worst a political propaganda beacon. I wd expect it to be rather on its way to deletion! (or moved and amended?) anyway it shdn't exist as a standing alone article. comments welcomed, thanks Hope&Act3! (talk) 10:40, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

BBC

Could use some help establishing consensus for the GA reassessment of BBC. — Levi van Tine (t – c) 10:32, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Template:Good Article

This might feel like deja vu for some of you, but anyway, I just found {{Good Article}}, which mimics {{featured article}} (puts a GA icon in the corner of a mainspace article). As far as I can tell, this is against all of the current consensus on what to do with GAs, and I have removed it from the few articles where it was transcluded. I am also considering taking it to TfD (actually, I briefly considered tagging it for speedy deletion as "recreation of deleted content", but since I can't see the deleted {{Good article}} I'm not sure if it's exactly the same). rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 23:50, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

I've nominated the template for deletion, see Wikipedia:Templates for deletion#Template:Good Article. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 14:04, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

I commented there. Please be careful about the distinction between "no consensus" and "against current consensus". It matters to many Wikipedians who contribute much value to the project. Geometry guy 22:14, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Bot removing transclusions of GA reviews

FYI There is currently a discussion ongoing at WP:ANI#User:Gimmebot removing transclusions of GA reviews regarding whether a bot should be removing the transclusion of GA reviews pages while it tweaks the top business (article history, etc.). –xeno ^talk 23:54, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Rossall School

I need a second opinion of whether to pass or fail. Thanks. Viriditas (talk) 10:02, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm a little too busy to provide a proper 2nd opinion (i.e mini-review) at the GA review page, but I'm concerned that the great majority of the sources are apparently connected with the school rather than independent of it. If that's true, the article as it stands is not GA quality as it fails to demonstrate WP:NPOV; and I'd give the editor(s) a week to remedy the problems. --Philcha (talk) 11:51, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Progress has been a bit slow, but there's no harm in extending the hold if you have the patience. At the moment it seems to me that there is still work to be done, per your review. In such a case you are free to fail the article and let the editors improve and renominate on their own timescale, rather than yours. Geometry guy 20:14, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

GA Sweeps update

I would like to update everyone on the GA sweeps process. Last month, only two articles were reviewed. This is definitely a low point after our peak at the beginning of the process with 163 articles reviewed in September 2007. After nearly two years, the running total has just passed the 50% mark. In order to expediate the reviewing, several changes have been made to the process. A new worklist has been created, detailing which articles are left to review. All exempt and previously reviewed articles have already been removed from the list. Instead of reviewing by topic, you can consider picking and choosing whichever articles interest you.

We are always looking for new members to assist with the remaining articles, so if you are interested or know of anybody that can assist, please visit the GA sweeps page. In addition, for every member that reviews 100 articles or has a significant impact on the process, s/he will get an award when they reach that threshold. If only 14 editors achieve this feat starting now, we would be done with Sweeps! Of course, having more people reviewing less articles would be better for all involved, so please consider asking others to help out. Let's work to complete Sweeps so that efforts can be fully focused on the backlog at GAN. If you have any questions about the process, reviewing, or need help with a particular article, please contact me or OhanaUnited and we'll be happy to help. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 03:57, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Maybe we should run a bot over this new list- in the 2 years since sweeps started, it seems like a lot of articles have been delisted/merged outside of the sweeps process. I've removed about 15 or so from the video game section alone. --Pres N 01:14, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

You could ask for User:Legobot to do it; it does something similar for WP:VA. Skomorokh 01:23, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

I went through with AWB a few days ago and removed all of the FAs, but if a bot could update all of the delisted/merged/deleted/etc. that would be great. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 03:22, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Wikiprojects

Hi, I want to suggest that we notify, appropriate wikiprojects on their talk pages when a related article get nominated, I can design a special template for that, and this will make more editors participate in reviewing the article, any thoughts?? thank you all :-) please if some one leaves a comment here notify me on my talk page --MaenK.A._Talk 22:42, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

We already have ArticleAlertbot doing the job to any projects that signed up for its service. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 13:51, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Conflict of Interest

I am not the most experienced GA Reviewer (nor that active lately, but that's besides the point) and I work mainly with the professional wrestling articles. I see that a lot of pro wrestling articles are at the top of the "Needs to be reviewed" pile and since Project:Pro Wrestling don't seem to be concerned with flooding the GA there are like 15 or 16 GAs pending on that subject alone. I understand why some people would pass these up, I get it even if I'm a fan I know most people aren't. I've intentionally not reviwed pro wrestling related articles for a long time, I did not want anyone to think it was inappropriate or a conflict of interest even if I myself think I can be fair.

Would it be a bad idea if I reviewed Pro Wrestling related articles provided I have never worked on them before? Hell 99% of the articles here are about promotions I don't work on in general. If it's a conflict of interest and you advis against it, maybe I can make a deal with someone, a review for a review - every pro wrestling related GA review done I'll match it with a GA review of an article of the reviwers choice? MPJ-DK (talk) 14:22, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't think it's a conflict of interest if you review wrestling articles; rather, you're probably more qualified to review them than most of us are, you understand the issues better than someone like me would and you would be better able to identify content problems, etc. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 16:16, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

So long as you didn't actually contribute to the articles in the past (except for some minor copyedits) then you can review the articles. Be sure to disclose that you are a member of the pro wrestling project in the review in case it ever goes to GAR in the future. Like Rjanag said above, you probably have a better understanding of what pro wrestling articles should require (compared to the average reviewer) so you should be able to point out any inconsistencies against your project's guidelines. Make sure that you do try to provide an unbiased review, ensuring the article meets the criteria. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 19:05, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Actually I'm not a member of the pro wrestling project (anymore), but I will be sure to point out that I am indeed a big wrestling fan.MPJ-DK (talk) 19:13, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

GA icon

Hello. What's the reason that GA articles don't get an icon in their top right corner in the same way that FA articles do? Thanks. Socrates2008 (Talk) 12:42, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

See the "Great Green Dot Debate" here and here. Dr. Cash (talk) 12:48, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Sorry to drag an old discussion up again. The archived arguments against seem to have more to do with complaints against the process itself, rather than the actual process of tagging of articles that have successfully been through it (completely different discussions IMHO). So while I too have concerns about the current GA process, I still support the idea of the green dot. Socrates2008 (Talk) 13:24, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

GA Sweeps July update

The GA Sweeps process is continuing to move at a good pace, as June's total of swept articles reached 290! We are currently over 70% done with Sweeps, with just under 800 articles left to review. With nearly 50 members, that averages out to about 15 articles per person. If each member reviews an article every other day this month (or several!), we'll be completely finished. If everyone completes their reviews, Sweeps would be completed in less than two years when it was first started (with only four members!). With the conclusion of Sweeps, each editor could spend more time writing GAs, reviewing at the backlogged GAN, or focusing on other GARs. I am again inviting any experienced GAN/GAR reviewers to consider reviewing some articles. If you're interested please read the instructions here. The more editors, the less the workload, and hopefully the faster this will be completed. If you have any questions about reviews or the process let me know and I'll be happy to get back to you. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 20:22, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Discussion at WikiProject Mathematics talk page

Just a note to let you know that a discussion about the relevance of GA status and the GA process to Wikipedia mathematics articles is underway at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Mathematics#Mathematics_GA_status. The discussion was triggered by the recent delisting of the main mathematics article by Gary King as part of the current GA Sweep - a decision which has now been taken to GAR. However, the scope of the discussion is wider than the status of this single article. Gandalf61 (talk) 09:27, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Where do you want regular GA reviewers to comment - here or at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Mathematics#Mathematics_GA_status? --Philcha (talk) 10:29, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

That's up to you - I was just posting a courtesy note to let you know that there is a discussion going on that is wider than just the GAR on mathematics. Gandalf61 (talk) 10:43, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

GA Sweeps

GA Sweeps has over 400 articles left to review. If you have not contributed to Sweeps yet, now is your chance to help review the remaining articles so that existing Sweeps reviewers can return to fully focus on GAN (instead of splitting between the two as some reviewers have done). Choose whichever articles you are interested in as there are articles available on a variety of topics and of varying lengths. Awards are available at the conclusion of the drive for excellent reviews. If you have any questions, let me know. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 23:27, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

green links

Friends of Good articles, please help me out!

I have made a proposal to showcase good articles here. Please comment! GeometryGirl (talk) 16:47, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

In case of any question marks in editors' minds, I would note that GeometryGirl and I are unrelated :-) (We do know of each other as editors through interactions earlier this year in connection with the Mayer-Vietoris sequence article.) I hope no confusion will arise! Geometry guy 00:32, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Template question

Hi,

I have a question regarding the template {{GAR/link}}. When this template is put onto a page, it categorizes the article into Category:Good article reassessment nominees. However, this happens only if the "status" parameter is not set. If the status is, for example, set to "on hold", the article disappears from the category. Is this intended?

My problem with this behaviour is that ArticleAlertbot scans this category for the purpose of notifying WikiProjects. If a GA is set to "on hold" very soon, the bot will currently not find it. (See bug report.) --B. Wolterding (talk) 00:03, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

GA approved by sock of a banned user

See here. If this would be a better place to discuss, feel free to move. Thanks. Wknight94 ^talk 22:01, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

ArbCom election reminder: voting closes 14 December

Dear colleagues

This is a reminder that voting is open until 23:59 UTC next Monday 14 December to elect new members of the Arbitration Committee. It is an opportunity for all editors with at least 150 mainspace edits on or before 1 November 2009 to shape the composition of the peak judicial body on the English Wikipedia.

On behalf of the election coordinators. Tony (talk) 09:37, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

2010 WikiCup participation

Hi, this is just a note that if you want to sign up for the 2010 WikiCup, then you have until 23:59 UTC on December 31 to do so. This can be done here. The WikiCup is a fun competition aiming at improving Wikipedia's content, with points awarded for featured articles, good articles, featured lists, featured pictures, featured sounds, featured portals, featured topics, good topics, did you know?, in the news and valued pictures. Over 170 people are already involved, but there's still time to sign up. If you have any questions, you are welcome to contact myself or one of the other judges on our talk pages or on IRC, or ask on one of the WikiCup talk pages. Hope to see some of you there. Thanks! J Milburn (talk) 17:58, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

GA Sweeps update

Thanks to everyone's efforts to the GA Sweeps process, we are currently over 90% done with only 226 articles remain to be swept! With over 50 members participating in Sweeps, that averages out to about 4 articles per person! We are open to any new members who would like to help us complete the remaining articles, so if you're interested in helping, please see the main page. If each member reviews an article once a week this month (or several!), we'll be completely finished. At that point, awards will be handed out to reviewers. As an added incentive, if we complete over 100 articles reviewed this month, I will donate $100 to Wikipedia Forever on behalf of all GA Sweeps participants. I hope that this incentive will help to increase our motivation for completing Sweeps while supporting Wikipedia in the process. When Sweeps is completed, more reviewers will be able to spend time in reviewing GANs to assist with the backlog. If you have any questions about reviews or Sweeps let me know and I'll be happy to get back to you. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 00:23, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

GA reassessment of Traditions and anecdotes associated with the Stanley Cup

Reviewing this for the sweeps, it occurs to me that this would be better classed as a list rather than a GA as it is predominately a series of one sentence paragraphs. I would appreciate guidance from others at Talk:Traditions and anecdotes associated with the Stanley Cup/GA1. Jezhotwells (talk) 17:37, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

March '10 GAN elimination drive?

Anybody up for one next month if I help organize it? –MuZemike 20:11, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I'd be happy to join in something like that; I will have much less real world work come the end of February. J Milburn (talk) 21:15, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm up for it as the GAR sweeps should be more or less finished by then. Jezhotwells (talk) 00:36, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

If we don't stick at it, it'll never be finished. I vote for a blitz on the last of the remaining articles to be swept, GAN elimination drive for April. --Malleus Fatuorum 01:01, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I'll be all for a GAN drive, but let's definitely get the Sweeps done first. There are already many editors that reviewed way more than they had to (thank goodness we have them or this would be going on for a few more years). A few more editors continuing to review just a few articles will really help out. Once all of this is done, I'll return to reviewing GANs (I've only reviewed a few since Sweeps started in 2007), and I'm sure other editors will too. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 05:43, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Can you believe it? The end of the sweep is so close! OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 05:46, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I'll be more than willing to assist also. I must say, the determination exhibited by the Sweeps project is quite extraordinary - especially for Wikipedia! ✽ Juniper§ Liege ^(TALK) 07:08, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I'll repeat that I'm all for holding off until April per Nehrams2020's message (even though I'll still do a few as I wasn't that terribly active in the Sweeps myself).

Sure, I don't have a problem for, say, pushing it back to April, assuming the Sweeps get completed sometime next month. –MuZemike 18:16, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I'll push for a GAN elimination drive starting April 1, then, as the Sweeps just got completed. That will give all those who actively reviewing GAs some time off for about a full month (unless you're going to do some during March like I probably will) until the next big push. –MuZemike 07:35, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

I've started the page for the April 2010 GAN backlog elimination drive here. –MuZemike 21:18, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

I just saw this myself; had mentioned the exact same thing on the GAN talk page. I can help coordinate if you'd like. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 20:27, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

This has undoubtedly been asked before, but...

Is there any reason good articles don't have a little green good icon logo at the top right corner of the page, like the star on a featured article? Has a possible template for this kind of thing been discussed and/or rejected before? — Hun ter Ka hn 16:31, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Perennial proposals#Indicate Good Articles to readers. –MuZemike 16:47, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! — Hun ter Ka hn 17:07, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Cleanup listings

I think it might be a good idea to subscribe to User:WolterBot/Cleanup listing subscription. The cleanup page at WP:Good articles/Cleanup listing hasn't been updated since November 2009 and many things have changed as a result of the sweeps and individual actions by reviewers. Any comments? –– Jezhotwells (talk) 13:34, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Defining news organisations

Hi, I am trying to start a debate about defining what news organisations, as a reliable source, are good for and/or not good for. It is not as clearly defined as other similar reliable sources policies and it should be. Please see Wikipedia_talk:Identifying_reliable_sources#News_Organisations_section ~ R.T.G 19:03, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Link GA ?

Hi there,

Can someone tell me why there is a Link FA template on en:, but no corresponding Link GA ? (I am from fr:, where both are used). I understand you have a problem with your GAs, but Link GA is about foreign GAs. Sorry if it has already been discussed, I looked but couldn't find any reference. Oyp (talk) 16:28, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

It's been discussed many times, but the consensus has always been that GAs are crap. ;-) Malleus Fatuorum 20:57, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Oyp refers to a different issue, which has not been so much discussed. The GA analogue of {{Link FA}} was deleted following this discussion in 2007. Geometry guy 22:08, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Ah, so much to learn. Malleus Fatuorum 22:17, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

That discussion was ages ago. The technical issues were solved (very) long ago, and currently, most large wikis use Link GA, including on English interwikis. It is quite a peculiar choice to link to FAs and not to GAs… Oyp (talk) 09:29, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Can I get some tutelage?

Hi. I've been doing a lot of Wikipedia work at AfD and elsewhere but I'm completely new to the Good Article/Featured Article process. I've got a couple of articles that I've ended up creating or expanding that are now sitting at C-class - so, a long way from Good Article. I understand the GA criteria and I've looked at plenty of examples of Good Articles but I'm still a little stumped as to how to best direct my efforts to move my articles towards GA status. I'd appreciate some very brief notes from someone with some experience. The best example of an article I've worked on that might eventually reach GA is Paul Randall Harrington. Just a sentence or two on the talk page there about where my efforts could be best spent would be of help. Thanks. - DustFormsWords (talk) 06:32, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

From my experience, it's always good to get a peer review in before nominating for GA, just so that the stuff gets ironed out before nominating and, if it's already pretty good, makes it easier for reviewers. Whichever WikiProject the topic(s) pertain to may also be able to help, and some have their own mechanisms for assessment. I usually try to wait for someone to assess an article to B-Class before I nominate for GA just so I know everything is in order mostly. –MuZemike 06:46, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, to be clear, I'm not thinking of nominating any articles at present. It's more a matter of, I see where the article is at now, and I see where it needs to be to get to GA, but I don't know how to get from A to B. Is it a matter of finding new information? What happens if I've exhausted the available sources but still not covered off some area of the topic? Or does the existing content need to be sharpened up? In other areas of Wikipedia I've picked up answers like this from watching the talk pages of involved users and following the debates but I've not had success in using those tactics to grok the GA process. I'd settle for being directed to some relevant pages to put on my watchlist, or a past GA process featuring someone at about my level of experience and article quality. Is there a Good Article FAQ? A page of annotated examples? - DustFormsWords (talk) 06:54, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

I know this will be frustrating, but it depends on the editor and the topic:

Somethings you can't find sources for sub-topics you think are needed.
Some topics are complex and article structure is important.
Some editors are good/poor on article structure - I've some whose article and logical and flow naturally, while others seem to try random guess.
Some are good with prose and other need to get help before nominating an article for a GA review.
More 95% of the work on the article must be done before nominating - GA review is for review, not for improving.

The best way to find your strengths (and weakness) may to improve an easy to medium article and then nominating it for a GA review - avoid large or complex articles until you learn your own capabilities. --Philcha (talk) 10:03, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. - DustFormsWords (talk) 22:27, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

WP:JARGON, WP:AVOID, WP:PEACOCK

See my comment today at WT:GAN. - Dank (push to talk) 18:01, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Proposal to Amend GA Criteria

There is a proposal to amend the GA criteria active at: Wikipedia_talk:Good_article_criteria#Not_Notable_GA.3F_Proposal_to_Amend_GA_Criteria Thank you. ɳorɑfʈ^Talk! 04:32, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Foreign Good articles

Since you are at it, if you adopt the GA star for English language articles, could you consider indicating foreign GAs ? Currently, foreign FAs are indicated using the template Link FA, but no template Link GA is in use. In all wikis I know, either none (on small wikis) or both (on large wikis) are in use, the case of en: is a bit weird in that regard. Oyp (talk) 08:05, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

There are a number of foreign language wikis that don't use GA symbols for other foreign language wikis. Some times ago I went through many to add said symbols for a German GA and found they are widespread but not universally used. Hekerui (talk) 18:26, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

While I applaud your suggestion to give GA (whether in English or in other languages) more credits, the complexity is larger than what you thought. Foreign GAs often use different symbols than ours. It would cause too much trouble to integrate different symbols into toolbox. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 14:53, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Er… what ?! All that needs to be done is to copy the Link GA model from a foreign wiki and have a bot broaden its scope. It is already done in many wikis. You don't need different symbols, just one. Oyp (talk) 17:21, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, why not just use our symbol? No need to use the symbol from the linked wiki. --Pres N 18:11, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

New proposal related to the FA star proposal above

I have made a proposal at WT:ASSESS that is somewhat related to the issue of the FA star (and the desire for a GA icon). It looks at a broader issue by focusing more on helping readers understand our assessment system, rather than just focusing on recognizing quality content. Feedback, positive or negative, is strongly encouraged. – VisionHolder « talk » 01:27, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Right now I see some oppose simply because A-class is not included. So here we are again, history repeating itself. People are focusing disproportionate weight to trivial issues or failed to address issues related some niche parties which results in a horde of voters opposing the scheme while not looking at big picture. You're playing with fire. Stub, start, C, and B-class are assessed differently by different projects and editors. You shouldn't group GA and FA with these classes. I strongly urge you to withdraw that proposal in WP1.0 because you're trying to tackle too many things at the same time. Besides, we should develop a strong opinion here first on the GA symbol in mainspace issue, get the kinks ironed out, and then move to WP1.0 for how to streamline the rest. Just my thoughts. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 03:56, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree with OhanaUnited. Maurreen (talk) 06:43, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Still, at least getting it on the table and seeing what ensued gave some valuable insight. Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:16, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

No, it didn't, It just exposed entrenched positions. Malleus Fatuorum 00:20, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

It was informative for me, since I hadn't been as familiar with those "entrenched positions." It's not over yet. Once I get caught up on some content creation that I've promised, I plan to revisit the issue, not as a new proposal, but more as a RfC. Now that I have a better feel for which landmines to avoid, I'll try to outline the issue better without offering any specifics. If we can get a general consensus that an explanation of some sort of assessment should be provided to the readers, then we can slowly start trying to tackle the more challenging issues, starting with the broadest issues and working our way down. It may not work. Compromise and civil debate will be needed. Call me an optimist, but I would like to think that the majority of our editors are capable of these basic negotiation techniques.

I don't want to have to address each of those sticky issues individually, but I will if I have to. However I prefer the approach of Buckminster Fuller: "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." – VisionHolder « talk » 00:37, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

I wish you luck. I'm reminded of a comment by Dr Johnson, which I'm quoting from memory: "Nothing will ever be done, if first all objections have to be overcome." In the wikipedia context, I'm afraid that translates to "nothing will ever be done" The place has ossified. Malleus Fatuorum 00:53, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Nothing on Wikipedia (or in any aspect of life) has universal approval. Yet things still manage to change. It's simply a question of what we can collectively envision. Yes, there are numerous objections; however, many of our problems now stem from ideas that originated when Wiki was much younger. Wiki has grown and developed since. The stresses we feel (such as falling behind in assessments) are a product of a system that didn't anticipate the uneven growth and editor interest. If we take a step back and consider the broader picture, maybe we could re-design the system to better fit our strengths and weaknesses. Anyway, just keep an eye on WP:VPD. I'll try to post something new within a week. – VisionHolder « talk » 01:23, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps. For myself, all I can say is that I've been through this "GA is crap, it ought not to be featured" probably once too often now. I spent a lot of time and effort, as did many others, on the GA sweeps, in the naive belief that it might open a few minds, Obviously it didn't, so I'm the fool. Malleus Fatuorum 03:57, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

I hope you don't think the sweeps were a waste of time; they improved a lot of articles. Improving the encyclopedia is more important than changing someone's mind on a project-space talk page, though in fact I believe a lot of people do have a better opinion of GA's commitment to quality now as result of the sweeps. Mike Christie (talk) 12:30, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm afraid I do feel that it was a waste of time. It should be clear to anyone who bothers to look that the quality of GAs is now far more consistent than the quality of FAs, but still the same old objections keep geting trotted out. Malleus Fatuorum 12:54, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

I think if your enjoyment of Wikipedia relies on changing the minds of a significant number of fellow editors to agree with you (on almost any topic) you're bound to be frustrated. My own view is that an outlook that allows one to enjoy Wikipedia for the good in it, without getting too annoyed by the negatives, helps to keep one on an even keel over the long term. Mike Christie (talk) 15:33, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

I've made no comment on my enjoyment of wikipedia, but it certainly doesn't rest on changing anyone's mind about anything, as I've come to learn that's next to impossible. I'm simply saying that if my crystal ball had shown me that even though the quality of GAs is now far more consistent than it is for FAs, there would still be entrenched idealogical resistance to the idea of a green dot on the article page, then I wouldn't have taken part in the sweeps. Malleus Fatuorum 16:36, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Entrenched ideological positions don't bother me in the slightest, as they carry almost no weight in determining consensus, being usually made by those who are out-of-touch or out-of-step. In contrast the above !vote shows that a large number of editors have recognized the hard work that has gone into improving the reliability and consistency of GAs: those who have contributed to this, especially to the GA Sweeps, can feel proud of their work.

If the above !vote had been the result of an RfC on an independent page, then it would demonstrate clear consensus for a green dot on article pages. And even though it took place here at WGA, it provides a positive indication that many editors have moved on from historical positions about GA, and that the encyclopedia is ready for an article space GA icon, just like the ones other language encyclopedias have. Geometry guy 17:13, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Refs for every sentence

Where has the idea come from that every sentence in an article must have a reference? I have seen this said in several reviews (example). This is instruction creep of the worst kind. I am not for one moment advocating allowing unattributable material, but Wikipedia articles are already overcluttered with inline cites. WP:V makes a clear distinction between atributable, which is always required, and attributed, which is required for "anything challenged or likely to be challenged". SpinningSpark 17:46, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

The rest of the statement from the review: "the exception being that several sentences/list items/a paragraph is verifiably covered by a source. If the latter is the case, one citation at the end of the paragraph or list is fine :)" The first formulation could be clearer but the rest of the statement sounds pretty reasonable. Hekerui (talk) 18:10, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

When it comes to GA reviews, if something is likely to be challenged, then I'm challenging it. That being said, there should be some common sense exercised here; the bloody obvious, fictional/plot elements, and other similar stuff normally doesn't require sourcing because it's either not feasible or impractical. There should be a reference at the end of whatever that reference falls under; for instance, it's not uncommon to have only one citation in a paragraph at the end if all that material comes from that reference. –MuZemike 18:35, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Whatever the "official" wording says, the de facto position is that everything has to be cited. Not necessarily after every sentence, but somewhere. Malleus Fatuorum 18:45, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Well the example choosen is a medical article and that has to comply with Wikipedia:Scientific citation guidelines and Wikipedia:Reliable sources (medicine-related articles) as well as WP:WIAGA. Pyrotec (talk) 19:13, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

We've discuused this before. The worst problem is when someone inserts an uncited sentence into a series of sentences that was fully supported. In that case another editor case to read backwards to the last sentence that was fully supported, and insert the ref there too. It's easier to insert the reference after each sentence, it's just copy and paste. Then the inserted, uncited sentence can meet its fate at the hands of WP:V - and a bit of a push, if you're in the mood. --Philcha (talk) 21:49, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

That's a problem, I agree, but it's not addressed by the messy and distracting "every sentence should be cited". Malleus Fatuorum 22:09, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

What I try and do these days when editing is if I have a ref which supports several sentences in a row, leave a commented out comment on how many sentences or (or para) it supports. At which point it can be split later if things have to be rejigged. One day I hope there will be a show/hide option for the general reader, but I don't notice inlines myself at all these days. Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:56, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Casliber's idea looks. I'd hide a copy of the citation in the (X)HTML comment, and then copy the citation at the end of the last supported sentence if an inserted, uncited sentence appears. Then remove the insertion per WP:V and explain than: the insertion was remove per WP:V; only a properly citation is accepted, not a URL shortcut - I already use to much time on other's chores, mainly vandalism. Then removed the copy of the citation at the end of the last supported sentence, as there would still be one in the comment. --Philcha (talk) 23:12, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

If I may be allowed to speak frankly, I think this just yet more wikibollocks, designed to make it even more difficult for editors to contribute. If anyone has a problem with the accuracy of anything in an article the proper course of action is to discuss it on the article's talk page. Malleus Fatuorum 23:38, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Hi, Malleus, I thought you might speak frankly :-) Seriously, I'm concerned that the elaboration of policies and guidelines - some justified - are making it increasing difficult for new editors and those who did not get the help they need at the right time (I remember being one of the latter). I'm developing User:Philcha/Essays/Advice for new Wikipedia editors and hope that in time it will be good enough for an essay in main space, and if it becomes really good it may become part of the welcome pack for new editors. It's structured as the first few steps a newcomers takes in through the door, and adopts a conversational style to put the reader at ease. I'd be grateful for comments at User talk:Philcha/Essays/Advice for new Wikipedia editors from members of WT:GAN. I'd strongly prefer not to see "wiki cops" and "builders inspectors" turn up at present - they will in time, but I want them to be a minority when they do. --Philcha (talk) 10:34, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

OK, but the comments at the top of this section were raised by an editor who currently (in the last week or so) has both submitted articles to WP:GAN and is reviewing articles at WP:GAN - hardly a new editor. Pyrotec (talk) 11:19, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Pyrotec, to summarise:

The para at the top objects to closely-placed repetions of the same ref(s).
This may be a precaution against uncited insertions into passages which previously were well supported.
Casliber suggested (X)HTML comments to count the number of cited sentences, and I suggested placing a comment including a ref at the end of each properly cited sentence, so that the ref could be copied into the end of the previously properly cited sentence. This would make it easy to see the uncited insert and apply WP:V.
That led to a discussion of the difficulties of new editors. --Philcha (talk) 13:59, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

There is no real substitute for actually reading the refs and using your judgement. Littering the article with more than necessary cite tags and hidden comments is a pretty poor way of guarding against bad faith or OR editing. A fairly frequent vandal tactic is to just cut and paste an exisiting ref. Checking the edit history and then seeing if the refs actually support the diffs is the only sure way. Looking for gaps in a chain of tags tells you nothing. SpinningSpark 14:17, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

I was talking misguided but AGF editors. I agree that vandals can missed up anything. IMO the only solution for vandals is a must tougher policy - I'd like to see vandals get "3 strikes and you're out". --Philcha (talk) 06:26, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Note

While there's been bickering above about whether to use the GA logo on pages, or what to do with assessments and the like, the backlog has quietly jumped back up again, only three weeks after our elimination drive. We kinda need some people to do reviews to at least break even; we don't have the energy to do another elimination drive in August, which may happen at this rate. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 20:02, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps if the "bickering" to which you refer was resolved, then the project might find itself with a few more reviewers. Malleus Fatuorum 20:14, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

When should we close that poll and do something with it? The poll is running on its third week and hasn't received new votes casted on either side for a week. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 02:40, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

I think we are done here. This poll has indicated strong support for GA quality being recognised on article pages, but there were some significant concerns raised by experienced editors. I think this has been to some extent overtaken by the excellent discussion initiated by VisionHolder at Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment. This has the potential to address some issues, such as the current mixture of letter-based (A,B,C,), word-based (stub), and classification based (GA, FA) systems, mixture of individually done and community-based assessments, with or without formal review procedures, and in one case, a classification (A) used only by some projects.hamiltonstone (talk) 04:54, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

We could try "industrial action". --Philcha (talk) 06:30, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

The blacklog always increases after an elimination drive: check the records. There are also open reviews, some going back into March, that need to be closed by someone. Perhaps the empty work list encourages the submission of new nominations; and there is a wiki Cup competition in progress. Pyrotec (talk) 18:35, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

So how are we going to proceed to reflect the new consensus? And we should implement this before moving on to propose or address the stub-to-B class problem.OhanaUnited ^{Talk page} 21:16, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

I think there is consensus YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 00:39, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Should GA and A-class articles be recognisable through a symbol on the article page?

Once upon a time (i don't know for how long or how systematically) GAs had the GA symbol on the article page in much the same way as FAs have their little stars. When i raised this issue some time back, i recall it being said that we didn't add the GA symbol any more because of concerns about consistency of GA quality. It was suggested that we wait until after the sweeps before once again discussing whether adding the symbol would be a good idea. The sweeps are now finished, so I'm raising it. A related question raised by another editor is: should the same approach be taken to A-quality articles (a category used in some but not all Wikiprojects).

Should all GAs have the GA symbol on the article page?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Consensus has been reached in favour for GA symbol on mainspace. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 02:52, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Arguments in favour

Readers should have easy access to information about the quality of what they are reading. They should not have to go to the talk page to do this. Currently article pages contain two such types of info: the FA stars, and cleanup templates. They should have access to this third avenue.
Article pages can already have single-person-issued quality assurance information on them: the cleanup templates. Adding a GA symbol would not represent a qualitatively new step in this respect.
GA is the most frequently-used quality assurance process at WP (I think - more than FAC and PR at any rate), and should have a public visibility that reflects its significance in WP's processes.
GAN is now pretty rigorous, with any problem assessments usually being promptly addressed at GAR. It isn't so arbitrary that to give an article page symbol would be to claim it means more than it does.
Some nominating editors may feel an article page symbol represents greater recognition of the work that has gone into a typical GA. This may encourage such editors to keep contributing.
The symbol will increase visibility of the GA wikiproject, attracting more participants.
The symbol will both cause low-quality GAs to become delisted, and high quality articles that should be GAs to come to light.
The symbol will attract attract readers into contributers by causing them to learn more about what goes on behind the scenes.

Arguments against

However many sweeps, GARs etc we do, GA status is always in the end a one-person process that does not deserve article page-level recognition.
While cleanup templates are also one-person initiatives, they usually point to the talk page where multiple editors work on the issues. GA is different.
Cleanup templates are (meant to be) temporary; GA is meant to be permanent (as long as the article does not deteriorate over time). A comparison between their presence on the article page is therefore not valid.
The GA criteria may be rigorous, and attention at GAR may be good (but also slow) once something is there, but sub-par GA promotions can be easily missed.
The symbol will increase visibility of the GA wikiproject, with a risk that there will be more noms but not more reviewers, exacerbating the backlog.

What do other GA regulars think? hamiltonstone (talk) 03:12, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes

I think that it should. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 03:19, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
I think most GA reviews are pretty rigorous, and there are quite a few vigilant editors out there on the look out for nominations that shouldn't have passed. I also believe that all other language wikipedias do display the GA symbol on the article page itself. I've only been active in the GA process for a few months, however, and I could be missing out on some important factors. One thing to remember is that this wouldn't supplant the information on the talk page, and anyone that saw a page with the symbol that didn't look up to snuff could easily go through the GAR process. Torchiest (talk | contribs) 03:51, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
I think benefits outweigh drawbacks. We need to promote wikipedia's ability to audit its own content more. Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:13, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
hamiltonstone's analysis is thorough and good. IMO the main points are: readers need more info about article quality than at present; at present GA has made more progess in reassessment GAs than FA has in reassessment FAs. --Philcha (talk) 04:58, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
Yes, the GA+ is a more useful measure of something than the FA star which is meaningless due to politics and an in-built protection system driven by people who have an interest in immunising hopeless articles for political reason (eg people with lots of old FAs or WikiProject leaders who need the stats inflated so they can take credit for their minions' work) and who have no interest in dismantling it. The consistency of the GA bar is far better, and was better before the sweeps anyway. And this is coming from a WP:FAR delegate. YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 05:30, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
Supported it since first joining WP:GA. Hopefully the success of completing Sweeps convinces others that effort goes into ensuring the quality of the GAs. Including a symbol on the article may also make it easier to notice if the article should be delisted if it has issues. The main reason I'd like to see it is to serve as an advertisement to further encourage new editors to improve articles to GA status. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 05:36, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
For sure! Aaroncrick ^TALK 06:01, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
Support: This is a good idea, for the reasons stated above. It will encourage more GAs and that can only be a good thing for Wikipedia. - S Masters (talk) 07:11, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
I've always been in favour, but I've reluctantly come to accept that it'll never happen. Malleus Fatuorum 14:06, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
There are some good reasons in favor stated above. Ucucha 14:10, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
Absolutely. FA and FL have their stars, and an unwarranted GA rating is easier to remove- because it can be done by an individual; rather than a month-long FAR/FLRC. Bradjamesbrown (talk) 16:02, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
Support--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 23:26, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
Support Along the same lines as what others have said, I think it helps promote good writing. The article doesn't have a "hidden" reward; I, too, would like to know that I've landed on a well-written article before I proceed to read it. I've always wondered why this wasn't done, and now I see that it's actually been a source of discussion for some time. – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 23:29, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
Support--William S. Saturn (talk) 23:49, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
Support-- The arguments are laid out nicely, but those in favor are much stronger than those against. --Nasty Housecat (talk) 02:14, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
Support. Although I've seen a few low-quality GAs, these are the exception, not the rule, and by and large GAs should receive some greater measure of recognition on Wikipedia. Firsfron of Ronchester 04:30, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
Support. Having been involved with the GA process for a while (admittedly more on the nomination rather than reviewing side), in my experience standards have been generally consistent and the GA-class is a mark of quality. Nev1 (talk) 04:46, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
Support: Though the GA system is not close to perfect, neither is the FA system. Overall, the GA process has grown substantially more rigorous over the years and it would now most definitely be a service to our readers for GA-rated articles to be readily identifiable. Also, bringing more attention to the standard will surely further the improvement in its rigor, exactly as has happened with FA.—DCGeist (talk) 05:36, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
Support. There needs to be some kind of system that tells readers up front the level of quality of the article they're looking at. Cla68 (talk) 06:25, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
Support for GAs. 1) Mainly, this should help readers by giving them a quality indicator. 2) We put "cleanup" tags on articles; we should be able to put positive tags on articles. 3) Allowing GA tags on articles could give more incentive for more GAs. Maurreen (talk) 07:46, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
Support – With GA standards being well enforced these days, I'm in favor of extending on-page recognition to GAs. Why should most of the visible (non-talk page) indicators of quality be negative? Imzadi 1979 → 09:03, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
Support - Though the other option I mentioned below is probably my first choice. Otherwise, yes, we need to show our visitors that there is some sort of vetting process, even on sub-FAs. – VisionHolder « talk » 11:52, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
Support. Response to Mike Christie: Wikipedia has a transparency and reader participation level that Encyclopedia Britannica does not, so hiding any kind of article class marker or article cleanup tag is not necessary. Showing the reader that an article is considered GA-class is, I think, a good idea. I have been in favor ever since noticing that FA had the star but GA did not have the green plus sign.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Binksternet (talk • contribs) 11:55, May 7, 2010 (UTC)
Support - I think it would be great to inform the reader that the specific article they are reading has been assessed at GA through a formal review. In addition, the Simple English Wikipedia uses symbols on articles to mark GAs. Dough 48 72 14:57, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
Support - I don't think FA stars make any difference to readers, nor do I think they should. But as they are so esteemed within WP (and are thus unlikely to disappear), it would be unfair to withhold recognition for bringing up articles to GA standard (which may be very high) and reviewing them (which is really hard work). Buchraeumer (talk) 15:48, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
Support Just be bold and do it. No-brainer debate. Lugnuts (talk) 17:02, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
Support Kitchen roll (talk) 17:32, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
Support FA is an exhausting process and many avoid it for that reason. Many GAs are quite good but just don't adhere to the more fiddly bits of the MoS. --Cybercobra (talk) 18:23, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
Support I think that the GAN/GAR system delivers speedy justice and effective reviewing of the article's quality. The ease of which a GAR or another GAN can be made by another nominator/reviewer to ensure quality allows for far more flexibility than the FA system, and the quality isn't a drastic step down. These are still far better than most of the Wikipedia articles, and recognising this visually is likely to be useful to editors looking for a sign that somebody has taken the time to flesh out and nominate an article, somebody else has approved of it and reviewed it thoroughly, and the GA delisters haven't found reason to take that status away, effectively two/three concerned people have been involved in getting it up to that quality, and that can be plenty enough quality control to develop some truely good work here. Kyteto (talk) 21:15, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
Support. I think it is an effective system for screening quality. Xtzou (Talk) 22:04, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
Strong Support just the fact that the symbol is on the page may mean that the standards for GA's may go up as well. Furthermore, I'll be more than happy to go to every one of the 228 GA's that are about warships.--White Shadows ^{you're breaking up} 01:25, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
Support. After all, negative assessments of article quality are placed in huge banners at the top of articles. A tiny thumbtack-looking thing won't detract from most readers' experience. Abductive (reasoning) 07:11, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
It is helpful to a reader to see that an article has been assessed against reasonable quality standards and found acceptable. GA reviewing standards, the scutinising of those reviews, and the flexibility and responsiveness of the process makes GA a reasonably trustworthy accreditation that is widely respected across Wikipedia. Concerns about inappropriate listings are usually dealt with swiftly (though I am aware of some which have dragged on!) Unless there is an acknowledged fault with the GA process (and I don't think there is), we should display our confidence in our quality control system. SilkTork *^YES! 17:02, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
Support. I think hamiltonstone summed it up well. In the end, it's not a big deal, but it will do some good and no harm. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:08, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
I've been on the fence, but per Casliber —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 20:00, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
Support. Removing FA stars and other editorial annotations (such as clean-up templates) is unrealistic. Let us get this minor issue out of the way and move on to greater things together. Geometry guy 20:15, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
Perhaps the GA review should be reconsidered? That is a different issue.--mono 21:52, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
Support. Should not have been removed way back when in the first place. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 01:30, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
Support it may be a perennial proposal but I agree with this one. Besides, Good Articles, though not (yet) featured articles, are still among our best and if it is shown that it is a GA, editors will improve it een more so that it will reach an eventual goal of FA. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 04:07, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
Support Could be useful to show the reader that the article is of good quality. Acather96 (talk) 08:12, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
Support Although I am not a GA regular! However, perhaps the GA status should not be the opinion of 1 editor, but of 2 editors. If two editors who are independent of the article both agree that it is of GA standard, then it is assumed to be so. -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 10:30, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
Support I also suggest that all GA require 2 editors to declare it a GA. --Iankap99 00:04, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
Support. Since poor articles have tags and Featured Articles have stars, it would make sense to add something for GAs. It would also increase the presence of GA itself and could raise overall quality. Alzarian16 (talk) 11:45, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
Support While not perfect, the GA review process generally does identify Good Articles. First Light (talk) 23:57, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
Support, agree with above comment, by Casliber (talk · contribs). -- Cirt (talk) 17:34, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
Support: This can help wikipedia's reputation and allow GAs more recognition; at present, most readers dont even know they exist. 68.81.16.24 (talk) 22:26, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
Support. The positives greatly outweigh the negatives. This can only help Wikipedia. Laurinavicius (talk) 00:13, 16 May 2010 (UTC)
Support now that sweeps are done to ensure the quality of GA. Some FA are in worse form than GA yet they are nowhere close to be delisted. Also, as reported recently, FAC process is bogged down by bureaucracy and people pushing POV to a point where many are quitting the nomination and commenting process. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 15:10, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
It's been a while since this proposal went live and the groundswell of opposition we've seen on previous occasions doesn't seem to have arisen this time. Yet. I'm still apprehensive for the reasons outlined below, having seen this go down in flames before, but perhaps it's an idea whose time has finally come (and one that I think has very little not to recommend it). I do however echo the comments about wanting a broad consensus for the change; so far fewer editors have commented here than in the average RfA. It's also perhaps worth reminding the opposition that nothing on WP is permanent; if using a GA symbol turns out to be a bad idea^TM, it can always be removed. We won't really know until we try. EyeSerene^talk 12:47, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
Support more transparency and information are usually good Shooterwalker (talk) 15:47, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
Support. Positives outweigh the negatives, and I can see this as a useful tool for our readers. --El on ka 22:06, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
Support. The GA process (that is, the editors involved) produces a lot of good content, and having the icon would give even the most casual of readers a chance to catch a glimpse of the QA work that goes on behind the scenes. As others have mentioned, there are many older FAs that wouldn't come close to passing GA in their current form. decltype (talk) 02:52, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
Support I have seen some poor GAs, but as a matter of fact, having the GA symbol on the page will make poor GA assessments more visible and get new editors involved in the GA process. --JN 466 11:21, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
Support The GA process, while not as intensive as FA, still brings articles to a higher level. Readers should see this, and I do believe it will help delist poor GA articles, and perhaps cause more people to strive to improve other article to GA status. Angryapathy (talk) 20:29, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
Support GAs today is far too invisible. This would be a great addition! Esuzu (talk • contribs) 21:41, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

No

I'm disillusioned – non-reviews like this one were not detected (the user is now banned but promoted several articles without any review) – this would not have happened in FAC where content quality is not determined by only one user. Hekerui (talk) 07:15, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
There are a lot more (100+) old FAs from 2005-07 when WikiProject vote-stacking with 10+ one-line supports (usually along ethnic lines) from members with 100% support voting record was not a stigma and most of these are still around. YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 07:22, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
But current FAC procedures prevent this from happening: even if a FAC gets a gazillion supports now, if there are issues, they aren't passed. FAC has a means of dealing with this, that other processes don't necessarily have (delegates), and FAR can be used for dealing with articles that no longer meet criteria. On the other hand, many current GAs are not GA even when passed by new or unqualified reviewers (and kudos to the excellent job done by experienced reviewers, but not all are). As another example, almost none of the current medical GAs meet WP:MEDRS, since few reviewers are even aware of that guideline-- there is no reason to highlight those articles to our readers as having passed any threshold (bad medical info is a real concern to me, and all of the medical GAs need review). As a side note on current FAC processes, since Karanacs and I have been delegated, I have promoted almost 40% of the current FAs (I don't know Karanacs' number, but together we should be approaching 60%), and only four have been delisted: one was an uncontroversial merge, and was probably delisted unjustly, two I agreed with (User:SandyGeorgia/sandbox#Articles I promoted that have appeared at WP:FAR). Vote stacking does not prevail at FAC (and it is not only an ethnic issue-- it also occurs in all MilHist articles, and in other areas). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:07, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
I just wanted to comment on Sandy's concern re medical GAs. The WP:RS guidance refers to "Ideal sources" not required ones. I'm sorry if you think some of those GAs are substandard, but i'm not sure they are non-compliant with the general guidance. WP:MEDRS itself is excessively complex and i'm not sure it is going to be very effective in practice. I have little if any experience with editing biomedical articles, though, so i'm not up to speed with how they work out in practice. On a separate point, i didn't understand your comment "On the other hand, many current GAs are not GA even when passed by new or unqualified reviewers". Is there a word or something missing there? hamiltonstone (talk) 03:48, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
The standards were not high in 2007, and most of them would be struggling badly now, not to mention the ethnic stacks from that era, which are jokes. There were some passed FAs there where all the non-ethnic votes were opposed, but the 10 crooked votes defeated the 3 legitimate opposes with proper reasons. And in those days any old sources were ok, including family tribute websites, etc. And 2007 and before FAs still account for at least 35% of current FAs I would imagine. And in the old days it was mostly only Tony checking the prose and often he got outvoted 10-1 or 10-2 etc... Nowadays there are about 10 guys checking prose/presentation at a similar or harder level. And yes, votestacking occurs in a variety of areas but not as badly in the 2007 and before era days when opposition to ethnic articles was simply irrelevant in the face of straight voting, and it was most conspicuous in those ones due to persistent accusations of racism against any dissenters. As for bad FAs, people aren't even through with the 2005/2006 crop yet, let alone the 2007 crop. (And as for MILHIST, the project is rather fragmented, and if you don't vote on Anglophone topics you sit there for 3+ weeks anyway etc as those are the only places with more than 2 active editors) In any case votestacking still helps as if you have none at all, you will need to get 3 independent votes, which guarantees that you won't pass until 25 days even if there are no objections...instead of 14-18 YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 00:58, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
I wouldn't be too upset if a GA symbol were to be added to articles, but my preference would be to eliminate the FA star on articles, not add a GA symbol. In my mind, we should think of readers as being completely unaware of anything that goes on behind the scenes here; asking them to understand the distinction between GA and FA is stepping out of the role of encyclopedia, and moving talk page discussions to the forefront. (I'm also not a big fan of cleanup templates and citation needed tags; I think in many cases it would be better to move the offending material to the talk page if there's consensus there's a problem.) I'm sure the editors of Encyclopedia Britannica think some of their articles are particularly good, but they don't flag them as such for readers, and nor should we. Mike Christie (talk) 09:53, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
I could certainly be persuaded that all of the tags and the FA star should be removed from article space as an alternative to this proposal to add the GA symbol. That approach at least has the merit of consistency. What is not consistent, IMO, is to make a special case for one rating system but not another. Malleus Fatuorum 14:31, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
GA criteria are not designed to be overly strict. Because GA status can be conferred by any single editor, the standards can be applied very unevenly (although kudos to all who participated in the GA sweeps). These two points combined make me wary of marking these articles with an icon; I think it could be difficult for a reader to understand what that actually means. YM has a point that there are a lot of older FAs that are substandard, but FA process tries to be consistent in promoting new articles - GA can't really do that. Karanacs (talk) 13:45, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
It's currently possible to set this as a personal preference in your preferences. IMO, the default should be off (as it currently is), as GA status is far less consistent than FA and thus has far more potential to confuse readers. Yes, there are bad FAs, but it's far easier to get a bad article listed as GA than it is to get a bad article through FAC. I agree with Mike Christie above that if any change is made, it's to default all displays of article status to "off" to readers; the star means nothing to general readers. – iride scent 13:52, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
It's also far easier to get a poor GA delisted than a poor FA, so it's swings and roundabouts. I once felt quite strongly about the inequity of not displaying the GA symbol, but more recently I've become somewhat persuaded by Mike's idea (which was also expressed in the last discussion of this issue, by Raul IIRC), that all of this "metadata" should be dropped, including the FA star. Malleus Fatuorum 14:35, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
I'd certainly endorse that; as I say above, I very much doubt that star means anything to 99% of readers. FA doesn't mean "perfect article"; I'm sure most readers couldn't care less if the article complies with WP:MOSDASH and WP:ALT. – iride scent 15:40, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
I was also opposed to this a couple years ago, and while I'm not as vehemently against the idea nowadays, I still don't like it; GA is an excellent and worthwhile project, but I have several concerns. I entirely agree with Mike Christie in that we should endeavor to separate content from internal process as much as possible, and I've long advocated for an alternative to inline cleanup templates. I'm OK with the FA start for identifying our most scrutinized content, but given the inconsistent standards at GA, I feel using the icon on articles themselves would be excessive. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 15:08, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
- To be pursuaded by this argument i'd want to see some clear evidence of inconsistent standards being applied at GA and not being detected when they are. When i recently audited a sample of about 20 GAs during the backlog elimination drive, i sought to cover most of the inexperienced reviewers as well as some experienced ones. All the reviews were basically sound, and all the articles looked to be within the range for the GA criteria. I was pleasantly surprised. I just don't feel there is strong evidence to support the criticism being levelled at GA here. hamiltonstone (talk) 03:24, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
I agree with Iridescent. It's much easier to get a bad article to GA than to FA, since only one reviewer is needed; therefore, I don't think a bad article should have an icon on its page. Really, per all of the above in this section. Hurricanehink (talk) 15:16, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
If its a one person review then its too open to human falliability (or even malice) GraemeLeggett (talk) 15:54, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose this Perenial Proposal - I like the current rationale for not doing it the best. FA is a community process. GA is an individual process. Adding to the article page will cause confusion that that article is actually good, and I've seen some really bad GAs in my day...--Unionhawk ^Talk ^E-mail 20:35, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
- But have you seen any really bad GAs since the sweeps (which is on of the reasons this discussion has been postponed until now)? hamiltonstone (talk) 03:24, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
For a few reasons, none of which are listed in the intro. 1) vandalism and credibility. nuff said. 2) people (the average user) might begin to think that pages with GA status are the only credible articles or worse may begin to believe everything they see on a GA page. 3) its bad enough that we rank pages to begin with, now we're applying this so that everyone can see? 4) Articles with GA status include/once included universally offensive things like Adolf Hitler, Lawrence Taylor, 2008 Barack Obama assassination scare in Denver and 1993 child sexual abuse accusations against Michael Jackson and controversial things like Hezbollah and George W. Bush. Do we really want people to think that Wikipedia is labelling these things as "Good"? No thanks.--CastAStone /^/(talk) 20:46, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
Just as an aside, since when was Lawrence Taylor "universally offensive"? Torchiest (talk | contribs) 05:38, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
But to the point, wikipedia is, of course, uncensored, and the subject matter should never compromise the article. Torchiest (talk | contribs) 05:40, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose. I would not like to see that. GA is just one person's opinion, and I've seen some very poor GAs. SlimVirgin ^{talk contribs} 04:05, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
There are over 8000 GAs from memory - i'm sure a few are poor, as are a small number of FAs. I had a couple of queries: how many poor ones have you seen post-GA sweeps being completed; do you mean poor, as in you didn't think much of the article, or poor, as in they did not comply with WP:WIAGA even though they got passed? Can you give any examples? Regards, hamiltonstone (talk) 05:22, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
- It is not the amount of people doing something that matters, it is the process behind what they do that counts. The GA process and the criteria on which it is based is a community product open to inspection and ammendment by consensus. A reviewer is applying the community criteria. Another member of the community can challenge the reviewer's interpretation of the criteria. It is very much community based. Anyway, I'm not quite convinced that one person gets it any more right/wrong than a handful. I am reassured that if there is a doubt about a listing, it can be quickly and easily challenged. SilkTork *^YES! 17:17, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
get rid of the stars while you're at it. -Atmoz (talk) 07:28, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose; high potential to mislead readers, who are likely to falsely assume that the certification of an article indicates it has been fact-checked. As well, the kindergarten-ish feeling of the stars/this proposal are generally embarrassing to the project. Christopher Parham (talk) 05:02, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
Actually, you should read Wikipedia's general disclaimer. According to the disclaimer, nobody should assume that a Wikipedia article (be it FA or GA) to be flawless and error-free. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 01:44, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose I agree with many of the opinions above regarding the GA process being one viewers opinion and the potential for misleading readers rather than editors is too big. I also have to say this is simply an attempt at self-gratification. Why is this being held on the GA talkpage and not somewhere more central such as the Village Pump. Woody (talk) 14:06, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
It is listed on WP:CENT. –MuZemike 18:25, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
I am not confident enough in the strength of our GA reviewing process to think that this is a good idea.--Mkativerata (talk) 20:21, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
Per Mkativerata above. Also GA needs more reviewers, not participants, and is ill equipped to handle a substantial increase in nomination rates. Also the difference between a GA and a FA is not immediately clear to new readers and may lead them to an inaccurate understanding of page quality. Also an insufficient rationale has been presented for how this change will improve Wikipedia. - DustFormsWords (talk) 05:42, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
How it may benefit Wikipedia is an interesting question. WP:Featured articles is viewed about 2700 times a day. WP:Good articles is viewed about 10% as often. I wonder if more people will find their way to WP:GA as a result of this change? And will that result in more GA-oriented editors? Abductive (reasoning) 06:51, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
You don't think that the higher number of people visiting WP:FA might be down to there being a large bolded link to it on the main page? – iride scent 13:59, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
I considered that. Portal:Featured content, which is linked twice from the Main Page, gets viewed over 15,000 times a day. Abductive (reasoning) 21:20, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
Not as long as GA reviews are a 1-person process. The criteria may be consensus-based, but unlike FA, there's no consensus involved in the actual application. Mr.Z-man 15:43, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
Perhaps you ought to focus on the result rather than the process. Do you have a driving licence, for instance? If you do, how many examiners were in the car with you when you took your test? Malleus Fatuorum 17:03, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
I say no, because GAs are simply not FAs. An FA is the best that Wikipedia has to offer, thus it deserves a star. A GA is quite good, but it isn't like an FA. Adding a star to GAs as well would decrease what being an FA means. I mean, I recognize that GA editors would love to have that, but there's more. In some ways, you can compare it to the European football (not soccer!) leagues, the UEFA Europa League and the UEFA Champions League: Only the best clubs of the best leagues come into the Champions League, whereas every country gets at least one club into the Europa League. It's indeed unfair to the less successful countries to not come into the Champions League, but if it were different, the Champions League would lose its uniqueness and its attractiveness that it currently has. I personally don't mind that only one person reviews the article: I've read several GAs, and after all, while I recognize they're not super mega awesome, they're better than most of this site's articles. But as I said already, they should be left as they are. --The Evil IP address (talk) 19:29, 16 May 2010 (UTC)
In Olympics and other major sports event, competitors are also awarded with silver and bronze medal. Clearly your "argument" doesn't hold much weight because I haven't heard any gold medalist complaining that silver and bronze medals are awarded and thinks it's "not fair". OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 03:17, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
And, every country in Europe other than Liechtenstein (which doesn't have a football league) participates in the Champions League (see the CL Places column). Don't know where you've got the idea that "Only the best clubs of the best leagues come into the Champions League" from. – iride scent 08:59, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

The GA star is different from the FA star. There would be no confusion.--Iankap99 (talk) 00:27, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

FAs aren't necessarily good at all. There are a lot of ones poorer than GAs but are entrenched there for political reasons or a lack of will to otherwise make them accountable YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 00:24, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose: I'm already iffy about the FA star. I don't mind highlighting the best articles (Lord knows that Wikipedia's reputation for writing quality needs to be bolstered), but the problem is that both the GA and FA process is so uneven, especially as time progresses. If we could review each FA and GA each time the standards are revised, and thus guarantee that the articles meet the criteria in reality instead of just history, that would be different. Even articles that did meet the criteria at the time may deteriorate over time and not get reviewed for a very long time. Review each article, and then I could support this. bahamut0013^words _deeds 21:44, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
Perhaps you missed the GA Sweeps Project, which did exactly that. Malleus Fatuorum 21:54, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
And on the other hand, FA never planned to do anything similar. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 03:21, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
Like he said. It doesn't make much sense to highlight tier 2 when tier 1 is still a mess. bahamut0013^words _deeds 11:52, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
We're not yet to the point of showing GA on main page. But for now, we just want some recognition for GA by having its symbol on the articles. I recall that the FA community did discuss to have a Sweep of their kind but in the end it all bogged down due to bureaucracy (i.e. can the FA director and his team able to handle all the workload resulting from the sweeps, on top of their usual FAC/FAR duties?) and unwillingness to change because there's no competition to drive them to improve. If tier 1 is a mess, then proposals should be made targetting the tier 1, but shouldn't be not downplaying or blaming tier 2 for the mess and chaos generated by tier 1.OhanaUnited ^{Talk page} 13:10, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
Absolutely agree with Ohana. The state of some FAs should have no bearing on whether or not GAs get a mention on the content page. Alzarian16 (talk) 13:12, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
Per all. 68071 (talk) 22:31, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Needed improvements?

I'm a huge fan of the GA WikiProject - this was my first 'home' on Wikipedia - but I'd like to sound a note of caution with this proposal if I may. A little history might be useful first. The last time this was discussed (in 2008; archive here), the outcome was that wikipedians generally were too mistrustful of GA's quality assurance to accept that a GA symbol in article space would be a reliable indicator of quality. The single reviewer process has many strengths but one or two weaknesses that were, it seemed, too significant for those strengths to overcome. As a result of that debate a number of us started a working group to examine the GA process; our aim was to see where and how it could be improved to address the legitimate concerns that had been raised. After long discussions, we proposed some small changes to the review process. These did not get project approval, so we went back, rethought, and tried again. Our second proposal also didn't receive project consensus, so in the end no changes were made and I believe GA perhaps missed an opportunity to address some of the more cogent criticisms levelled at it.
The reason I'm bringing this up is to illustrate that unless the project can demonstrate that things are somehow different since the last time having a GA symbol was discussed, I don't believe the outcome will be any different. There have certainly been improvements in transparency - for example, the introduction of dedicated sub-pages for reviewing and reassessing - but these were quite a while back and I fear the major stumbling block, as ever, is going to be the perceived unaccountability of GA's single reviewer system. EyeSerene^talk 08:48, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

I broke this out into its own section.

I wasn't around for the previous discussions about this, but I had glanced at them previously.

I am concerned that if significant progress has not been made to resolve previous objections, this will backfire. That is, not only would this not win consensus this time, but this try could make the next such try harder.

Although I'm in favor of the general idea, maybe it should be suspended to make sure the case is strong as it feasibly can be. Maurreen (talk) 08:59, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

That's basically what I'm getting at. I've perhaps oversimplified the reasons why this proposal failed last time (I'd recommend reading Sam's masterly closing summary) but I think we need to be able to demonstrate what's changed that means current consensus should be revisited. EyeSerene^talk 09:17, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree. But I should correct myself, in that I think what I had glanced at before was something different but related (maybe the argument against the most recent proposal).

There was a discussion maybe two months ago about getting the GA symbol on article pages. I think everyone on whatever GA-type page that discussion was on agreed with that idea. But we also agreed with EyeSerene's point here. We talked about moving to the next stage (what EyeSerene is indicating overall), but I think we were struck by intertia. Maurreen (talk) 09:25, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Maybe a simple improvement would be to have two reviewers. Maurreen (talk) 09:26, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

To summarise the issues that the working group looked at, we wanted to minimise the weaknesses (lack of transparency in the process; single reviewer system leading to lack of quality assurance etc) while keeping the strengths (scalable process; lack of bureaucracy; reasonably fast throughput; collaborative ethos; the 'personal touch' of a single reviewer etc). Requiring more than one reviewer was strongly resisted - no-one wanted GA to become FA-lite - but actively encouraging (though not requiring) additional comments was an avenue that seemed worth pursing. We thought this might be done by having a lead reviewer/additional comments system. The other main idea we came up with was that all reviews should stay open for a minimum period to address the concerns about drive-by reviews and give time for additional comments to made. The discussions and proposals linked above are off-putting in their length but perhaps worth a read (mainly this one).

Other objections (Will readers know what the GA symbol means? Do most Wikipedians even know about GA? Would a symbol be for for the benefit of editors or readers? Should assessments be displayed in article space at all?) will be harder to address, but I think there are certainly things that GA could do to maximise its chances of eventually getting this through. EyeSerene^talk 10:02, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

WP:GA has made a big effort to improve or delist old GAs. If a few GARs are inferior, they can be reassessed quickly. My impression is that GAR is more effective than FAR at present, even without this example. --Philcha (talk) 14:22, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

GAs are not reassessed quickly (I nominated one for review weeks ago that is still listed GA and hasn't been reviewed), and most of the medical GAs passed the sweeps while being out of compliance with WP:MEDRS. On the other hand, the recent trend at FAR is in the opposite direction-- speedy delists! So if anything, FAs are becoming harder to get and keep. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:26, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Sady I can't find this article to which you refer (as having been nominated as needing review). Can you point me to it? hamiltonstone (talk) 05:30, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I think those are definite plus points. GAR is efficient and reliable and the GA sweeps did an excellent quality control job. Also, the transparency of the review process has mostly been addressed since the last discussion. However, I think there's still some way to go before GA is ready to put this to the community at large again; any serious proposal will need to look very carefully at why this keeps being rejected and how the project has acted to address the concerns that led to its rejection (the same concerns, incidentally, that are being raised here again). EyeSerene^talk 15:55, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

I have to say quite a number of those concerns are being raised in the abstract - without evidence - or based on people's past memories. And the test isn't whether the process is perfect but whether it is robust enough to give some reliable guidance to the reader. I recently saw an FA get up that contained clear original research - it doesn't mean i'm worried about the FAC process as a whole, and i was happy that there were easy steps to take to address it. I'm not sure there's much systemic evaluation being made here. I am however interested in the point about the recognisability of the GA symbol and how well understood it would be by the public readership. That's a good point. hamiltonstone (talk) 03:31, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Other comments

I don't know if I necessarily agree with that it would give incentive to get more articles up to GA. At least I always thought the satisfaction itself of getting an article successfully promoted to GA was good enough of an incentive. –MuZemike 08:20, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
Another option would be to enable by default for all registered and unregistered users the interface gadget "Display an assessment of an article's quality as part of the page header for each article." This might prove to be more informative in general, rather than just offering a little icon in the corner that people may not understand or think to click on. – VisionHolder « talk » 11:50, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
- I think all those ratings would be too confusing for non-Wikipedians; most would have little idea what all the ratings mean. Ucucha 11:57, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
  - The class in the rating has a link to WP:ASSESS, where the rating is spelled out clearly. Anyway, more information could always be added, like maybe a "Learn more" link... although WP:ASSESS seems to discuss the topic quite thoroughly. Either way, I feel that if we are going to inform the public about our assessment process, WP:ASSESS is a great place to point them to rather than just WP:FA and WP:GA. – VisionHolder « talk » 12:19, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
    - There will be very few people who actually read that page in enough detail to get a sense of the ratings, I believe. Ucucha 12:30, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

This is a WP:PEREN discussion, frequently declined, there is no reason to have it again, nothing has changed. Wikipedia:PEREN#Indicate_Good_Articles_to_readers. GAs are passed by one reviewer, they are not a community process. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:22, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Please see Geometry Guy's response to your previous post about it being at WP:PEREN. That is not an accurate description of the process. It is a community process where one editor acts as the opener and closer of the review. Most times they are the only contributor between opening and closing, but there is nothing that requires only their comments to be taken into account, and the process has community evaluation at WP:GAR etc. It is certainly less stringent than WP:FAC but it is not accurate to characterise it as an individual process. Did you see my other queries raised in the context of a prvious post above? hamiltonstone (talk) 21:07, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

FYI I've placed notes at Template:Cent and WP:VPR as this needs input from a wider spectrum of the community than those watching this page. –xeno^talk 13:59, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I didn't take it to CENT because i was starting to think the proposal needed refining, per in particular comments by Eyeserene. But it's out there now. hamiltonstone (talk) 21:07, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Someone else mentioned it, and perhaps it could be a simple addition to the GA process. Require that EVERY GA reviewer get a second opinion before passing. It would slow things down a little, but since A-class articles are supposed to require two editors' agreement anyway, this seems reasonable, as GA is, again, much more commonly used. This would also help to further bridge the gap between GA and FA in general. Torchiest (talk | contribs) 15:31, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
- No, it wouldn't. It would just be another step on the road towards GA becoming FA-lite. Whether or not there are tiny graphics of whatever colour in the top right-hand corner of an article seems to me to be supremely irrelevant to what we're trying to do here. Or at least what I'm trying to do here, which is to improve as many articles as possible as quickly as possible, and to help others to do the same. That's what GA's about, not pretty baubles. Malleus Fatuorum 02:05, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Agree with Malleus on this. hamiltonstone (talk) 21:07, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

- - I'm not sure how your comment applies to what I said. I was only suggesting a way to make the GA review process more robust. If you favor speed, that's fine. Torchiest (talk | contribs) 04:35, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

This discussion makes me wonder: what proportion of the GAs reviewed in the sweeps were found to be wanting? Are there other data points which make the case either way that GA is or is not a reliable standard? --Nasty Housecat (talk) 16:25, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Well the data is available at WP:WikiProject Good articles/Project quality task force/Sweeps/Running total. I doubt there is any other data that would meet the criteria that you specify. –– Jezhotwells (talk) 22:36, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

A breakdown of the results is available at WP:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-03-15/Dispatches. –– Jezhotwells (talk) 22:48, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Some more comments:

Having the GA Sweeps and a recent month-long GAN backlog elimination drive completed, I'd say it's appropriate to bring up this debate again as the situation has slightly changed; all the other times, the Sweeps were still going.
As an editor (who has contributed to 7 GAs and more soon), it really doesn't matter to me if there's a GA button on top of the article's page. To me, it's more of a personal satisfaction in getting an article from, say, Start-Class all the way up to GA and seeing how far the article came along to get there.
I believe SandyGeorgia and others' points about GAs not being determined by community consensus are still valid.
I would be against having two editors approve a GA. We have a hard enough time trying to keep the number of GANs low as it is, and requiring another reviewer would multiply that problem. Also, in most WikiProjects, A-Class (which is for the most part between GA and FA) requires at least two editors to review and approve it. We don't have the manpower to consider such a notion/proposal.

–MuZemike 00:57, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Having thought hard, I have a slightly more pressing concern. Do we want to be announcing something as "good" to the world (ie a form of endorsement or recommendation), that is in principle open to manipulation by someone with a biased view and a reviewer of the same biased viewpoint? I'm concerned that this proposal has good value in that it promotes article quality and encourages attention to GA's... but might promote a kind of "politicization" of GAs for POV purposes. On the flip side most GAs do get multiple eyeballs and can be revoked or questioned if there were a doubt. If GAs get more formal recognition will there be a way to encourage wider eyeballs to counter anything like this? For example, a list of GA nominees, similar to RFC? I'd like to hear more thoughts on this before casting a view either way. I like the idea of promoting GAs, but not if it is likely to increase POV. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 20:33, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

There is a list of current GA nominees at WP:GAN (and of current GAs at WP:GA). Ucucha 20:39, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Well the same incentive to get POV FAs exist and to be frank, the uninvolved guy on Wikipedia generally does not care at all about content issues in other places, so unless the guy uses a ridiculous tone, they won't get any eyebrows for POV/content issues YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 00:30, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Don't know if I mentioned this before but anything which breaks down barriers between passive readers and active contributors I feel is a good thing. If the tiny symbols attract even one or more reader into editing, by whatever way, including pointing out a Good article that they feel no longer meets criteria, then it is a boon for the site. Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:06, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
Although some of of the opposes above believe that GAs are not developed enough to warrant their own symbol, I would say that we the GAs are a great influence on the encyclopedia. Looking at just a few GAs, some articles were developed out of stubs and significantly improved to reach GA status. It doesn't really matter if an editor did all that work for a symbol or a barnstar, the end result is that we now have an article that is sourced, neutral, and developed enough to adequately cover the subject. I list the GA/FAs that I've worked on at my user page, and although I like the fact that they got that far, the main reason I display them is to encourage other editors to take the steps to bring an article to GA/FA quality. I don't see why we would want to hide what these articles have become. If we're worried that readers aren't going to know what GAs are or that they're going to have some different perception of the articles in relation to FAs, the symbol and link to WP:GA will clarify that. Most readers don't necessarily know what an FA is, but once they click on that star, they clearly can see an intro on that page that details what an article must contain to be an FA. This green symbol will do the same for GAs—provide an indicator for those that are curious about the article's quality while also having the option to visit WP:GA to learn more about what it takes to get there. Although there may be some worries about adding a GA symbol that would detract from the allure of the FA star, in the grand scheme of things, it's not that big a deal. When the vast majority of Wikipedia's articles are in poor condition, we should do everything we can to continue to encourage more editors (and hopefully turn more readers into editors) to continue to improve articles to GA/FAs. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 21:34, 16 May 2010 (UTC)
I Support the addition of this symbol to all GAs. One of the criticism of Wikipedia is that there is supposedly no review process. Both GA and FA are reviewed and having both these pages labeled will make more readers realize that this common perception is false. By the way the support was 55 to 19 for this proposal. Should it not have passed?Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 12:46, 30 May 2010 (UTC)
- It has passed, and we're now talking about implementation in the thread at the bottom of this page. Ucucha 12:53, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Should all A-class articles have the A-class symbol on the article page?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I'm strikingthrough this to leave the discussion visible, but suggest that this one is dead in the water and need not further detail us. hamiltonstone (talk) 03:39, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

I replaced that with {{archivetop}} for easier readability, but good move; this was a major failure. :) —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 05:29, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Arguments in favour

Being rated as A-class represents a higher standard than GA (generally requires 2 uninvolved editors to tick it off -see WP:A?), so it has if anything a stronger claim to represent a quality assurance standard than does GA.
While formal A-class review systems are only actively maintained in some specific Wikiprojects, such as Milhist, Ships and Aviation, it is a cross-WP standard which can be applied to any article: see WP:1.0/A.
The symbol will increase visibility of the A-class standard, attracting more nominations and participants.
A-class nominations tend to focus on content-related issues and ensure that the article is accurate (as opposed to GA's style focus).

Arguments against

While A-class may be a cross-WP standard in theory, as it is supposed to be assigned by WikiProjects it is not uniformly applied; Milhist's standards (WP:MH/A) are much more explicitly defined than 1.0's. As a result, there may be less certainty for readers about what an A-class symbol means compared to FA or GA.
The increased rigour at GA may be closing the gap between GA and FA, making an additional quality standard redundant in the longer term.
Symbols on the article page should be limited to those of widespread, well-known standards, not ones that are only used by some wikiprojects.

Yes

No

Oppose. These A/B/C class article evaluations lack any sort of academic rigor; many editors bypass these useless grading schemes for GAN and FAC, which at least require a review process. A/B/C grades are often assigned randomly, with little or no consistency. Firsfron of Ronchester 04:38, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
I think you are confused. A-class articles require, at minimum, support from two uninvolved editors. It's quite different from the B/C/Start/Stub grading. —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 05:54, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
This isn't enforced then. At WT:INB Nichalp (talk · contribs) used to self-award A-class articles Sir Creek (he also proposed a caste system whereby certain "quality" editors like him would be able to self-award while others could not Wikipedia_talk:Noticeboard_for_India-related_topics/Archive_40#Culture_of_Thiruvananthapuram:_Class_A_formal_review) and there are others floating around that were randomly added. On another note, with in-project reviews, many WikiProjects systematically cook their books. I did a person sampling once and one WikiProject had 100% FAC/FAR support and the average size of their B/Starts were 14k and 3k (the average of other projects I sampled were 25k and 7k). Also with internal assessments there is a strong impetus to not put up their own articles up for review if they fall behind standards. YellowMonkey (bananabucket!) 06:25, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose A-class articles vary in quality more than GAs as there is not a centralised process of assessment. Formal processes such as that of Milhist are the exception rather than the rule. The underuse of this class is demonstrated by the statistics: 730 A-class articles compared to 9,149 GAs, 3,107 FAs, and 1,392 FLs. Having a mark on an article such as the bronze star should be a mark of quality, with the varying standard of A-class articles I don't think this can be guaranteed. I feel the A-class process has a long way to go before it can be taken as a legitimate mark of quality. Nev1 (talk) 04:40, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose: Now is the time: Let's end the chaos of GA/A/FA. Let's recognize that in the scale of Stub/Start/C/B/GA-A-FA that a separate A-class rating is superfluous. GA and FA should be recognized as different orders of A: GA being equivalent to A-/A, and FA being equivalent to A+. This is not grade school: there is clearly no need for three different ratings in this narrow range and absolutely no need for three different rating processes. According article page designation to GAs and denying it to As will encourage rationalization of the system. Ultimately what we want is a drive to make each A-class article an FA candidate; in cases where no one volunteers to act as nominator for that, redesignate the article automatically as GA and see if it survives eventual GAR vetting. That will bring sense to the system and concentrate grading efforts into just two processes rather than three, improving results overall.—DCGeist (talk) 05:52, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose: as wtih DCGeist, I too feel we need some ratinalising here and maybe a push to review all A class articles (and maybe nominate at FAC) would be a great benefir I think. Streamlining is a good thing here. Casliber (talk · contribs) 06:07, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose "Featured" and "Good" content have established widi-wide systems. Other ratings do not, and thus should not be marked for readers. Maurreen (talk) 07:48, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose for the time being due to the variation in quality between different WikiProject assessments and the limited use of the A-Class rating. Some A-Class review processes - Milhist being the obvious example - are extremely rigorous (basically FAC in all but name); others, as pointed out by YellowMonkey, less so. According to the guidance from the V1.0 team at WP:ACLASS this isn't necessarily a problem, but unless we also have a way of informing the reader of the 'soundness' of the process behind the rating I think a symbol on an article would be essentially meaningless. It could even be counter-productive; readers coming across lower quality A-Class articles may then be sceptical about the credibility of the higher quality ones. EyeSerene^talk 07:59, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
Absolutely not-- MilHist is one of the most respected A-class reviews, and one only needs examine the cursory pass of Douglas MacArthur to see the problems. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:23, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
Absolutely not. A-class assessment is arbitrary, inconsistently applied between projects (see American Civil War, A-class to WP:MILHIST but not A-class to WP:USA, as a good example), and aside from the walled-garden of military history, virtually moribund—for instance, number of A-class articles on British topics not related to military history: one, and that's incorrectly classified as it's not actually on a UK topic. – iride scent 14:21, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose - While it would be a good idea to indicate articles that were assessed at A through a formal review, the problem is that ACR is not done Wikipedia-wide, but by individual WPs. For example, WP:USRD, which covers roads in the US, has an ACR system set up; however, WP:CRWP, a project that covers roads in Canada, has no ACR. In addtion, many A-class articles are also GAs, so the dual GA/A tagging would be confusing. For tagging articles, we should stick with FA and GA. Dough 48 72 15:03, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
Agree with the first post in this section. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 15:09, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
Oppose - this is done by wikiproject, so unless we can somehow unify every wikiproject on A-class, there's no way.--Unionhawk ^Talk ^E-mail 20:40, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Other comments

My initial reaction was yes, but since there aren't consistent standards, I have some doubts. Also, it may be confusing to some readers to see articles market with "GA", "A", and a star. A casual glance wouldn't really tell you which were which, in terms of a quality ranking. I think it would have to be either GA or A, and while I like the idea of A quality articles, I'd say there is way too much inertia to ever implement that in place of the GA standard. Torchiest (talk | contribs) 22:49, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
1. I don't think anyone is suggesting an article should have more than one symbol. It would have just whichever was the 'highest' quality rating. I may be mistaken, but I think there is a clear acceptance within WP that the order from lowest to highest is GA-A-FA. I accept it might be slightly less clear to a lay reader. That could be an argument to limit the symbols to just GA and FA, but others may have a different view. You are right I think, A-class could never supplant GA given the momentum and record of the GA project. hamiltonstone (talk) 23:23, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
2. Sorry, I was afraid that wouldn't be clear. I didn't mean more than one per page, I just meant having three different symbols could be confusing. That's one strength of the current system: you see a star, and you know the article is top quality. If you saw, on different articles, a star, a plus symbol, and an A, as a random reader, would it be clear what the order of quality was? Torchiest (talk | contribs) 01:02, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
There's no standard with A-class though, not every project uses it. GA seems (to me) to be accepted across the board, so one could incorrectly infer that A-class is lesser than GA. – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 23:31, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
If A-class is allowed I see every project creating their own operation so that they can bannerise their stuff. In 2006, there was an India-Star on some pages that got quickly deleted, and given that some projects have almost 100% and exactly 100% (in the case of one nation state wikiproject) pile-on support (votestacking) on their FACs, I wouldn't be surprised if lots of them started A-ing articles that are really C+/B- standard YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 03:46, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
Several projects already operate A-Class Reviews of some sort. I won't speak for the others, but WP:USRD only accepts nominations of current B-Class or GA-class articles for an ACR. In practice, because of the Stub → Start → C → B → GA → A → FA progression, only GAs are nominated at ACR typically. For that reason, USRD A-Class assessments, for which we require 4 reviewers to support promotion, are all GAs. (Any that aren't should probably pass a GAN easily.) Unless a Wiki-wide ACR is instituted though, I don't see a consistent and acceptable basis for displaying the A-Class symbol. Imzadi 1979 → 09:24, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

General comments not directly relating to one of the two proposals

Thanks in advance for everyone's input. hamiltonstone (talk) 22:20, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Polls and WP:RfC's are nice and all, but a proposal such as this requires much greater visibility than a WikiProject talk page (was this even listed as a request for comment?). At a minimum, this should be advertised on WP:CENT. Also, I suggest a proposal such as this be discussed somewhere more central; Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) would be appropriate. --auburnpilot talk 02:58, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
- This was more of an internal discussion to start; Hamiltonstone is going to list this on CENT "about half a day" from now —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 03:39, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Ed. Yes, I am intending to list this at WP:CENT, but was letting the proposal get bedded down and wrinkles ironed out amongst the most active relevant editing community before seeking to attract that many eyes. If anyone else reckons its ready to go to CENT, then i don't own this, but I am hoping a couple more key editors like Geometry Guy might wade in so we know that there is clear support amongst those with the most history around here (eg. I noted Nehrams2020 and Malleus have passed through, which is good). hope to get to CENT tomorrow my time. hamiltonstone (talk) 04:09, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

WP:Aviation, WP:Milhist, and WP:Ships have been informed of this discussion. Nev1 (talk) 04:49, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Thank you Nev1, good idea. I have also flagged it on the FAC talk page. hamiltonstone (talk) 05:18, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

It was ed17 who notified the projects, I just thought it should be mentioned here. Nev1 (talk) 05:38, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, you are right, I should have mentioned that here. —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 05:55, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Wide publicity will be good. I don't want people surprised later. That seems like it keeps happening (with other things, not related to this). Maurreen (talk) 07:52, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

As a project that operates an A-Class Review, I notified WP:USRD as well. Imzadi 1979 → 09:33, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm backtracking. Before publicizing this any more, maybe we should discuss any needed improvements and past objections. Maurreen (talk) 09:37, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree that would be ideal, but unfortunately I think the cat's out of the bag. If I can humbly offer some advice, my instinct would be to close this down before too many entrenched positions are adopted, take a look at past discussions, go through all the objections, and decide what (if anything) can be done about addressing them. The final proposal will need to be carefully formulated in a way that answers previous objections and makes GA's case as strongly as possible from the off, bearing in mind that most editors don't revisit a discussion they've already commented on (so it's extremely difficult to argue an 'oppose' into a 'support'). EyeSerene^talk 16:09, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Please see WP:PEREN. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:25, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Comment. Yes please do, and then please ignore it, as it is a dated description of the GA process that does not at all reflect how the process has evolved during the three years that I have been involved in it.

I have thought to rewrite it many times, but decided it was best to leave it. "Whether or not an article is a Good Article is decided by one reviewer, not by a consensus-based process" is false. Whether or not an article is a GA is instead decided by one reviewer at a time with disagreements resolved by a community process, GAR. That is how consensus is achieved, by iteration, and I have been impressed over the years by the alertness of GA reviewers and other editors to problematic reviews.

I am not saying this because I support a GA symbol on articles. Indeed, I have always been sympathetic with the view expressed by Mike Christie that we should not be providing such indications to readers - including the FA star, which (as Yellow Monkey points out) can be somewhat entrenched in older articles.

My view instead is that ultimately it is not a big deal whether a symbol appears in the top right corner of an article. Most readers won't notice it, and the GA symbol is obscure enough that most won't know what it means. What really matters, and this has been one of the driving forces behind my contributions in these years, is that content review processes work harmoniously together to improve the encyclopedia. So it was deeply heartening for me to read the comments above from all viewpoints, in which I felt so much good will about our common goals and the challenges we face. Geometry guy 19:05, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

People who only participate at FA and its leaders tend to like to insist that FA is really good when it's not really, if they tell the truth they loose prestige, especially as they have a stake in their image. How many WikiProject leaders don't put on a show about their project? How many of them actually have a neutral newsletter? Most only have good news in there and if something is brought up about POV pushing or something they just ignore the post. If a WikiProject leader is honest about their project's articles then their stats go down, which in any case, wasn't their "merit" anyway apart from the votestacking YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 00:53, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't think that's entirely fair, or indeed at all fair. Malleus Fatuorum 00:02, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

This has been listed at WP:CENT, and a note posted at WP:VPR, but I would suggest that some additional efforts (RfC, Signpost, posting to Wikiprojects ... anything else that might help) be taken to add visibility. I can't think of many changes one could make to Wikipedia that would be as visible to editors as the addition of a new symbol to mainspace articles; I think every effort should be taken to ensure that the many editors who would be startled by seeing the GA symbol in mainspace would be reassured on reading the discussion that led to that outcome. There is certainly plenty of support being expressed; let's be sure that it's as broad a consensus as possible before making the change. A separate point: if an RfC is undertaken I would like to suggest that it include, as an option, the choice of eliminating the FA star from mainspace articles. Mike Christie (talk) 00:26, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

To editors perhaps, but I doubt that many readers even notice, or have any idea what the bronze star means. I agree with you that the choice of losing the FA star ought to be offered though. Malleus Fatuorum 00:34, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree re editors vs. readers; I said "editors" deliberately but perhaps I should have emphasized the point. It's the editors, not the readers, who might come here to complain, after all. Mike Christie (talk) 00:41, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

So, that GA symbol...

Consensus was reached in the above discussion. Now how does one go about adding that symbol to the top of the article? I was hoping the project page would've been updated with the info. Thanks! – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 19:35, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Oh ... is this supposed to be worked into a template, so it will eventually occur automatically and appear on all GAs? – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 19:37, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

I created Template:Good article (by analogy with Template:Featured article) and added it to Mesopropithecus as an example. I suppose we should get a bot to add it to all existing GAs, unless someone wants to volunteer. Ucucha 19:40, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Very nice! I don't see how you added it, however. I would help if I could figure out how. Xtzou (Talk) 19:43, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Like this. Ucucha 19:50, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

ok, I see. Thanks! I will try it. What is a good method of systematically adding them? Should adding the template be added to the GAN instructions when an article is passed? Xtzou (Talk) 19:56, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Awesome, Ucucha, thanks so much! – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 20:08, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

I think the best thing would be to have a bot which adds the symbol to all pages listed on WP:GA and periodically checks to re-add any missing symbols. Doesn't seem like a difficult bot task to me (though I wouldn't be able to write it). Ucucha 20:02, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Now that this was done Template:Link GA needs to be resurrected and the bot (!?) adding symbols can mark foreign GAs with symbols in the "languages" as well. The German and Persian Wikis have bots that do that together with adding foreign FA stars. Hekerui (talk) 20:03, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

And shouldn't the GA symbol in Mesopropithecus hide the "Good articles" category? Hekerui (talk) 20:04, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

I created Category:Good articles by analogy with the FA cat, so the category is now hidden. I'm not sure whether we really need that category, though; I put it in the template because the FA template also had it. Ucucha 20:09, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

I put at request at WP:BOTREQ#GA symbol. Ucucha 12:39, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Thank you very much to Ucucha (talk · contribs) for taking the initiative to put in the request at WP:BOTREQ, much appreciated. I have restore the template, {{Link GA}}, per [1] -- Cirt (talk) 15:21, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm happy to trudge ( ;) ) my way through the articles adding the template. Miyagawa (talk) 16:14, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Why? It's so many. That's bot work :) Hekerui (talk) 16:24, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Shouldn't there be an RFC or project notification or something for this? I had no idea this discussion was going on. It sounds like something that should be addressed site-wide, not just at this project. —Gendralman (talk) 22:04, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

This has been discussed to death, in various venues over the years. Time to move on now. Malleus Fatuorum 22:11, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

It was advertised on WP:CENT (and is still listed on there as of the timestamp on my signature). –MuZemike 22:14, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

I fail to see how this is a big deal. The

symbol is so inconspicuous as to be unnoticeable. Who could possibly be offended? Xtzou (Talk) 22:23, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, time to move on. I'm hostile to this and think it's likely to backfire, but even I can see that there's an overwhelming consensus in support of it and extending the discussion isn't going to change anything. – iride scent 22:26, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

It may backfire, it may not, but there's clearly a significant groundswell in its favour. What I want to see happen now is a proper debate about the display of article status on the article's page. That discussion was impossible while FA hogged it, but hopefully that's now been changed. Malleus Fatuorum 22:39, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Just for clarification's sake, article status meaning...? FA and GA only, or other levels as well, like A, B? As a side note, the "Metadata" gadget is useful for editors to quickly determine the assessment of an article. Gary King (talk) 23:09, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

What is the "Metadata" gadget, and how is it used? Xtzou (Talk) 23:13, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Everything you need to know is at User:Pyrospirit/metadata. I suspect a lot of the people who participates in this page will find it useful. Gary King (talk) 23:20, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

(undent) From my reading there appears to be only support for GA and FA. No support is present for either A or any other classification level.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:21, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

A general note to all of you: Both the {{Good article}} and {{Link GA}} templates must be added tot he bottom of pages, similar to their FA counterparts. This is because they will usually be maintained by bots, they clutter the top of pages, and a lot of users don't know what they do since the changes they make are not inline with the text. Gary King (talk) 02:23, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Making Template:Link GA work

An admin needs to do the work to get {{Link GA}} to work and show the GA icon next to interwiki language links. The following pages need to be edited to make it work:

MediaWiki:Common.js (copy the "function LinkFA()" and make the necessary changes)
Copy File:Monobook-bullet-ga.png from Commons to Wikipedia, and protect the image, to use it as the bullet
In MediaWiki:Monobook.css and MediaWiki:Vector.css (of course, this should be done for all skins, but these two are the most important), copy "li.FA"

And you're done. Gary King (talk) 18:45, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Doing... -- Cirt (talk) 18:54, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

For the last point, can't we use MediaWiki:Common.css? Ucucha 19:03, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Check the changes to the ones as recommended above by User:Gary King - does that work now? -- Cirt (talk) 19:05, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Not on Aikido (using Vector). Ucucha 19:10, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Gary King, thoughts? -- Cirt (talk) 19:11, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

In the Monobook.css and Vector.css, the image should be linking to this. Everything else is working fine. Gary King (talk) 19:20, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Excellent job everyone. It works great now. Gary King (talk) 19:23, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, working now. Ucucha 19:24, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

I checked Adolf Hitler and under Vector I see nothing. Is that just me? Hekerui (talk) 19:37, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

You might have to purge, refresh, etc. -- Cirt (talk) 19:37, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, works now. Didn't after I purged the page but did after I cleaned out my browser cache. Weird, but nevermind. Hekerui (talk) 19:41, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Purging the page won't do it. You need to bypass your cache. Gary King (talk) 20:18, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

I use User:OhanaUnited/assessment.js (which is the script that User:Outriggrcreated before he deleted it himself). The problem is that for any page with {{Good article}}, the assessment will say that it is an FA..... Is there any way to quickly fix the script without completely rewriting it? OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 03:59, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Use User:Pyrospirit/metadata instead; it's the exact same script, but this one has been continuously maintained. Gary King (talk) 04:14, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Just a note: I taught my bot to add the "Link GA" templates alongside the "Link FA" ones already. Come next weekend, the bot yought to be done (it's running on 16 Wikipedias in parallel, so it is a wee bit slower than it could be). --Guandalug (talk) 07:04, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Gary, Pyrospirit's script doesn't have the ability to give assessments in a few clicks with no typing involved. That's the reason why I haven't switched over. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 11:59, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes it does. It is instant. Gary King (talk) 15:15, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Just a word of thanks to those that successfully got this policy changed and to those that are implementing it through the templates and bots. As someone who's gotten over 25 articles to GA and done at least that many reviews, it's good to see visible acknowledgment popping up on articles of the work that's gone into articles with GA status. Wasted Time R (talk) 15:37, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

I just started seeing these GA symbols pop up on article pages. I investigated and I'm disappointed that I missed out on the chance to vote above (I would have opposed). Anyway, the consensus is clear. Axl ¤ [Talk] 10:21, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

DYK hooks into fresh GAs?

Please see proposal here. Crum375 (talk) 11:46, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

It is another excellent idea IMO. --Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 13:22, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

The green plus sign

I think the green plus sign works quite well as a symbol that clearly represents (I suspect even to readers who don't know the ins and outs of Wikipedia) that the article is quality-marked, but not as high quality as a shiny star - so kudos to its creator for that. Other suggestions, like a silver star, would have been far worse at communicating this idea. But when it appears in small scale the symbol is not so graphically clear, particularly compared to the FA star. There are two particular aspects to this:

The symbols in the top-right of GAs - this isn't so bad, but the fact it is shown tilted at an angle makes it rather less clear, and lacks unity of design with the FA corner symbol, which is shown "front on". Perhaps a front-facing version of the icon, to the same basic design, could be developed for use in article corners.
The interlanguage link GA symbol - I am sure there would be consensus for changing this, because at the even smaller size it appears at in the link icons, it loses a lot of features. In fact the FA link icon is a radically simplified star, presumably for the same reason. So a simple small plus sign might suffice, even without the circle? At the very least we ought to develop a distinct "link GA" icon, because the current one has a white background which shows up as a rectangle against the default blue background of the interlanguage links, and looks rather unprofessional as a result.

For what it's worth I do like the current, tilted design for use on pages like WP:GA - when in its larger incarnation, the tilt makes what is otherwise quite a basic symbol stand out far more.

Does what I wrote seem reasonable? I'm not capable of producing new graphics myself, but I do think the white background of the link GA template, and the fact that the top right article icon is oriented differently to the FA star equivalent, seem out of place. TheGrappler (talk) 22:25, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Interwiki GA icons questionable & not addressed in consensus above

The discussion above did not discuss foreign/interwiki good articles, and yet it is being used to justify the position that all articles deemed "good" by the sister Wikipedias in other languages should be so marked in the interwiki sidebar of English Wikipedia articles. I come to this via a clear instance of where this was a bad idea, where Spanish Wikipedia has deemed "good" a translation from an English Wikipedia article version riddled with WP:OR, which was problematic enough to require extensive cleanup labors here on English Wikipedia. In a nutshell, would the community here, which relied on arguments like "GAN is now pretty rigorous," have endorsed "GAN is now pretty rigorous on all other Wikipedias, too"?

While I don't have a problem with the interwiki stars for foreign FA's (often these are great articles, though there too there are sometimes cases where the star marks an article decidedly inferior to the non-FA here), it doesn't appear to me that GA standards ("now pretty rigorous" here but still developing elsewhere) are ready for prime time in this way. Beside an interwiki link, an icon probably means to most readers who notice it, "Even though you're looking on the English Wikipedia, if you care to look in another language there's an impressive treatment of this subject available elsewhere." I can buy that for an interwiki FA in a way I can't for a GA approved by other local standards and processes.

I'm not sure how enforceable the consensuses reached here are supposed to be, but it appears that in any case none was reached on the interwiki case, and I suggest that there are good reasons to consider against extending the use of the GA icon to the interwiki sidebar. Wareh (talk) 19:43, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

P.S. An immediate consequence of my concern will be when/whether the use of Template:Link GA is appropriate, and whether it should be spread by bots (as it is now). Wareh (talk) 19:46, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

I voted "Support" for the English wiki only. I did not think my vote was meant to support it's use on other wikis. Xtzou (Talk) 20:15, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

FYI the vote doesn't affect other wikis. This discussion is regarding the interwiki links, not GA markers on other wikis. Gary King (talk) 20:31, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

I think there might be a bit of a misunderstanding on what is happening. I too have some concerns. I'm currently reviewing at WP:GAN an article on the English wikipedia: the review has been On Hold for a few weeks. The Polish version, which has additional illustrations, but appears to be a straight translation of the original English-language candidate is already GA; and the English-language version has now been marked by a bot with a GA symbol against the link to the Polish (foreign language) version. I would not have been prepared to award GA to the English-language version translated into Polish. In contrast, I've also found another article, such as London matchgirls strike of 1888, rated as C-class on the English-language version; but with a link to a far superior Norsk version, which is GA (and I suggest rightly so). We now have a situation where non-GA English language articles are carrying GA-symbols against foreign-language versions. I can hardly object where the foreign-language version is superior and rightly has a GA; but in those case where the English language version does not have GA-status and, arguably, the foreign-language version is considered unlikely to have gained GA on the English-language version, it does tend to bring the GA system into disrepute. Pyrotec (talk) 20:47, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

But doesn't a similar situation already exist with FAs? There are no across the board review processes, each language wiki is free to assess as it likes. Malleus Fatuorum 20:51, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Exactly (to Malleus). In cases where the article has more content in another language than in enwiki, it's also sometimes a good idea to see what they have in that other language that makes the article an FA or GA there but not on enwiki (you can use Google Translate to translate the article) to see what the article in enwiki is missing, or it can inspire a better article structure, etc. Gary King (talk) 20:59, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Per MF and GK. In some wikis, anything is a reliable source and there is no problem with primary sources being used widely, including in FAs YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 00:38, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

(resp. to Pyrotec) Link GA (as Link FA) is not to say "this article in xxx language Wikipedia is good for us too", is just to notify that there, in that wiki, they consider it GA, those articles don't need to gain GA status here again, since we are not awarding, we're just notifying of the status there (that's why the markup is added next to interwiki) --by Màñüé£†¹5 ^talk 21:35, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

There is no point using a system of symbols unless the meaning is clear and unambiguous - and that can't be the case for inter-wiki quality symbols where different encyclopaedias are operating at different standards. If you feel it's necessary to mark a foreign language article as GA according to its local standards, then you need a symbol that is a variation on the one used here. Better still avoid unnecessary complexity and simply don't mark foreign articles at all. Amphitryoniades (talk) 00:03, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

But so is FA, other languages are more than likely to have variations (if not something different from our standard) in their FA criteria, yet I don't see people complaining how FA in other languages should have their own symbol indicating that they conform to different standards from ours. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 11:54, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

I think the FA vs. GA difference is very real, but to see it we have to forget theoretical consistency (pointing out that local standards are different for FA's too) and use practical judgment and common sense. Other Wikipedias' FA's might be completely unworthy of that designation on Wikipedia-en, but are generally excellent articles worth checking out for anyone interested. Other Wikipedias' GA's are far more likely to be completely inadequate articles, so that putting green stars with them, as Pyrotec says, threatens to "bring the GA system [here] into disrepute." There are only so many times I will click over to an interlanguage "good" article and see shoddy work (quite likely translated from an English version that won no accolades) before I will just roll my eyes at the green pluses under interwiki. Practically speaking, this is not such a danger with FA's. Wareh (talk) 13:16, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

It might be helpful to view the matter in terms of an analogy with currency - the dollar denotes various national currencies but they aren't all used in one country because the exchange rates are different. Likewise the English wiki's symbols for quality-standards really are devalued by some of the foreign-language equivalents - the more they are used here, the worse the effect. This is the last thing we need, especially with the world economy on the brink of collapse! Oops, humour devalues the point I am making but still - the point is a good one. Amphitryoniades (talk) 02:51, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Many others wikis have been marking English GAs as such for ages, even though their overall quality was dubious. The right way to address the situation was to improve these English GAs, not unmark them in other wikis, and I am really glad this was done. That said, everyone above is assuming that foreign GAs are often less good than English GAs, or, at the very best, as good as them. For the record, here is the situation on the French wiki: when an FA is translated from en: and improved, it is generally proposed for the GA label. When a GA is translated, it is rarely proposed for any label. Specific cases may be different, of course. Despite this, I found no record of anybody suggesting not to mark foreign GAs or FAs on fr:. Oyp (talk) 07:28, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Naturally I exclude the French from my comments above but contributors are thin on the ground at some other foreign language versions and that's where standards are most likely to slip. Also please refer to previous comment by YellowMonkey. Anyhow that's my last shot. Amphitryoniades (talk) 08:45, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

If I were to make a proposal, it would be: interwiki GA marking via Template:Link GA is fine if done by a human editor in the belief that attracting the user's notice to the article in another language is useful. Knowledgeable editors competent to review the foreign articles should feel free to remove the GA link if they judge it is to an inferior article (as I have done at Pederasty in ancient Greece). The basic idea here is that the raw informational value of having every foreign GA marked (when done without thought or subject-area knowledge) is outweighed by the fact that so many of those markings would be of articles that no reasonable and competent judge would consider useful as supplementary reading or as material from which to improve the English article. Wareh (talk) 15:01, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

DYK hooks from GAs

It seems the main concern with GAs becoming hook is that the people over at DYK feel that it would increase their work load. Wondering if we would be interested in generating DYK hooks here at GA? This section of the main page would than be a combined effort of these two groups.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:48, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

I'd be up for that. Malleus Fatuorum 20:09, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

A list of hooks from recent good articles should have its own box on the main page. I suggest replacing the On this day section, which doesn't appear to show recently updated user contributions, unless I am mistaken.--William S. Saturn (talk) 20:16, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Forget it, that's never going to fly. SpinningSpark 20:35, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

@Doc James. I don't think that's right, it is not the DYK reviewer that generates the hook (although they might suggest an alternative), it is the responsibility of the nominator to supply a hook. Nominations without hooks get rejected out of hand. I don't think you can reasonably expect DYK to reserve a fixed number of slots for GAs, they have a huge problem already balancing the section from all sorts of perspectives (eg not all hooks shall be US, no two adjacent hooks shall be the same topic etc). They need the freedom to pick the suitable hooks for a given rotation, irrespective of whether they are new or GAs. The opposition as far as I can make out revolves around arguing that this will increase their workload in reviewing. I think this is a false argument since any GA will have been substantially reviewed before it gets there. Its really a gut reaction not liking "outsiders" intruding into their space. I think a lot of them will come round if the proposal is kept reasonable, but demanding reserving slots for GAs, which are to be determined outside the DYK process will not be seen as reasonable. SpinningSpark 20:35, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree with William S. Saturn. The "On this day" section frequently leads to a sub par article, one that has not been maintained. Xtzou (Talk) 20:39, 9 June 2010 (UTC).

People should put their history articles up for OTD then. I said that on FAC/GAC etc a while ago. Some unreffed start class articles are on there at the moment. And you aren't going to be able to get rid of OTD on a GA discussion page, William YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 00:28, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

I can help with the update, especially the part that involves updating main page. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 20:54, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Now you're just showing off, 'cos you're a sysop. ;-) Malleus Fatuorum 21:04, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes I do not think it matter whether or not we put aside a specific amount of space for GAs. They should be added to the main stream of DYKs. Maybe if a number of us volunteered over at DYK to help with the work load this concern would be addressed. People from this project could provide hooks and help the ideas through the system over there. I think it would be good for this project to provide the hooks rather than the person who has nominated the GA. People who have gone through the GA process are often a little weary of process and need a rest :-)

The work required to add GA content instead of "on this day" I think would be a much more complicated process. I think GA would be great sources for DYK hooks as have more depth than start / stubs.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:00, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Proposal: Replace GA symbol with green star

The FA star can be shaded with green

Current GA symbol

I have never understood why the current GA symbol is used. Personally, I don't like it and never have because it doesn't seem to represent anything. I have not taken issue with it since it was hidden away on talk pages. However, now that it is being displayed in articles, perhaps we could create a more professional and recognizable symbol. I propose the creation of a green star using the FA star as the model. I believe this would be better representation of quality work, but noting a difference from "gold star" quality work.--William S. Saturn (talk) 22:51, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Support --William S. Saturn (talk) 22:51, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
Comment If it were to be anything star-like, I'd recommend going with a silver star, and making the FA star more clearly gold. Seems only logical. Torchiest ^talk/_contribs 23:15, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

I would agree with that but it seems people associate GA with the color green.--William S. Saturn (talk) 23:19, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Oppose I like having different symbols. With limited color vision, I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the various stars. I'm sure I'm not alone in this. GaryColemanFan (talk) 23:28, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
My preference would be for something like this, discussed here. Malleus Fatuorum 23:35, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
Just FYI: I plan to revisit that discussion in more general terms very soon. If you liked the idea, don't worry... it will reappear. However, I have some work to catch up on first. Once I've got a few more items lined up for GAC and FAC, I'll have time to undertake that serious detour. – VisionHolder « talk » 01:00, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
Oppose I simply like the old, green button; I don't like these stars very much for aesthetic reasons. Silver, gold etc. can easily be mixed up, depending on the light situation. Buchraeumer (talk) 23:36, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
Oppose. Sorry, I think it's a bad idea. Not only can it be easily mixed up in different light settings, it is hard to differentiate if someone's reading from a small monitor (e.g. mobile phone) OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 23:47, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
Oppose. too similar to FA star. The green hot-cross-bun-from-above is just fine and low key. Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:02, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
Oppose per Ohana YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 00:37, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
Oppose If anything, I'd personally prefer to lump non-FA recognized content under an icon such as a blue ribbon (not necessarily that graphic, but something like it). But that assumes a whole new way of handling assessment and recognized content, so forget I said that.... for now. – VisionHolder « talk » 01:05, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

I think the blue ribbon is a good idea since it represents quality more substantially than a tilted plus sign in a circle.--William S. Saturn (talk) 04:41, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

This idea certainly has a lot of merit. My reservation is whether a typical reader would recognize that a blue ribbon is meant to be "not as good as a star"? I do think that the idea of a plus sign in a circle is recognizable as a quality symbol inferior to a star (though I agree that tilting it makes it less obvious!), which is one of the advantages of the current basic design. A blue ribbon looks much more recognizable as a quality symbol; but perhaps it looks too good? Would be interested to hear whether other people feel that it would be obvious or not that it is a quality marking worth less than a star. TheGrappler (talk) 14:34, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps a green ribbon could be used. --William S. Saturn (talk) 17:23, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Oppose. I'm very glad that GA works are finally getting top-of-article recognition, but the review/approval process is so different from FA that I don't think any color of star is an appropriate symbol for it. Should GAN ever morph into "FAC-lite", then a silver or bronze star might be warranted. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:27, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
Oppose For reasons stated above, it's too similar to the FA star. The FA crowd probably wouldn't like it, either. We've just made huge steps between FA & GA in getting the icon added to GAs -- let's not push it by trying to make GA look like "FA Lite",. . . WTF? (talk) 03:15, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
Oppose, needs to be different from FA star as much as possible. Abductive (reasoning) 03:26, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
Oppose A logical progression would be nice between article grades, but a green star would be too similar. New FA could be a star circumscribed in a circle. Current suggestion is too similar for differentiation.Luminum (talk) 05:08, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
Oppose A like the green plus. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:18, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
Comment In the archives there was a discussion about using . Hekerui (talk) 06:37, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

I would prefer that to the current. --William S. Saturn (talk) 06:42, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Oh wow, that was 3 years ago. Time flies by. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 11:35, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

That particular design is a bit garish! But there are some aspects of it which are preferable in principle to our current one - it has greater unity of design with the FA star (it's front-on rather than tilted at an angle) without looking similar to the FA star; it would be fairly clear to most reader that a "+" is worth less than a "star" in ratings terms; and it would lose less detail when reduced in s

Oppose The current one is already enough, most people are used to it and a green star may confuse people. If it ain't broke, don't fix it! Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 07:26, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

To be fair, the current one is broken in some respects. It loses a lot of detail and is no longer clear (and hence lacks meaning/value to readers) when shrunk to the size used in articles, and even worse when used as an interlanguage GA link (where it's white background is also an aesthetic problem against a blue background). But I agree, that a green star would likely be confusing. TheGrappler (talk) 14:29, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Oppose - doesn't maintain distinction with the FA star, it really wouldn't be obvious to readers which is which. TheGrappler (talk) 14:29, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
Comment, I agree that using a star is a bad move for confusion with FA and we should also bear in mind that the GA symbol is now quite widely recognised. This should not mean that we should not ever consider changing it. Can I suggest some kind of tick symbol? This is clearly less than a star, but does immediately suggest that the article has gone through some kind of approval process. SpinningSpark 07:38, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
Comment I never realized that it was supposed to be a plus sign. I thought it was an X in a green circle. Xtzou (Talk) 19:41, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
Part of the quirkiness of the support symbol is that it is closer in orientation to a + ("I approve") than an X ("I vote"). Yet it suggests both. Geometry guy 19:59, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
Comment. The overwhelming consensus here is quite striking. I have commented on the enduring nature of the GA icon elsewhere, but there is an additional comment worth making here. GAs are only as reliable as the quality of the last review, and one disadvantage of having a GA symbol on good articles is that readers might be misled; a corresponding advantage is that more attention will be drawn to substandard GAs and they will thus be delisted or fixed more frequently. Both of these issues are quite well addressed by having a symbol that is familiar to those know, or are curious and want to know, but is somewhat obscure for the casual reader. Geometry guy 19:59, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
- What you say is of course true, but applies equally to FA. Malleus Fatuorum 20:04, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
  That may be so, but both issues are more pertinent for GAs, where the "list/do not list" decision can be made by any editor, and where there are no barriers to reviewing a listed article even days after it is listed (rather than only 3-6 months later at FAR). Geometry guy 20:36, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
I don't like the current symbol, but you should have asked what symbol will replace it, since a green star ins't any better. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 02:55, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
Comment I was wondering just the other day why the GA symbol is essentially the "support vote" symbol (the image file is named this). But I kind of like it, it's like a slice of lime or something weird. It's a quirky thing that makes Wikipedia's "behind the scenes" what it is: fun. – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 08:35, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
Oppose. Color-limited viewers will not easily see the difference. I like a symbol with its own shape. Binksternet (talk) 14:23, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Proposal to replace "On this day" with recent GA's

See the thread here for the proposal.--William S. Saturn (talk) 18:22, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Good Article Patrol Bot

I have filed a request for a bot that would check usage of the {{Good article}} template, and add it to eligible pages that don't transclude it. See Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Good Article Patrol Bot. Robert Skyhawk ^{(T C B)} 03:36, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

How to list GA for assessment

Can somebody please write a more explicit set of directions for listing an article for GA review please? --Iankap99 (talk) 22:53, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Good article nominations — look at the section "How to nominate an article". —Designate (talk) 23:44, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

I know but i didn't figure it out my first time, that's why I said "more explicit"--Iankap99 (talk) 01:00, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Which article do you want to nominate? Someone here can help you. --Nasty Housecat (talk) 02:04, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

No thanks, I don't need to now. I was merely suggesting that someone who knows how to do it write a more in-depth how-to on the page. --Iankap99 (talk) 03:01, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

I remember first listing an article for GA review. It's hard to believe it's so easy. Just follow the instructions, don't try to think! --Philcha (talk) 04:36, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

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Alternatives to the GA tilted plus sign symbol - brainstorm

Previous discussion in some of the above sections seemed to demonstrate a range of opinions about which icon to use, and perhaps it'd be a good idea to bring them together. At the very least, even if we keep the current tilted plus sign symbol for our "article corner" icon, we need to replace it as our "interlanguage link" icon by something that has the correct background color! (And probably should be simplified like the interwiki FA star, since at small size its key features are not easily visible). Rather than jump straight into an unstructured discussion or vote about whose idea is best, I think it would be worthwhile to collect two kinds of ideas together: what criteria we want to judge an icon by, and what alternative proposals exist (for both the article corner and the interlanguage link icon, which, as for FA, need not be exactly the same and may have different requirements). Feel free to add ideas and suggestions the list below! I've picked out those that I've seen in the discussions above (somewhat paraphrased - if you feel misrepresented, please change!), in the order they appear to occur. TheGrappler (talk) 12:13, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

Criteria we might want GA article-corner/interlanguage link icons to meet

Some unity of design with the FA symbol, so it is clear to readers that both form part of the article rating scheme (e.g. it may be inconcsistent that the FA star 2D/face-on but the GA symbol is has a 3D/tilted effect?) - TheGrappler
It should be capable of simplification for the interlanguage link symbol (like the FA star is simplified for that task) - TheGrappler
Features of the symbol should still be clear at the small size it appears at when shrunk for use in the top right corner of articles - TheGrappler
GA is associated with color green, so the symbol should be green - William S. Saturn
The difference between FA and GA symbols should be clear to someone with limited color vision - GaryColemanFan
FA and GA symbols should be to be distinguishable when seen on a small screen - OhanaUnited
It should be clear that the symbol used represents quality - William S. Saturn
The symbol should show logical progression between article grades - Luminum
The symbol could represent the fact that the article has gone through an approval process - SpinningSpark
Since GA reviews may not be as consistent as FA reviews, to avoid misleading reviews it's best if the symbol is familiar to those know, or are curious and want to know, but is somewhat obscure for the casual reader - Geometry guy
The symbol should be quirky and represent the "fun" aspect of Wikipedia's "behind the scenes" - Keraunoscopia
The symbol should have a distinctive shape - Binksternet
Add your own...

Alternative design possibilities

Keep the current symbol [and presumably make a similar version with a blue background for use as interlanguage GA symbol, so that link GAs don't appear as white-rectangles-on-blue-background]
Keep the current symbol but with a simplified version (e.g. a plain "plus" sign) for interlanguage links
Use a green star [consensus seems to be against this]
Use a silver star for GA and gold star for FA [consensus appears to be against this also]
Use of a blue or green ribbon (e.g. like this)
A star circumscribed by a circle
A simplified "head-on" version of the current symbol (something like this?)
A tick symbol
This symbol. It's much based in the current one. --Locos epraix ~ Beastepraix 21:13, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
Add your own...

Check mark

How about Y ({{check mark}})? It fulfills all of those criteria easily. It's green, scalable, 2D, simple (less attention-grabbing than the gold star), instantly recognizable (simple silhouette), somewhat subtle, and meaningful. Plus, no one could confuse it for a higher designation than FA—the difference in quality between a check mark and a gold star is obvious. —Designate (talk) 21:24, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Check mark will be very confusing. Can we just stick to what we are currently using? Virtually all other wikis use the same symbol as ours (with a few exception of small wikis) OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 02:30, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

You represent an extremely small number of wiki editors, so your point about confusion is not convincing. Do you oppose all change because change is confusing? I think not.Kmarinas86 ^(6sin8karma) 20:37, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, citation please? Where does your "extremely small number" figure come from? We're talking about different languages of wiki. Surely English is the biggest but that doesn't mean we can ignore all others. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 04:10, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

I really like the GA plus sign and have not seen any justification to change it. To change something many really like we would need a reason... Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:24, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Several users have suggested reasons for the GA symbol to change. It lacks unity of design with the FA symbol (e.g. it is tilted at an angle while the FA star is "head on") so it would not be obvious to most readers that both belong to the same quality scale. In fact it isn't an easily recognizable symbol at all - it doesn't correspond to a standard "quality mark" seen in everyday life. (Obviously editors on this project page will recognize it instantly, but spare a thought for the casual reader!) Its features are hard to distinguish at small scale (when it is used in articles in the top right) and unlike for FA, we don't have a simplified version to use in the foreign language links. Have a look at Apollo 11 - compare the foreign language links for "Espanol" (GA) and "Magyar" (FA). The simplified symbolf for the FAs works really well - it's still clearly a "star" (a recognizable quality mark). The scaled down GA symbol is godawful, atrocious, amateurish, utterly shambolic. When viewed at that size its features are utterly unrecognizable! Worse still, it has the wrong background color, and therefore appears to be surrounded by a white rectangle. At the very least we must change the "link GA" symbol - just as the FA symbol had to be simplified (and the correct background color added!) for it to be useful in the foreign language links section. But the current GA symbol doesn't lend itself easily to this kind of simplification; perhaps we should just use a simple green "+" sign? And if we produce a simplified version, we ought to at least consider the appearance of the main icon - even if it's just a small tweak to keep the two clearly consistent. E.g. At the very small scale on the "link GA" icon, tilting the icon makes it much harder to read; if we use an untilted icon for "link GA" perhaps we should use an untilted icon for the top right corner of articles. Please have a look at the Apollo 11 article, can you honestly tell me that you think the "link GA" icon is up to standard? TheGrappler (talk) 16:41, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

is what they use on the Spanish Wikipedia. Locos suggested it above as something that compromises between the benefits of "checklist" - as Designate points out, it would be "green, scalable, 2D, simple (less attention-grabbing than the gold star), instantly recognizable (simple silhouette), somewhat subtle, and meaningful. Plus, no one could confuse it for a higher designation than FA" - but also recognizable similar to the current symbol. And it's also used in a major Wikipedia in a different language. I'm feeling very persuaded by this one. TheGrappler (talk) 16:47, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Also, this symbol already has other versions to represent candidates, reassessments, etc. Locos epraix ~ Beastepraix 17:13, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

I support the above symbol as a replacement for the confusing plus sign.--William S. Saturn (talk) 17:37, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Looking at the Spanish article es:Apolo 11, we can see that the circled tickmark is clear in the top-right corner, but when scrolling down to the interwiki links, the link to the English language GA would be a little trickier for a reader to identify- the tick is obscured by the circle at that small scale. I wonder whether the interlanguage version for this should be with the circle removed - something like

would be more comparable to the simplified FA version

. TheGrappler (talk) 19:33, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Having simpler versions of the small icons is good. Any decoration looks messy at that size. —Designate (talk) 21:48, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

I support either the checkmark and simple checkmark for interwiki, or the current symbol and a simple green plus for interwiki. No particular preference between them. --erachima talk 09:19, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Half-star

I'm not sure that we can assume that among all the international readers of Wikipedia that the relative positions of a star and either a plus sicn or a tick will be obvious. The colour schemes would again not be obvious to everyone. On the other hand, I can't imagine people being confused that a half-star is good but not as good as a full star.--Peter cohen (talk) 18:01, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Review of a substantially revised article

The article William O'Connell Bradley was first listed as GA in May 2007. It also passed a reassessment in June 2009. However, I gained access to several more sources between May 2007 and now, and undertook a substantial expansion of the article in my user space. Having finished the expansion, I transferred the expanded article to the main space. I'd like to have the article reassessed to make sure I haven't introduced any problems that would cause it to forfeit its GA status. I'm also looking forward to a FA run in the near future, and any comments from a GA reassessment will just make that go more smoothly. I started to list it at WP:GAR, but that seems to be for articles where someone is claiming the article no longer meets the GA requirements or where there is a dispute as to whether or not it does. Neither of those is the case. I've just made a substantial expansion of the article and want some assurance that I haven't introduced any problems before moving forward. What is the correct procedure for this? Acdixon ^{(talk • contribs • count)} 16:47, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Why not list it at [{WP:PR|peer review]]? I'd normally suggest A-Class review in this case, but none of the associated projects have a functional ACR process at the moment, I believe. Courcelles (talk) 16:54, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

I could try peer review, but the feedback I've gotten there in the past has been so sparse as to pretty much sour me on that whole process. However, if that's the preferred avenue... Acdixon ^{(talk • contribs • count)} 16:56, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

I've had a good look through the article, and I'm happy that it still meets the GA criteria. If you want me to do a formal GA reasessment then I will, but in your shoes I'd just nominate this at FAC. There a couple of things I spotted that would likely be picked up at FAC, but nothing major jumped out at me. Malleus Fatuorum 17:39, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, friend. I'm familiar with your wiki-work and your assessment carries weight with me. (Hope this doesn't discourage anyone else from taking a look, though. I'm all for feedback.) I've currently got an outstanding FAC, but I may go ahead and throw this in the hopper as soon as that one closes, since it's fresh on my mind right now. Acdixon ^{(talk • contribs • count)} 17:48, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Proposal: Standard of caution in marking interlanguage links "good"

The discussion above continues to address, as a technical and graphical issue, how best to indicate that an interlanguage link will take a reader to an article deemed "good" by a sister Wikipedia, even if that article may be (as in the case that brought the issue to my attention) merely a translation of an English article with profound problems that would never have a chance at passing GAR. (I summarized before: "The basic idea here is that the raw informational value of having every foreign GA marked (when done without thought or subject-area knowledge) is outweighed by the fact that so many of those markings would be of articles that no reasonable and competent judge would consider useful as supplementary reading or as material from which to improve the English article.") In the previous discussion (see now the archive), there was no consensus about the propriety of indicating GA status of interlanguage articles.

I do not want to adopt an extreme position that would not win consensus (for example, that Template:Link GA should never be used), but I am concerned that while User:AstaBOTh15 did cease automatic and mindless use of the template on June 7 (in response to our discussion here, I assume), its additions of GA interlanguage links have not all been reverted or reviewed, and no policy has been formulated about the issue here.

Therefore I would like to submit a proposal to a vote and discussion.

Proposed: Interwiki GA articles should only be marked as such (with Template:Link GA) by a human editor, and in the belief that attracting the user's notice to the article in another language is useful. Knowledgeable editors competent to review the foreign articles should feel free to remove the GA link if they judge it is to an inferior article. Past automatic and unconsidered use of Template:Link GA should be reverted in favor its considered and informed use in the future. Wareh (talk) 18:19, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Support as proposer. Wareh (talk) 18:19, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
Oppose. Different language wikis are at different levels of activity and standards of quality. If an article is a Good Article in Spanish, that means that by the standards of the Spanish Wikipedia, it's at the level that they're currently promoting to readers. It's really not our business to be second-guessing them. Editors of multiple languages of Wikipedia are of course encouraged to work to improve the GA process in other languages, and if there is a foreign language Wikipedia that has a GA process that's doing things right, we would appreciate their suggestions for how we can improve as well. In short, it's not our job to decide what a "True Good Article" looks like. --erachima talk 18:41, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

How complete is your opposition? If an English article has been found to be riddled with WP:OR, and it has been mechanically translated on another Wikipedia, would you oppose removal of the link template because that would be second guessing? I am not a GA specialist, but just such a situation was what got me into this discussion. Solutions may vary, but perhaps we can agree on the starting point that there are articles marked good in some Wikipedias that can conclusively be determined to be inferior articles without any second guessing. Wareh (talk) 18:59, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Pretty well complete. In a case such as you've described, the matter should be taken to the NEL Wikipedia's appropriate community forums (i.e. WP:GAR and the article's talk page), not disavowed by us and left at that. Your proposal both ignores the true issue (that we need better interlingual communication) and sets down the highly problematic idea that GAlink should mean "this article is a Good Article according to the Fooese Wikipedia AND has been approved by some English editor" rather than simply "this article is a Good Article according to the Fooese Wikipedia". We do not vet the NEL Wikipedias. We cannot practically do so. We can simply report the decisions of their local vetting processes. --erachima talk 19:23, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Ok, but that raises the question whether we should "report the decisions of their local vetting processes." I hope we can address that question here, and I'd like to avoid the assumption that the answer is the same for FA's and GA's. Wareh (talk) 19:41, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

We should, both for the sake of our foreign language readers and to encourage interlingual collaboration. The fact that some pages will have slipped through the cracks and be of unusually low quality for their rank does not change this, as it is a risk inherent in Wikipedia's editing model, and further it should not be viewed as an entirely negative thing. It is our errors as much as our successes that draw in new knowledgeable editors. --erachima talk 20:23, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

The proposal currently does not define the criteria that are to be used to assess whether a link GA is worthy. That may well cause problems if editors disagree. On the other hand, actually defining criteria would cause an overly bureaucratic process (we'd be assessing foreign-language articles against some version of the GA criteria). I think we should keep it simple and report any foreign GA assessment, or alternatively delete {{Link GA}}. Ucucha 19:55, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Oppose. What is the issue here? If an article doesn't meet the GA criteria, reassess it yourself and remove its GA status! If you don't speak the language well enough to demote an article, then it's not your call to make. And if you think the language's GA process is too lax, do something about it! Our standards used to be far weaker, and we made them stricter. That can happen on any language Wikipedia if people start talking about it. All interlanguage GAs should have the icon. It creates an incentive to make articles better and make every language's standards higher—who can argue against that? —Designate (talk) 05:02, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Just to clarify, your reassess it yourself link doesn't help me if the problem is that es:Pederastia en la Antigua Grecia is not a good article (translated from an English version so riddled with WP:OR that it got its principal author banned from this Wikipedia). Maybe you can provide an equivalent link on Spanish Wikipedia, and maybe editors there would act on a request in English to reassess and demote the article. Meanwhile, as an editor of English Wikipedia concerned that the articles here are sound, I'm dismayed at the fact that a reader of Pederasty in ancient Greece (before we reverted the GA interlanguage link) would see a little green mark next to the Spanish interlanguage entry, as if that vastly inferior article were a place to go to see a "good" treatment of this subject. Unfortunately, whereas I think FA's in most Wikipedias are worth attention (even if, inevitably, there will be unevenness and stars next to articles not as good as non-FA material in another language), there is nothing "unusual" in finding many Wikipedias listing articles as GA by standards entirely different to those promoted by this project. I believe I've been misunderstood here, but I will refrain from going on at greater length here, but in conclusion I'd like to say that I believe the editors who are trying to make "English GA" mean something should be concerned if those little green checks next to interlanguage links make the idea of a "GA" something of a joke, as will be the case after an editor clicks over a certain number of times, expecting superior content and finding inferior content. Wareh (talk) 15:56, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Opppose. It's for the other language wikis to decide whether or not their articles meet their own GA criteria, whatever they may be. It's not the place of the English wiki to shove its criteria down everyone else's throat; let's concentrate on our own articles. I'm sure I'm not alone in hardly ever even noticing what other language links there are, much less actually following any of them. Malleus Fatuorum 17:26, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Oppose. Per above. Unless you speak the language in question you would typically not be able to accurately assess an article against that language Wikipedia's GA criteria. And if you do, you can have the article reassessed / delisted on the other wiki. I think we should focus on making sure our own articles are of good quality - lest other language WP's start removing their GA symbols from iw:en links. decltype (talk) 18:24, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
Comment: So, should I keep adding the template with the bot? -- Màñüé£†¹5 ^talk 12:03, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Judging by the above, it appears that you should be able to do so without trouble. --erachima talk 22:02, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
- Yes, I think it's the consensus, more or less. —Designate (talk) 22:30, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Proposal: Increase support of quickfail checking

This proposal in a nutshell: The instructions at Wikipedia:Good article nominations will be expanded to promote checking of newly nominated pages against the quick fail criteria.

Proposal in detail

WP:GAN#How to review an article will have a second set of steps included, recommending that newly listed GA nominees be checked against the quickfail criteria and concisely explaining how to do so. A {{QFCheck}} template in the vein of {{GAReview}} will be created to tag listings that have been checked so that time will not be wasted by multiple reviewers scanning the same article. Articles which do not pass the quickfail criteria will be removed from the list with a brief justification posted to the article talk page, as happens at present.

Through implementing this system we can reduce the average wait time to nomination assessment by removing obviously unfit nominations rapidly, thereby raising efficiency for both writers and reviewers. This proposal may also help increase reviewer recruitment, by lowering the bar of entry to new reviewers who wish to help but are intimidated by the prospect of doing a full GA review. It will also increase transparency in the review process, reduce duplication of effort by reviewers looking for easy articles to clear off the page, lower the noise level at WP:GAN by ensuring that all pages waiting to be reviewed are actually review-worthy, and may even serve to reduce the number of woefully inadequate GA nominations by publicizing what the minimum criteria for consideration are. --erachima talk 22:46, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Discussion and suggestions

As the author, I obviously support this proposal, which occurred to me several days ago when I reviewed a page which was the subject of an ongoing and significant organizational debate, and realized it had waited unassessed for almost 40 days only to be quickfailed for instability, which is frankly unjustifiable. To preemptively address any WP:CREEP concerns, I believe this proposal addresses a legitimate issue and in no way increases the complexity of the review process. --erachima talk 22:46, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
Comment: I am not convinced that this is necessary. I have reviewed over 250 nominations and a further 160+ articles in the sweeps. I have only quick-failed a couple and at least one of those in my early days was probably a mistake. –– Jezhotwells (talk) 23:22, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
comment, in line with what has been said by the editor immediately above I'm not convinced that such measures would necessarily have a big impact, it might speed up the process by a very small period of time but it probably would be worth the time. Kudos for trying to improve the situation though. --Lil-unique1 (talk) 00:09, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
I don't think that increasing the level of 'official' procedural steps/bureaucratic efforts is going to reduce the level of intimidation for new reviewers, and since so few deserve quick-failing, I doubt that it will have any meaningful impact on the backlog. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:49, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
"On hold" is optional. I've never been a fan of the concept or terminology surrounding quick-failing or the quick-fail criteria. Apart from being somewhat dismissive of other editors' work, a key problem with quick-failing is that it encourages a false dichotomy.
- False dichotomy: a nomination which does not meet the GA criteria should either be quick-failed or put on hold.

This in turn leads to an expectation that such articles will be put on hold unless they meet the quick fail criteria. Well, that simply isn't true. It is perfectly acceptable to fail a nomination without putting it on hold, as long as a review is provided with sufficient detail to allow article editors to improve the article and renominate it. There should be less quick-failing, not more, as detailed reviews encourage article improvement before renomination, and hence increase the chances of listing the article in the future. Geometry guy 21:37, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Strong oppose Way too much instruction creep, but more importantly, I strongly oppose adding additional instructions favoring the practice of "quick-failing". The primary purpose of any of Wikipedia's review processes is article improvement, whether at the featured, good, or peer review processes. The more we encourage reviewers to "quick-fail" articles, the less we're actually helping editors with actually reviewing articles, and the less we're actually improving our review processes. So I would strongly oppose any efforts to encourage this practice. WTF? (talk) 07:25, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
Strong oppose per WTF; review process is as much about improvement as it is about assessing quality. If the improvement aspect is reduced or removed to speed up the process, I feel that the ends will not justify the means. I also believe that it will discourage nominations if articles which would otherwise be put on hold are repeatedly failed over minor issues, or things that had not been raised previously. --G W… 08:04, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
Oppose. I can see just 1 situation where quick-failing is good, namely where the articles is unstable, possibly as result of an edit war. In other situations quick-failing does not help the nominator to improve the artcile. --Philcha (talk) 10:47, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Space/Astronomy categories

Does anyone have any objection to or input on implementing the proposal I made here to reorganise the space and astronomy categories. I would like to sort the issue out before that talk page gets archived, however the talk page has not been active enough to generate sufficient discussion. Please direct replies there. Thanks --G W… 20:38, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Template:GAList/check and Template:Sym up for deletion

FYI. Airplaneman ✈ 06:02, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Elimination Backlog coordinated with WP:CUP

I mentioned at Wikipedia_talk:Good_article_nominations#Elimination_Backlog_coordinated_with_WP:CUP that it is worth thinking about coordinating a backlog elimination drive to be timed to offset the surge in creations for the WP:CUP finals in October. I am beginning to ramp up my production and imagine the other finalist are probably going to be doing so as well.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 06:14, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

I would second this—I think October would be ideal for another backlog elimination drive. –Grondemar 22:54, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

I actually came here to suggest another drive and October seems a good time. I believe the GoCE have a drive of their own scheduled for September and it wouldn't be good to have 2 running concurrently. October seems good considering the backlog is, well, backlogged again and it coincides nicely with the cup. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 23:32, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps this might be a time to consider the discrepancy in reward between the nominators and the reviewers? It's easy to see why an editor might nominate, but why review? Malleus Fatuorum 23:58, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Do you mean in the narrow sense of WP:CUP or in the general sense? Skomorokh 00:02, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Because it's a good way to brodaen you horizons, meet interesting editors, read interesting articles and improve them? :) HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 00:08, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

I've been thinking about this issue, and one idea I had is, rather than have occasional backlog elimination drives, instead issue barnstars and the like on a quarterly basis. The top reviewer in a three-month period would get one reward, the second-place person another reward, and the third-place person a third reward, maybe a gold-silver-bronze type of thing like the Olympics. There would also be rewards similar to the existing backlog elimination drive awards for reaching a certain number of reviews in a quarter. This way, a backlog wouldn't need to build up before people feel that their effort in reviewing articles would be rewarded. A quarterly period would allow enough GA submissions to happen to allow for more of a competition, compared to say a month. What does everyone else think? –Grondemar 03:42, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Depending on the outcome, sometimes a one-month period like the summer 2007 drive can burn out the coordinators who have to check whether the reviewer did a good job reviewing the articles. When the backlog tackled 400+ articles, it took 3 coordinators (+1 volunteer) more than a month to ensure quality reviews. Doing this on a grand scale (3 months)? Bad idea... OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 04:08, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't know... the last backlog elimination drive tackled a similar number of articles and there were no significant problems with deficient reviews. My thought of how to deal with that potential problem would be to do spot-checks of GA reviews followed by GARs as required. If someone is consistently abusing the GA review process, they can be topic-banned from conducting GA reviews. Also, since this would be a standing process rather than a one-off thing like the backlog elimination drives, I would expect the throughput of any given month would be less than that of a backlog elimination drive, simply because the backlog would never build up quite as large. –Grondemar 16:42, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

There should also definitely be more review incentives at times outside of backlog elimination drives. Right now the system encourages reviewers to allow the backlog to build up, so that they can chase rewards during the backlog elimination drive. A standing reward system would eliminate that incentive. –Grondemar 16:44, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

We shouldn't be doing spot checks, now that GA symbol is prominently displayed on the article. Moreover, the purpose of GA Sweep is to catch articles that fell through the cracks. If we don't go through every single review (particularly those that received a "pass"), then we have to do another sweep again and it is much more time consuming and labour intensive than checking every review done during the backlog elimination drive. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 02:20, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

A bit late now, but perhaps the problem with the WikiCup "glut" producing a blockage could actually solve itself, by including good article reviews in future WikiCup scoring systems? TheGrappler (talk) 23:34, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that would be good. And if (for this year) reviewers decide to boycott the WikiCup because it has imposed a burden on the GA process and GA reviewers without providing any remedy or compensation, then that would be entirely understandable in my view, and would encourage better coordination in the future. Geometry guy 00:51, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

That would be a little extreme imo and isn't really compatible with "the wiki way". Only the articles would suffer as a result. That said, we do need better coordination with the cup organisers and contestants, though the way to foster that is through civility and communication, not through boycotts and hostility. I'll leave a note at WT:CUP to draw attention to this thread. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 01:20, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree with that of course. There are several threads generated by this issue, and we should be careful not to let the tail wag the dog: the timing of backlog elimination drives is a matter for GA reviewers to determine to achieve maximum benefit for the encyclopedia. Geometry guy 01:34, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

"Boycotts and hostility" is one way of looking at, but another way is unrewarded and thankless drudgery. How many GA reviews have you done HJ Mitchell? Malleus Fatuorum 01:39, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

About 50 or 60. Not very many over the last couple of months, though. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 01:49, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

I've done more than 400, so I know what hard and thankless work they are. I certainly won't be reviewing any WikiCup nominations at either GAN or at FAC; other reviewers may of course decide for themselves. Malleus Fatuorum 02:13, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Personally, I quite enjoy GA reviewing. It brings me into contact with editors and articles I might otherwise never come across, but I suppose it's a subjective thing. I won't refuse to review something just because it's a cup nomination. I think we should review them as we would any other and encourage the nominators to do some reviewing themselves. If everybody, cup participant or not, reviewed a GAN for every one they nominated, we wouldn't have a backlog. We should try to encourage everybody to get more involved with the reviewing, but not by singling out those who are nominating to win a competition. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 02:24, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

FWIW I think an October backlog eleimination drive is a good idea. Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:25, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

I enjoy reviewing articles by editors who have an obvious love of their subject, like the wonderful series on Beatrix Potter's books that Susanne2009NYC has brought to the table. No prizes expected there. Malleus Fatuorum 02:30, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

I think that awarding Cup points for GAN reviews is a bad idea because it creates the possibility of gaming the system: Cup participants give shoddy reviews to each other's articles. And while I'd like to assume that wouldn't happen, it's always best to avoid setting up a coi. (Side note: when you guys say you've done dozens of GAN reviews, it's a little off-putting to someone who might be enticed to doing one or two. Like me. Or someone following the "request one, do one" rule HJ Mitchell brought up.) HereToHelp ^{(talk to me)} 02:39, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

I well remember the first GA review that I rather tentatively did, of Serpentine Lake. Having done it I asked for feedback from more experienced GA reviewers, which they were quite happy to give me. Malleus Fatuorum 02:47, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Ha! I remember the first or second I ever did, I bit off more than I could chew. I picked an article that wasn't quite a quick fail, but needed some serious work for GA. It got there eventually, but it was a bit of a baptism of fire. FWiW, I agree that it's nice to see editors who do it for nothing more than love of the subject, but I think the cup does quite a bit to encourage the production and improvement of quality content. It's good that many people have "pure" motives, but humans are greedy, so a little incentive can go a long way. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 02:55, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

But who's encouraging the diminishing pool of reviewers? Malleus Fatuorum 03:10, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

There has been tentative discussion about doing a WikiCup-style review competition. I cannot stress tentative enough though, because clearly it should only be done if there is minimal risk of it being counterproductive. The logical way to prevent bad reviews would be to make a points decision before the decision to list/delist/keep listed/not list was made, but that would of course throw up its own problems. FAC is less of a problem because the directors are there to give comments due weight, but incorporating GA reviews into the current wikicup would be a very bad idea, unless someone was willing to give that the attention it would require. --W F C-- 03:20, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

What we need, then, is a competitive model that rewards quality rather than quantity. HereToHelp ^{(talk to me)} 03:36, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

As a WikiCup judge, I've done all I can to encourage participants to offer reviews- every WikiCup newsletter has included reminders, while participation in review processes has served as a tiebreaker. The reason we did not award points for reviews this year is that we did not want to damage the system by overloading it with shoddy reviews, but there is serious, ongoing discussion about including it in next year's points. J Milburn (talk) 11:05, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

As an occasional GA reviewer, how often do I get thanked for reviewing an article? The answer is hardly ever. Nominators seem to feel that they're entitled to a review from one of wikipedia's vast staff of paid reviewers. It's not points that are needed, it's just common decency and consideration for other human beings. Malleus Fatuorum 04:45, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't think that there's liable to be a problem with crappy reviews if the judges can validate each review and throw out the bad ones. Contestants will be more careful if they know that somebody's going to review their reviews; that's just human nature.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 04:53, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

You're clearly missing the point. It's not up to your judges to decide what was or what wasn't a good review. Malleus Fatuorum 05:00, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

No disrespect to CUP contestants intended, but I would rather it took slightly longer to get a review than encourage by-the-numbers reviews. The former ensures a steady stream of quality content, whereas the latter threatens the integrity of the entire system. Of course the WikiCup editors are free to run their project in any way they wish, but we ought to carefully consider the incentives here. Skomorokh 08:58, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Malleus, who is it up to then? Who decides what a good review is? J Milburn (talk) 10:03, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Well I've done over 300 GA reviews and 46 GA sweeps and I know of other editors who have done over 250 GA reviews as well as more than 100 GA sweeps. Malleus does good reviews. Let's, for the sake of argument, say that anyone who has done more than 250 GA reviews can decide whether a review is good or not. Pyrotec (talk) 22:26, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

I've only done a little over 100 GA reviews, largely because I got involved in the GA Sweeps project, where I reviewed over 300 articles, so I probably wouldn't meet your criteria Pyrotec. But I can tell the difference between a good review and a poor one, as can any other experienced GA reviewer; it ain't hard. Malleus Fatuorum 00:56, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't understand why we need to focus on auditing GA reviewers at all. Shouldn't we instead assume good faith of the reviewer until they prove otherwise? Like I said above, if someone passes an article when it shouldn't have been passed, anyone can nominate it at WP:GAR; if someone repeatedly abuses the GA review process, they can be topic-banned from it. –Grondemar 01:19, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

It's not a case of auditing GA reviewers, it's a case of rewarding GA reviewers for the thankless task of reviewing the deluge of WikiCup nominations. I've just decided to ignore them all. Malleus Fatuorum 01:22, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Just wondering, but how do you tell whether or not a GAN is a wikicup one or not? I don't know about other editors, but the types of articles I was submitting to GAN while I was still in the running for the cup were the exact same types of articles I was writing beforehand and afterward. Are you personally seeing a large swath of articles on "easy" subjects written by editors looking for points? I felt like if was more, the people who wrote articles on submarines were suddenly nominating twice as many of them and so on. --Pres N 03:32, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Have you actually take the trouble to look at GAN recently? To his eternal credit TonyTheTiger adds to his that "I am nominating this as part of the WP:CUP", but just count how many of them there are. There just aren't the reviewers to deal with it. Malleus Fatuorum 03:40, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I know, I meant it literally. How do you know that a nomination is a wikicup article, in order to not review it? For example, 1962 National League tie-breaker series is a current nomination. I know, by checking the cup page, that the nominator Staxringold is a cup participant. I also know, by looking at his user page, that that is exactly the kind of article that they would be nominating if the cup did not exist. So, how do you, personally, determine that a nomination is a filthy cup nomination that is only done for points rather than "for the love of the subject"?

I guess this is really tangential to my real concern- if the problem with the cup is that the incentives that it gives editors to produce content are causing them to overrun the GAN and other systems without providing enough reviews to offset the increase in nominations, then what, exactly, is the problem with the cup coming up with an incentive for participants to do reviews?

I mean, the original point of this discussion was to spark interest in starting a GAN sweep to offset the cup. You seem to be upset about that because the majority of the reviewers would not be the people who are causing the problem- i.e., the nominators/cup participants, which I agree seems rather unfair. So, when the topic shifted to the cup incentivizing participants to give reviews, directly combating that problem, why are you still continuing to grouse about cup participants nominating too many articles? If the articles are the same as they would have nominated anyway, why complain about the cup and boycott cup articles? Surely it makes more sense to boycott nominators who don't do reviews, and to support incentives that would provoke more reviewers? --Pres N 06:37, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

You seem to be misinterpreting my position, as I am not in the slightest upset. I have simply said that it is my intention to ignore any and all WikiCup nominations. Others may of course choose to do whatever they like. Malleus Fatuorum 15:25, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

I think the point Pres is making is that these are articles that people would be working on and nominating regardless of whether they happen to be involved in the WikiCup. A lot of our best article writers are involved in the Cup; I really don't think you can blame the fact they're (shock horror) nominating decent articles they've written for GA status while participating in the Cup. I'm not quite sure what your issue is with WikiCup nominations; you complain that there are too many, but you complain about my efforts to do anything about it, and there seems to be generaly criticism of anyone without hundreds of GA reviews. I've not counted how many I've done- fewer than you, perhaps 25- but I'd certainly consider myself an able reviewer. There seems to be a level of snobbery here; the complaints seems to be that, one, we need "real" reviewers, not WikiCup participants (I'm not sure what this is based on- is there any reason to believe people involved with the WikiCup will give poor reviews?) and two, the WikiCup encourages too many nominations. Not inappropriate nominations, just too many. These are both rather odd issues, as I see it. J Milburn (talk) 12:33, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't think this is getting us anywhere. Perhaps of more interest (or concern) to the WP:CUP is the hangers and floggers (see Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations#Backlog = cap?). If they get their way anyone having more than five GA nominations will have their excess nominations removed by those in favour of such a cap - I disagree by the way, but I'm disinclined to do another WP:GAN backlog elimination drive: 58 reviews in one month (in my case) was too much, how Jez survived I don't know. Pyrotec (talk) 21:41, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Is there any interest in holding the proposed Backlog Elimination Drive in October? I ask because October is eight days away and nothing has happened as far as page creation or organization. I'm willing to help out with the organization of this drive if there's sufficient interest. –Grondemar 04:41, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

My reading of the mood is that whereas the WikiCup was earlier seen by some reviewers as a ready source of good content to review, it is now, in its latter stages, considered as a borderline abuse of reviewing processes. Consequently a backlog elimination drive after the CUP has closed might be more popular. Geometry guy 22:07, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Next March / April would suit me. I may have fully recovered by then! Jezhotwells (talk) 23:10, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Is this actually a GA?

(Don't know if this is the best place, but... ) I was looking at the Dean Witter Reynolds article, and I was surprising to see that the GA review had been deleted as the creation of a banned user. As far as I can tell, it was never officially passed / passed at all. Am I missing something? - Jarry1250 ^{[Humorous? Discuss.]} 18:41, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Well it's listed on WP:GA and has the GA template on its talk page, but there's no review and it doesn't have {{good article}} on the article. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 19:04, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps an administrator could take a look at that deleted review and restore it. Malleus Fatuorum 19:33, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

So, should the template and listing be removed? Jezhotwells (talk) 19:34, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

RIPGC (talk · contribs) first said: "Great article! One question, though. Is there any information besides history? How about revenue figures, important management, share prices, any exposure outside the U.S.?", and after someone addressed that comment, said the article was great and that he passed it as a GA. Ucucha 19:35, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

(I'm happy to provide more information from the deleted review if anyone needs it.) Ucucha 19:36, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Deleting contributions of banned users is merely permissible, not mandatory—a distinction which often eludes our more zealous administrators. Unless the review was in some way disruptive, it ought to be restored as a matter of project record. Skomorokh 20:35, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Somehow I missed RIPGC's final, passing comments. Does the GA system honour this? For non admins, RIPGC wrote, "Dean Witter is now unquestionably a GA. No need to go through the formality of that checklist. I did go over it and it passes with flying colors." It doesn't look like a quickfail or anything or that sort, but I haven't had time to look at it properly. - Jarry1250 ^{[Humorous? Discuss.]} 20:55, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

I looked at Dean Witter Reynolds, and too many paras don't have final citations, so is not of GA standard. --Philcha (talk) 21:48, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

In fairness to the banned user, that's not actually a GA criterion, is it? (I for one would like it to be, but there you go.) - Jarry1250 ^{[Humorous? Discuss.]} 22:28, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Well unless the review is restored, so that it can be examined,I think it should be delisted. If the review is restored and found to be wanting the article can be sent to WP:GAR. Jezhotwells (talk) 22:35, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

This is a sensible approach, although perhaps the primary contributors to the article ought to be notified. Skomorokh 22:56, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

How many people posted in the review other than the banned user? If there was significant interaction between the nominator and the reviewer I believe the page should be restored, and the article taken through WP:GAR if necessary, rather than being summarily delisted. –Grondemar 23:03, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

I just restored the review (Talk:Dean Witter Reynolds/GA1), to keep the record complete and enable everyone to examine it. Ucucha 23:07, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! In my mind the review looks reasonable-enough, and the article close-enough to GA for this review to stand. I'd recommend if anyone thinks the article isn't of GA status, they should take it to WP:GAR. –Grondemar 02:36, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Talk:Road to Europe/GA1

Can I please get a second opinion here? Should only take a minute- basically, are the current reviews enough, or are more needed? Sorry if I'm doing this wrong, I'm in a bit of a rush... J Milburn (talk) 11:02, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Good articles/recent

I don't think LivingBot (talk · contribs) and GA bot (talk · contribs) are doing such a good job of keeping Wikipedia:Good articles/recent up to date.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 19:36, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

See my talk page. It seems to be working again right now. Ucucha 19:40, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I kinda had to recode a load of it to take account of the new "subpages" feel. Glad to see it working now, it's hard to test, so take a while to diagnose and fix errors. Still, once these things are brought to my attention, they do get fixed with reasonable haste. - Jarry1250 ^{[Who? Discuss.]} 19:48, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

It still does not seem to be working. Dunston Power Station passed and GABot took actions at Wikipedia:Good article nominations‎ an hour and a half ago. No action on Wikipedia:Good articles/recent yet.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 15:11, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Proposed change to GAN instructions = all nominators must review

Please discuss, at Wikipedia_talk:Good_article_nominations#Proposed_change_to_GAN_instructions_.3D_all_nominators_must_review. -- Cirt (talk) 13:38, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Rating icon template feedback

I just wanted to get some feedback on a new template I've created that might help article reviewers and/or promoters keep better track of the discussions associated with an article. Template:Rating icon takes in two parameters, the first being a page name, and the second being a type. It then generates a 16x16 icon of the user's choosing that links to the chosen page. I did this so I could have a list on my user page of links to both an article and its promotion discussion, without taking up more space.
--Gyrobo (talk) 21:05, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Invitation to participate!

Hello! As you may be aware, the Wikimedia Foundation is gearing up for our annual fundraiser. We want to hit our goal, and hit it as soon as possible, so that we can focus on Wikipedia's tenth anniversary (January 15) and on our new project, the Contribution Team.

I'm posting across WikiProjects to engage you, the community, in working to build Wikipedia not only through financial donations, but also through collaboration in building content. You can find more information in Philippe Beaudette's memo to the communities here.

Please visit the Contribution Team page and the Fundraising page to find out how you can help us support and spread free knowledge. ⇒DanRosenthal ^{Wikipedia Contribution Team} 18:57, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Inbred reviewing

Perhaps we should have a rule that a reviewer cannot review more than 5 articles from any given nominator. There are a few cases where pairings are developing and editors A and B are reviewing too many of each other's articles. This results in a less rigorous review, and the potential for a drifting away from community-wide standards. Ideally, a nominator would receive input from a different reviewer on each GA nomination. Racepacket (talk) 17:12, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

I would strongly object to a rule that "a reviewer cannot review more than 5 articles from any given nominator". I have certainly reviewed more than five articles from the same nominator(s); and since I've reviewed about 330 nominations in the last couple of years I don't regard that that being abnormal. A competent editor can certainly produce dozens of good strong nominations in one year if they choose to do so. However, I would fully support a rule blocking "you pass my nomination and I'll pass yours" reviews; but that "rule" is not under proposal. Pyrotec (talk) 17:28, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

I think that you need to name these inappropriate pairings that you claim exist, so that others can judge whether you have identified a real problem or not. I suspect not, but I also suspect that your proposal is unworkable on many different levels, not least because of the paucity of good reviewers, and I would strongly oppose it as a general rule. Malleus Fatuorum 17:55, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

I know one of the pairs I often see is User:Rcej will review User:Sasata's articles immediately after posting, within 24 hours. I don't doubt the reviews are good, though, or that Sasata's articles are GAs. If there are others then I haven't noticed them. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 18:12, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't think such a rule would be a good idea. I'm opposed to rule creep in general, and the perceived problem that led to this proposal is one easily solved by throwing suspected articles into GAR where a community reassessment will take place. Binksternet (talk) 18:45, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Add me to the chorus of disapproval for this proposal. Especially for technical articles (such as Sasata's fungus-biology articles you mention) there's a limited pool of people with the knowledge to spot errors. DavidCane and I will regularly review each others' articles, for instance; that's not evidence of any kind of collusion, but just a reflection of the fact that there are very few people here with enough knowledge of 19th-century civil engineering to spot errors. – iridescent 15:33, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

I have learned something from every GA review that I received and from every GA review that I have written. Hence, there is a concern about becoming "inbred" because the process will not be as beneficial if the same people work with each other all the time. If we can't have a hard rule, could we start soft measures that would discourage it. For example, we could add a statement on the GAN page instructions encouraging people to spread around the reviews. As another example, what would happen if the robot that creates the review page, automatically includes a statement that the nominator and reviewer have been paired X times in the past. That type of disclosure would cause a cringe factor as X starts to grow. Racepacket (talk) 17:32, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

The only thing that's causing a cringe factor in my mind is your proposal, with its assumption of wrong-doing. Do you have any evidence for wrong-doing at GAN? Malleus Fatuorum 17:41, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm tending to agree with Malleus on this one. This proposal alarms my AGF-meter. Please demonstrate alleged wrong-doing so that others may comment. Otherwise, this is a solution in search of a problem. You're state problem is not one. People will review the subject matters with which they are knowledgeable, comfortable or interested. Imzadi 1979 → 20:50, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Bad idea. We have a shortfall on # of reviewers. This only worsens the situation. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 22:01, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

We have a simple solution to poor good article reviews: good article reassessment. This means we do not need to legislate for every possible situation in which a review might be imperfect. Geometry guy 01:35, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm not convinced that these proposals have any bearing on the "problem" that is claimed to exist. The stated target was "the same people work with each other all the time" and it hints about wrong doing, but it makes absolutely no effort to consider or deal with this problem, if it exists since no evidence has been provided that standards have been lowered. To reiterate, I've reviewed more than five articles from the same editor in the last two years, and for more than one nominator; and in the case of one editor (I could name, but have not done so) these were mostly upgraded in a very short time to FAs. This belies the claim that I and unnamed others are lowering standards. I would strongly suggest that we are raising standards, not lowering them. The second proposal is that I and others should be "embarrassed" by a message such as this is the "ninth review that Pyrotec has done for editor A (hopefully a made up name, I've not reviewed any articles by editor A)". So what. It is a matter of fact that no such editor A has reviewed my nominations on a one-for-one or even on a one-for-one-hundred basis. If the intention is to discourage "you pass my nomination and I'll pass yours" reviews then assuming bad faith and seeking to embarrass/attack reviewers who have reviewed more that some arbitrary number of nominations proposed by Racepacket from the same nominator is a strange of addressing a problem that may not exist. Let's be clear, the stated aim seems to be to discourage "editors A and B are reviewing too many of each other's articles", yet all the proposals seem to be discouraging editor A from carrying out more than one (well, 5 or more) of editor B's WP:GANs, which is hardly the same thing. Pyrotec (talk) 10:17, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Pretty clear consensus against. Binksternet (talk) 10:53, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Strange bot edit

Why did the bot make this edit which changed the date of a GA promotion from today to November 14?--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 20:22, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

It's the last date on the subpage. Gimmetoo (talk) 01:16, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Review request

Ordinarily, I wouldn't attempt to "cut in line", but I was wondering if anyone could review my nomination of John Y. Brown, Jr. If passed, it would complete my 61-article Kentucky Governors good-topic-in-waiting. It took over 2 months to get it reviewed last time, but the review hit the day after my first child was born, so I didn't have sufficient time to address the concerns at that time. I've tried to address most of the concerns now, and I'm off work through the end of the year, so the next couple of weeks would be a great time for me to address concerns and get this good topic nominated. Thanks in advance. Acdixon ^{(talk • contribs • count)} 16:21, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Should GA subpages be moved when an article is moved?

I couldn't find this written down anywhere, so I'd thought I'd ask: when a page moves from one title to another, should the GA subpages move to the new title as well? I would think that you would want them to move, to prevent them from possibly becoming associated with a new article at the old title. Thoughts? –Grondemar 00:31, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

It is preferable to move them (click the "move subpages" option). If they are moved, please make sure links (e.g. from {{ArticleHistory}}) are fixed! Best wishes Geometry guy 19:33, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

On hold bot issue

I've probably missed something obvious, and this is irking me more than it should, but why have neither Somerhill House nor Robert and Thomas Wintour been listed as on hold? The bot doesn't even recognise that I'm the reviewer? J Milburn (talk) 00:03, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

I have also noticed that the bot does not add status=onreview when I create the review subpage lately. Racepacket (talk) 02:38, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

I think that the bot had a bit of a Christmas break, seems to be operating normally now. Jezhotwells (talk) 16:06, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Suggest more info / clarification on the "nuts and bolts" of review process

Extra clarification could help get additional good reviewers. Just went through my first submission, and also just started my first review, so I'm at a point where I notice this stuff where an expert wouldn't. The details on the nuts and bolts regarding administration (templates, tagging, updating status, review pages etc.) are just a few notes scattered here and there.

Which leads me to my suggested clarification/ question of the moment. For a passed article, is the a recommended way to handle the review page? I'm assuming that this would include un-transcluding it. But the, does the page stay as a GA1 page, or get moved into the article archives or .....??? Thanks North8000 (talk) 13:22, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for contributing to the GA process. At the moment un-transcluding GA1 (etc.) review pages of completed reviews is optional: it doesn't matter whether you do it or not. That may change in the future, but if so, the un-transclusion, like the transclusion, will probably be done automatically by GA bot. Please do not move the GA1 page (or any GA review page) or its contents as this is the permanent archive of the review: the next GA review will take place on the GA2 page etc.

If you can suggest particular clarifications of the guidelines, please comment further! Geometry guy 15:45, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

I prefer keeping it transcluded upon conclusion so that there's a record right on the page itself, rather than having to find the link through the article history. As GG said above though, there's no set way for that. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 15:49, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks to you both. The one I had in mind [Edmund Fitzgerald] has a very large review page. (We asked for and received a very thorough review to get us read for FA attempt and did a lot of work with checklist etc) which would bury the talk page if left in. My suggestion would be to have a link to it in the template at the top of the talk page. I tried adding that but was unsuccessful / didn't know how. North8000 (talk) 16:28, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

There's already a link to the review in the article history at the top of the page. All you have to do is to untransclude the review. Malleus Fatuorum 16:51, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

While it's optional, I would like to see transclusion to article talk page mandatory so there is a paper trail. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 03:03, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

The GA review should be transcluded even if it's enormous. The point of the talk page is to discuss improvements to the article, and that's what the GA review is. The issues addressed in the GA often lead to further discussion after the review's over. —Designate (talk) 04:19, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

It's for the editors to decide, there's no rule. Whatever they decide is fine. Malleus Fatuorum 04:24, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

We don't transclude a FAC/FAR page or a PR page onto the article's talk page. Why does a GAN need to be any different, when all are still linked from the {{ArticleHistory}}? Imzadi 1979 → 04:28, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

It doesn't need to be different, but it's historical. Before the days of dedicated review pages all GA reviews were carried out in the article's talk page, as that was thought to be the best way to encourage editors to take part, but they then became difficult to find once the page was archived. As part of the effort to raise the bar at GA to allow that little green thingy at the top of each article it was decided that we needed to move to a permanently available record of the review. Whether or not that continues to be transcluded when the review is over is a matter for those taking care of the article. I always remove the transclusion once the review is over, but I've no objection to anyone who thinks it's helpful putting it back. Malleus Fatuorum 04:40, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

As Malleus says, there is no set rule for keeping the GA review transcluded or not. I prefer to keep the review transcluded on the GAs I write and review, because those tend to have nothing or almost nothing else on their talk pages, and the GA reviews are easier to find in this way. However, on a busy talk page it may be better to remove the transclusion. Ucucha 11:14, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

For the folks suggesting to keep it transcluded, are you saying that the entire review would remain forever in the body of the talk page? I am using the words "entire" and "forever" just to push for clarity/explanation, not to make it sound negative. North8000 (talk) 12:12, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

"Entire"—splitting the review would be technically difficult and without much use, so yes, the entire review. "Forever"—basically, yes, unless the rest of the talk page is regularly archived. Ucucha 12:51, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

I think that it should be archived just like anything else on the page, which means that any enormous review ought to be un-transcluded/archived pretty quickly. SS Edmund Fitzgerald/GA1, for example, on its own already exceeds the size of typical talk pages.

A small review on an inactive talk page, on the other hand, could probably stay for years and years.

I suspect that the archiving bots don't cope gracefully with transcluded pages, so archiving will have to be done manually. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:22, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Suggestions

As I mentioned, I'm still at the newbie/dummy level regarding the GA process, and so I can still see some not-very-explained things that the experts can't see. After reading the above, my suggestions are:

While not making it a rule, make it a suggestion to eventually untransclude it, and make a second much more prominent link to the most recent one in the header of the talk page article. Right now it's really hidden. You have to uncollapse the history section to see it, and even then the link just shows the text "good article nominee", it doesn't say anything about the review page. I think that

I just figured out how to do this and did it at the SS Edmund Fitzgerald article.

Second, I would suggest writing more "nuts and bolts" details in the how to review an article section. Expanded coveraqe on how to use the reviewer templates, how to define the status etc.

Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 12:26, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Have you read the existing advice pages, which are already fairly substantial? I'm aware of these:

Wikipedia:Reviewing good articles
Wikipedia:What the Good article criteria are not
GA review cheatsheet a user essay
Zen and the art of good reviewing a user essay

but there may be more. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:25, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

All of those cover / point to the part that is already well covered. None explain the things I describe. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 03:10, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

For example, I'm almost finished reviewing an article. Now, if and when it passes, where is the part that says: Here's what you do when article passes:

So, I'm hunting around and will take some guesses. Is it just putting the template on the main article page? Or modifying other templates? I'm guessing that I don't have to mark the list because it says that the robot does at least some parts of it (who knows which parts it does and doesn't do?) And what do I do that triggers the robot to do that. ? North8000 (talk) 03:18, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Umm.... WP:GAN. Right at the top, in the "Pass" box.

1. Ensure you have provided a detailed review of the article, giving an overview of how you believe it fulfills the Good article criteria, with suggestions to improve it if you can. Please also encourage the successful nominator(s) to review an article themselves.

2. Replace {{GA nominee}} on the article's talk page with {{GA|(5 tildes)|topic=|page=}}.[1] Please include "GA" in your edit summary.

3. List the article on Wikipedia:Good articles under the appropriate section.[2]

[1] The five tildes supply the date of the review. The topic parameter refers to the topic abbreviations used on the GA page, but the template automatically converts GAN subtopics into GA topics, so reviewers can simply copy the parameter value from one template to the other. "Page" should be the number of the review subpage (that is, the n in {{Talk:ArticleName/GAn}}).

[2] You may also want to update any WikiProject templates on the article talk page, but this is optional. You do not need to update the "recently listed good articles" page: this will be done automatically by a bot.

Do those 3 things, which are really 2 things. Replace the template on the talk page, and list the article at WP:GA. That's it. Bot does the rest, and you don't even need to know what the rest is because you don't do it. --Pres N 03:28, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

In my opinion, it helps to leave the review transcluded even after the review closes and to keep it in that chronological place on the talk page until the page rolls off into a page-wide archive process. If the article fails, the review will allow editors browsing the talk page to see the unaddressed deficiency in the article. If the article passes, the review may contain suggestions for future improvement. How does transclusion hurt? Removing the transclusion is imposing just one more task on the GA reviewer. As to the argument that FACs are not transcluded, a FA is much further along in the process, so it may provide as much benefit toward future action as does a GA review. Racepacket (talk) 06:10, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

That's really an argument then that all WikiProject ACRs, PRs and failed FACs should be transcluded to the talk pages as well. Actually that would also include FAR(C) as that process is meant to improve older FAs to current standards and expectations. All four of these processes are designed to evaluate/improve the article, but none have ever been transcluded. That GAN reviews are transcluded is a holdover from the days when the review was done on the talk page itself, not a subpage. (Which is the answer given to my rhetorical question above.) Now the ArticleHistory has a fixed location to use as a link to the review. The bot that converts the GA template to ArticleHistory used to explicitly remove the transclusion from the talk page in the process, so many current GAs are sitting out there without the transclusions. Other articles have had their transclusions archived, removing them from the main talk page as well. Personally, my preference is to have all of the stages of the article's development through processes external to the article be listed in one place in a consistent fashion. Each review is listed with a link in the order given, and any editors working on the article have one location to pull up all of the reviews without digging through archives for some but not all. Imzadi 1979 → 09:03, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

I previously read the good article nominations page, but never thought to look there for reviewer instructions. Don't know if that means that the GA instructions stuff failed the dummy test of if I failed the double dummy test. But still, I noticed that the main page of GA's also has a template at the top. Is the reviewer to put that there as well? Also, suggest that that (the yes or the no) answer be in the instructions. Sincerely, 12:33, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

The bot puts the {{Good article}} template on the article page. Jezhotwells (talk) 16:05, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 17:41, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

GA on en.WP and fr.WP

Hi,

Theses days, I’m translating Hôtel de Blossac from the french GA article. I assume that be a GA on fr.WP doesn’t means it will be automatically a GA on en.WP but I wonder : is there somewhere a multilingual comparison or an history of the GAs ? (or FAs, or others languages). Basically, the criteria seems pretty equal (see WP:GA? and fr:WP:GA). In facts, is it me or the french-speaking GA criteria seems a little more harder to get ? A galon, VIGNERON * ^discut. 17:22, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

If we disagree with a GAC closure?

I recently saw a GAC closure with which I completely disagree- is there a procedure for this? I had a look around, and I couldn't find one... J Milburn (talk) 18:31, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Pretty sure you take it to GAR. --Pres N 18:34, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, you're right, there is a "community reassessment" option there, which seems to be perfect for this. Thanks. J Milburn (talk) 19:16, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Talk:Northern Lites/GA1

Hello, could I please have a third opinion on the style of attribution used in this article? You'll see what I mean when you look at the review. The article's author feels it is appropriate for this type of article, while I feel it is a poor academic style. J Milburn (talk) 12:22, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

New bot function

Please comment at Wikipedia_talk:Good_article_nominations#New_function_for_GA_bot.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 16:55, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Changing MoS to win GA

There's an ongoing discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (embedded lists) in which Kudpung and other editors assert that GA reviewers are inappropriately insisting on the conversion of embedded lists into prose. They propose that the MoS guideline be changed to explicitly exempt their preferred types of lists.

I think it would be useful to have some experienced GA reviewers involved in this discussion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:26, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

April 2011 GAN backlog elimination drive

I know this is about 3 months away, but as they say, it's never too early to plan early! Anyways, I think another GAN backlog elimination drive for this coming April would be a good idea. Some stuff we can probably discuss right now:

Who wants to run this upcoming backlog drive? I know I did last year, and Wizardman did the year before; I think it's a good idea to get a different person in there as a way to "share the responsibility".
Do we want to keep it at 1 month? I know a couple of the previous drives were 2 weeks, which I know some argued was not as drawn-out as 1 month.
Formatting. This is the Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles/GAN backlog elimination drives/April 2010 page and how it was formatted and laid out. Do we wish to make any changes to the previous year, or do we have any other additional suggestions that somebody wants to throw out there for consideration?
Possible October drive. I was also thinking of having a 2nd backlog elimination drive 6 months later, which would be October.
I think we ran into some problems the last drive with trying to find people who would act as "quality control" on GA reviews, basically users who would make checks on the completed GA reviews to ensure they are competently done and, if necessary, reassess if there are problems.

If anyone has any other ideas, go ahead and shoot away. –MuZemike 21:48, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

I'd suggest not waiting that long, instead doing the drive in February or preferably March. I figure that holding the drive further away from college exam periods will likely result in a better response. I also like the idea of holding a second backlog elimination drive six months after the first one. –Grondemar 00:51, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

If drives (BEDs) every six months can be sustained that would be fantastic. I agree with Grondemar about taking care with the timing, though: October clashes with the final stages of the Wikicup, which has caused problems in the past. A March-September cycle might be better. Geometry guy 23:03, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

After giving this some thought, I agree that a March/September drive would be ideal. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 02:45, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

What is the point of the clashes. I have never heard of the backlog elimination drive clash. It seems that with the most GAs being produced by the cup in October that there should be an effort to review them.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 04:30, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

The WP:GOCE drives have a sub-committee of volunteers to do the reviewing for "quality control". They randomly check articles and place a {{checked}} tag on those articles to show that checks are indeed being conducted. These are usually more experience editors who can also help provide pointers on what was not correct. That might help you solve this problem. – SMasters (talk) 07:37, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

March it is

Looks like we have at least a rough consensus to have the next GAN backlog elimination drive next month, so one should come up with a Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles/GAN backlog elimination drives/March 2011 in the works within the next two weeks or so. The only other questions that I mentioned above remain, if anyone wishes to comment. –MuZemike 19:49, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Went ahead and made the page. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 04:05, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Query regarding review process

British Pakistanis has been promoted to GA status without a review page being created. According to the editor who promoted the article, the review is implicit in the decision (see here). I've raised this issue at Wikipedia talk:Good articles. Comments there would be appreciated. Cordless Larry (talk) 09:44, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Dates

Please consider this sentence:

Following the announcement by Strauss, in 12 May, the manufacturer sent sale proposals to five prospective airlines, which included Lufthansa and Swissair.

in light of the WP:GACR #2b:

Factually accurate and verifiable:

(b) reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose).

With these criteria, I don't think we could legitimately require an inline citation for this statement, which are required only for five types of statements:

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.

It's not a direct quotation. It contains a date and a number, but it's not a statistic. It's not an opinion. It's not counter-intuitive or controversial. It's not been challenged, and it's not WP:LIKELY to be challenged. It's not about a living person.

And yet, I want an inline citation for it. I think it's the date that bothers me: Specific dates are easily vandalized and too often included when they are of no importance (especially for events that happened while the article was being written).

What do you think? Would you fail an article over the lack of an inline citation for this sentence? Should all dates be supported by inline citations? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:20, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Non-trivial information in a good article (or indeed any article) should be sourced, so if the sentence is uncited, I would expect to find the date and also the fact that five airlines were contacted (including Lufthansa and Swissair) easily in the sources used (perhaps, but not necessarily, from neighbouring citations). If not, I would ask for a citation. There is no harm in asking for more citations than are required by the criteria. Dates and numbers can be statistics, depending on how they are used. If the use of a date or number is insubstantial, then it might be better to question it as unnecessary detail (3b).

If there are only borderline issues about the GA criteria (i.e., no flagrant violations), then looking at the article as a whole, and the criteria as a whole may help to reach a final decision. Geometry guy 22:33, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

If you want a citation, it's "challenged". —Designate (talk) 08:39, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

The fact that I personally want a citation is not the same as me challenging the material. We've had problems in the past with reviewers "challenging" every uncited sentence, simply because they had a mistaken idea of the actual WP:MINREF rules for articles (there are unfortunately still people who believe that Wikipedia's content policies require one citation per sentence), or they thought somehow that the GA criteria didn't mean exactly what they said. Because of those past abuses, I avoid challenging statements in a GA review unless I can name exactly which of the five categories the statement falls into.

(3b) might be a better way of handling that particular issue. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:31, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

I think that the example obviously falls under the category of a statistic. One of the definitions given in the OED for statistic is "a quantitive fact or statement", which "the manufacturer sent sale proposals to five prospective airlines" clearly is. Malleus Fatuorum 18:48, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

I just had a similar experience. The article said, "As it passes amidst heavily wooded terrain with some houses alongside the roadway, SR 372 travels past an intersection with North Ridge Road, then abruptly comes to an end as it crosses the western boundary of Scioto Trail State Forest. The roadway continues eastward from this point as CR 199.[4]" However, reference #4 was a map which showed the road continue past the forest boundary as SR 372. I challenged the statement, and the nominator said the map was wrong. I argued that a different source was needed because both claiming the map was wrong was counter-intuitive and the route number was like a statistic. Both the nominator and User:Imzadi1979 argued that criteria 2b does not require an inline citation ("a name, not a statistic.") Ultimately, the nominator rewrote the sentence to supply a better source for the highway designation ending at the boundary and removing the reference to CR 199. However, it is troubling that a nominator would put a specific fact into an article and source it with something that said the exact opposite. Racepacket (talk) 11:14, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Bot notice + possible WikiProject membership update

I'm about to send a bot notice to the current WP:WPGA members about the upcoming GAN backlog elimination drive. What I was also thinking of doing was sending out a "WikiProject membership update" notice on top of that. Here's how it would work: for instance, at WikiProject Video games and the Nintendo task force, we keep our "active membership" up-to-date by temporarily moving everyone to an "Inactive members" list and then send a notice to all members to update their status by moving their username from the "Inactive list" to the "Active list". After a period of time passes (at WP:VG and WP:NIN, that has been a month), we remove the "Inactive list", which leaves us with an up-to-date list of project members. Thoughts about that? –MuZemike 19:07, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Transcluding reviews to talk pages

I know the historical context involved. Yes, GAN reviews used to be conducted directly on article talk pages, but we went to subpage reviewing years ago. No other process places its reviews on the talk pages. XfDs don't. FACs/FARCs aren't transcluded. PRs don't. I don't know of any dedicated ACR process that does. I think it's time that the bot stops automatically transluding the reviews to the talk page. Once the review is started, either the bot or the reviewer will change the status of the template at the top of the talk page to "onreview" or "onhold". Either way will signal a nominator that there has been changes to their nomination's status. The template has a link to the review page, and the {{ArticleHistory}} will have a record of the review and a link to the page once that bot updates the talk page (if the reviewer doesn't do so himself when closing the review.) Imzadi 1979 → 18:42, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

This was discussed and agreed some time ago, and nothing has changed since then. The object of transclusion is to involve more editors in the review process while making the review more easily available. Arguably FAC, for instance, ought also to translude the review. Malleus Fatuorum 18:56, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

As an objective then, the transclusion fails miserably. Only when a reviewer has requested second opinions or discussion on external pages have called attention to a review have I ever seen others participate in reviews. Imzadi 1979 → 19:21, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

I disagree. Transclusion promotes transparency and accountability. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 01:56, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Malleus & Ohana, the present practice provides transparency and accountability. Jezhotwells (talk) 02:18, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

The talk page isn't just for active discussions, but to have a record of discussion for the future. If there are concerns about the article's neutrality in the GA review, and other discussions about neutrality in the other talk page sections, it should all be available for subsequent editors to read through and reference easily in later discussions. Same with sources and structure and everything else. Putting discussions about article improvement out of chronological order and hiding them doesn't have any benefit to editors. —Designate (talk) 13:32, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

GA reviews are no more hidden than FA reviews; both are available from the article history in just the same way. Malleus Fatuorum 17:02, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm not comparing them to FA reviews. Hidden doesn't mean inaccessible. All software interfaces, including Wikipedia's, use the terms show and hide for data that is concealed from the user, even if the user can access it. —Designate (talk) 17:17, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

You're just not getting it. GA reviews are available from the article history. FA reviews are available from the article history. The only difference is that during a GA review it's transcluded onto the article's talk page. Malleus Fatuorum 18:11, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

I think that it is beneficial to have the review left as transcluded. If at some point, the article editors want to establish an archive procedure for the talk page, the transclusion can migrate off the page with other material of that vintage. With many highway articles, the review is the only substantive debate regarding the content of the article, and it is helpful for readers who do not understand how to access reviews through the article milestone banner to see it. Racepacket (talk) 11:18, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

It's entirely down to the article's editors whether or not to keep the GA review transcluded, that's got nothing to do with GAN. Malleus Fatuorum 16:03, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

In cases where one GA review was failed and the nominator immediately re-nominates, it might be helpful to keep the first review transcluded until the later review is completed, just so that analysis will not be overlooked. Racepacket (talk) 08:33, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

In which case the nominator is perfectly at liberty to re-transclude the review. Management of the talk page is a matter for the article's editors, nothing to do with GAN. Malleus Fatuorum 04:25, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

I tend to agree with "MF". If an article is at WP:GAN for the second or third time (etc) signified by /GA2, /GA3, etc, I would expect a conscencious reviewer to look any previous reviews (they might not be right, there are poor reviewers and sometimes nominators and reviewers "clash", but it is worth looking at them); also any Peer Reviews. I hope it is not being suggested, as a subplot, that reviewers are not capable of finding previous reviews unless they are left transcribed on the talkpage. Pyrotec (talk) 08:04, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Reviewer eligibiilty

I left a message at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:GAN#Talk:Netball_in_the_Cook_Islands.2FGA3 , but did not receive any advice, so I am raising it here. If two editors are working together (almost as co-nominators) at a GA review for a main article, and one of the editors creates a country-specific spin off article from it, with the other editor making substantive changes to the spin off article in the last few weeks (diff and diff), if the first editor nominates the spin off article for GA, can the second editor be the reviewer? In other words, what does "made significant contributions to it prior to the review" really mean? Racepacket (talk) 08:35, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Free Credo accounts

Hello fellow reviewers, Just a heads up for those that need it. Credo Reference has donated 400 free user accounts to Wikipedia. They are now taking applications. GA reviewers qualify (provided you meet the other requirements). Click on the link to find out more. Just thought I'd let you know. Cheers. – SMasters (talk) 03:40, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Disambiguation links

One of our Wikipedia:WikiProject Disambiguation contributors has provided this report this list of 4,000 "Good articles" containing errant links to disambiguation pages. Because of our current (and ever-growing) backlog of about 780,000 ambiguous links, I have proposed to have a bot place a "disambiguation needed" tag on these links. Obviously, good articles should not contain bad links, and these tags will alert the editors most familiar with the subject matter of these articles to the links requiring repair, hopefully enabling such repairs to be carried out quickly. Please let me know if anyone has any other ideas for resolving this issue. Cheers! bd2412 T 13:26, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Having heard no objection here, I have added {{dablinks}} tags on the dozen or so GA status articles having eight or more disambiguation links. Eight bad links is definitely way too many for a good article. Cheers! bd2412 T 20:26, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Good Article Withdrawal

Keeping on the netball theme, we have an odd situation on Talk:Netball/GA1. User:LauraHale nominated the article and approached User:Bill_william_compton to do the review on March 5. The review quickly ran into problem because when Bill noted areas requiring work, LauraHale would ask for specific instructions on how to fix them and instead of treating those as merely examples, she thought that they were the exhaustive list of all such occurances of the problem. In addition, Bill took a wikibreak for a couple of days and there was miscommunications. Based on that, LauraHale asked for a replacement reviewer and Bill advertised for the post and I volunteered. Just as I was getting started, User:KnowIG also began to provide a detailed review.

I tried to consolidate a list of issues and my own suggested edits and found LauraHale difficult because when I asked her a question or raised a concern, she tried to change the subject to the fact that I was not using British spelling in communicating with her on the talk or review page. (Both LauraHale and I grew up in Illinois.)

Finally, she proposed that we end the review, give the active editors a week to fix the article and then have a new nominator and new reviewer do a separate GA review. I responded that I was willing to continue and to keep the review on hold during that week. Rather than reply to my suggestion, she edited the talk page with the "failed" template. Based on our prior discussions over Talk:U.S. Route 223/GA2 I have restored the "onhold" template and am willing to work with the other editors to complete the review.

I welcome the guidance of other project members on how to handle such situations. Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 15:56, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

To be blunt, if on my first time as a GA nominator the reviewer had treated me with the scorn that you're treating her, I would never have come back. Are you seriously trying to call a debate about calling Netball "Women's Basketball" (The UK nickname) when there is already a sport called "Basketball" that is played by women in the US as "tr[ying] to change the subject to the fact that I was not using British spelling in communicating with her on the talk or review page"? It's a question of meaning, not spelling! And then asking her to scan and email you pages from the books she's using so that you can prove that she's not plagiarizing? This is GAN, not an inquisition. And then when she tries to withdraw the nomination, in order to start with a fresh review once everything is taken care of, you overrule her! You're behaving quite badly here, in my opinion. --Pres N 17:14, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your honest answer, PresN. However, if you read the review, you will see that none of it is true. Both the nominator and I are from Illinois, so she understood my question perfectly well. I never said "plagarism," I said that once the language (which was written by a number of people) is finalized we should check it for "close paraphrasing." I asked all of the active editors whether any of them would be willing to scan a sample of pages from those sources that I could not otherwise obtain. And when they declined, I agreed to travel to the Library of Congress and donate a work day to Wikipedia. If you are ever going to get people to volunteer as reviewers, we need to develop a way to protect them from people who are willing to say anything. I kept the review open to give the other active editors a change to step in and finish the review, because the nominator does not "own" the article. Tthe article dates back to August 2001, but the nominator has only been editing it since February 25, 2011, a week before her nomination. Racepacket (talk) 03:19, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

I have no involvement with this subject, article, or review, and I have only briefly skimmed the review page. But I can say that the review process has clearly broken down here. GA reviews are supposed to be fairly lightweight, no-drama affairs. If a reviewer fails an article unreasonably in the eyes of the submitter, the GAR instructions are to just nominate it again and get a different reviewer. By extension, if a review goes on forever unproductively in the eyes of the submitter, withdrawing it and submitting it again (and thereby getting another reviewer) makes sense. The biggest "danger" in the whole process is if a reviewer passes an article that isn't really up to snuff. That's what GAR is for, and a previous reviewer who objected to the article can always make their thoughts known at that point. There's no race here, no need to get to GA status in a minimum amount of time. If it takes an extra go-around or two to get the article and the review to where they need to be, so be it. Wasted Time R (talk) 04:18, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

I find Wasted Time R's comments helpful. However, it does not address the situation where a group of people are working to bring an article up to GA, a list of problem are identified, and the user who happens to have put the template on the talk page first wants to unilaterally "pull the plug." I think that consulting the whole group of active editors is the sound approach to see if the consensus is to end the review. Otherwise, it encourages WP:OWN problems. Racepacket (talk) 06:22, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations/FAQ, editors are permitted to withdraw and re-nominate if they think the reviewer is seriously screwing up. After all, any registered account can do these reviews, even people who seem to have never read the GA criteria.

For example, if a reviewer tells the editors that they picked the wrong subject for the article (something that the GA criteria does not admit as even a remote possibility), then withdrawing and re-nominating is probably the best response. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:47, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

I have read the FAQ, and to be quite honest, I don't find the wording clear. It says that "you can renominate the article (for a different reviewer)", but does not address who "fails" the first review. This can be a problem involving cases of close paraphrasing or plagiarism. Hypothetically, the first reviewer says "I am now going to check the article for close paraphrasing... stand by." The nominator is afraid of the result and says "I withdraw." Does the reviewer who has invested hours into the review have a right and obligation to finish the review and post his findings, or does the nominator has the absolute right to cut off the process and start a second review in the hopes of that the second reviewer will not check the article against the sources? I can see the nominator waiting for the first nominator's findings and asking for a second opinion, but I cannot see how Wikipedia can expect volunteers to waste time duplicating the basic work of checking references just because the nominator is unhappy with what the first reviewer has uncovered. Racepacket (talk) 18:56, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

GA only has two ways to close a review: "Promoted" and "Not promoted" (which for convenience we call "failed").

The only action that a reviewer shouldn't take for a withdrawn nomination is to promote it; consequently all withdrawn nominations should be closed as "Not promoted" ("failed"). The reviewer has no further obligation. He or she has the option of posting further notes, but is not required to do so. If the reviewer chooses to post notes, then a subsequent reviewer might (or might not) choose to take advantage of them. (In such a situation, I'd recommend that any such notes be aimed at saving the next reviewer as much work as possible, rather than trying to justify the reviewer's behavior or complaining about the attitudes or competence of the article's editors.)

In my experience, there are two basic types of withdrawn nominations: Most are obvious failures, and the withdrawal amounts to the nom's agreement that the article should be failed right away, before any more of the reviewer's time is wasted on a hopelessly doomed nomination. (These tend not be to re-nominated.)

The other situation is far more complicated, and the fault is just as likely to be the reviewer's as the article editors'. For example, we recently had a reviewer saying that an article got too few page hits to qualify for GA status, which is simple nonsense. A withdrawal and re-nom in the hope of getting a reviewer who had ever read the criteria would be highly desirable. In other instances, I've seen some remarkably rude comments by reviewers who apparently believed that WP:CIVIL doesn't apply to GA reviewers. When we've got a personality clash, what's best for Wikipedia is usually for the reviewer to step down. After all, if the article really doesn't meet the criteria, then the next reviewer will come to the same conclusion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:34, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree with WhatamIdoing here, so let me just add some additional remarks. First, following {{Article history}}, I prefer the neutral terms "listed" and "not listed" for the two possible outcomes of a GA review (both outcomes should be good for the article and Wikipedia). When a nomination is withdrawn and the article does not meet the criteria, it is not listed as a GA! Second, the GAN guidelines used to be more explicit about withdrawing nominations, but the text was removed to save space. I have raised the issue at WT:GAN#Withdrawing_nominations. Third, problems with an article can (and should) be raised on the article talk page at any time. Withdrawing nominations is not a way to silence critical comments. Finally, the more tactfully critical comments are made, the better. Most articles have been edited and re-edited many times. Fixing problems with articles is a collective responsibility for all of us, and finding or feeling fault rarely helps to achieve that. Geometry guy 22:23, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree with much of what has been said and understand the "collective responsibility" aspect. There are two concerns: 1) If there are five or six active editors on the article, and the nominator unilaterally asks to withdraw, wouldn't it make more sense to canvass the other editors to see if the consensus is to finish the review? 2) If the reviewer has invested hours in reading the sources, checking for close paraphrasing, checking for accuracy, shifting reviewers seems like a terrible waste of volunteer resources. It seems to me that we should stick with the formality of the reviewer being the one to close the review. The nominator can post on the review page, "I wish to withdraw." If the reviewer believes that there may be a misundertanding to clear up, they can discuss it before closing down the review page. I don't think that the nominator should just unilaterally edit the GAfail template without discussing it with the reviewer. In many cases, the problem could be solved with a second opinion on a narrow issue, rather than start the process over again from the beginning. Our guidance should also include some of what was discussed above so that reviewers will know what is or is not acceptable behavior: 1) can the reviewer repost unaddressed concerns on the talk page? 2) can the reviewer make comments on the next review page as a non-reviewer? 3) Can the first reviewer start a GAR if he honestly believes that the second review mis-applied the criteria? 4) Can the first reviewer leave a note on the FAC discussion? Some nominators' egos are fragile and take constructive criticism as "harrassment," so guidance is needed. Racepacket (talk) 20:05, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

GAN should never result in the review taking hours. I'm not even sure a review that takes hours to complete is appropriate for FAC. --Rs chen 7754 20:11, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

How long a review takes is up to the reviewer. What matters is that the goal should be improving the article, and the decision should be based on the GA criteria alone. Geometry guy 20:57, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

If a nomination was made unilaterally (i.e., without prior talk page discussion) then there is no reason why it cannot be withdrawn unilaterally. Other editors are free to renominate a withdrawn nomination if they wish. It is unfortunate and wasteful when communications break down between nominator and reviewer, but the review remains in the article history, and is not lost.

My answers to your last four questions are as follows.

Yes. Anyone can comment on improving the article on the article talk page.
Yes. GAN reviews are open reviews. Any editor can comment on them, so long as they respect the reviewer's right to make the final decision and do not disrupt that process (for instance, by overwhelming the review with extensive comments).
No and yes, depending on the type of GAR. It would be inappropriate to start an individual GAR, as the first reviewer is now an involved party. However, any editor can request a community GAR if they believe a listed article does not meet the GA criteria.
There is nothing wrong, per GA and FAC, with noting problems raised in a previous review. However, guidance concerning harassment falls outside of the scope of GA and FA processes. It is a conduct issue, and is often a matter of extent rather than a problem with an individual action.

Geometry guy 20:57, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree with everything Geometry guy said, and add this:

The primary—some would say sole—purpose of the GA review is to figure out whether the article should be listed as a GA. All the high-minded stuff about improving articles is a (very) nice side effect, but it's fundamentally a side effect. The job at hand is to decide "list" or "not list". Reviewers may not list withdrawn articles as GA, full stop. Therefore the review is, in an important sense, completely finished the instant the nom withdraws it: The decision is unavoidably "not listed". WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:20, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing: I am a bit confused by your answer. I am assuming that the difference of opinion is about whether the article meets the GA criteria. For example, suppose I am reviewing an article about a crime, and the article has POV language like "Joe Killer is the most cold-blooded killer in the history of Utah, and everyone believes he deserved the death penalty." The reviewer points out the POV problem with that language, and the nominator withdraws. If the nominator renominates and arranges for a friend to quickly pass the article without any comment or changes, we are left with a POV-pushing article that is listed as a GA. What would be the next step? What should the first reviewer do about the problem article and about the manner in which the second reviewer handled the situation? Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 04:44, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

WP:GAR. --Rs chen 7754 04:46, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

GAR is an option if the nom hasn't withdrawn. If the nom withdraws, then the nom agrees with you that the article should not be listed. I don't see the problem here: You think the article should not be listed. The nom (in the act of withdrawing) indicates that s/he thinks the article should not be listed. Where's the difference of opinion? WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:33, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps WhatamIdoing misappreciates the question. In my example, the article cannot meet anyone's definition of NPOV, but the nominator withdraws (because he wants the article to POV push) and arranges for a friend to quickly pass the article without fixing the POV pushing. What is the next step? Racepacket (talk) 02:39, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

You close your review as not listed. You take the page off your watchlist and pretend that it doesn't exist. You develop a severe case of selective blindness, so that you cannot even see future nominations. You AGF that the next reviewer, if any, will be just as honest, capable, and as interested in excellence as you.

If you can't quite manage that, then if the other editor passes it and if there are still major problems (in your opinion), then you eventually (ideally, months later) send the article to GAR—or, preferentially, you quietly ask someone else to send it to GAR, while you maintain as complete a public silence on the subject as you can without being rude to people directly addressing you.

I do not say that this will be easy for you. For one thing, you'll have to trust the community to do the right thing. But it is what I recommend you do, to reduce the disruption and acrimony that these review process has been harmed by. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:18, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Again, staying with my hypothetical of the article about the Utah killer, the nominator is relatively new and does not understand what NPOV is all about. Under your recommended approach, the nominator could go on for months writing similar NPOV materials and doing a great deal of harm to the project. If the problem is caught early and the nominator is instructed that POV is not allowed, the harm and wikidrama can be reduced. Similarly, Wikipedia's credibility is on the line with every article, so leaving in content like "Joe Killer is the most cold-blooded killer in the history of Utah, and everyone believes he deserved the death penalty." not only hurts our credibility, but it also could subject Wikipedia to a lawsuit from Joe Killer or his estate. I agree with you that it is best to avoid personalizing the dispute, but the fact that the nominator is sufficiently distrustful of what the community might think of the article so as to collude with a friend on the second nomination is a very bad sign. Racepacket (talk) 05:12, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

As soon as the nom withdraws the nomination, the problems at the article are no longer your problem. It is not your job to play policeman for the English Wikipedia. If there are real problems, other people will notice them. Your job at that point is to cut your losses and to let someone else solve the problems. At the very most, you might quietly encourage someone else to notice that the problem exists, but you have no obligation to do even that much. If you've already gotten seriously crosswise with the editors at an article, then your efforts to solve the problems aren't going to be successful anyway: your continued participation is only likely to prolong the dispute. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:11, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

How long do you spend on a GA review?

Related to a comment above: I'm curious how many hours you commonly spend on a single GA review?

I realize that it will vary dramatically by length of article, what condition it's in, how much you know about the subject, how easily you can get at the sources, etc. But I'm curious what a typical review looks like, so if you wouldn't mind, please think about the last review or two you finished, and post a note below.

Please keep in mind that there is no 'right answer': a short time does not mean that the reviewer was lax or lazy, and a long time could mean that the reviewer wasted hours arguing with editors over trivialities.

I'll start: I believe that I spent at least four and probably closer to five hours all together on my last GA review, most of it obtaining or double-checking sources. This is a bit on the long side for me, but it was a technical subject that I didn't know much about. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:33, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

My average reviews take about an hour to complete the initial review. First I check the easy stuff (article history for stability/edit-warring, image licenses for compliance. Then I start at the references. I check to make sure they're all reliable sources and look to see if the formatting is consistent. Then I read the article. As I do each step, I make notes on the review page about the article and fill out the checklist from {{GAList}}. Finally I read the article a second time before I close the review. (A comment about something in a section might impact a comment about the lead, for instance.) If coverage of major aspects of the subject is poor, I'll spend some time doing a search on Google and Google News and offer up some suggested sources, if I can find any. As for offline-sources, I have to WP:AGF that the editors of the article have reflected the content of the sources, especially if nothing in the article seems counterintuitive or controversial. Imzadi 1979 → 04:56, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

I have spent 5 hours on many reviews and in some cases considerably more time. If I am picking up a review that was started by someone else and know where he/she left off in the process it can take less time (e.g, Talk:Don't Forget the Bacon!/GA1). Similarly, if the article is very short, it can take less time. There are three variables: 1) the number of references, 2) the quality of the article and 3) the degree of interaction with the article's editors. In one case, Talk:Margaret Thatcher/GA3 the article was being revised so rapidly and massively that it was a challenge to keep up and scrutinize the edits contemporaneously. Racepacket (talk) 05:07, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

My GA reviews tend to go pretty rapidly, because I'm familiar with the subject, and I know common mistakes that road editors tend to make in their articles (I've been editing road articles for over 6 years now). Also, road articles tend to be shorter compared to the bulk of GANs. --Rs chen 7754 05:12, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

I think WhatamIdoing is asking how long do you spend on an GA review of a non-road article? Racepacket (talk) 14:20, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Actually, this response is just fine with me. I don't want to hear just about unusual situations. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:39, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing, most article nominated for GA are not road articles. So, I would be interested in how long Rschen7754 to review a non-road article. Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 05:17, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Anywhere between 25 minutes and four or five hours on the review. Then there is likely to be feedback. It all depends. Jezhotwells (talk) 16:19, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

First pass is usually ~30 minutes; I pretty much only review articles that I'm familiar with (video games). The back and forth between the nominator and me adds an indeterminate amount of time. --Pres N 17:00, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Should GA nominations have their own identifiying mark?

I noticed that good articles and featured articles have a small mark at the top corner close to the search bar (depending on what WikiTheme you use), but articles with GA or FA nominations do not. I believe that a mark that identifies that said article is nominated for GA or FA status, and links to the discussion as well can save a few seconds of people's time instead of having to go to the article and hit talk page to reach or start the discussion. Now I understand that this can be a lot of labor to apply to the articles currently in these processes, but I believe that Wikipedia needs a tiny bit more efficency, and this is a step to acheving it.

So my good sirs, shall we discuss or dismiss this as absolute twaddle? Takeo™ 15:05, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

At any given time, articles may be undergoing all kinds of reviews – DYK, Peer review, A-class reviews for various projects, not to mention GAR and FAR in the opposite direction – and I don't see any utility in having visible marks for each of these. The only thing that counts is the final result. Wasted Time R (talk) 15:24, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

What Wasted Time R said, essentially. It seems links of this type would solely be of use to writers, and we're here to service the readers. To them, these are needless over-complications. 狐 Dhéanamh ar rolla bairille! 15:39, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree, we shouldn't be advertising internal processes externally. – SMasters (talk) 15:46, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

I think it would be almost no labor to apply it (we'd have a bot do it automagically), but I don't think that it's desirable. I don't understand why clicking on 'talk' (or typing the Wikipedia keyboard shortcut Ctrl-t) is such a terrible thing—and you'd have to do that even if the icon were present, if you wanted to "reach or start the discussion". WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:50, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Agreed, this is not needed, and anyway logged in editors can see if an article is nominated as there is a message such as Currently a featured list candidate. right under the article title. Clicking on that link takes one to the discussion page, or if a review has not been started to the nomination page (for GANs). Jezhotwells (talk) 17:42, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Disagree. No such marks are necessary. They do not help the reader. Binksternet (talk) 20:34, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
I'm afraid I have to agree that the marks aren't necessary. Readers certainly care about article quality. But they largely don't care about processes that are underway. If we're trying to find ways to convert readers into editors and get them involved in the process, there are better ways to do that. Shooterwalker (talk) 18:09, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

I removed the RfC because it is a snowball fail OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 06:25, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

This feature already exists. Go to Preferences/Gadgets and check the "Display an assessment of an article's quality as part of the page header for each article" box. It's switched off by default because most of our readers neither understand nor care about Wikipedia's internal processes. – iridescent 08:03, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

RFC/U for Racepacket

Editors interested in GA work might want to look over Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Racepacket 2, which is largely about a series of disputes at GAs reviewed by Racepacket. In particular, there are questions about whether Wikipedia would be best served by having Racepacket stop reviewing GANs about Netball and US roads. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:10, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

I must say that I have read more neutrally-phrased notices. It also raises the question of whether individual WikiProjects can force GA reviewers to apply requirements beyond the GA criteria. It also raises the question of whether GA Reviewers who write on a review page that the reviewer will "Need to assure that there are no close paraphrase problems, particularly in the position descriptions" should be subject to sanctions. We could discuss the policy issues there or it may be better to discuss them on this page. Racepacket (talk) 23:49, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, you've been canvassing quite openly. --Rs chen 7754 08:02, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

I have clearly stated that I will follow whatever instructions WikiProject Good articles adopts. If the consensus is to enforce WikiProject standards on top of the GA criteria, I will do that. If the consensus is to apply only the GA criteria, I will continue to do that. I believe that the best way to resolve the issue is to start a discussion on this page and provide an RFC notice pointing to it. We should also post a notice on the WikiProject Council page. I am surprised that WhatamIdoing wants to have a policy discussion on the page linked above. Racepacket (talk) 10:49, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

GA has already, and repeatedly, said that the only mandatory standards are the ones directly and explicitly named in the GA criteria.

It is often the case the WikiProject pages are very helpful (e.g., in determining whether an article is complete), but compliance is not actually required and reviewers may not fail articles over a lack of compliance with WikiProject advice and other essays—exactly like they must fail articles over non-compliance with the actual criteria, such as a failure to be reasonably complete. IMO the dispute there is not about compliance with their advice pages, but failure to acknowledge that the actual GA criteria aren't being met in some instances, and that if the reviewers looked over their advice pages, these failures would be tolerably obvious (e.g., that toll roads ought to have some information about the tolls). WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:16, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Bingo. The WP:USRD/STDS page lists the types of information and a logical method to organize it in a "complete" article on a US state highway or county road. I think we'd agree that omitting some of that information means that an article lacks "major aspects" as required by the GA criteria. My first GAN was partially failed because the headings weren't titled using the "official" titles, although there were other issues with that mid-2007 version of M-35 (Michigan highway), it still had the core topics covered. Imzadi 1979 → 18:25, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

"Major aspects" is not a requirement for GA. The requirements are given in WP:WIAGA, they do not include "Major aspects" and neither is "complete" a requirement. Pyrotec (talk) 18:35, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

But "main" aspects are. It's the same thing. --Rs chen 7754 18:39, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

{{GAList}} uses the "major aspects" wording in place of "main aspects" as a synonym. Imzadi 1979 → 18:44, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

That is one of the problems of changing the words and arguing whether something is the same of not. WP:WIAGA 3(a) states: "it addresses the main aspects of the topic", with a footnote that it does not require the comprehensiveness of a FA. So if that is what everyone is saying then I'm happy. (I hope there will not be a discussion whether comprehensive and complete mean the same.) However returning to an earlier comment, i.e. My first GAN was partially failed because the headings weren't titled using the "official" titles is somewhat worrying, is it suggesting that a WP:GAN was failed because it did not comply with WP:USRD/STDS, if so then what WP:WIAGA criteria was used to justify failure? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pyrotec (talk • contribs) 19:03, 5 April 2011

The article used a source, over which there was disagreement about its reliability. In the end, replacement sources were found and used which made that disagreement moot when it was renominated and later listed. Imzadi 1979 → 19:09, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Pyrotec, you might like to read WP:What the Good article criteria are not, which names "Imposing personal preference on reference section headings" as a mistake reviewers should avoid (due to the "Notes" vs "References" holy war). If we're getting a lot of disputes over the True™ Section Headings in articles, especially if the reviewers are failing articles over this (rather than mentioning this, perhaps as an optional recommendation, while actually failing the article for more significant reasons), then we can generalize it. I hope, however, that this was just a one-time error, rather than a pattern. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:28, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Really WhatamIdoing, what makes you think that I need to read that again (I have read it probably more times than you have)? If you care to check I've done over 400 WP:GAN reviews (well 375 reviews and 46 GA Sweeps) in the last two and a half years; and I can't recall having failed one nomination (or passed one as a result of) by "Imposing personal preference on reference section headings", but perhaps you have one in mind? Unlike you, I have no interest in basketball and whilst I have reviewed (and passed) a few US roads nomination, I don't find them all that interesting. Pyrotec (talk) 22:23, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

No, my point is that if you were told that your "first GAN was partially failed because the headings weren't titled using the 'official' titles", which is what you said, then you might like to know where to send your next reviewer.

And it's unlikely that anyone is more familiar with the essay than I am, since I wrote it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:29, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Well I've failed about 34 WP:GAN's, which is less than 10% of the nominations that I've reviewed (see User:Pyrotec/GA reviews), plus 11 out of 46 existing GANs during GA sweeps, and I'm sorry but I don't remember failing one of your nominations, but I have failed some educational assignments which had multiple authors but only one nominator, neither do I remember using the words "the headings weren't titled using the 'official' titles". I fail most GANs due to lack of corrective actions by the nominator. Since you appear to be impying above that I reviewed it, i.e. "which is what you said", which GAN nomination was your first GAN, I'd like to look at it and the associated review? Pyrotec (talk) 14:39, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

OK, I admit that WP:What the Good article criteria are not is your assay, but how much experience of the WP:GAN process do you have? In trying to find that GAN of yours that you claim I failed, it looks like you've done one (perhaps more) GAN review in March 2011, but I've not yet found a nomination; and you seem to have starting contributing to this talkpage in 2008 (but none of the GANs that I failed in 2008 seems to be yours). I admit there there are poor (abmismal) GANs reviewers about who should not be doing reviews; the problem is that there are insufficient reviewers and that under wikipedia "rules" anyone with a username can do reviews (even they have had if for less than a day, they don't know what they are doing and every nomination they that submited (if any) has been failed). Pyrotec (talk) 14:39, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

We seem to be confused. Perhaps I misread your comment. I'm not really sure that it's important enough to sort out at this point. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:05, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Folks, my example was from 2007, nothing at all recent. I mentioned it only because I've been on both sides of this issue. The point though is: WikiProjects often have very valid guidance on what should be covered in an article, and when that guidance directly complements the GA Criteria, it should not be disregarded simply because it comes from a WikiProject. Imzadi 1979 → 01:59, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Someone (unrelated to the RFC disputants, AFAICT) has now proposed a community ban (entire English Wikipedia) for Racepacket at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Site_ban_proposed_for_User:Racepacket. As editors here probably have more experience with Racepacket than average, some of you may be able to contribute helpfully to that discussion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:50, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

The AN discussion closed, with a consensus not to ban Racepacket. The RFC/U continues. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:48, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Since WP:USRD/STDS is merely an essay within a WikiProject, any criteria listed under WP:WIAGA can override USRD/STDS because WIAGA represents a much broader consensus among the entire community (where as USRD/STDS only, at best, represent the consensus from WikiProject U.S. Roads). Don't forget that USRD/STDS is an essay and not a guideline/policy, it does not have any teeth to force others (articles and/or users) to comply and conform to it. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 05:15, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

This is true, but when the standards point out a deficiency in an article (lack of a section about tolls on a toll road; lack of an exit list on a freeway) then that omission of content in the article can be a failure to comply with critierion 3 of the GA criteria. In other words, the article wouldn't fail to be listed as a GA because of the project standards, but rather as a failure to meet the GA criteria. The argument is this: WikiProject standards are persuasive, not controlling in these cases, but advice gained from them should not be unilaterally dismissed just because it comes from a WikiProject. Imzadi 1979 → 13:36, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

The RFC/U is also now closed, and I hope we can have an RFC on the question of the relationship between the GA criteria and various WikiProject standards. Again, I will follow whatever policy is in place, but I hope we can keep the GA review process one where non-experts can review articles from other subject areas. Reviewing outside one own subject area keeps the GA criteria consistent throughout Wikipedia and results in articles that can be easily understood by a reader who lacks background in a subject. Racepacket (talk) 11:52, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Reviving The GA Collaboration Project

Is anyone else here interested in reviving the GA collaboration? There are many great articles on the GA list which are almost of featured-quality. This seems to be a great way to give some of those articles the final push that they need. Tarret ^talk 16:43, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Newsletter?

Should we start up the newsletter again? I've created a draft here. Feel free to post comments/queries. Doh5678 Talk 01:16, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Last year there was some fear that the WikiCup competition would overwhelm the GA process. To address this, the 2011 rules were changed to give 2 points for reviewing a GA nomination. You might want to visit WP:CUP and grab some statistics on the total number of reviews in Round 1 and Round 2 that were preformed by cup contestants. I read it as 182 GA reviews performed in Round 1 (Jan/Feb 2011). The totals are much higher for Round 2 with Wizardman doing 42 and my doing 37. Thanks for doing the newsletter. Racepacket (talk) 11:45, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Wikicup stats are here. The sections marked "not updated live" I have just updated for y'all. Interestingly, before the update, there had been 182 reviews in round 1, and 182 reviews by cup participants in round 2. (Now there are 198 in the latter category, which covers 27 February - today. - Jarry1250 ^{[Who? Discuss.]} 21:44, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Shouldn't we just include January–March 2011 (i.e. 1st Quarter 2011)? I think the last few months will be of more importance to readers as opposed to a couple of years back. –MuZemike 01:08, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Second opinions

I don't think that we're doing a good job of advertising second opinions as a lightweight means of dispute resolution on specific points. We use this process, but there's no handy "post at ____ to get a second opinion" set of instructions. It's quicker and simpler than an individual GAR, because it is usually used for a single, specific question, like "Should this image be included?" or "Does this paragraph make sense?", rather than for broader questions ("Should this article be listed as GA?").

I believe that increased use of this process might both reduce bad experiences and also introduce a bit more consistency into reviews.

I have two ideas for doing this:

We write down the fact that this is an option in one or more of the usual places, identifying some particular location as the ideal place to make these requests.
We declare this to be a sub-type of individual GARs and encourage people to make all of these requests at the GAR page.

What do you think? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:09, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

I think this is a good idea and would encourage more people to take part as well as encourage more people to request second opinions if they're a bit unsure of something. As for the two options, I'm not sure. I'm not sure if it should be a particular place, or just keep them within the relevant GAN page, but better publicised. (Is that what you mean by no 1.? ie. keep the details of the second opinion required and any resulting discussion at the GAN page, but note that one is required at one particular location?) --Beloved Freak 20:07, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

I think a page where you can advertise for quick second opinions would be a good idea- it's certainly something I would find useful as a reviewer, and something I would be willing to watchlist and help out with. J Milburn (talk) 20:24, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Good articles on it.wiki

Hello, I just wanted to inform you that now also it.wiki has activated the "Good Article" category. The articles having this status will be put under subcategories of it:Categoria:Voci di qualità per argomento. I don't know if this will be interesting for you, but maybe you'll want to update some bots... --Gengis Gat (talk) 17:16, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

B-Class Task Force Proposal

Would anyone here be interested in creating a "B-class task force" for this Wikiproject? It would help to accomplish the following.

Go through Category:B-Class articles and find possible GA-class articles and nominate them.
Go through Category:B-Class articles and assist the associated Wikiprojects with improving articles that are near to but not yet at GA-class.
Get more experts involved in the GA review process to ensure criteria 3 of WP:WIAGA.
Ensure that quality articles are nominated for GA.

While points 1 and 2 would find GA-class articles which may have been missed by the Wikiproject I feel that points 3 and 4 for this taskforce would help make the WP:GAN process faster. This is because quality articles are easier to review, having "Wikiprojects" involved helps reviewers who may not be familiar with the topic being reviewed, and this would likely help to reduce the number of holds/second opinion requests on the GAN page. Any other thoughts on how this idea may work/be improved? Tarret ^talk 17:41, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Concerns about Vere Bird, Jr. review

(note: I am moving this section to WT:GAN, where discussion of issues such as this normally takes place. Please continue there. Looie496 (talk) 23:08, 7 July 2011 (UTC))

Language and literature and Media and journalism

Hi. I really faced a dilemna with the Bernard Levin article as whether or not to list it under Language and literature or Media and journalism. The thing is he was very much a critic and writer, which is under Language and literature but is chiefly a journalist. I'd imagine this is not the first time an overlap has occurred. Maybe this category ought to be merged to include writers , journalists and critics in one and journalists and critics in particular often go hand in hand?♦ Dr. Blofeld 14:55, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

I believe that it is acceptable to list under more than one category. Jezhotwells (talk) 11:01, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

What makes you believe that? Malleus Fatuorum 13:39, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

I was sure that I have seen that somewhere, but I am sorry - can't find the discussion. Jezhotwells (talk) 13:55, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

GA at DYK redux

Hi all, see Wikipedia_talk:Did_you_know#Good_articles_redux. I've opened debate on a possible trial of 1-2 hooks of recently-listed GAs in each set of DYK hooks (3-4/day). Discuss there. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 07:11, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Add copyvios to the GA criteria?

There's a proposal at Wikipedia talk:Good article criteria#WP:COPYVIO_not_mentioned_in_WIAGA to mention copyright violations (for text, not just for images) in the GACR. Please comment there. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:21, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, good idea. It's required of DYK entries, so the bar has been raised there. It should not be lower for GAN or GAR. Binksternet (talk) 00:21, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

So, If I were to present you with three random articles would you be prepared to guarantee that none of them contain copyright violations? Malleus Fatuorum 00:29, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

The same reasoning applies to all criteria: for example, is the content reliably sourced? As I have remarked on the GA criteria talk page, GA reviews are not guarantees: they are more like warranties or vehicle safety tests. Geometry guy 21:48, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Quite. Which is why I have objected to the proposed addition to the GA criteria. Malleus Fatuorum 22:08, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

You may not have fully digested my comment there. The GA criteria are standards, not guarantees. They should state firmly what the standards are (all GAs should be reliably sourced) and not undermine these standards with phrases like "according to reasonable efforts by good faith reviewers". Geometry guy 22:21, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

It's not your comment I'm responding, but the proposed addition to the GA criteria. The proposal was, if you recall, "I urge the addition of 2(d): It contains no copyright violations". Anyway, do as you will, it's no longer any concern of mine. Malleus Fatuorum 22:28, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

I prefer "It contains no copyright violations" to "It contains no apparent copyright violations", just as I prefer "It is reliably sourced" to "It seems to be reliably sourced". No one does as they will here, so it is vital that editors understand each other in the search for consensus. Geometry guy 22:44, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps there's a distinction here that needs to be teased out, which has been lost in the recent noise. No article should contain copyright violations, whatever level it's at, just as it should be on a subject that meets Wikipedia's general notability guidelines. But the recent rock-throwing at those (including myself) who failed to catch copyright/plagiarism issues at GAN has probably not helped to do anything other than entrench attitudes and demotivate reviewers. The issue is perhaps not so much "why didn't you spot this?", rather how do we best deal with the situation when it's been discovered. The MOT analogy is probably a good one. Nobody in their right mind would hope to succeed in a claim against a garage the day after their car was tested because the front suspension collapsed, for instance. Malleus Fatuorum 23:04, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

I have no patience for any rock throwing, and do not participate in it or condone it. The GA criteria are standards for articles, not expectations for reviewers. Reviewing GAs is difficult. Inexperienced reviewers need to be nurtured, and experienced ones encouraged to spread best practice. The guidelines should be based on such experience, and should reflect that experience with maximum clarity. Geometry guy 23:37, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

GA nomination Battle record of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington

Hi can someone else look at the GA nomination for Battle record of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington. I left a note on article talk that being a list it was not eligible by the GA criteria. This resulted in abuse on my talk and as I have commented at Wikipedia:Wikiquette assistance that I am more than happy never to review or have any other interaction with MarcusBritish in the future. Could another reviewer decide it its eligible.Jim Sweeney (talk) 18:49, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Delighted to. Pyrotec (talk) 19:36, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

This guy doesn't know what he's talking about and has been attempting to stifle the article since I submitted it for ACR - I do not know his motives, but he clearly wants to throw a spanner in the works. The article in question has a large lead section and prose based content, before the list in question. Therefore it is not a purely list-based article - there is a lot of background text that can be considered for GA. His "abuse" claim is nothing more than spin, and a further attempt to stifle my work here.. again his motives are unclear, but are clearly callous. Please consider this article for GA review on its own merits, and ignore Jim who is flashing his badge in this case. Ma®©usBritish ^[^talk] 19:40, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Do you really think your personal attacks against Jim Sweeney help your cause? I will review it against the requirements of WP:WIAGA Full stop. Pyrotec (talk) 19:46, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Oh come off it - his whole campaign to oppose this article for ACR and GA has been a personal attack on me and my work from Day One - I'm not going to stand back and take it - he's NEVER had a good comment to say to me, or on his reviews. His whole attitude has been nothing but contemptible. Anyone who can't see that has got to be blind. Ma®©usBritish ^[^talk] 19:51, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm not that interested. I will review it, but it you continue these attacks you could be banned. What is more important your work here or slagging off other editors - I don't need an answer, just think about it? Forget it and move on. P.S. I've even started the review yet. I could be blind and I could be doing this on a word to voice machine: you have no way of knowing whether I am or am not. Pyrotec (talk) 20:10, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Obviously my work is more important - so I ask you, how would YOU feel if you knew your work was being attacked by other editors utilising wiki policies in their favour, and currying admin support in order to hold back your work and prevent it being promoted to ACR/GA? That is what is happening to me, whether you see it clearly or not I am being victimised by a narcissistic editor. I am NOT attacking other editors, I am defending myself against sly attacks from malevolent editor behaviour who are in turn further twisting and spinning my retorts. Also, I did not follow your "blind.. voice machine" comment - what was the meaning behind that? Thanks, Ma®©usBritish ^[^talk] 20:19, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Jim and Pyrotec aren't admins. They are plain old editors (just like you) who happen to know a fair bit about the Good articles process. Admins have no special rights in the GA process anyway.
Nobody can actually "prevent it being promoted to ACR/GA". The GA reviewer's only choice is about whether it gets listed as a GA today. If the first reviewer personally doesn't believe that it meets the criteria, then there's nothing stopping a second, third, or 37th reviewer from having a different opinion in the future.
You said that only "blind" people would be unable to see Jim's "contemptible" attitude. The English Wikipedia has a number of editors who are blind, and their perceptions of rudeness does not seem to be impaired. I recommend that you avoid such comments in the future.

In general, you might want to think about the cooperative, human nature of a GA review. People who are friendly often find that they have more success in winning friends and influencing people—including any GA reviewers who might be on the fence about an issue in a nominated article. It's much easier for reviewers to fail articles whose noms seem to be mouthy and defensive. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:41, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Interesting, but I don't want my work to be reviewed based on "how friendly I am", ever. Articles are supposed to be reviewed according to unbiased criteria - content, context, validity, etc.. at no point does the criteria include "character". Such behaviour can only lead to favouritism, and articles being promoted out of hand. And then people start to wonder why so many people say wiki is inaccurate, unreliable, etc - when editors start influencing promotion by manipulating reviewers rather than putting in any genuine effort, it's a bad system. I don't intend to suck-up to reviewers on the fence - they should either have a valid reason to support/oppose their decision - if wiki insists that we only comment on "content not contributor", then the review process should be exactly the same.

As for my "blind" remark - you took that far too literally. It means anyone reading the comments, would have to be blind to miss the motives. I don't support political correctness, in fact I oppose it strongly - it has destroyed society more than it aids it. Anyone taking my comment the wrong way, needs to think again about the meaning not the wording before jumping to conclusions.

As this is my first GA I don't expect other editors to question the nomination behind my back, nor to oppose my nomination without commenting to me first. That is wiki-lawyering - I have a talk page for people to raise concerns to me directly, not to go sculking about, which is totally against wikis ideology. Wiki is not a place for prigs and red-tape, but for open discussion and consensus. Correct me if I'm wrong.. but wiki does claim to be a democratic site, does it not?

Whatamidoing believes that the most important part of the GA process is that we should all be nice and try to make everyone else happy. Malleus Fatuorum 21:12, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

That's not strictly true, but I am aware that the process is controlled by humans, and that humans have and respond to their emotions, even when I believe they shouldn't. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:42, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Alright, uninvolved admin here. As far as I can tell, Marcus nominated an article for GA, and Jim left a comment on the talk page that he didn't think it was eligible. He didn't fail the article. He didn't even start a GAN review. He just made a comment. Marcus told him to "mind his own biz" and called him a prig in the edit comment. Jim responded by asking him to apologize (a bit sanctimoniously, to be honest), and Marcus responded by flipping out, i.e. "arrogant, self-centred, obnoxious, Maccams who STALK my contribs, make malicious objections, and abuse their rights" etc. for another paragraph. Jim complained at etiquette central and here, and Marcus has continued to rant. Am I missing anything?

Because if not, Jim- in the future, "I will allow you to apologise for this edit summery [...] if not I will have to report it as unacceptable" comes off as condescending. Marcus was rude, true, but that's a bit passive-aggressive. Marcus- you need to chill the fuck out. Jim made a comment. You didn't need to be rude back, but whatever. But there was no need to flip out on his talk page, or start yelling about how everyone is conspiring against your article. Step back, calm down, come back later. The article will get reviewed regardless of whether Jim's a jerk, or you're a jerk, or I'm a jerk. --Pres N 21:31, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

If you have the time, please look at Jim's ACR in the second ACR for the article in question. You will see why I consider Jim rude, and I told him then that I did not like his attitude. Since then he has done everything he can to try to prevent this article becoming A-rated or having this GA - including raising a fresh Oppose on my ACR despite the fact none of his comments were practical or were more FLA standard. Point is, he is rude, abrupt and self-righteous and I don't want anything to do with him. He knows this, but because wiki is a bit wet behind the ears and won't handle such disputes, it allows him to hamper my work freely but does not allow me to protest his actions. "Sanctimonious" - good word.. All his reviews are decidedly sanctimonious in attitude, though.. and he did not like that I chose to ignore his comments or refused to apply them as he wanted. Wiki reviewers shouldn't be making demands, as he did (see the ACR to confirm this). Thanks. Ma®©usBritish ^[^talk] 21:44, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

If as you say he has done everything he can to try to prevent this article becoming A-rated or having this GA I would have started the review and quick failed it in my belief as a list it does not meet the GA criteria. You have to stop seeing everything as a conspiracy and read some of the comments above. Jim Sweeney (talk) 21:55, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Oh no, you couldn't do that - you adhere to the rule and regulations so strongly that you already know that anyone involved in the article previously can't do a GA. You've been involved in the ACR twice already, and made edits, which probably excludes you. Besides, if you opened a GA you know I'd ignore it and ask for a 2nd opinion instantly. Such is life. I also note how you repeatedly try to bait me.. and then claim I'll be blocked - cunning devil, but all too obvious to everyone. Ma®©usBritish ^[^talk] 22:02, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Look Marcus, the list is obviously a problem for GAN, everyone's telling you that, but the solution is obvious. Spin out your table to a separate "List of ..." article and convert the existing section on all of his battles to a summary of his most significant ones. Then it would be job done. Malleus Fatuorum 22:04, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Everyone? Who is everyone? I only see one person who claims it's an issue. And no, I'm not splitting the article up and writing about all those battle that wasn't the point of the article which is to give his TOTAL battles, not his most significant - it's taken me 3 months to get this far, to reach A-class, I'm not doing another 3 months just for GA, it's not worth the trouble, plus I have other things to do. It's not a full-page list, it's a 60 row table under an article - so I don't see the problem. Claiming it's a list is somewhat subjective considering the amount of prose in it. Ma®©usBritish ^[^talk] 22:12, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Then let's just wait and see what Pyrotec thinks. He's the reviewer after all, not me and not you. Malleus Fatuorum 22:15, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Jim's trivial formatting and spelling changes would not be enough to disqualify him, and his participation in the MILHIST review is entirely irrelevant (A-class reviews don't exist, as far as GA is concerned). He would have broken no rules by reviewing the nomination.

I second MF's recommendation. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:47, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Well it doesn't matter either way, I'd have ignored him and got a 2nd opinion. Already rejected MF's recommendation, no point seconding it I'm not splitting anything - it betrays the point of the article as I already said - I reiterate: The article aims to encompass Wellys ENTIRE record, not his significant battles - there are a gazzilion books on Welly's most important battles, all more or less the same content, but nothing on his entire career - this article is ground breaking and I intend to keep it that way. Why don't A-class reviews exists as far as GA is concerned - I thought GA roughly lay between AC and FAC? Ma®©usBritish ^[^talk] 23:01, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

I think the suggestion Whatamidoing was agreeing with was that we need to wait and see what Pyrotec's verdict is, not necessarily that if you want this article to reach either GA or FA you will very likely have to split it along the lines I suggest. Malleus Fatuorum 23:10, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that's right. I have no opinion on the page's contents, nor any interest in forming one. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:14, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

A-class reviews are irrelevant so far as GA or FA is concerned because they're not independently assessed, they're carried out by projects, each of which can have very different standards. Malleus Fatuorum 23:13, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Ah, ok. Well if it doesn't meet GAR requirments, there is still Featured List Class, rather that FAC I could go FLC.. personally, I'd rather not do Featured class at all - the reviews on MilHist are frustrating, I'd rather just keep it as A-class, if nothing else. Ma®©usBritish ^[^talk] 23:17, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Do whatever you think is best for the article. If you're unwilling to change it to meet the GA criteria that's fine, doesn't make it not a "good article". Little green blobs and bronze stars only mean that the article has been judged to meet their respective criteria. Were in your shoes I'd probably be looking more towards FLC. Malleus Fatuorum 23:45, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Well, an editor submitted an A-class MILHIST article, that was not a GA, to GAN and I reviewed it. I regarded it as non-compliant at GA and probably not even B-class, but I put it On Hold. No one fixed it so I failed it and referred it back to A-class review at MILHIST (I am a memember). My GA decision was "confirmed" in so far as MILHIST regraded it to C-class (see Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Lee-Enfield). A know of one other A-class MILHIST article, that was not a GA, which went to GAN at about the same time and was failed. In both cases the problem was inadequate referencing. I suspect, since you article has not been reviewed in any depth, that it will not be found wanting in respect of citations. Pyrotec (talk) 11:47, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, can you explain "I suspect, since you article has not been reviewed in any depth, that it will not be found wanting in respect of citations" a bit clearer, I didn't quite follow it, or rather the "has not" seemed to make it contradict itself to me, thanks. Ma®©usBritish ^[^talk] 15:21, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry if that was confusing. It's quite simple: I give the result at the end of the review, not the start. It be given at Talk:Battle record of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington/GA1 and Talk:Battle record of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington; and that will be either a pass (listing at GA), or a fail (not listed); I could also put the review "On Hold" for a week, or so, whilst I wait for specified corrective actions to do done, and make a decision to pass or fail at the end of that hold period. At this point, I am making a guess that I won't fail it on inadequate references, that is why I use a rather vague phrase "I suspect that it will not be failed on.....". I could have said: "I suspect that it will be regarded as compliant in respect of citations" (another vague statement, both which are a hint that referencing looks OK, but that is not definite, yet). Pyrotec (talk) 18:28, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Oh, I see - I thought you had made a mistake by saying it "has not been reviewed in any depth" - because it has gone through a Peer Review, BCR and two ACRs over the last few months, and the sourcing has been paid particular attention to be several reviewers, mainly because this is my first lengthy article and my referencing needed work, originally. See User:MarcusBritish/Library also - I can guarantee than most sources are on my bookshelf, and that all citations are true to form. Thanks! Ma®©usBritish ^[^talk] 18:36, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

GAN reviewing practices among music article editors

Folks,

In the past few weeks I've seen a number of usernames come up over and over again in GA nominations and reviews in the music category. Upon further investigation of twelve editors, I found some reciprocity in their GA review practices. I have compiled data of their GA nominations and reviews, and have presented them in the here. Obviously, I do not believe all twelve are acting in concert, nor do I believe any of the editors is intentionally circumventing GAN policies. Nevertheless, I invite your participation in the discussion at that page's corresponding talk page, as there is some disagreement about acceptable practices. Thanks. Two Hearted River (paddle / fish) 13:05, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't understand what the "Wait" row is calculating. Is it the average number of days an "on hold" is used? Generally, I think it would be nice if there was an auditor position who would audit random GA reviews and provide guidance or recommendations to reviewers. maclean (talk) 20:35, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

It's the median number of days between nomination and the start of the review. Think of it as the number of days that the nomination was available for any reviewer to claim (and consider that many wait longer than a month). Two Hearted River (paddle / fish) 21:56, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

It hardly seems like a 'gang' of 12 editors working in concert. It's more like 12 editors who are only interested in music articles. Sometimes they fail each others' GANs.
On the other hand, in the seven GANs I reviewed on music and musicians, I felt like an intruder on the one I selected that had been put up by Xwomanizerx, one of the 12 editors you listed. I pointed out big gaps in the coverage of a Britney Spears tour, and I got the impression that such gaps were accepted and passed over by other reviewers. The gap I pointed out was the absence of technical tour details such as which companies put up lighting and sound equipment, what microphones and loudspeakers were used, who were the main tour people, etc. Whole magazines in the touring industry are devoted to this stuff but it was not in the article.
If there is any bad aspect to having 12 editors with common interests it would be that they tend to become blind to larger forces. Binksternet (talk) 23:25, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Our advice on using non-required advice

Does the community need to change its advice about the relationship between the six Good article criteria and essays and guidelines not specifically mentioned by the criteria? 00:48, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Background

Good articles are assessed by a volunteer editor against the six Good article criteria. Articles that match the criteria are listed as Good articles. The GA criteria are not particularly stringent, as the goal is is to identify "good" or "decent" articles rather than Wikipedia's best articles. In particular, compliance with the vast majority of guidelines, such as WP:External links and about 90% of the WP:Manual of Style pages, is not required.

However, these non-required guidelines, essays, and advice pages written by WikiProjects often provide valuable advice, and in some cases they may inform an editor's view about whether an article meets the actual criteria.

For example, a person wishing to determine whether an article about a disease meets criteria 3(a) "addresses the main aspects of the topic" might look at WP:MEDMOS#Sections for a list of things that are typically included in disease-related articles, such as "Signs and symptoms", "Treatment", or "History". Existing advice encourages this: "For particular types of article, WikiProjects often provide helpful advice on what the main aspects are likely to be". It also cautions against overzealous application of such advice: "However, the decision to list or not list an article should be based on the GA criteria alone", not on whether these optional recommendations are followed precisely.

Why we're having this conversation

Earlier this year, some editors were in a dispute over the role of a WikiProject's advice page in reviewing articles nominated for GA status. One reviewer was concerned that project members wanted him to improperly exceed the GA criteria by requiring compliance with their guideline; members of the project were concerned that by ignoring their advice, he inadvertently might list articles that did not actually meet the GA criteria because the articles were confusing (criteria 1) or incomplete (criteria 3).

Responses

This RFC is intended as an opportunity to discuss whether the community needs to change its existing advice on this subject. Is the existing advice adequately clear to you? That is, do you believe that the existing advice helps you and other editors know how to benefit from such pages without exceeding the GA criteria? Or do you believe that additional explanations (please feel free to provide examples!) would be helpful to clear up confusion or otherwise help editors find the right balance?

(As I am interested more in "listening" than "talking" on this point, I'm going to withhold my opinion for now.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:48, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Comment I think that the needed level of clarity is beyond just giving advice on how project guidelines might be helpful; it needs to be enough to enough fend off or prevent attempts to impose project criteria as additional GA criteria. It does not appear to be at that level of clarity. North8000 (talk) 02:27, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
Comment Under Broadness it says "For particular types of article, WikiProjects often provide helpful advice on what the main aspects are likely to be." I think this is the current wording of advice regarding wikiprojects. That does not to me suggest that they should exceed the GACR, but it wouldn't hurt to emphasise this if it has become an issue. AIRcorn (talk) 23:18, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
Racepacket had been interested in this issue, and at my direct request, left a message on his user talk page about it. However, there seems to be some serious confusion about whether he's permitted to do so, with people saying that any comment at all is a violation of his current site ban, even though the actual policy says nothing of the sort. Nobody should be punished for accidentally breaking unwritten rules, and he's voluntarily blanked it. Hopefully the policy folks will get their act together some day, but if you want to read his thoughts, perhaps you'll look at this. It's somewhat more detailed than the other comments here. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:20, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
- Per WP:BAN, "The standard Wikipedia invitation to "edit this page" does not apply to banned editors," so Racepacket can't comment here during the course of his ban. Further more, the policy states: "Unless otherwise specified, a ban is a site ban. A site banned editor is forbidden from making any edit, anywhere on Wikipedia, on any account or unregistered user, under any and all circumstances, with no exceptions." Since he was banned from the site by ArbCom, it is clear that he can't comment here during the course of his ban. Imzadi 1979 → 01:43, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
  - The same policy also says that bans on editing your own user talk page are issued only to indefinitely banned users, and then only some times ("may be", not "always are"). When the people who deal with that policy make up their minds about which way they want it to go, I'm sure that they'll correct the policy to be internally self-consistent. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:50, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
Comments I think it's plainly simple that editors with experience in a subject matter area, who work together as a WikiProject, would have some generally good advice over what is needed for an article to be "comprehensive", "complete", etc and what the "main aspects" are for that given subject area. In short, while full and total compliance with the project style guides is not required by the GA Criteria, making comments and suggestions in the course of the review that reference them can be very helpful. In fact, it can be quite a time saver because the wheel doesn't need to be reinvented each time. Imzadi 1979 → 01:43, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
- For me personally if someone, Wikiproject member or not, left a comment about nomination I was reviewing I would welcome it. In fact I think this should be encouraged more, I feel many projects stay away because of perceived conflicts of interest (Milhist, Transport and some music projects seem to be the exceptions). I guess the question here is what to do if the primary reviewer, nominator and the commenter disagree. Surely the reviewer should have the final say and if the person making the comment feels strongly enough about it they can take it to community assessment. Am I missing something, this just seems like common sense to me. AIRcorn (talk) 02:00, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
  - Seems like common sense to me as well. And frankly I wouldn't be at all bothered about whether the editor was nominally banned or not so long as the contributions were helpful. Lots of editors get banned for all sorts of reasons, not always good ones. Take editors as you find them. Malleus Fatuorum 02:06, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
Comment: This seems eminently sensible. Project guidelines may be useful, but they should not over-ride the good article criteria. Sometimes , on some projects, they may have been written by a few editors, who have ignored Wikipedia guidelines. I feel that the existing guidelines should note project guidelines, but leave listing considerations to reviewers. This is especially important when considering the reliability of sources. Jezhotwells (talk) 02:36, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

GA vs. A-Class

Just wanted to know, which "class" of articles is better, GA or just plain A? CrashGordon94 (talk) 08:23, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

A-class is of a higher standard than GA, but very few projects use it. See Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment/A-Class criteria. Jezhotwells (talk) 10:53, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Neither. GA (like FA) is a Wikipedia-wide assessment process, whereas A-Class (like B-Class) is a WikiProject assessment. They are different schemes, designed for different purposes, evaluated in different ways, by different groups of editors. "GA-Class" is an artificial invention (by WP:Wikipedia 1.0) which conflates the two schemes. I would say instead "vive la différence". Geometry guy 23:45, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

WP:HWY requires an article to be a GA (and GA-Class) before it can be reviewed for A-Class. A-Class, on the WP 1.0 scale requires two reviewers outside of a formalized project review process, so I'd say that means it's supposed to be higher than GA/GA-Class. Imzadi 1979 → 01:32, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Then you'd be wrong. Malleus Fatuorum 03:31, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Generally all A-class articles are "supposed" to be GA, but there's exceptions. --Rs chen 7754 08:40, 8 October 2011 (UTC)