Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations

Top down?

How about a rule saying that articles at the top must be dealt with first? That way, we won't have people picking and choosing, creating a backlog of articles. joturner 05:27, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. jareha ^(comments) 05:44, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

I disagree and have amended the notice accordingly. The process will go more quickly if reviewers coming across this page can choose to evaluate subjects that they have interest/expertise in. Otherwise, we risk eventually having a difficult-to-evaluate article at the top, leaving the process clogged up for days. I think merely assigning higher priority to the older nominations is enough. Andrew Levine 18:33, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

How about if an article sits on the nominations list for a certain amount of time (say seven days) without evaluation, it automatically gets put onto the Good Articles list. I'm afraid articles that are difficult to be evaluated will never be nominated. Or the list will just get piled up with nominations as more people are willing to add articles to the nominations page than are willing to go through the trouble of evaluating articles and adding them to the Good Articles list. joturner 19:46, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

10-day default rule

Not a whole lot of discussion on this page, so I've decided to be bold and add information regarding a new template ({{GAnominee}}) that should make visitors to pages aware of their nominations. In addition, I've added a seven-day ten-day unconditional promotion. joturner 16:07, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Why should articles that are difficult to evaluate be granted Good status simply because no one has undertaken the effort? Pagrashtak 00:52, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Because I can imagine a backlog of articles that are difficult to evaluate (or that no one wants to evaluate). Ten days should be a sufficient amount of time. Remember that since everyone has veto power, you can always delist a good article after it has been put up. However, if you really don't like the rule, you can always change it. Note that it's on this page and the {{GAnominee}} template. joturner 01:55, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I really disagree that an unreviewed article should be listed by default. I don't see the need for a time limit, really, but if the list becomes cluttered then I'd far prefer to say that articles still there after 10 days should be removed and not added to the list. Worldtraveller 19:32, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Worldtraveller on both points. Do not move to good list by default. Do perhaps drop eventually. (Could one simply resubmit a dropped article after a drop? Before that, could one recruit an objective reviewer, if really wishing that?) Ten days is not much time. It is probably more productive (in eventually generating reviews) to leave nominations up for at least two or three months, even longer. It doesn't matter if there are 100 or more nominations (which in the long run eventually there will be). But, some drop deadline after a long time period, ok. Vir 19:59, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Agree per Worldtraveller and Vir. Allowing default listings defeats the purpose of GA, particularly since GA is often a second peer review of sorts before FA nomination. Air.dance 20:04, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Agree - the 10 day rule was a bad idea. What about articles already accepted under the 10 day rule? (Are there any?) IMHO, we should make them re-run the gauntlet. If we're concerned about backlogs we should have a 10 day rule that says that if the article hasn't been accepted after 10 days it is NOT good and has to wait 30 days before resubmitting. Better that than have junk articles be accepted as 'Good' through reviewer inaction. SteveBaker 22:04, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

One: Mammal classification. Truly the most not-reviewable article I've ever seen. I agree that ten days is way too short and two months is a good minimum before dropping it off the list. Nifboy 22:20, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

I second re-running Mammal classification since I am the one who promoted it. I only did so because it had set there at the top of the nominations list for more than 10 days, and that was policy at the time. Dmoon1 22:45, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

I delisted the article since, as of right now, one person can delist an article on his or her own. The article didn't look like good article material to me at all. joturner 23:18, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Having thought about this for a while - I wonder whether there isn't another possibility. Right now, an article gets nominated - then ultimately either ends up a 'Good Article' (because someone says so) or a 'Not-Good Article' (because someone says so). This creates a backlog when there aren't enough reviewers because there is no way to get an article off the list without someone saying it's good or not. But what if there were a third outcome? Some kind of article status that's better than 'Failed GA' but not as good as 'GA' that would apply to articles that were no so terrible that someone decided to fail them - yet not so good that someone would promote them within some time limit? You could even go so far as to award a 'goodness factor' to an article - perhaps the average score from however many people chose to give it a score. OK - let me do a proper proposal... SteveBaker 12:30, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Suggestion for a better way to award GA

Proposal - Articles that are freshly nominated go onto the bottom of WP:GAN as they do now. Each person who reviews the article gives it a percentage score. 0% percent being an article that should be nominated for deletion. 100% being that this reviewer would give the article FA status if it were nominated today. 50% being the criteria for 'Good Article' status. Each reviewer appends their own percentage figure to the description of the article on WP:GAN with at most a one-line rationale (eg: "49% - good article but no references provided" or "70% - needs more pictures"). When the article has been here for 10 days - we average the scores. If an article was not reviewed by anyone, it gets an automatic 50%. But we don't give an automatic, blanket 'Good' status. We use a 'Bronze/Silver/Gold' medal - bronze if it's 50% or more. silver if it's over 65%, gold if it's over 85%. Articles would be permitted to be renominated if they fail or if they only attain bronze or silver after a minimum of 10 more days.

I think this would work better than the present system because:

1. There is less pressure put upon reviewers. I'm loath to reject articles out of hand when they are marginal - and I'm nervous of promoting something that might be controversial. So I tend to read them and say to myself "I don't feel qualified to either accept or reject" - so I do nothing. However, if I could award it a 65% score then I'd probably do that for every article that shows up on WP:GAN.
2. The system is less open to abuse. Right now, a single person can accept or reject an article for purely personal grounds. What if there is a Pokemon hater here who rejects all pokemon articles 'just because' - or a StarTrek fanatic who has a strong bias to promote all Trekkie stuff regardless of quality? We have zero safeguards right now.
3. It gives shades of goodness. With the proposed system, authors of articles that get a gold medal should consider going to WP:FAC. Authors who get only a bronze will be aware that they have a shot at FA but need to do a lot more work to get there. Articles that get a flat zero can be recommended for deletion.
4. It allows articles that people can't review (perhaps because they are deeply technical or something) - but which aren't obviously terrible to get at least a bronze medal - rather than being simple rejected.
5. It gives some sort of quality metric to the discerning reader.
6. It prevents backlogs.
7. If the system turns out to work well, it could become a requirement of FAC that the article already has a gold medal.
8. One reviewer might give the article a controversially high or low score - but the rest of us would see that and make extra efforts to check articles with suprisingly high or low scores. This would allow more people to contribute realistic scores and bring the average back into a sensible range. However, people should be cautioned against using a higher (or lower) score than they would otherwise give it just to outweigh some random vandal.
9. Keeping the list of nominees short gives a bigger chance that every article will get at least a cusory read over by several reviewers.

SteveBaker 12:30, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Eugh. Voting. Percentages. Democracy. Ew. No, I think you'll still have the problem of people not wanting to review certain articles. Check out WP:AA; it went fine for natural disasters, extinct mammals, and '80s comedies, but African countries? It's come to a screeching halt now. Only four reviews of 15 different articles in nearly two weeks. Nifboy 18:12, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree that there is no way to force reviewers to review difficult articles. Short of paying them to do it or threatening to shoot their pets if they don't - I don't see a way to do that. So what do you do about hard-to-review articles? My proposal says that they don't get rejected - and they don't get a gold medal - but something in between. SteveBaker 04:12, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

But not all hard-to-review articles are equal, nor is the quality of the article constant once they're rated. My problem with numerical analysis is that articles are dynamic, and improve over time. Unless you want to repurpose GA to be a part of WP:STABLE... But numerical ratings are asking for trouble in the form of articles being nominated for re-rating every few edits. Nifboy 05:34, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Then what is the point of reviewing anything - or awarding any kind of 'status'? If you take the view that giving an article a numeric rating is impractical because it may change - how can you justify giving it a 'Good/Not-Good' rating or a 'Featured/Not-Featured' ? There has to be some idea of relative constancy - most non-controversial articles change rapidly until they are reasonably correct - then level off and see only minor changes and corrections. There are (of course) articles that undergo titanic upheavals from time to time - but those are just as likely to change from 'Good' to 'Junk' or 'Featured' to merely 'Good' as they are to change from 65% to 50%. Note that I don't suggest we 'award' a fixed numerical score to an article - I merely wish to use it as a way to allow more than one person's opinion to count in GA/N and to award shades of quality rather than a strict up or down decision. SteveBaker 06:58, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Subject sections

I've split the nominations into a few sections. Maurreen 20:00, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't think the split really serves any purpose here. That is unless we split the articles using the same categories as the main good article list. However, there are so many categories there and so that would be over-the-top. joturner 20:13, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Importance of Article Count

Is the number of articles up for nomination really important? People constantly forget to update the nomination count (and the split sections will only make that worse). I think we should just remove the pointless piece of information. joturner 20:09, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

The Simpsons

The Simpsons article has been GA nominated, despite already having this FA nomination. This seems pretty strange to me, is this really necessary? Poulsen 15:39, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

• Given that I see only one "support" and like ten objects and/or opposes, yes. Nifboy 15:56, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
  • You've gotta have references - even for a 'Good Article' - so given the FA comments, there was very little point in posting it again here without fixing the problems. (OK - now you have references! Carry on, don't mind me!) SteveBaker 17:52, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Labatt Park

As I can reconstruct things, Labatt Park was nominated by User:BoojiBoy here to be accepted by the same user 15 hours later here. I've gone ahead, removed the GA status and relisted the article. Poulsen 22:32, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Failing nominees without reason

I've noticed a few fails recently, particularly Data (Star Trek) and Padmé Amidala, that were not given any rationale on the talk page of the article in question. I don't think that's very helpful and is actually listed as a requirement for failing an article. Thanks. Jumped the gun. Air.dance 23:57, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

I though that too, but if I you check the history of each talk page you'll see a small notice below each FailedGA template. Poulsen 00:03, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Ah, you're right, I didn't see that. I wonder if there should be a requirement to list it under its own header? Air.dance 00:05, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

It would be a good idea. I noticed the same thing too. However, I would say that failing an article without reason can just be reverted outright. Titoxd^{(?!? - help us)} 00:07, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Second opinion?

I recently failed Queen (band), and subsequently got screamed at which actually made me feel really bad.. Anyway, the point was that I got screamed at for failing someone's "amazing" article.. these were my complaints:

== Recommended changes ==

1. Inline citations shouldn't be bulked together
2. Explain terms "arena rock", "hard rock", "glam rock", "heavy metal" and "progressive rock"
3. Fix this grammar error - "metal, and progressive"
4. Do not use terms such as " later in the article", either use "see below" or link
5. Explain the term, "commercial music video", explain that it means "music videos"
6. Remove minor "crest" information from the introduction

1. 1. Prose band members and "As instrumentalists" into paragraphs
   2. Replace terms such as "(e.g. "Sheer Heart Attack")", via prosing using words like "such as" or "including"
   3. Don't use italics for long sections of paragraphs
   4. When listing members (in the second section) use "*" if you plan on not prosing
   5. Don't repeat words, "able to create strange and unusual sound effects" & "able to create sound effects with his guitar that were so unusual".
   6. Be bold, avoid terms such as "He added some special instruments here and there".
   7. This is a very poorly written section " he played each chord separately in a different take, then the producer merged them to form the entire part.[11]"

1. 1. 1. The History section is a brick, split up into different sections rather than a huge area with dates seperating the wall. Eg - "The Beginning" (1968 - 1970s)
      2. Avoid terms such as "(aka Wreckage)", use book English instead.
      3. Don't use words such as " kicked off".

(I'm not attempting to dig through this paragraph, I guess you can get the idea).

1. 1. 1. 1. Prose these findings or ad in a Wikitable.
         2. Don't stockpile inline links.

Further Points

1. Convert chart numbers into a wikitable
2. Remove "fansite links", example "one of the biggest Queen sites "

This article still has a long while to go, but keep working! --Highway 16:56, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I got screamed because of it.. and the nominee replaced it again. Second opinions? Highway 21:09, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, let's look at your criticisms:

1. Inline citations shouldn't be bulked together -- Fixed.
2. Explain terms "arena rock", "hard rock", "glam rock", "heavy metal" and "progressive rock" -- These are links - if someone needs explanation, it is but a click away.
3. Fix this grammar error - "metal, and progressive" -- Whether to put a comma before the 'and' in a list is debatable. WP:MOS allows either way.
4. Do not use terms such as " later in the article", either use "see below" or link -- Fixed
5. Explain the term, "commercial music video", explain that it means "music videos" -- Gone
6. Remove minor "crest" information from the introduction -- Still there - I agree that it's a bit detailed for the intro - but this is "Good Articles" and not "Featured Articles" so I think we could let that slide.
   1. Prose band members and "As instrumentalists" into paragraphs -- Disagree - it's easier to read with sub-sub-sections for each artist.
   2. Replace terms such as "(e.g. "Sheer Heart Attack")", via prosing using words like "such as" or "including" -- Fixed
   3. Don't use italics for long sections of paragraphs -- Fixed
   4. When listing members (in the second section) use "*" if you plan on not prosing -- Fixed
   5. Don't repeat words, "able to create strange and unusual sound effects" & "able to create sound effects with his guitar that were so unusual". -- Fixed
   6. Be bold, avoid terms such as "He added some special instruments here and there". -- Still there - this didn't bother me too much - but I guess it could be improved.
   7. This is a very poorly written section " he played each chord separately in a different take, then the producer merged them to form the entire part.[11]" -- Not fixed, I agree that words like 'nailed' don't belong in an encyclopedia. This could be better written.
   8. The History section is a brick, split up into different sections rather than a huge area with dates seperating the wall. Eg - "The Beginning" (1968 - 1970s) -- Not fixed, I agree it's a bit indigestible.
   9. Avoid terms such as "(aka Wreckage)", use book English instead. -- Fixed
   10. Don't use words such as " kicked off". -- Not fixed - I agree that htis is a bit informal.
7. Convert chart numbers into a wikitable -- Not fixed
8. Remove "fansite links", example "one of the biggest Queen sites " -- Not fixed - I agree, this is contrary to the MOS on external links. This is a VERY common failing of Wikipedia articles and it's hard to tell 99% of people that it's wrong. Take a look at Lego for example...it passed as an FA - and the list used to be over a hundred links long!! (It's shorter now).

So - what's the score?

Out of your original 18 criticisms, 11 of them are either fixed - or unjustified according to MOS - or sufficiently debatable that I, personally disagree with you, 7 problems remain where I agree with you that there is a problem - and it hasn't been fixed.

So - are those seven things sufficiently serious to warrant de-listing? I'm not sure.

For sure though - you should go back to the talk page and offer words of encouragement and thanks for promptly fixing two thirds of the serious problems.

I agree that this wouldn't make Featured Article - but I really think it's in pretty good shape for a 'Good Article' - I think it meets all the GA criteria.

IMHO, you should leave it on the GA/N list and let another (dispassionate) reviewer decide whether to accept it or not.

SteveBaker 00:31, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

The nominee replaced it, and it was failed by someone else within about 20 minutes. I agree it's on the way to a good article, but the nominee needs to kinda let it go just a little bit. Highway 18:16, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

I guess if the nominee had attended to most of your concerns in a prompt manner - there isn't really a reason not to resubmit it quickly. I'd be very concerned if the article had been renominated WITHOUT taking account of your complaints - but that really wasn't the case here. Anyway - if someone else re-removed it - then at least there was a second opinion - and hopefully that person had the courtesy to explain why it needed to be re-removed on the article's Talk page so that the editors can fix up the next round of issues. SteveBaker 20:15, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, User:CorbinSimpson did it, there's a discussion on his talk page between him and the nominee. By the way, what's the lowest the nomination list has been? I had it down to 29 yesterday, and then there's about 4 more added.. so many articles.. so few hardasses :P Highway 13:14, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Unbureaucratic?

What happened here? Last I remember, Good Articles was a simple place to record that an article was better than average. Now, we have reviews, good articles failing to become Good Articles, processes, bureaucracy etc - in other words, it's just like FA :) Queen (band) recently failed because it was "poorly written". Bohemian Rhapsody similarly. I wish all Wikipedia articles were this "bad". Stevage 18:21, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

It is still relatively unbureaucratic by WP standards! And Good Article still isn't a top-quality hallmark; it is, however, a useful sign that an article is on the right track. Interestingly the original format was exactly the same as the original Featured Articles (originally called "Brilliant Prose") mechanism! As a quality-assurance measure it has moved on to requiring a two stage nomination-review process (which was the step that FAC moved towards before it adopted its current form), but it still (a) only requires two people to go through with a promotion, (b) still only requires one person to delist a good article and (c) the criteria used for assessment have not been strengthened (though they have been clarified in some cases). The WP:WIAGA conditions are, and always have been, in some respects stronger than the featured article criteria were until relatively recently! So long as criteria exist, it is no surprise that some articles are deemed to have "failed" them. Another good thing about the new "bureaucratic" system is that it is acting as an informal peer review - WP:Peer Review has been very slow recently, with relatively little feedback coming back, and that is often unstructured ("this article is pretty good, well done" isn't terribly cuseful). The fact that a reviewer has a checklist of things to look for (e.g. are the image tags up to date?) means that the project channels specific and actionable insights from previously uninvolved editors back into articles at a rate greater than many other WP processes. I remain optimistic about the potential of this project both to identify quality content, to improve existing content (especially articles that fall just below WIAGA criteria, but also those articles that get promoted but still get actionable feedback) and to act as a motivational token of congratulations to those editors who produce quality but not necessarily featurable content. TheGrappler 18:44, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Yeah. I was going to make the point that Queen's article had more written about it because of GA than it had in peer review! Nifboy 18:49, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

My ears are burning! I am tough on GA candidates, yes, but Queen (band) and Bohemian Rhapsody failed on fair grounds. Queen was failed by two seperate people and Bohemian Rhapsody had 2 improper sentences in the intro! You can see all my reviews here, as you can see I'm not prejudicing against Queen. I am somewhat of a Grammar Nazi, most likely because I'm an in-training journalist, so I tend to think about grammar and word choice etc. Bohemian Rhapsody was actually one of the better articles, I could sit and read the big chunks (I can lose steam after the 5th College career of a dead baseball player at 11pm) of the article, which allowed to find more information. Well I'm sorry if everyone has a problem with my reviewing style, leave comments if you have a problem. Thanks, Highway 21:21, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Hi, Highway - I'm not criticising your reviewing style, I'm making a scapegoat out of you :) No, seriously, I think you apply the criteria fairly and justly, I just believe that the criteria are too harsh for what was a deliberately lowered standard of quality for "good articles". Certainly, there should be criteria that must be met - but these criteria should, IMHO, be generous enough to allow, say, 10% of WP articles to pass. But I am clearly outnumbered. :) Stevage 08:52, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

It has to be said that neither Queen nor Bohemian Rhapsody are genuinely bad articles. A lot of people criticise the GA project because many of its articles are actually, in their opinion, pretty bad, but I guess these people don't spend enough time looking at stubs/cleanup/random page. In my opinion the content of WP is getting better all the time - I come across far less EB1911 text dumps now, while the standard of the featured articles has also improved incredibly since the criteria have become more rigorous to pass. It is my view that criteria actually raise standards, especially if there is an incentive to meet them (e.g. GA/FA status) and the WIAGA criteria are both pretty tough (in so far as 95% of articles don't meet them) and eminently achievable (in that every WP article could, with work, be brought up to that standard). We ought to acknowledge that most articles will never go through the FA process simply because it is so strenuous and many editors have other things to do! Therefore we need a relatively unbureaucratic alternative. I wouldn't want to see the good article noms page turn into an equivalent of featured article candidates! TheGrappler 09:16, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

I do think the process is very unbureaucratic. As I read articles I find many that I think are well written, referenced, have images and are stable but are too short to be FAs, I stick them on the nomination page, and without any further input from me they either get a helpful dose of suggestions on how to improve them, or they get listed on the page. Great! The simplicity of the process doesn't mean, thought, that the criteria don't need to be met. 'Good' is not just 'better than average', but 'worthy of a place in a version 1.0 of the encyclopaedia, even if it's not among the 0.1% of article that are our very best'. I personally am quite harsh if I review GA candidates and I'm glad to see others are as well - the end result of detailed reviews is that the article ought to get better. Worldtraveller 20:31, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Still, we ought to be wary of instruction-creep, I guess. However, at the moment, the system seems to be coping with the weight of the nominations (it hasn't ballooned to a 2 month reviewing delay and a 200+ articles-to-be-reviewed list) and doing fairly well with quality assurance (those articles that have been removed from the list tend to be ones from the pre-nominations page days). Therefore, there's no real need to meddle with the system, unless we can see a very good reason to do so. TheGrappler 17:55, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Update count

Part of the approval process is listed as : Remove it from the list and update the nomination count at the beginning of the section. I removed the article from the list when I was done, but couldn't find a count. Either I missed the counter on this page in which case in needs updating (I found the one on the GA list easy enough), or the instructions need to be fixed. I would be bold, but its best if someone double checks that I wouldn't be just adding a second mistake to the first if I did get it wrong. -- Sfnhltb 01:12, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

The nomination count is on the good articles page, and most likely the one you updated. There's one right next to the list of articles in parentheses and one at the top of the page in bold. There is none on this page. joturner 02:56, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Sfnhltb is right to be confused - I spotted the problem a couple of days ago but forgot to change it (too busy browsing elsewhere!). I've edited the instructions now; there was a hangover from a system where there was a nominations count too.TheGrappler 03:00, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I had a feeling that notice might have had something to do with the previous system where there was a counter on this page, but it kind of seemed like it referred to the count on the good articles page. But it's good to have a clarification. joturner 03:02, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

This page specifically listed 3 (!) counters to be updated - nominations count on this page, section counts and the total count on WP:GA itself. I've cut out the reference to the nominations counter, so hopefully all is well now! :) TheGrappler 03:53, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Organization

I know it's been shot down before, but couldn't we try filing the nominations under headers? Not each individual category, the major broad ones, or we could even group the smaller ones. If we did that then people could find nominations on certain topics easier, and we might get quicker/more reviews. For example, I can't bear an article on Atom splicing in astro physics, but I'd enjoy reviewing a music article instead. It's just an idea, flame away Highway ^{Rainbow Sneakers} 16:16, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I wouldn't mind that at all I don't think. Maybe we could try splitting into science, arts and humanities at first and see what we think? I'd review the atom splicing article but probably not the music :) Worldtraveller 19:58, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Can we do that.. like now (or verrry fast) because we're getting close to about 50 articles.. which is a LOT. Could some be bold? Highway ^{Rainbow Sneakers} 20:14, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Done! The sections are: Sciences, History (merging with Arts), Arts, Humanities and Geography. Hopefully this will cut down on build up. Highway ^{Rainbow Sneakers} 21:08, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Everything is fixed, dates organized, Art and Histoire merged, I've changed the instructions and I've managed to make the web link jump to each sub header. Let's hope it works, Highway ^{Rainbow Sneakers} 21:18, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

These four categories are workable. But, a note explaining where some subtopics fit could be helpful. Or, perhaps an edit to the cateogories. I see social science articles under both science and humanities. Hence, I lengthened the title of "Humanities" to "Humanties and Social Sciences". I also think that it is a good idea to add Technology to Science and so will do that. What do you think? -- Vir 00:34, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I included maths with the science and technology - though we don't seem to be getting many maths articles full stop! TheGrappler 00:40, 8 April 2006 (UTC) And some other stuff didn't seem to fit easily - I turned arts into media, arts and sport to reflect what was getting put there. I also included education with humanities. Does this all make sense? Personally I was happy enough with the great big list, but there you go! :) TheGrappler 00:44, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I think this list needs subcategories because it is easier to find information in smaller chunks. More that 20 items becomes a bit difficult to scan quickly -- especially for those with tired or worn out (by age) eyes (and brain). Eventually, as the nomination list grows, we may need at least 2 identical top levels of category structure on the nomination and good article pages. I tweaked your edits. Media, arts and sport --> Arts and media. Sports go best with society under Humanities, society & social science, I think. -- Vir 00:54, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Makes sense... if I was nominating a university now, though, I wouldn't know where to put it, and if I was nominating a sports player, it's not obvious to put them under society. I might just make that slightly clearer without changing the way things are split up. I liked the way the single list made it dead easy to nominate stuff, now it's kinda hard for several topics. I don't think the noms list will grow. Historically it's generally oscillated between about 20 and about 60. I think it tends to go down rapidly at weekends, for instance. Basically, the number of reviewers has tended to grow with the number of nominators, and (especially since they are often the same people) nominations often dry up once people are busy reviewing their way through a queue. I've certainly seen no evidence that the list will ever spiral out of control! TheGrappler 01:05, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

It is early on in the life of the GA list and Wikipedia too. It seems possible that the number of good article candidates will increase 10x and even a 100x over the coming years. Consider: In what pace will Wikipedia move from quality in almost 2000 articles to quality in 20,000 and then 100,000 and more articles. It will could do so by involving ever more editors increasing the depth of the stream of good quality articles. As for specifying society -- I was thinking of a footnote. Putting some key topics in parens is good idea. I'll build on that. --Vir 01:55, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

By specifying society (as economy, education, family, history, language, law, politics, religion, sports, war) it becomes clear that society includes most everything (including the institutions of the sciences and arts), as society is a universal term for human institutions. So, the question comes up then: should Humanities (along with language, law, and religion) ---> Arts & Humanities (instead of Arts and Media)? I could live with that. We would then have the categories below (back to first level): -- Vir 02:09, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Proposed top level categories

• Arts and humanities (history, language, law, media, philosophy, religion)

• Earth sciences and geography

• Natural sciences and technology (applied sciences, engineering, mathematics, medicine, transportation)

• Social sciences and society (economy, education, family, politics, sports, war)

I think these are more balanced and inclusive. These could actually serve as top level categories on the GA page as well. What do you all think? -- Vir 02:09, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

On inspection, the above seem much preferable to both a single word structure and to the current front page category structure, with humanities, social science & society being ungainly, that I'm going to include the above in one more iteration of polishing these categories. -- Vir 02:15, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

War is in social sciences and society, but history is in arts and humanities... seems a little odd! But at least now I think it is more obvious where stuff goes. What about language and linguistics? Society I guess... my big problem with this is that previously it was dead easy to nominate something. I appreciate that stuff is going to grow tremendously in the long term (by and large I've been responsible for adapting and breaking down the featured article subsections at WP:GA-it is really hard to break stuff down logically) but I think that we need to make this system as easy as possible for the casual user. If it's going to be tough on anybody, it ought to be the reviewers not the nominators (especially true since at the moment we could do with finding more GAs and the review queue is still well under control... in future, more concentration will have to be on purging the list for quality control rather than just adding to it). Looking through a list to spot if there's anything interesting to you doesn't add a lot to a reviewer's workload, especially if you start combing at the top of the list (there's no need to look through all 50 or so nominations). On the other hand, I can see this nominations system becoming seriously offputting to people coming across WP:GA for the first time. TheGrappler 03:05, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, perhaps people could enter new suggestions under a category titled "new nomination" (instead of "miscellaneous"). I made that edit and moved it to the top. With this structure, someone can come along and easily drop in a nomination. Then, someone else can categorize new nominations later. (I bet there would be volunteers.) This gives a three step process: nominate; sort; review. That way it is more easy on nominators and reviewers (with "tired" eyes and slow brains). It will be easier to categorize articles later. This will especially be the case as article voluem goes up and when the 2nd level of 20-someting categories go in. Regarding categories: Humanities are an eclectic category that seems somewhat arbitrary. But, this is not entirely so. History is both a humanity and social science -- sometimes history is narrative and sometimes it is more analytic in social science mode. Languages are organic cultural phenomena that really belong in the humanities. Linguistics is a social science. Law sometimes is put in humanities, but it probably belongs more in society. Philosophy should be over in society. The french do it better: They have the human sciences. The above are not entirely arbitrary distinctions. Social phenomena are both consciously subjectively lived and objectively analyzable. A category system needs to be sensitive to these distinctions (but not to the point of obsession, especially in a context like this one). But, it doesn't hurt to have a well designed category system and a helpful way to use it in place early on. Ps. I went ahead and moved history to society as well -- it really fits better there. I added literature to the arts category, computing to the natural science and tech subcategories (dropping applied sciences), and made earth sciences subcategories. I referred to the categories on the GA page while doing this. --Vir 04:20, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I've no strong feelings either way for the new category system. However I'd just like to note that when making changes to this, editors need to remember to keep the section number up to date within the Your addition here link. Cheers. SeanMack 08:12, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

If the what was towards my point - I meant these: your addition here. The section number in the url needs to match the actual section number. If new categories are added or removed this is relevant... ''[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Good_articles/Nominations&action=edit&section=7 your addition here]'' SeanMack 10:10, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

What? Anyway, "History" should be in Arts because you can become a "Bachelor of the Arts in History" and I personally think that "War" is part of History because most wars are ancient. We could move History and War to Arts (but only as History) and add Military to Society. Thoughts? Highway ^{Rainbow Sneakers} 09:57, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Now where does psychology go? (Sorry, still utterly confused, but the last few edits have made it all a bit more intuitive) TheGrappler 13:32, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I would put it in Arts because I think there's a Bachelor of Psychology.. otherwise I think it would go in society. Highway ^{Rainbow Sneakers} 16:04, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Psychology is a social science and should stay in that category. History is part liberal art and part social science, so it can go wherever. I an thinking that geography and history should go together -- for three reasons. 1. They are "indexical" bodies of knowledge -- they locate society and people in the world, one in space and the other in time. 2. Historical and geographical "holistic" methods that are used in the natural sciences, social sciences and liberal arts. 3. I created a collection of basic category sets that groups history and geography together and I think combining the two works well in various categorization contexts see: Category sets. So, I'm going to make that revision. Wonder what people think? --Vir 14:39, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Difficult reviews

Recently, despite the length of the lists, articles at the top haven't had much of a lag, suggesting that the review system is working well even for "tough to review" articles (a situation some had feared when we were experimenting with auto-promotion after a time limit). However, there have still been some suggestions (see above) that at least in some cases, more than one person should get involved in making a review. What would make sense to me is for a reviewer who finds a case borderline (and therefore might not want to make a decision on that article) to take the article to the the disputes page and get some more feedback there - as it is, that page works a lot like a "review" page anyway. It might be a good place to send exceptionally borderline cases if you want more input while making a decision. Any thoughts? TheGrappler 22:44, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I think it's more n00bs and anons promoting difficult articles more than them being easy which is kinda worrrying.. If I have a difficult article, or want one reviewed again for any reason (they come up), I normally ask another reviewer to review it, which is normaly CorbinSimpson. An idea is that everyone could get a review partner to deal with stuff like that. We could also have a fortnightly/monthly FAC style thing and we could tackle all the hard GAs together. It's not what we want I know, but it is a good way to deal with the tough cases, Highway ^{Rainbow Sneakers} 23:11, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Personally I don't think one person reviews are effective for longer articles (say 15-20kb or more). I'd prefer it if we didn't handle them at all, rather than getting into a more complicated review system. If an article warrants being 20kb or more long, it really deserves the more rigorous reviewing of an FAC, I reckon. Worldtraveller 17:40, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Or you could send it to me. :P By the way, how can you find out the length of an article in KB? Highway ^{Rainbow Sneakers} 17:47, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Limits

Do you think we should have a limit to the amount of articles a user can nominate in one day? While I have no problem against more nominations, I know have failed 90% of SeanMack's article nominations and he tends to add in bulk..

Now the new person Kingboy.. something nominated 8 articles in one minute... very promising Highway ^{Rainbow Sneakers} 11:06, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm hardly new - I'm actually an admin and have over 10,000 edits. I nominated a bunch of articles relating to The KLF that we have been working diligently on (see Category talk:The KLF for how this has evolved from a few shoddy articles into a comprehensive, encyclopedic mini-WikiProject). They're all imho a serious cut above the average popular music article (and as the founder of WP:Beatles I can tell you they're better than the average Beatles article too). Your comments would suggest you haven't even looked at them??

As for numbers, it shouldn't be a problem if the system works as advertised, that anyone can pop by and rate an article. If it's going to be restricted to a team of reviewers (either through policy or because other people aren't reviewing) and a backlog develops, then a limit of nominations per day would certainly be something to consider.

(Sorry for putting my response in at the top but since I'm mentioned by name...) --kingboyk 12:12, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

You have failed many articles that many others would have passed. We all know there is no consistency as only one person does the pass or fail. I certainly don't have the patience to do a tally of pass versus fail for myself or anyone else. When Worldtraveller set up the project the instructions and the remit were simple. Now the project has instruction creep and higher and higher standards. I felt in the past that you were reviewing GAs with something approaching FA standards. You moaned when someone quite rightly stated this to you. I do appreciate the efforts you have made as you put a lot of effort into the reviews. Don't get me wrong - you do very thorough reviews, which is to be commended. That is mainly why previously I said nothing about the harshness of your reviews, I feel I have to mention it now though since you are personally criticising me for an alleged 90% fail mark of nominations. I was trying to nominate mainly things that I believed should have been in an encyclopedia as opposed to fancruft. My opinion is that if something is borderline then nominate it. At least it gets a review and some decent criticism, hopefully to improve and get back on the list. It's not as if I nominate every article I see, there are many articles that I have added references to - in order to make them acceptable for review. Others I have added a no references tag to then ignoring, and others still I have bookmarked to work on later. By all means make some limits, but think carefully why you are making these limits... Are they per person? What is the time for the limit? Why does the project need a limit on nominations? If people think I nominate crap then it should be easy to dismiss the rest of my nominations. On consideration, given how your remarks have made me feel, perhaps I have become too attached to the project and should move on before comments like yours get to me. It's only the internet after all....SeanMack 11:59, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry Sean, it's just from where it stands in my eyes, you don't seem to put a great deal of thought into what you nominate. Although we give detailed analysis, we aren't a substitute for peer review, Highway ^{Rainbow Sneakers} 12:50, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

And if you ask me, the reviewing group and the rest of the project are very far apart, Highway ^{Rainbow Sneakers} 12:52, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

I too am sorry, if you had just asked about a limit we could be discussing it, instead you chose to single me out for criticism to an extent I feel obliged to defend myself.

Basically what we have here is a fundamental difference of opinion. Since GA is new and finding it's feet, that is to be expected, what I object to, is your implied suggestion that I am clogging up the works by nominating only crap articles. And stating I am not thinking about what I ask others to review.

I can tell you that I have thought about the process a lot and the types of articles we really should be encouraging. Do you want to see GA being mostly made up of favorite albums and pokemon characters or would you rather it has encyclopedic content? I saw other nominations and thought that fancruft would prevail unless there was something to counter it. Bearing in mind we have a great system that is FA for approving and validating articles to a high standard I don't see the point in replicating that. However on the other hand we also have a project in WP 1.0 that is attempting to trawl around to identify articles that would be part of a baseline encyclopedia. That may be well in the future and it may be burned to DVD - that is not my concern. My concern was to address the lack of standardised encyclopedic content that is a bit of a problem in wikipedia given it's patchy nature of excellence here and dross there. I don't think you could possibly say that any of the articles I nominated was dire. Or do you. Many articles I have submitted have been accepted. I am not sure what your point it to be honest. Is it because I have nominated articles that you think are not good or is it because you believe I am clogging up the list with crap?

Where I think you are right is that a GA review is not a substitute for peer review. Peer review and article assessment and FAC are all parts of a process to get articles to a standard where we can all stand over them and say the are high quality and verifiable. GA is not part of that process yet so no point kidding ourselves that it is. It is new and is not accepted policy. However it is a line in the sand, and hopefully a marker of an article that is readable and informative. Others have criticized GA for not making it's threshold much higher. What is the point of having a second inferior FA process? Maybe then GA should be replaced by a "featured shorts" process and we forget all about what we are doing here?

Where you are wrong is in your assumption that I have not thought about my nominations. Every nomination I make is because I think the article is relevant to a body of work. I may nominate more than you prefer that are borderline but that is a different debate. I would actually accept that not every article I nominate is "the best it could be" to quote a U.S. phrase. However my opinion was that each article was either there or close. Those that were close, at least have had a review and contributors now know how to make improvements to the article. Including myself, where I to choose to adopt the article. Viewed in the context of WP 1.0, my opinion is that getting more articles to a base level is more important that offending your sensibilities by nominating too many lackluster articles.

I am not sure what you meant by the reviewer group and the rest of the project are very far apart. Rather than assume the worst as I had done I'd appreciate it if you clarified what you meant. Other wise it sounds like you see yourself as a reviewer to be a breed apart. On that note I have reviewed some articles as well as nominating many. To me one embodiment of a good article is Bali Nine. It was enjoyable and comprehensive, not to mention current. What more could I ask from an online encyclopedia? Yes an FA could be cited in a school project or essay – but I for one do not want wikipedia to be solely a dry academic entity.

In short, I can assure you I appreciate the time it takes to review the articles, that is not a reason to have fewer nominations. My main aim is to raise the profile of articles that I believe need to be at a certain standard for wikipedia to be taken seriously. There actually are a lot of good articles out there and I for one like the idea that we can group them together. Verifiability can be taken care of by FA in due course. However breadth of coverage needs to be tackled from many different angles. That is why I also added the Vital articles list to the GA template. Kind regards. SeanMack 15:04, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

The point I was trying to make was that you tend to wander through articles, nominating them, without even editting them. I can appreciate the point of improving the "Vital Articles" (thank you by the way for having a go at the fact I added my "fancruft" entry which is one behind the lead "fancruft" entry in about 500 articles?) but you don't edit them! I sometimes wonder if you even look at the article you're nominating... Highway ^{Rainbow Sneakers} 15:31, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

I wasn't intending to reply much after I had made my points above, any more is just tit-for-tat which I really can't be arsed with - I mainly want to say I wasn't having a go at you - to me the danger of fancruft is having lots of well written articles that are of limited importance to the man/woman in the street. I have no idea what you are talking about in regard to your entry. I have no idea what you nominated. Please don't take my own defence against your criticism as an attack on you. Lets get back to doing the encyclopaedia. I've said my piece, think what you want from here. If you looked at my contributions you would have seen that I have edited lots of articles to include pictures and references where necessary. However in most cases I have been looking for the "low hanging fruit". Simple answer, don't review my noms. If I see that other people agree with you I don't nominate any more. Easy. Cheers SeanMack 15:54, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

STOP! Hammertime!

It would be cool if people chilled out a bit and didn't include anything that might be interpreted as a personal attack. Now, personally, I have found that SeanMack's nominations tend to be articles of substantial length, almost always excellently illustrated (and usually with image tags all present and in good order), and with references and footnotes. That means that they are at least prima facie good article candidates. "Well written" is a question of degree and a little subjective, but I've never seen SeanMack nominate an article that was genuinely poorly written. Sparkling "brilliant prose" is lacking from most articles, not just SeanMack's nominations! I don't see why it should be compulsory to edit an article to nominate it, although if a nominator (or for that matter, a reviewer - I think it can come across as rude to say "here's a list of typos/grammar mistakes I found, now go fix them yourself!") finds some copyediting that needs doing, or a categorization that could be improved (you'd be startled at how many U.S. educational institutions aren't categorized under their county, for instance) then it would be neat if they could be added. Neat, but not worth making compulsory! Similarly, I don't see why anybody should have a limit put on number of nominations. So long as the nominator believes the page being nominated is pretty well-written, appropriately illustrated, fairly comprehensive (it's often possible to judge this from length), doesn't have an obvious POV problem (worth checking talk pages for that) then lets assume good faith... if you're sick and tired of reviewing a particular nominator's nominations, then you have the right to slack off and not review them :-) If you're reviewing an article that is a no-hoper, then there's no need to write a massive review (if I find an article that is a no-hoper, I might only make a few comments, like "before this article can be listed, it needs its images to have appropriate copyright tags and it needs references to back up its assertions about X, Y and Z; also the lead could do with being lengthened to give a better summary of what the article's about"), give a bunch of handy help links (WP:CITE, WP:LEAD etc) and leave the page be. I've made a valid constructive criticism, given some help (some useful advice, and perhaps a brief copy-edit) - I've done everything that anyone can expect of me without going to too much effort to do it, which I would class as an all-round win really! So, my general advice is don't make work for yourself, try not to get upset about other people's good-faith nominations, and there's no obligation on you to review them if you don't want to. If all the nominations here were so good they all passed, then it would be impossible to judge where our actual standard was! TheGrappler 16:30, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Geography and history

History is part liberal art and part social science. So is Geography (which includes human geography). I think that geography and history should go together in a top category, for three reasons. 1. They are "indexical" bodies of knowledge -- they locate society and people in the world, one in space and the other in time. 2. Historical and geographical "holistic" methods are used in the natural sciences, social sciences and liberal arts. 3. I created a collection of basic category sets that groups history and geography together and I think combining the two works well in some well-balanced categorization contexts, see: Category sets. Please see link if you have criticisms. So, I made that revision. Two other benefits of this is it makes the society list shorter and, by including history as part of a top level category (which it deserves even at 4 basic categories), this avoids the unresolvable debate about whether history belongs with the arts or the social sciences (since it is both). --Vir 14:47, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Removal of GA nominations

I wonder on what grounds things can be removed as GA? I have worked pretty hard on the article Richard Francis Burton and it was given GA status a few days ago and then this was removed a few days later on grounds I consider pretty dubious (see the talk page) -- including the claim that some sentences I wrote myself "I'm afraid such pasages have been copied directly from some biographies without even editorializing." --Richard Clegg 00:32, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure, by the fact they never tagged it as a delisted.. I wouldn't trust it too much. If you put it back up for nominations and it passes again we'll leave a note saying it passed twice and not to delist it without proper reasoning. Highway ^{Rainbow Sneakers} 10:37, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Lists

What's the procedure for lists. Can the GA be given to them? savidan^{(talk) (e@)} 11:56, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Did you try going to Featured Lists first? Right now the only list on GA is List of Mega Man weapons, which is entirely prose; not a list in the traditional Wiki sense. Nifboy 15:27, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

As far as I can see, any "true list" meeting WP:WIAGA actually is likely to meet the featured list criteria, so long as it is tidied up a little! TheGrappler 17:25, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Well-written and cited historical timelines (basically lists of events in paragraph form) would definitely qualify for good article (as well as Featured List). Davodd 00:54, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

How about something like List of Catholic American entertainers? It's fully sourced, at the very least. Mad Jack O'Lantern 01:01, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

For something like that, I would suggest a little more context in the prose as to what the quotes are from and to maybe tablize it - with the inclusion of relevant photos of each person. -Davodd 09:51, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Hmm... good ideas. I might just do that. Mad Jack O'Lantern 17:37, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Curse Words

DO NOT add articles with curse words to the good articles list!!!—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 879(CoDe) (talk • contribs) .

Right... spam. Highway ^{Rainbow Sneakers} 22:12, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

• Wikipedia is not censored Jaranda ^{wat's sup} 22:39, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

• Please explain why we should ban certain words and how you propose to do this. Please make sure your proposal and justification are compliant with the WP:NPOV policy and the WP policy against censorship. You will also need to develop a reliable test to determine exactly what is and is not a "curse word" in a way that gets WP community consensus. You also will need to define the various flavors of "curse words" and their acceptability. (EXAMPLE: Are "curse words" that are part of a title of a work of art or literature more appropriate - and deserving of a loophole to the ban - than words that are included in prose of an article regardless of relevancy to the topic discussed?) This will require an easy-to-understand process that applies to all English-speaking cultures and subcultures and dialects of English. It seems daunting to me, but if you are willing to take on this task and are open to accepting the community consensus, whether you agree with the final outcome or not, then I applaud you. But, I do not support an action of discrimination from a WP editor in the form of a decree - as if from on high - that something is not acceptable (regardless of quality) just because she or he finds the subject matter or the proper words required to identify it to be personally distasteful. - Davodd 00:46, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Who should be allowed to delist articles?

There is a dispute going on whether everybody should be allowed to delist nominated articles. Anjoe came up with the question, Why should partial editors be able to fail an article when they cannot pass it? I'd say, that because this nomination is about finding "good articles", even a partial editor can consider "his"/"her" article bad, but no editor should pass "his"/"her" articles. What do you think about that? The suggested change is in the "For reviewers of currently nominated articles" section in the subsection "Fail":

If you see an article below under "Nominations" that you haven't significantly contributed to and that you don't consider to meet the criteria. Raphael1 10:36, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

It cannot be acceptable to allow any one person who has edit-warred over an article to have a veto over its GA status. Also, people who "fail" an article should *not* report that on the article talk page as "this article hsa failed" to make it appear objective - they should accurately report "*I* have failed this article" William M. Connolley 12:00, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

If there is a consensus against my opinion, the article should be changed on another place as well, which reads "everyone has veto power", so it's consistent again. Anyway, I just used the suggested template for leaving a reason on the article's talk page, which says, that the Good article nomination has failed. Raphael1 12:25, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

It is quite strange, if not absurd, to allow a person who have started edit-wars against consensus over an article to complain that the article in question is unstable and therefore cannot even be nominated as a GA. Wikipedia:Good articles/Nominations is all about letting impartial editors decide the merits of an article that has already been nominated. I believe it is in the spirit of the project to let a nomination stand until an editor like that comes around. --Anjoe 12:42, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

I haven't been involved in edit-wars on this article for a long time. Raphael1 13:29, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

"A long time" now being about a half an hour ago. --Anjoe 14:36, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Since you don't let me delist the article, I'm trying to follow Wikipedia:Good_articles/Disputes point 2. Raphael1 18:01, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Independent of who started an edit-war, an edit-war is a NPOV defeat and a clear sign, that no consensus has been reached. Raphael1 14:14, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

The consensus has been reached and you know it. Those who disagree with it are starting edit wars. You happen to be one of them. -- tasc ^talk_deeds 18:08, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

I know, that a supermajority decided in February to show the cartoons on the article and a lot of editors showed their disagreement since then. Please read WP:NBD. Raphael1 18:25, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

I would agree that people who are heavily involved in an article shouldn't be able to fail it immedietly, just list them for nomination or dispute. Homestarmy 18:15, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

I am very much glad you agree. But please know that if anyone involved in this good-article project wants to revert my edits to the 'rules' or change them, I wouldn't put up a least of a fight. I don't want to make changes you guys cannot approve of. It just seemed contraintuitive to me that someone apparently would be able to do as explained above, - so I closed the "exploit" - but of course only as a suggestion. Yours truly/--Anjoe 20:56, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Cool off people!

The issue is resolved, the article has been passed by a third party. Highway ^{Rainbow Sneakers} 16:23, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

@HighwayCello you seem to have a very selective understanding of what constitutes vandalism. How comes, that you regard my edit as vandalism and this edit not? Raphael1 16:50, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

When did I say it wasn't? You're being propostorous. Highway ^{Rainbow Sneakers} 16:52, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Well - according to WP:VANDAL neither Anjoes nor my edit constitutes vandalism. Raphael1 18:16, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

(bangs head off keyboard) Anjoes was editting to update the page to align with the Rules. That is allowed. You reverted this without consensus from the community and acted on your own whim. That is vandalism. Highway ^{Rainbow Sneakers} 18:19, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

How can one update the rules to make them align with the rules? WP:VANDAL#What_vandalism_is_not: "Some users cannot come to agreement with others who are willing to talk to them on an article's talk page, and repeatedly make changes opposed by everyone else. This is a matter of regret — you may wish to see our dispute resolution pages to get help. However, it is not vandalism." Raphael1 18:25, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

The nominations page has it's own rules that aren't decided here. They are decided by the GA WikiProject. Anjoes was changing the nomination rules to align with the WikiProject rules. Highway ^{Rainbow Sneakers} 18:27, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Please give me the link, where that WikiProject rules can be found. Raphael1 18:45, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Why don't you look at the top of this topic. This was what it was about before the Mohammad article ran wild. Highway ^{Rainbow Sneakers} 19:09, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

No, this was the change Anjoe unilaterally made, before I even started the discussion here. Raphael1 21:00, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

I have tried to change the the sentence "everyone can nominate good articles, and everyone has veto power." to "everyone can nominate good articles, and every impartial editor can pass or fail the nomination.". This is in no way building on some kind of wish to go against consensus, I am only acting on a remark above by Raphael1 that called for consistency to the rules. The "changes" I made to the rules on the 22. april, was never meant to be changes as such, but only to close for an otherwise unforseen exploit - as explained above. And as there only have been positive signs from people working on this project on this, I conclude that my 'uddates' indeed was within consensus. If you disagree please argue your case here. YT/--Anjoe 20:32, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

"I am only acting on a remark above by Raphael1 that called for consistency to the rules" is one of the most disingenuous statements I've had the misfortune to read on wikipedia. You know very well that Raphael1 does not want you to unilaterally alter the GA guidelines to be consistent with your edit of 22-April. And to claim that, because you seem to have managed to convince User:HighwayCello that your edit was reverting to the original (when in fact it was a significant change to long-standing rules, intended to favour your position in an edit war with Raphael1), that "there only have been positive signs from people working on this project on this" is equally absurd. Finally, the fact that you describe a deliberate feature of the system as "an otherwise unforseen exploit" simply demonstrates a lack of understanding about how wikipedia works. — JEREMY 20:50, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

I prefer the rule that way, I never had any opinion to start with. It begun when Raphael changed the guidelines. Cheers, Highway ^{Rainbow Sneakers} 20:45, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

It did not begin when Raphael1 changed the guidelines, and it's very easy to confirm that. Have a look at the article for any time prior to Anjoe's edit on 22-April and you'll see the original wording. — JEREMY 20:52, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

We agreed on Anjoe's new version. Raphael reverted that. Making it Raphael that started by reverting against the agreed version. Highway ^{Rainbow Sneakers} 20:53, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Who's this "we", Highway? I see no agreement; please cite the relevant diffs if you disagree. — JEREMY 21:00, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

So wait, who stands by what side now on this whole thing, it looks like most of the comments now are just arguing about "when it all started"? Homestarmy 21:01, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

• "It cannot be acceptable to allow any one person who has edit-warred over an article to have a veto over its GA status."
• "It is quite strange, if not absurd, to allow a person who have started edit-wars against consensus over an article to complain that the article in question is unstable and therefore cannot even be nominated as a GA."
• "I would agree that people who are heavily involved in an article shouldn't be able to fail it immedietly, just list them for nomination or dispute."

There are no Objects that are clearly obvious. Now if you will please stop complaining about a stupid article about a cartoon and stop wasting your time either arguing over whether to fail something or not. I reviewed the article so it's GA status has to do with me, no one who thinks it should be delisted because of the pictures. Now it's just common sense that if you shouldn't be able to fail an article because you disagree with content. Failing an article and removing the nomination are the same thing, now stop. I am ending this. Highway ^{Rainbow Sneakers} 21:08, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

So then, the wording on the nominations instructions can change now without accusations of edit warring? Homestarmy 21:36, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

It's staying at whatever version says that you can't fail an article if you are a major contributor. I'll fix it now, and it should stay this way because it's the best policy. Cheers, Highway ^{Rainbow Sneakers} 21:49, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't agree. Everybody should be allowed to fail it. I'd like to have only articles in the list, where everybody agrees that they are good. The "exploit" Anjoe was referring to has never actually occured, since I haven't been involved in edit-waring for at least a month before I failed that nomination. Raphael1 22:29, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Pardon my French but what the F*ck does "consensus" mean to people? I'm going for another third party opinion because obviously I'm not an admin so I'm not qualified to mediate anything. Highway ^{Rainbow Sneakers} 22:30, 26 April 2006 (UTC)