Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/guidelines

Good article reassessment (or GAR) is a process to determine whether articles that are listed as good articles still merit their good article (GA) status. GAR can also promote articles to GA status, but this has been infrequent occurring occasionally following delisting from GA status or after failing a good article nomination. GAR can sometimes provide more feedback for delisted articles or failed GA nominations. However, it is not a peer review process; for that see Wikipedia:Peer review. The outcome of a reassessment should only depend on whether the article being reassessed meets the good article criteria or not. Before attempting to have any article de-listed through reassessment, take these steps: Fix any simple problems yourself. Do not waste minutes explaining or justifying a problem that you could fix in seconds. GAR is not a forum to shame editors over easily fixed problems. Tag serious problems that you cannot fix, if the templates will help reviewers find the problems. For example, it may be helpful to add a {{verify credibility}} tag after a source you think is dubious. Do not tag bomb the article. Make sure that the problems you see in the article are actually covered by the actual Wikipedia:Good article criteria. Many problems, including the presence of dead URLs, inconsistently formatted citations, and compliance with 90% of the Manual of Style pages, are not covered by the GA criteria and therefore not grounds for de-listing. There are two types of reassessment: individual reassessment and community reassessment. An individual reassessment is initiated and concluded by a single user in much the same way as a review of a good article nomination; it is primarily used to reassess the status of current good articles. A community reassessment is used when there has been a breakdown in the processes of nomination, review, and an individual's assessment. In that case, an editor requests a discussion on the good article status of the article, and that discussion is listed on this page. When consensus is reached, the discussion is closed and the status of the article is updated accordingly. edit guidelines

Individual reassessment When to use this process Use this process if you find an article listed as a good article which does not satisfy the good article criteria. Make sure you are logged in; if you are not a registered user, please ask another editor to reassess the article, or request a community reassessment. If you have delisted the same article before, or are a major contributor to the article, please ask another editor to reassess the article, or request a community reassessment. Check the good article criteria to see which criteria it fails to meet. For problems which are easy to resolve, you might try being bold and fixing them yourself. How to use this process Add {{subst:GAR}} to the top of the article talk page and save the page. Follow the first bold link in the template to create an individual reassessment page. Leave a review on the reassessment page detailing the problems with the article in comparison to the criteria, and save the page. If appropriate, add maintenance templates to the article. Transclude your review onto the article talk page by adding {{Talk:ArticleName/GAn}} to the bottom of the last section on the article talk page: you need to replace ArticleName and n by the name of the article and the subpage number: this is most conveniently done by copying the name of the subpage and pasting it into the edit window. Allow time for other editors to respond. Also, please notify major contributing editors (identifiable through article stats script), relevant WikiProjects for the article and, if recently GA reviewed, the reviewer. The {{GARMessage}} template can be used for notifications, by placing {{subst:GARMessage|ArticleName|page=n}} on talk pages. If the article still does not meet the criteria, it can be delisted. To do this, remove the article from one of the lists at Wikipedia:Good articles; then remove {{Good article}} from the article and the {{GA}} template from the article talk page, if there is one, or update the {{ArticleHistory}} template on the talk page. Change any project assessments on the talk page. To close the reassessment: if there is no {{ArticleHistory}} template then replace the date in the {{GAR/link}} template with five tildes and add the result as a "status" parameter, so that the template has the form {{GAR/link|~~~~~|page=n|status=result}}, where n should be replaced by the number of the reassessment page (e.g. 2), and result should be replaced by the outcome of the reassessment: either "kept" or "delisted". If there is an {{ArticleHistory}} template then update it and delete the {{GAR/link}} template.

Community reassessment When to use this process Use this process when a disagreement over an individual reassessment or review of good article nomination cannot be resolved among the editors involved. If you believe a current good article does not meet the criteria, try reassessing the article yourself (an individual reassessment), and only request a community reassessment if a disagreement arises. If you disagree with a delisting or failed nomination, read the review first. If you can fix the concerns, find them unreasonable, or the review inadequate, it is usually best to renominate the article at Wikipedia:Good article nominations, rather than requesting a community reassessment: there is no minimum time limit between nominations! It is rarely helpful to request a community reassessment for an article which has not had a proper review: simply renominate it. Requesting reassessment during a content dispute or edit war is usually inappropriate: reviewers are rarely content experts, nor can they reassess a moving target. Wait until the article stabilizes and then consider reassessment; if significant instability persists for more than a couple of weeks, then reassessment on the grounds of instability may be considered. How to use this process Add {{subst:GAR}} to the top of the article talk page and save the page. Follow the second bold link in the template to create a community reassessment page (this is a subpage of the good article reassessment page). Append your reason for bringing the article to good article reassessment, sign it, and save the page. The article should automatically appear on this page within an hour. Please notify the most recent GA reviewer. Also, please notify major contributing editors (identifiable through article stats script) and relevant WikiProjects for the article. See below for how to contribute to a community reassessment, and how to close one. Depending on the situation, reviewers may move mountains to list an article as a GA, or they may simply endorse a fail, or suggest the article be renominated. See also: Alphabetical list of previous community reassessments

Guidelines for reviewers. Please consult the good article criteria before you comment on whether an article should have its status changed or not.

All suggestions for improving articles are welcome, but criticisms not based on the good article criteria do not ordinarily disqualify an article from good article status. Note also that if an article is listed here, it almost always means that someone considers it to be of good quality, so if it does not meet the criteria, an explicit explanation is more likely to be appreciated than a general comment that the article is inadequate. Furthermore, reviewers should feel free to fix problems with articles under review if they wish: this is not regarded as a conflict of interest, and may encourage regular editors of the article to engage more actively with the reassessment process. Good article reassessment is not a deletion discussion, but many of the guidelines for contributing to such discussions (such as the essay on arguments to avoid) contain useful advice. Any registered user can list or delist a good article (see above), but for articles listed here, please follow the archiving guidelines below for closing discussions and changing the status of the article.

Guidelines for community reassessment discussion.

Please also see the individual discussion guidelines that may also apply to a community discussion. Begin by consulting the good article criteria before commenting on whether an article should have its status changed or not. When a community reassessment has run its course, it can be closed by any uninvolved registered user. (Significant contributors to the article are "involved", as are reassessment nominators, unless the closure involves withdrawing the nomination; editors are not usually considered to be "involved" unless they have contributed significantly to GA disagreements about the article prior to the community reassessment.) Reassessment discussions which are still active should not be closed unless there is a clear consensus for a particular action, or more than four weeks have passed since the reassessment was opened. All articles should be listed for at least seven days, unless there is a procedural mistake and a GAR is not appropriate. The clearer the consensus, the sooner the discussion can be closed. In particular, it is not recommended to close any discussion that has a comment less than 2–3 days old, unless at least five editors have expressed an opinion the editors' comments demonstrate a very clear consensus. However, discussions which have lasted more than 4 weeks can be closed with no consensus: in this case the status of the article should remain unchanged. Closing a discussion requires taking responsibility, determining the consensus of the editors, and taking action where necessary. Consensus is determined by weight of argument rather than counting votes: for instance, the article may have changed since being listed for reassessment, and some comments may no longer be applicable. Compare the comments made in the discussion with the current state of the article and with the criteria for good articles. If there is a clear weight of argument that a current good article does not meet the criteria, then it should be delisted. If there is a clear weight of argument that a delisted good article or failed nomination does meet the criteria, then it should be listed as a good article. If there is no consensus, consider adding a new comment rather than closing the discussion, to see if consensus can be found. If in doubt, leave notice that you intend to close the discussion, and wait 2–3 days for further comments before closing. In particular, strongly contested discussions, where consensus is difficult to determine, should only be closed by those with more experience of reassessment discussions.

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