Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/guidelines

Good article reassessment

Good article reassessment (GAR) is a process used to determine whether a good article (GA) still meets the good article criteria, and to delist it if does not. The aim of the process is to get the article back up to a "Good" standard.

There are currently two types of reassessment: individual reassessment and community reassessment. Per ongoing discussion, the individual and community reassessments will be merged. Please do not open any individual reassessments during the transition period. An individual reassessment is discussed on the article talk page and concluded by the editor that opened it. Community reassessments are listed for discussion below and are concluded according to consensus. Where possible, editors should conduct an individual reassessment. This is not a peer review process; for that use Wikipedia:Peer review.

The outcome of a reassessment should only depend on whether the article being reassessed meets the good article criteria. Many problems (including not meeting the general notability guidelines, the presence of dead URLs, inconsistently formatted citations, and compliance with all aspects of the Manual of Style) are not covered by the GA criteria and therefore not grounds for delisting. Instability in itself is not a reason to delist an article. Content disputes should be resolved through the normal means.

Take the following steps before initiating a reassessment:

1. Fix any simple problems yourself.
2. Notify major contributors to the article and the relevant Wikiprojects.
3. Check that the article is stable. (Requesting reassessment during a content dispute or edit war is usually inappropriate.)

A list of all open GA reassessment nominees may be found at Category:Good article reassessment nominees.

Articles needing possible reassessment

If you are unsure if an article needs a reassessment you can tag it by placing {{GAR request}} at the top of the article talk page. These tagged articles are listed below and each needs the attention of an editor to decide if reassessment is required. It is useful to indicate in the edit summary or on the talk page why you think a reassessment may be necessary.

Individual reassessment When to use this process Use the individual reassessment process when you find a good article that you don't believe satisfies the good article criteria and: Delisting the article is unlikely to be controversial You are confident in your ability to assess the article and close the reassessment You are not a major contributor to the article The article has not been delisted before You are logged in as a registered user Note Individual reassessments do not appear below on the good article reassessment page; those are all community reassessments. How to use this process The instructions for individual reassessment are: Paste {{subst:GAR}} to the top of the article talk page. Do not place it inside another template. Save the page. Follow the first bold link in the template to create an individual reassessment page (note that the second bold link creates a community reassessment page, which you don't want to do). The individual reassessment page for this article is created as a subpage of the article talk page. Leave an assessment on this page detailing your reasons for bringing the article to good article reassessment. List the problems you found with the article in comparison to the good article criteria. Save the page. Transclude the individual assessment on the article talk page as follows: Edit the article talk page and prepare to type at the bottom of the page. Paste in{{Talk:ArticleName/GAn}}. Replace ArticleName with the name of the article and n with the subpage number of the reassessment page you just created. This will display a new section named "GA Reassessment" followed by the individual reassessment discussion. Notify major contributing editors, relevant WikiProjects for the article, the nominator, and the reviewer. The {{GARMessage}} template may be used for notifications by placing {{subst:GARMessage|ArticleName|page=n}} ~~~~ on user talk pages. Replace ArticleName with the name of the article and n with the subpage number of the reassessment page you just created. Wait for other editors to respond. After discussion, you must decide if the article has improved enough to meet the good article criteria and close the discussion. An individual assessment may be closed after seven days of no activity. To close the discussion, use the GANReviewTool script on the individual reassessment page of the article and explain the outcome of the discussion (whether there was consensus and what action was taken). Manual closing steps To close the discussion, edit the individual reassessment page of the article and explain the outcome of the discussion (whether there was consensus and what action was taken). The article either meets or does not meet the good article criteria: If the article now meets the criteria, you can keep the article listed as GA. To do this, delete the {{GAR/link}} template from the article talk page and update the {{Article history}} template on the article talk page. If the article still does not meet the criteria, you can delist it. To do this, remove the article from the relevant list at good articles, remove the {{good article}} template from the article page, remove the {{GAR/link}} template from the article talk page, and update the {{Article history}} template on the article talk page (see example). Remove the GA assessment from project banners. Good article reassessment

Community reassessment When to use this process Use the community reassessment process when you find a good article that you don't believe satisfies the good article criteria and: Delisting the article will likely be controversial You are not confident in your ability to reassess and close a reassessment You are a major contributor to the article You disagree with an earlier keep or delist decision during a reassessment The article has previously been delisted You are not a registered user How to use this process The instructions for community reassessment are: Paste {{subst:GAR}} to the top of the article talk page. Do not place it inside another template. Save the page. Follow the second bold link in the template to create a community reassessment page (note that the first bold link creates an individual reassessment page, which you don't want to do). The community reassessment page for this article is created as a subpage of the good article reassessment page. Leave an assessment on this page detailing your reasons for bringing the article to good article reassessment. List the problems you found with the article in comparison to the good article criteria. Save the page. A bot will add the assessment to the GA reassessment page. Transclude the community assessment on the article talk page as follows: Edit the article talk page and create a new section named "GA Reassessment". Paste in{{Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/ArticleName/n}}. Replace ArticleName with the name of the article and n with the subpage number of the reassessment page you just created. This will display the community reassessment discussion. Notify major contributing editors, relevant WikiProjects for the article, the nominator, and the reviewer. The {{GARMessage}} template may be used for notifications by placing {{subst:GARMessage|ArticleName|GARpage=n}} ~~~~ on user talk pages. Replace ArticleName with the name of the article and n with the subpage number of the reassessment page you just created. Wait for other editors to respond. After discussion, consensus must decide if the article has improved enough to meet the good article criteria. Any uninvolved editor may close the discussion (if needed, a request may be made at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Requests for closure). Note whether there was consensus and what action was taken. To close the discussion, use the GANReviewTool script. Manual closing steps at the the community reassessment page of the article and locate {{GAR/current}}. Replace it with {{subst:GAR/result|result=outcome}} ~~~~. Replace outcome with the outcome of the discussion (whether there was consensus and what action was taken) and explain how the consensus and action was determined from the comments. A bot will remove the assessment from the GA reassessment page, but it will have to be manually added to the current archive. The article either meets or does not meet the good article criteria: If the article now meets the criteria, you can keep the article listed as GA. To do this, delete the {{GAR/link}} template from the article talk page and update the {{Article history}} template on the article talk page. If the article still does not meet the criteria, you can delist it. To do this, remove the article from the relevant list at good articles, remove the {{good article}} template from the article page, remove the {{GAR/link}} template from the article talk page, update the {{Article history}} template on the article talk page (see example), and restore any project assessment values on the article talk page (check history to see what they were).|title=Manual steps}}

Guidelines for individual reassessment discussion

Please also see the community discussion guidelines that may also apply to an individual discussion. Begin by consulting the good article criteria before commenting on whether an article should have its status changed or not. All suggestions for improving articles are welcome, but criticisms not based on the good article criteria do not ordinarily disqualify an article from good article status. Note also that if an article is listed at good articles, it almost always means that someone considers it to be of good quality, so if it no longer meet the criteria, an explicit explanation is more likely to be appreciated by other editors than a general comment that the article is inadequate. Those who add an article to good article reassessment should feel free to fix problems with the article; this is not regarded as a conflict of interest and should encourage regular editors of the article to engage more actively with the reassessment process.

Guidelines for community reassessment discussion

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