Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Joe Biden/1

Joe Biden

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review

Result pending

One of my main focuses here is the reassessment process, and I am the main contributor in this area. My attention was drawn to this article following a post on the Good Article Reassessment talk page. I am not happy with how that individual reassessment process was conducted and feel that it needs to be reexamined through a community one. My main concerns are.

• That it should have gone through the community reassessment process in the first place. Articles where the decision of the nominator is likely to be controversial should be brought to the community for discussion. This is particular true for controversial or partisan topics with a sudden surge of interest.
• Stability was brought up as one of the main reasons for delisting. My feelings on this criteria are that it is important for reviewing an article nominated for Good Article status as it gives the reviewer a stable version to review. When delisting however the opposite applies. A lot of Good Articles undergo bouts of edit warring and other forms of content dispute. That doesn't mean they suddenly are no longer good articles. Generally we wait for the dispute to end and then assess the article. In fact one little pet peeve of mine here is when the Good Article process is used as a tool during a content dispute. Even if we take the stability criteria as read, at the time of reassessment the article was fully protected. You can not get more stable than that on Wikipedia.
• There was not an adequate explanation of how the article fails the criteria. Neutrality was brought up, but it was never explained how the article failed the neutrality requirement. This was despite various other editors asking. The purpose of a reassessment is to give interested editors the chance to fix problems with the article. To do that they need to know what the problems are.

I don't know, or really care, if this article is kept or delisted. What I do care about is that it is given a chance. I do not feel that was the case in the recently conducted reassessment. I know there was a lot of delist !votes there, but this is not decided by a show of hands. What is needed is a break down of the failings which allows any interested editors the chance to resolve them. Also since this is likely to attract editors not that familiar with Good Articles it probably bears mentioning that the requirements are not as strict as many think (see Wikipedia:What the Good article criteria are not). AIRcorn (talk) 23:22, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Pinging commentators at Talk:Joe Biden/GA3 @Mz7, CaptainEek, Coffeeandcrumbs, MelbourneStar, MONGO, ConstantPlancks, Vfrickey, Vanamonde93, UserDude, and PackMecEng: Sorry if I missed anyone. AIRcorn (talk) 23:35, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

• I do not disagree with the claim that the initiator of the GA reassessment should have used the community process as opposed to the individual one, given the contentiousness of the article and the probability of a controversial outcome. With that being said, the article does fail the stability criterion of the good article criteria. This criterion states that the article should not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.
  Joe Biden is an active politician and a presumptive nominee for perhaps the most contentious political contest in the United States—as more information about his candidacy becomes known, so too must the article change, and since more information is coming out day-by-day, so too is his article changing day-by-day, with more than 50 edits in the last week alone. New content disputes are being contended every day on the article's talk page, many of which involve neutrality and quality of sources, which are also central aspects of a good article. I would reject the argument that because the article was fully protected at the time of reassessment, the article "technically" met the stability criterion—the article so poorly failed to meet the stability criterion that an administrator had to forcibly cause it to do so.
  I agree that if the content dispute was just a one-off thing that resolved itself in a month or so, there is no need to start a good article reassessment, and I sympathize with the complaint about good article reassessments being used as tools during content disputes. However, when the content of an article is subject to dispute after dispute, lasting several months, I think that should raise doubt as to whether the article is truly stable. We do not necessarily need to wait until the article is stable before reassessing whether it is in fact stable. Respectfully, Mz7 (talk) 00:02, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

I should note here that I am open to persuasion. Perhaps I am being a little jaded after trudging through all the recent contentiousness on the talk page when I closed the RfC. I figure the content of this article is changing on a day-to-day basis, and probably will until after the election is over. With that being said, if it is just a one-off dispute (i.e. the Tara Reade allegations) and there isn't anything else pending, then perhaps I am wrong. Mz7 (talk) 00:19, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Historical perspective: Barack Obama was FA through both his 2008 and 2012 presidential elections and throughout his presidency; John McCain was GA and then FA throughout his presidential campaign in 2008; Mitt Romney was GA and then FA throughout his presidential campaign in 2012; and Hillary Rodham Clinton was GA throughout her presidential campaign in 2008 and then FA throughout her presidential campaign in 2016. The same kinds of things that you have seen, and will see, with the Biden article this year – edit-warring, RfCs, claims of NPOV violations, momentary lacks of stability – are the same kinds of things that all these articles saw back then. But it did not prevent those articles from gaining and keeping their reviewed status, nor should it automatically cause this article to lose its reviewed status. This GAR should be about specific, detailed, concrete issues identified with this article – this fact here is wrong; that source there is weak; the prose in such-and-such section has inappropriate tone; this important topic has insufficient coverage; that not-so-important topic has too much coverage; etc. – and whether they can be remedied. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:36, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

The article either meets GA or it does not. Just because other articles did not get a reassessment has no bearing on this one. Right now because of the drastic changes, the RFCs and heavy discussions on controversial subjects, and rapid large changes to the article it fails stability. Full stop. Perhaps down the road it can be re-run though GA and might even pass. But as it stands there are stability issues and maintenance tags that require a lot of work to address. PackMecEng (talk) 03:34, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

• Arguments that claim noncompliance with WP:Article length, WP:NPOV, presence of maintenance tags, edit warring, and instability resulting in full PP and DS with 1RR restrictions should not be the criteria for delisting a GA is inadvertently making those failures the criteria for maintaining an article riddled with problems as a GA, and that makes a mockery of the entire GAR process. I see it as a slap in the face ^(hyperbole) to those editors who have worked hard over the years to promote, review and/or maintain GA articles to assure our readers the article actually does meet the criteria for GA. I hope the community will agree as others already have in the original GAR or we risk losing the dignity and significance of having on any article. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 11:05, 23 April 2020 (UTC) ^{Adding that the accusation by the OP is fallacious in regards to my motives for delisting as being partisan or anything but good faith, or that I, in any way, attempted to politicize the GAR process. The same could be said of the effort by those who are trying to pretentiously maintain its GA status, and a much stronger argument when the article clearly fails to meet GA criteria, so please, let's not politicize GAR - I would/have felt the same for any article in any topic area and my actions had nothing to do with partisanship, as my non-partisan view is further evidenced here. 11:32, 23 April 2020 (UTC)}
• Oppose delist. Completely concur with AIRcorn's assessment of why we're here again, and thank them for opening this discussion. I'd like to point out: at the time of this GAR, just like the previous GAR a week ago: no edit warring, no article protection, no article disputes (some will class an RfC as a dispute; 1. collaborative encyclopedia, 2. BLP matters ← good to get community input on both of those). Likewise, at the time of this GAR's opening no specific neutrality concerns have been raised — oddly enough, just like the GAR preceding this one. As such, I don't believe the article should be delisted. I am happy to be convinced otherwise, as long as editors can provide specific examples. Also, for the previous nominator to speak of a "slap to the face" and making a mockery of the GAR process... I would urge them to keep a look out for a WP:BOOMERANG. The only reason we are here is because they did not adequately explain the reasons as to why the article should be delisted in the first place — despite others specifically asking them to, might I add. —MelbourneStar☆^talk 15:04, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

• 29 April: editors endorsing a delist of this article have failed to provide examples of any of the issues they've discussed. Neutrality? no firm examples whatsoever. Edit warring? none post the PP. PP? temporary, to assist an RfC on a BLP matter. DS/1RR restrictions? WP:ARBAPDS, look at FA Hillary Clinton. It's rather disingenuous for editors to suggest a problem, yet fail to pin–point where exactly that problem is, leaving it unfixable. —MelbourneStar☆^talk 04:53, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

• I'm not a GAR regular and I've been adminning in the topic area, so I'm not going to take a position on delisting. But I do want to share some perspective into what I suspect might be going on.
  I believe Talk:Joe_Biden#RfC:_Should_this_article_include_Tara_Reade's_criminal_complaint_against_Joe_Biden? and the coincident page protection were deeply frustrating to many users. We've seen that frustration play out in several forums already. The issue was complicated because at the time the RfC started, many mainstream news outlets had not yet picked up the story, making it a questionable BLP issue. I suspect that many of the people trying to include the allegation in the article felt that their views were being actively censored by other editors and the admins who protected the article. (I believe this was true of Atsme too, who was liberally using big words like "stonewalling", "whitewashing" and "censorship" in the related talk page discussions.) I don't want to invalidate the frustration people probably feel, but I do wonder if strong feelings related to the Tara Reade thing might be coloring people's view of the rest of the article. Afterall, if there's this big group of editors and admins stonewalling coverage of the Reade allegation then certainly the rest of the article must suffer from that bias.
  In any case, I think it would be unfortunate if the GA process became politicized. GA shouldn't be a bone that partisans can fight over, but something that encourages and facilitates article improvement. For that reason I would encourage User:Atsme to follow the instructions at the top of Wikipedia:Good article reassessment by pointing out specific actionable problems and tagging the relevant sections, paragraphs, or sentences where appropriate, instead of simply demoting the article to a "C" and moving on. And I would encourage others who might weigh in here to take the time to read the article top-to-bottom and jot down a list of problems that need fixing. Whether the article gets a or not is unimportant. What matters is that the process results in actual article improvement. ~Awilley (talk) 22:02, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

• @Awilley: Perhaps you should read all the issues people have raised here and at the previous discussion. They have been laid out several times by several people in several ways. Please stop trying to color this as a partisan issue when nothing supports that misguided view. Also stop personalizing comments about editors, it is less than helpful. PackMecEng (talk) 22:19, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

• Only here as I was pinged. I respect that many GAC reviews are diligent and attempt to provide a good review, but question why one person can elevate such an article pretty much unilaterally but one person cannot delist it when "keep" arguments are weak (how an article can expand 4 fold and be expected to meet the earlier review a decade ago is beyond me) I am however well versed in Peer review and the FAC process with more than a dozen articles in which I was the primary editor and another 30 in which I was secondary that I do not even list on my userpage. This article FAILS GA due to the lack of stability. I think Atsme has adequately explained this previously at the GAR and since she is someone like others with background in GAC, FAC, etc. its not like they are some clueless noob about it. Comments about how the Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton (I was a participant in that FAC) "survived" being successfully challenged for their ranking while they were in the limelight are fair, but that could also mean that we had less diligence then than we do now. I find @Awilley:'s assumptions of bad faith regarding Atsme's efforts to also be troubling. Awilley seems to be saying that Atsme did not get her way so she decided to extract revenge...that is a pretty powerful accusation. Here is my recommendation: Allow the GAR to stand as "delisted" and in a month or two after gathering comments, place it again at GAC and see if anyone wishes to reexamine it and promote it back. GAR is not the same thing as FARC, where an article is reexamined by numerous folks and time is allowed for appropriate changes to perhaps keep it listed as FA. The instability, edit warring, good faith claims that the article lacks neutrality of this GA is more than enough reason since it was a GA, to demote it. Everyone should carefully read once again the criteria of a Good Article here.--MONGO (talk) 23:37, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Historical perspective II. Here is an example of a GAR being done for an article about a candidate in a presidential race, in this case Martin O'Malley during the early stages of the 2016 presidential campaign – Talk:Martin O'Malley/GA2. (It's one I remember because I'm the one who did it.) The GAR does not rely on general claims of edit-warring or instability or NPOV or article growth over time. Instead it lists a number of very specific faults, omissions, and other issues with the article. When there were no responses after a couple of weeks, the GA was removed. Had somebody done work to remedy the listed problems, the GA could have been retained. This is the approach that makes sense to me. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:35, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Further clarity for the reasons given to delist per GAR procedure: Also see Talk:Joe Biden/GA3 for the initial delist discussion.

1. The article is unstable - immediate fail. The article is currently under PP, DS with a 1RR restriction which is a clear indication that it is a locus of chaos now, has been for a while, and will continue to be for some time to come. When instability is caused by vandalism, we do not demote GA/FA promoted articles but the same does not apply to the instability this article suffers as the result of conflicting views and challenged material. The topic area has -0- influence because the same behavior occurs in other topic areas, and at times where it is least expected...such as a dog or fish article.

   • Response: "The article is currently under PP, DS with a 1RR restriction" — the article falls under the scope of WP:ARBAPDS. That includes FA article Hillary Clinton — which has the same restrictions. —MelbourneStar☆^talk 03:35, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

2. This article is plagued by edit warring - immediate fail. The argument that edit warring is expected in controversial articles and should not affect current GA status is an invalid argument to not delist as is the argument that there hasn't been any edit warring in a while, and the reason follows: this article has PP, DS, and 1RR restrictions that are not conducive to WP's open platform which is lauded for it's design that encourages article improvement and neutrality.

   • Response: Please provide recent examples of this article being "plagued by edit warring". I would be curious to see if they are in relation to the BLP matters which resulted in full-PP. —MelbourneStar☆^talk 03:35, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

3. The article has neutrality issues - immediate fail. See Talk:Joe Biden/GAR3 - neutrality speaks to POV conflicts that raise questions about content and compliance with WP's core content policies. Until a consensus is reached that resolves the neutrality issues, the article unequivocally fails GA criteria and should be delisted.

   • Response: Please provide examples. —MelbourneStar☆^talk 03:35, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

   • It took some time for the cautious Obama and the blunt, rambling Biden to work out ways of dealing with each other.[204] This is placed right after a maintenance tag. Username⁶⁸⁹² 03:37, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

   • Hardly POV, if anything awkwardly written like a story as the maintenance tag describes. Would need to be rewritten, though. Can you please provide a list of NPOV examples? because if there are blatant NPOV breaches, we all need to be made aware of them so they can be fixed. I would further be happy to delist if there's plenty of NPOV issues -- as implied within both this and the previous GAR. —MelbourneStar☆^talk 03:45, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

4. The article is not well-written per GA Criteria 1, as it contains too much detail, trivia, and promotion; e.g., things like his early life college football, and/or noncompliance with MOS:LEAD which states: The lead should stand on its own as a concise overview of the article's topic. It should identify the topic, establish context, explain why the topic is notable, and summarize the most important points, including any prominent controversies. Also, the article is currently 88 kB (14495 words) vs the 2008 article that was promoted to GA with 31 kB (5122 words). In its current state, the article is unwieldy and should be split per WP:Article length.

   • Would splitting his Senate career and/or his vice-presidency into seperate articles be a good idea? Username⁶⁸⁹² 14:15, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

5. The article still has maintenance tags and needs more but maintenance tags tend to be removed when instability is an issue and 1RR prevents removed tags from being restored. PP and DS w/1RR are deterrents that have a chilling effect and results in disincentivizing editors from contributing.

   • Response: I don't see why you wouldn't be able to tag where necessary if it's needed. I certainly wouldn't remove a tag (I'd be curious to see who would, especially if it's needed). Further, in the context of a GAR: we need to know where things need to be fixed. —MelbourneStar☆^talk 03:35, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

• Hopefully the above list will provide the clarity needed. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 14:00, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

I would say that the above did provide clarity, though perhaps not in the way Atsme intended. Much as I dislike bolding in this manner—it's effectively shouting—I think it's important to point out a basic fact of GAR that is being overlooked: there is no such thing as an immediate fail at GAR. There just isn't. At GAN, there is (the WP:GAFAIL, cited by many people, though in context it's clear the "immediate" part only applies to new GA nominations when article issues are so severe that there is no point in embarking on a full review), but as is evident throughout the description of how GAR works at WP:GAR, the goal of a GAR is to attempt to deal with the article's shortcomings in terms of the GA criteria: Remember, the aim is not to delist the article, but to fix it.

GAR is a deliberative process, and reading the individual GAR (Talk:Joe Biden/GA3), it's clear that the guidelines were not followed. There was no attempt to note any issues with the GA criteria aside from instability, and requests that this be done were ignored. The end result seems to have been decided from the moment it was opened: there had been edit warring, therefore GA status had to be removed, regardless of what anyone said. Never mind that the edit warring had subsided, according to more than one editor. It is a weakness of the individual GAR—as indeed with individual GAN reviews—that the opening editor has the final say, because sometimes the reassessor or reviewer gets it wrong, and that's why the community GAR is available, so that the community at large can have its say.

Going over the five points above:

1. Is the article unstable today? Right now? Measures such as being under PP, DS with a 1RR restriction are imposed to bring stability to an article that has suffered edit warring and other problems. If they have succeeded in bringing a reasonable degree of stability to the article, then the GA criteria are met.
2. Similarly, if the editing restrictions have put the brakes on edit warring (or it has subsided on its own), then again the GA criteria are met.
3. I have yet to see a specific example of neutrality issues in any of these reassessments. For this to be raised, examples of passages and/or biased sections need to be specified. Of course, since GARs are meant to bring articles back to GA level if possible, those passages and biases can be fixed in the course of this review.
4. GA criteria 1 issues: if there are sections that are problematic, again, raise them here, and if they cannot be corrected, then the delisting can stand. But they must be raised and given an opportunity for correction. The invocation of WP:Article length here, however, is not relevant, as it is not a part of the GA criteria. It may be good advice for future article development; indeed, I notice there's a split discussion currently under way. (GA status, if any, stays with the parent article.) If there are concerns regarding criterion 3b (it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style)), those should be enumerated so they can be addressed.
5. Maintenance tags on the article should be addressed in the course of a reassessment, and I hope someone will do so now that it's been highlighted. (I see one "citation needed" template, and the second half of the "First term" section's "story" template, which also has "clarification needed" and "according to whom" templates). Again, this is part of fixing the article, a clear goal of GAR.

• I have fixed the "citation needed", "clarification needed", and "according to whom" in-line tags. I used Ballotpedia references for the "citation needed" tag and reworded the content tagged with "clarification needed" and "according to whom" based on two NY Times articles. See Special:Diff/953102135; Special:Diff/953282948. userdude 00:17, 27 April 2020 (UTC), diffs added 00:23, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

My hope is that this community GAR can proceed per the guidelines at WP:GAR, particularly that the article be fully assessed against the GA criteria in terms of where it falls short today, and that those who are interested in doing so work at editing the article so that it no longer falls short of the criteria in those areas.

If the article does come to meet the criteria in a reasonable timeframe, then I trust that the consensus will reflect that fact and the article will qualify for listing. If it doesn't meet the criteria at that point, then consensus will reflect that. Either way, the reassessment can at that point be closed, and the result reflected on the article's talk page. BlueMoonset (talk) 15:43, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

• I disapprove of any attempts to cheat the system. We have proceeded per the guidelines; therefore, attempts to call an unstable article stable by ignoring challenged neutrality and multiple issues that require PP and 1RR restrictions to get it to that point make a mockery of the GA process and a travesty, indeed. Resolve the issues first, get the article stable without PP or DS, and renominate it. Imposing false stability on an unstable, challenged article is not how the GA process works. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 17:18, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

• I honestly don't know where to begin in responding to this, because phrases like cheat the system, make a mockery of the GA process, and even Imposing false stability on an unstable, challenged article is not how the GA process works don't reflect how the GAN and GAR processes do work. Even now, the challenged neutrality issues have not been identified with any specifics—flouting the very process supposedly being cheated. I just hope that when an independent closer appears for this page, they will look at the actions and arguments and actual GAR guidelines and GA criteria, and if the article meets the criteria on that date, close this GAR as relisted. BlueMoonset (talk) 19:23, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

• Thanks for the responses. I would just like to make some comments regarding a few points raised.
  • Mz7. If this was not already judged a good article and someone nominated it during a period of high activity I would mostly agree with you. It is bloody near impossible to review an article undergoing mass changes. In this case it would be prudent for the nominator to let the dust settle before proposing it for assessment. The same should really apply here. We should be judging the article under all the dust, not just looking at the current storm. A somewhat relevant discussion can be found at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 153#RfC: Proposal: make subjects actively in the news ineligible for GANs and FACs. It was withdrawn, but the consensus was clearly opposing the proposal.
  • Awilley. I agree with you. The sole purpose of this process is to improve an article. If that is not possible or no one is willing to then we delist it. Whether the article is marked as being "Good" or not is not really important. It does serve some utility as providing a standard that other similar articles can use as a template, but beyond that it is really just peer review lite. Saying that, someone has devoted a lot of time get this article up to a certain standard and we owe them or any other interested editors the chance to resolve any concerns.
  • Mongo. One person can delist it, as Atsme has already done. The community process here serves as a safety net of sorts. If someone believes an article they nominated has been unfairly failed they can bring it here so it can be reassessed by the community. Same if someone believes an article was inappropriately passed or in this case delisted. You are wrong when you say that GAR is not the same thing as FARC, where an article is reexamined by numerous folks and time is allowed for appropriate changes to perhaps keep it listed as FA.. As it says at the top of the reassessment page Remember, the aim is not to delist the article, but to fix it..
  • Atsme. You are still just reiterating the criteria with out explaining how it fails them. If it is not neutral you need to show what parts are not neutral and use sources to show how they are not neutral. If a RFC has been closed giving consensus to certain content or wording then that is considered neutral as far as GAs are concerned. This is not an end run around community consensus. Right now what we have is the equivalent of the "I don't like it" !votes at a deletion discussion. Also listen to BlueMoonset. They know more about the Good Article process than probably anyone else.

We don't need to relitigate the process. All we need is for somoene who thinks this doesn't meet th criteria to provide clear examples of how it doesn't. AIRcorn (talk) 00:04, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Oh come on. Just look at the talk page. Years ago when Biden was not running for President the article was stable enough that GA wasn't an issue. Now, there are edits all the time and they are not just gnome like edits. There are edits that involve many discussions on the talk page, many edits that have some edit wars, or RFC's, etc. The article itself is always evolving and what we have today is going to be considerable different than what may be there next week. The GA process is not for articles that are rapidly evolving. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 01:01, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

It already passed the GA process though. Sure I wouldn't recommend nominating an article that is undergoing rapid changes, but by the same token we don't delist articles because they suddenly become heavily edited. AIRcorn (talk) 08:47, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

The GA that passed 12 years ago is not the same article that was delisted - see the 5 reasons given for delisting. Just curious...Aircorn, what reasons do you believe would be valid reasons to delist a GA because it appears you are arguing in opposition to the reasons stated in GAR? A few have said that we should leave it a GA, fix the issues and improve the article but simple logic tells us articles that need fixing have problems which is the reason it was delisted in the first place, so the keep arguments contradict themselves. Fix the issues that caused the delisting, hopefully to the point the article has improved and will pass GA criteria. Until then, it is not a GA. The arguments to delist provided at GA3 were solid ones, and now similar arguments have been echoed here, some by new editors who support the delisting. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 11:47, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

BlueMoonset has already addressed your five points and I agree with what they say. The only part of the criteria I dispute as being relevant is the instability one, which has been convered quite extensively here. Every other one is fair game. I don't know how else to explain it, but we do not do immediate delists. We give editors a chance to fix the issues and to do that we need to explain how it fails. If you or other editors say it is not neutral and another editor says it is then there needs to be an explanaiton of how it is not neutral. This is not happening, just vague allusions to the talk page and protection levels. AIRcorn (talk) 23:57, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

• Comment This has reached the point of diminishing returns. There are two big problems with GAR. One is too little participation and the other is too much participation, particularly from editors who are unfamiliar with the process and not willing to listen to editors who are. This is definitely the later and it is problematic because it can drown out the more GA knowledgeable editors. I left a note at WT:GA when I opened this so hopefully some more of the regulars venture over when this settles down some and we can get some actual reassessment instead of our current retreading. This was opened because I was unhappy with how the individual delisting went. Therefore this should be considered a continuation of that reassessment, with the status quo being that it is a "Good Article". If no one presents any clear and actionable reasons on how this fails the criteria (the ongoing debate on instability notwithstanding) then it should be returned to the status quo. AIRcorn (talk) 01:08, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

@Aircorn: re: I left a note at WT:GA when I opened this – you opened this at 23:22, 22 April 2020; the last edit at Wikipedia talk:Good articles was on April 14 (a week earlier). The only note I'm finding is at Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations#Joe Biden: "make sure the comments align with the GA criteria. it also begs a deeper question on how the stability criteria applies to delisting articles that we should probably address a bit more formally at some point." It's hard for me to see how we can avoid addressing the issue now, as this strikes me as the crux of the matter. Do you mean that you want to make sure the comments align with the GA criteria, or the GA review criteria? At Wikipedia:Good article criteria#Criteria I see six good article criteria, including "it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute", but Wikipedia:Good article reassessment says, paraphrasing, "don't use this process if you see any ongoing content dispute or edit war". Despite this advice not to use this process, this process has been used twice (both individual and community) for the Biden article where there have been recent content disputes. If the GA criteria, including the "immediate failure" criteria, does not apply to GA reviews, then what are the reassessment criteria? WP:GAR doesn't clearly say what the GAR criteria are, and how they differ from the GA criteria. – wbm1058 (talk) 14:29, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Apologies, I meant the Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations#Joe Biden post. Both talk pages have similar functions (there was a propsoal to merge them at somepoint), but WT:GAN is much more frequented than WT:GA so is a better place to post if you are looking for more eyes. As far as I am concerned the stability issue is a bit of a red herring. The instructions here clearly say not to bring reassessments here during an edit war and that supercedes what other instructions on other pages say. This is backed up by Wikipedia talk:Good article reassessment/archive4#RfC: Reassessment of an "Unstable" Article on the talk page. Sure it is old, but the participants are well regarded good article contributors. Anyway old consensus still stands unitl a newer consensus is obtained, no matter how old it is. So in my opinion the instability of the article (which is disputed by some anyway) is not a reason to delist this article. It is up to those who think it should be to obtain a new consensus. Nuetrality concerns could be a reason to delist, along with referencing, prose and broadness.

As to why I brought it here, it was because I had no choice. An editor used an individual reassessment to delist this and I disagreed with how that was conducted. This is the only real way to make sure the correct decision is made as it attracts editors who are not just interested in the article, but the Good Article process as well. This will be closed by an independant editor who will either judge that the case for delisting is sound and uphold the previous delist, or that it wasn't and restore the Good Article status. I have no stake in this article so don't care whether it is a Good Article or not. What I care about is that correct process is followed and that this process is not used as a pawn to further ones own political agendas. To my mind no convincing reason has been given yet.

Moving beyond this reassessment I think some clarifiacation is needed to clear up any future misunderstandings or to change the consensus here to state that stability is a reason to delist. I close 90% of these reassessemnts and put no weight into instability arguements so if it is seen as being a good reason to delist then I would like to know that. I will start a clarification one if no one else does, but am not keen to do so while there is so much heat on this article. The last thing we need is editors with no interest in Good Articles in general making calls that could affect multiple articles based on a single relatively uncommon incidence (the reason we have such an old consensus is probably because this has not really come up that often). AIRcorn (talk) 01:25, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Oh, wait. The lead paragraph at WP:GAR states The outcome of a reassessment should only depend on whether the article being reassessed meets the good article criteria or not. That pretty unambiguously says that there are no separate reassessment criteria. – wbm1058 (talk) 19:57, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

• At the risk of sounding like a broken record, assessments of neutrality need to point to specific content in the source material that is inadequately represented in the article (or misrepresented). I do not see sufficient specificity in the GAR. This is not to say legitimate concerns with this article don't exist, but they have not been demonstrated clearly enough. As with Awilley, I'm not going to take a position here (the GAR was within-process, in any case; this discussion, as far as I can see, cannot overturn it; that would need a new GA review), but "biased, delist" isn't a useful thing to say at any point, because that is turning this process into a battleground, as it doesn't allow for improvement of the article. Vanamonde (Talk) 14:43, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Are stability-based GARs appropriate?

I was reading through the WP:GAR page, and came across the following in both the Individual and Community "When to use this process" sections: You don't see any ongoing content dispute or edit war. If it's true that GARs should only be used when there aren't ongoing disputes/wars, why are we even here, and how was the original reassessment allowed to proceed at all?

It turns out that the basic idea comes down from a May/June 2009 RfC on the subject of stability reassessments. The discussion can be seen at Wikipedia talk:Good article reassessment/archive4#RfC: Reassessment of an "Unstable" Article. Consensus that something should be added to the GAR guidelines on their advisability resulted in this addition to the Community section (the feeling I get from the RfC is that individual assessments weren't appropriate, but it wasn't discussed enough for consensus): 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. The reviewers are rarely content experts, nor can they reassess a moving target phrase was removed by Aircorn in October 2012, and the current wording and expansion to all reassessments dates from March 2016. These last edits strike me as overreach, but it's interesting how many GAR nominators ignore this and many other portions of the GAR guidelines.

To answer my own question, and absent a new consensus, I'd say generally not, and delisting for stability reasons is a controversial enough practice that it should be only done as a community reassessment. Otherwise, you have editors who, as in this case, have decided the article needs to be delisted immediately, and GAR is the tailor-made process to do so. BlueMoonset (talk) 19:23, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

I am not a regular here, and Iam only going to comment on one issue: an unstable article , should not be listed as a GA. I do not see why it should be controversial.It implies a disagreement over appropriate content, and an article with such disagreement is not a GA until agreement is reached. I do not know the background of the 2009 RfC in issue, but it seems to have reached no conclusion at all. (I'm rather skeptical on the appropriateness of deciding things by 10 yr old RfCs in general) . DGG ( talk ) 19:53, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

This is probably a discussion for the talk page as it covers more than just this article. This case does highlight the issue though. From practical purposes I have closed the vast majority of community reassessments and I don't recall once delisting one for stability. In most cases they are brought here by an editor failing to get their version approved, edit warring and then claiming it can't be "Good" because of the so called edit war. We have various means to deal with content disputes and this place should not be one of them. If we take the stability criteria as including heavily edited articles or ones where content is disputed most Good Articles on current BLPs (sports personalities, politicians, etc) controversial topics (take your pick of any fringe topic) or even popular interest topics like (various sciences, countries etc) would fail it at some point. In fact even some pretty mundane articles go through periods of contentious editing. Also the aim of a reassessment is to fix an article and we fix unstablity by dealing with the root cause, either through an RFC, protection or if necessary blocks. Delisting it does not fix those issues. And then if the article stabilises do we have to have another reassessment to promote it again because it is now stable. AIRcorn (talk) 23:14, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

If stability was not an issue, it would not be one of our 6 criteria. I agree that GAR is not the place to deal with content issues, and yes, that discussion belongs on the article TP so that editors can fix the problems. When reviewing a GA, we do not edit the article, and when reassessing to delist a GA we do not edit the article, so why even bring it up? All cases are different so there is no concrete rule that applies here. We are talking about an article that was initially promoted 12 years ago when it was a fraction of the size it is now. Hopefully the process has evolved since then, and so have our standards. It is not a good article, it is not well-written, it is unwieldy in its trivia and hard to read, it is overly promotional, has neutrality issues, and more. Instability is a symptom of other issues - I refer back to the list of reasons in the highlighted section above. There are 5 reasons listed - all valid and easily spotted by an experienced reviewer/editor. In the first GA3 delist, an editor pointed out the need for a sourcing review because of neutrality concerns, and I agree. I recently attempted to recruit 2 admins to help me address Awilley's comments above because the goal is to improve the article so it will once again pass a GA review. I think BD2412 summed it up correctly in his succinct response when he politely turned down my invitation. I agree with him. It doesn't take much to see why the article was delisted, and why leaving it as a GA is a terrible reflection on the process. In the state it is in today, it is certainly not what we want representing WP's GAs. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 01:15, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Aircorn, the thing is that Atsme listed five reasons and the article RIGHT NOWis failing for those five reasons. There is just too much back and forth, and content disputing going on. The article is not neutral, the article is not stable. It just isn't a GOOD ARTICLE. It's just as simple as that. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 05:13, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Five reasons without context and some even without examples, is not five reasons at all. —MelbourneStar☆^talk 05:19, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

If you visit the talk page, you can see all the examples you need. It is clear as day that the article is not a GA candidate. What was in 2009 is not the same article. I don't get the urgency of keeping it. Delist, wait a few months and relist once everything settles. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 05:27, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

I could literally say the same thing about not understanding the urgency to delist, considering the onus is actually on those that brought this 'GAR to delist' on in the first place. Secondly, "visit the talk page, you can see all the examples" is clearly unhelpful. This is a GAR, the examples are supposed to be brought up here and discussed (especially when asked). —MelbourneStar☆^talk 05:30, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

It just makes it sound more and more like this process is being used to settle a talk page dispute. AIRcorn (talk) 23:19, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

I would encourage a wider discussion on this point at WT:GA. To the extent that this section is a question of policy, I agree with the 2009 consensus. We discourage edit wars because it harms the collaborative spirit by inflaming tensions between editors. Similarly, turning the GAR process into a venue for editors in a content dispute to complain about how the article is on The Wrong Version is not a good idea since it will most likely inflame tensions without leading to actual improvements. As an example, what meaningful improvement has come from this discussion, and how has this discussion fostered a spirit of collaboration among editors of the article? As with the 2009 discussion, I think the best procedure is to not have a GAR until after a content dispute is resolved, and if the consensus version does not comply with the GA standards, using GAR to figure out what improvements ought to be made at that point. The alternative—delisting any article in the middle of a content dispute or update—places bureaucratic nitpickery over maintaining an encyclopedia and risks editors using the GAR process to make an end run around our normal consensus building processes. — Wug·a·po·des​ 21:14, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

One exception might be if the article clearly fails the criteria before the edit war occurred. I don't think a content dispute should be a reason to have a GAR, but by the same token it should not be a reason not to have one if there were already serious flaws with the article. Although thinking about it as I type this it could be gamed quite easily so maybe better just to not have GARs during content disputes period. There is really no rush to delist articles, some sit here for months anyway before they are closed let alone the hundreds that have unresolved tags. Agree that this needs to be decided at a talk page not during a specific reassessment. AIRcorn (talk) 23:27, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

I totally disagree. We don't keep GAs for the same reason we fail them. When I delisted that article, there was not an ongoing content dispute or edit war - the RfC resolved that dispute (on the side I supported actually), and the edit warring had stopped. We don't keep GAs because of edit warring and instability. The article fails on 5 counts right out of the box. Instability is one of them, noncompliance with NPOV is another, MOS failings, yet another. I was not involved in any of the edit warring, I couldn't care less about what's going on at that article except for the fact that it clearly does not deserve GA status, and that is where my focus is and always has been. Nowhere in our GA guideline does it say you can simply overturn a delist - there needs to be more respect shown for that process. The article has already been through an initial GA3 and delisting was supported as it has been supported here. The only option that aligns with our GAR guideline is to renominate the article after the issues have been resolved and allow it to properly go through a complete GA review because of its expansion and the fact that it is not even close to the same article that was passed 12 years ago. It is going to need an experienced reviewer, and my top choices would be CaroleHenson or The Rambling Man, if they would oblige. It will not be an easy undertaking because of its unwieldy size, promotional nature and NPOV issues. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 21:30, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

With due respect, several users have raised issues with your closure of GA3 (including that it should not have been raised as an individual review to begin with)—but you have not responded to this concern, nor have you responded to the requests for examples of NPOV violations. You continue to assert NPOV and MOS violations without providing examples. Please do not try to move the goalposts of this discussion into needing a new GA review when it was clearly raised as a continuation of the GA3. userdude 22:55, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Experienced GA reviewers have already provided the information, and if you can't see where the problems are after multiple veteran editors have pointed them out, including an Arb, there is nothing more I need to say here except Happy Editing! ^Atsme _Talk 📧 23:29, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

UserDude I'd argue Atsme's conduct as it relates to this article's GA smacks of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT; when pressed on specifics, the editor has repeatedly chosen to either not respond or respond without diffs/examples. If you're going to open a GAR, delist an article, be prepared to actually answer questions and back up your rationale. —MelbourneStar☆^talk 04:53, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Appeal to authority much. Being an arb doesn't automatically give you specialised knowledge into the GA process. If we are going by experienced reviewers look at this page here User:GA bot/Stats. I have five times the number of reviews as all the editors advocating delist here combined and I have still yet to see anyone provide a set of actionable reasons why this fails. If you still need more evidence of experience then look through the closed reassessments (221 vs 5) The only other person here who could be classed as a regular is BlueMoonset who has commented on 73. These claims of experienced GA reviewers are as specious as the evidence you are providing here on how this fails the criteria. Please look at how other reassessments are conducted as you clearly do not understand the process. AIRcorn (talk) 07:32, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Re Atsme (edit conflict) But that's my whole point about placing bureaucratic nitpickery over maintaining an encyclopedia. Yes the rules might say to do X, but depending on the context, doing X may actually cause more harm than good. We're here to build an encyclopedia, not play cop over a green circle, which is why I and others have been stressing the point that GARs are collaborations to improve articles rather than a place to resolve a content dispute. So yes, you've brought up other points besides stability, but the title of this section is "Are stability-based GARs appropriate?" and so Aircorn and I are discussing that specific question; should criterion 5 apply to reassessments? I think no. GARs during and in response to content disputes are an c2:AntiPattern like edit warring. The process turns into a WP:BATTLEGROUND to gain leverage in the content dispute, and the superordinate goal of improving the article and encyclopedia take a back seat to winning an argument. The encyclopedia isn't better off because an article has or does not have a green circle in the top corner, it is better off when people work through issues and collaborate to build stuff.

With that said, I want to address your argument more directly, because I think it further exemplifies why GARs during content disputes go badly. In your opening and closing comments at Talk:Joe Biden/GA3 you cite edit warring as reasons to delist the article. In your 21:41, 16 April 2020 comment on that page, you say there is edit warring and controversy surrounding it. If it ever settles down, it can be renominated., and on this page, your second reason for delisting the article is, in bold, This article is plagued by edit warring. Your argument in this thread is that When I delisted that article, there was not an ongoing content dispute or edit war, but it seems like that is directly contradicted by your previous comment here and elsewhere. Not only are these arguments internally inconsistent, they provide no direction for how to improve an article. We have tools to resolve stability concerns, but when we use those tools that is also brought up as a reason to delist the article (argument 1: The article is currently under PP, DS with a 1RR restriction which is a clear indication that it is a locus of chaos). Stability concerns are set up like a catch-22; if the article is unstable, delist it, if administrators try to stabilize an article, that's evidence of instability and we should delist it. How is the GAR process supposed to work when the discussion is structured to force a particular outcome? I don't really care whether Joe Biden, or any article, has a green circle; I do care that the GAR process is used to build an encyclopedia and that our policies and standards reflect that goal. — Wug·a·po·des​ 07:46, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Please...sorry, but no. To begin, I find your comment "not play cop over a green circle" disrespectful to the process. In my eyes it is not just a "green circle". I will not indulge further in this unwarranted trial because it appears too much like wikilawyering. Apply the arguments you presented to me to yourselves because it works both ways with one exception - I hold that green circle and what it stands for in high regard, so please proceed with your suggestions to fix and improve the article which is the whole purpose in reassessing and renominating. But please, don't attempt to improve the article here - do it at the article TP where such discussion belongs. It is good to know that your focus is on fixing the problems and stabilizing it, and that the delisting and removal of the "green circle" is not where the focus should be. I feel that I have done my job here as a GA/FA reviewer/promoter in upholding the integrity of the process. Happy editing. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 16:05, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

I would encourage you to read User:Wugapodes/Good article status is no big deal to understand why I don't care about whether I'm disrespecting a process that has no feelings, and why I do care that GARs are more than an up-or-down vote. I've reviewed over 50 good articles nomination, written 5, and improved two of those to FA status, so I think my opinions on the process developed over the years are more than simply wikilawyering. If you would like to see the article improved, we get to the question of how to improve it? If you are such a stickler for The Process, why are you ignoring the GAR guidelines which state Remember, the aim is not to delist the article, but to fix it by saying don't attempt to improve the article here? People have asked you for specifics; you provided a list of points; other editors responded to those points; in 5 days you haven't responded to any of those comments. Your only comments since then have been to argue with people who question whether this is a good use of our time or within the spirit of the process. You're free to not participate in the community reassessment, but as the one who undertook the individual reassessment, you are not immune from having your decision and reasoning scrutinized. — Wug·a·po·des​ 20:33, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

You might want to read this article to get an idea of how things are being viewed by media. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 16:10, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

• I think this conversation isn't going anywhere fast on this page. Might I suggest that this be recapitulated in a neutral way on the GA talk page? It will get more people in the discussion and from a wider audience. Having this discussion only in the context of Joe Biden seems to be cause for discontent. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 17:47, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
• Find it preposterous that an article that has grown 3-4 fold since it was unilaterally promoted to GA like forever ago and has had a history of recent edit warring issues, suffers recentism issues, has POV issues, has NPOV issues (all evidenced by sometimes heated discussions at the article talkpage), has maintenance tag issues as clearly mentioned repeatedly and ignored by filibustering demands to provide specifics that are not even necessary since these issues alone fail this for GAC outright. If this article was presented to me for review I would immediately fail it. As I mentioned previously but apparently no one is reading...until this article is stable it should not be a GA but once it IS stable, then perhaps renominate it for GAC and see if someone passes it. I sure wouldn't in this current state, but I won't review it. I am amazed that the very criteria that would be an immediate fail at GAC are being simply ignored. These criteria are posted at the top of the GAC criteria page...if you're going to ignore that criteria then put that page up for Mfd.--MONGO (talk) 21:20, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

+1. You basically hit the nail on the head for the issues here or lack there of. PackMecEng (talk) 01:35, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

This highlights the problem I mention in my comment. You have never conducted a GA review in your 15 years editing here, yet state with absolute certainty that you would immediately fail this one. AIRcorn (talk) 01:08, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Yes! Based on the posted criteria. Maybe my 30 FA level article contributions of which I was the primary on more than a dozen? Maybe based on my experience doing peer reviews and FAC reviews? I recognize GA and FA are vastly different but one can read the criteria, so since you seem to want to ignore that criteria then may as well throw it to Mfd.--MONGO (talk) 10:51, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

I am only ignoring the stability one for reasons I have elaborated on about half a dozen pages now. The rest are fair game. The thing is we don't just say it fails a criteria we explain how it does. I don't doubt your FA credentials, but like you say this is a vastly different beast. I wouldn't show up at FA and insist I knew how it should operate if that flew in the face of how experienced editors there say it operates. AIRcorn (talk) 01:37, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Not to be rude but you are welcome to try and change the criteria. You do not get to ignore it though. PackMecEng (talk) 02:49, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

"You do not get to ignore it though" said with such confidence! I must say that is quite funny considering how those arguing to delist have "ignored" simple questions asking for specifics. Like examples of the supposed NPOV breaches. —MelbourneStar☆^talk 04:37, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

The consensus as described at the start of this section is not to delist based on instability. It applies if we are nominating an article for GA, but doesn't if we are delisting one. AIRcorn (talk) 05:19, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

I think we are seeing different consensus, because I am seeing consensus to follow policy. Which would delist based on instability. Specifically per WP:GAR, The outcome of a reassessment should only depend on whether the article being reassessed meets the good article criteria or not. PackMecEng (talk) 14:33, 1 May 2020 (UTC)