Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations

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Request for comment on stand-alone lists being nominated as Good Articles

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

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Stand-alone lists are defined as "articles composed of one or more embedded lists, or series of items formatted into a list." The current good article criteria mentions that stand-alone lists should be nominated directly as featured lists rather than as good articles. Currently, there are a few lists that have good article status: for example, List of counties in Delaware, List of Ops (B) staff and more... As lists are technically defined as articles, and as there may be lists that may perhaps qualify to be good articles before being improved to featured list standards, editors may be motivated to develop good quality lists if lists (in other words, articles by definition) may be allowed to be nominated for GA status. In this context, I request for the comments of my fellow editors to the following queries:

1. "Should stand-alone lists be allowed to be nominated as good articles?"
2. "Should a new criteria of Good List status be introduced instead of qualifying lists as Good Articles?"
3. "Should we continue status quo, that is, not change anything and let it continue as it is?"

Thanks. Lourdes 17:04, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

• 1, 2 In other words, I'm okay with saying yes to the first and second queries, as I see making a jump directly to FL is through considerable quality improvements; and allowing editors to achieve a mid-level list status would be motivating. Lourdes 17:04, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
• Status quo—the assessment scales are separate, Stub → Start → C → B → GA → A → FA or List → FL. (In some projects, there may be non-standard intermediate list assessment classes.) So while lists are technically indistinguishable from articles in the sense that they're both pages in the main space that aren't disambiguation pages or redirects, the different scales have enforced a separation.Imzadi 1979 → 19:55, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
• I am also in favor of keeping the status quo, though I also think it is important to examine GA eligibility on a case-by-case basis. Some articles have the word "list" in their title but are almost entirely comprised of narrative text, rather than an itemized list. If an article is almost entirely comprised of prose that otherwise meets the GA criteria, then we may want to allow that article to pass a GA review. On the other hand, I also think that an itemized list with no little or no prose will likely fail the breadth criterion because it does not say anything meaningful about the subject matter, its history, its significance, etc. I think good articles should generally contain substantial prose that gives the reader a thorough understanding of the subject matter. -- Notecardforfree (talk) 20:17, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
• 3 - status quo. 1 isn't workable since lists aren't articles; 2 was proposed last year (see Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 123#Good Lists), and there was much opposition resulting in no consensus. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:32, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
• Status Quo - there are articles called "list" but they are articles that happen to have a list in it, the "standalone list" criteria as defined by the FL standards should be used to judge any articles that may be questionable.  MPJ-DK  22:34, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
• Comment – Just a suggestion, but I think that somebody should post a notification at WT:FLC, where editors interested in list articles will be most likely to see the proposal. Right now, I'm not sure how many of the FLC regulars are even aware that an RFC is in progress, and their opinions may be helpful in determining consensus here. Giants2008 (Talk) 01:21, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

  Done. Lourdes 04:02, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

  @Giants2008: I informed several groups, including WT:FL and WT:FLCR. --Redrose64 (talk) 10:19, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

• 1 and 2 I have a couple of FLs, and have always considered it strange that lists cannot be classed as GA (GL?). Not having a project-wide class for Good Lists means an enormous jump in quality from List to FL. I have been fortunate in being a member of Wikiproject Military history, where BL and AL exist, and even then I was in shock when I first tried to get through FLC. Also, I have had at least one AL rejected at FLC due to lack of sufficient reviewers, but I believe it would have sailed through if there was a GL-class which only required one reviewer. Also, I have a few Good Topics and one of the downsides of not having a GL-class is that any list you want to include in a GT needs to be FL, whereas articles can just be GA. Cheers, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 05:26, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

  I can assure editors that have not taken a FL through FLC that the FL criteria are not a joke. It seems to me that we would decide whether we think there is a valid reason to have a GL-class then determine what the criteria would be, not do the whole lot in one go. If there was sufficient interest here, I would be happy to contribute to developing some GL criteria. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 22:56, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

• Not sure - I've thought about this several times before, and I keep coming back to what was repeated in the Village Pump discussion above: A good list (whether as a good article or a good list status) would be neigh distinguishable from a featured list. The only real difference would be in the number of reviewers required - a good list would need one, while a featured list needs several. Apart from that, they basically are the same thing. Featured list status is far easier to reach than featured article status.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 05:36, 2 December 2016 (UTC)
• 2 per Peacemaker. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 05:40, 2 December 2016 (UTC)
• Support option 2 - We already have lists that others have reviewed at GA which will have to be delisted under the current GA rules. If we create a GL classification it would achieve two things. 1) it would allow for a gap between L and FL - some projects have this, but, others don't. 2) those lists that have already passed at GA will simply have a GL classification substituted instead - or an individual review of each and those that pass scrutiny will be adopted under GL classification. I quite like the idea of having this additional classification for lists. List currently equates to Start/Stub level, on top of this we have CL, BL, AL and FL. The only thing we don't have at all is GL. The other classifications are project specific, so are subject to varying degrees of enforcement and scrutiny. Mr rnddude (talk) 08:51, 2 December 2016 (UTC)
• 2. There should be new milestones for list quality. They can be parallel to article ratings but should be separate. Deryck C. 11:34, 2 December 2016 (UTC)
• 3 featured lists are already a joke. There would not be much difference in work between a good list or a featured list, so just go for featured list. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:54, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

  What an offensive and uncharitable thing to claim. It only makes one thing look like a joke I'm afraid. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:07, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

• 3 Every so often someone proposes a GL level between List and FL, but other than only having a single reviewer, I've never seen anyone propose what would be the different criteria between them, which seems like an important point. Even in this thread there isn't any; we can't even seem to agree on whether the FL criteria are incredibly higher than MILHIST's AL criteria, or if they're "a joke" (though to be fair that user seems to have never written an FL, so I'm not sure why they think it's so easy). --PresN 18:30, 2 December 2016 (UTC)
• Status quo - Lists have different criteria for assessments than articles, we should keep them separate. Kaldari (talk) 23:01, 2 December 2016 (UTC)
• Status quo for now. Many of the Good Article criteria would not fit well with a list article, and a quality list article would require certain other elements that are not currently part of the GA criteria. Regarding a Good List process, I'd need to see proposed criteria and how they would be different from the Featured List criteria before I could potentially support. –Grondemar 01:24, 3 December 2016 (UTC)
• 3. Like PresN, I don't know what criteria a proposed GL process could have that would justify its existence. From what I understand, when authors of GAs don't seek FA status, the article often may be deemed too short for FA, or not comprehensive enough. FLC doesn't have a "thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature" criterion, as most of the lists being nominated don't have questions about whether they are comprehensive (a "complete set of items" is typically assumed to be comprehensive enough for us), and short lists sometimes raise questions about whether they should be stand-alone articles at all. If short lists are removed from the equation, what is left? Perhaps lists needing improved formatting, but should we consider questionably formatted pages worthy of a badge? As for option 1, I think there's a risk of confusing processes. What would be the difference between a GA and FL for a list article, or could they both be achieved at once? I don't have an easy answer for you. Giants2008 (Talk) 03:31, 3 December 2016 (UTC)
• Same process per Grondemar quality lists have similar requirements to quality articles. I think that FL review could be readily integrated here. This would be preferable to a GL venue, where participants would likely be much less. --Tom (LT) (talk) 21:12, 3 December 2016 (UTC)
• 1 and 2 First, thank you, Legobot, for letting me know about this even though I've never actually reviewed possible GA/FL/FA articles. Second, I've sometimes wondered why GL was never introduced. I just makes sense to me. Have GL and GA be on the same "level" and have FL and FA be on their own "level". — Gestrid (talk) 08:37, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
• Status quo (i.e., 3). I do not think that FL and FA are as comparable as some in this discussion, so I am not convinced that there is any need for a good lists system. Even if I am wrong about this and there is need for a good list system, it should be kept separate from the good article system, just as FL is kept separate from FA. Josh Milburn (talk) 08:51, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
• 2 - Lists aren;t articles, so they don't qualify as good articles; and having a recognized level below Featured List will probbly tend to cause users to be more likely to improve lists, making it easier for trhem to eventually be Featured Lists. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 13:05, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
• Status quo. 1. Featured lists are not difficult to make, the GL and FL criteria would essentially be identical. 2. We don't have enough reviewers for GAN and FLC as it is, youreally want to make another process for the sake of bureaucracy? There's a reason this perennial proposal doesn't gain traction. Wizardman 15:29, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

  Most of the people picking 2 don't seem to be answering the couple major questions I have. What would differentiate GL and FL, and more importantly, who's going to handle the backlog? I don't see either being addressed, just a bunch of "i like it" people in support. Wizardman 01:00, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

• Status quo, largely per Wizardman. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 17:24, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
• 2 - Per Od Mishehu. I'll also note I've created a list that reached good article status, List of Oregon State University alumni, that was ultimately de-listed since lists don't qualify. We need to either remove all current lists or re-add this list, assuming it still meets the criteria. VegaDark (talk) 20:02, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

  To add to this, I've seen a few people saying that if we implement 2, we need to come up with some good list criteria that would differentiate it from featured list criteria. As someone who has been through the FL review process (albeit long ago, things may have changed significantly since I've last participated), I can suggest a few things that I think would be good: 1) List has an abundance of redlinks. I've had this used as an argument against approving a FL. Considering this requirement forces entirely new content to be created independent of the list page, I think this would be something that a good list could have. 2) List isn't comprehensive enough. Upon nomination of a list of famous alumni from a college, one of the FL objections was that the list likely was not particularly comprehensive when comparing the total number of alumni to the people on the list in particular fields. This objection requires a massive amount of additional research to go looking for people in particular fields in searching for content that doesn't exist yet anywhere on Wikipedia. While a good list should be pretty comprehensive, it being less comprehensive (for dynamic lists, at least) than FL status requires seems like a more forgiving requirement that would be appropriate for GL status. 3) List doesn't have a legend that is accessible for blind people. While this is certainly important, I feel like this burden (requiring you to assign symbols to anything differentiated by a color) is one step that a GL could probably overlook. 4) References listed in some way other than the most current, accepted version of citing sources. We've changed the ideal way references should be listed on pages on several occasions, and I feel like a GL, as long as it's citing sources reasonably well, does not need to have the most up to date accepted method of citing sources as a FL might require. These are just 4 ideas that could differentiate GL from FL requirements, obviously critique is welcome. VegaDark (talk) 19:42, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

• Comment if the community want to muddy the waters of an already overloaded and sadly low-quality review system such as GAN with mediocre lists, that's their call. I guess the over-arching factor is that a list passed as a "good article" will need to meet all the extant requirements of WP:WIAGA, or else make substantial proposals to caveat them where appropriate to accommodate the new style of article being promoted to that status. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:11, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

  I thought that was what the "GL" proposal (2.) was for, so that it doesn't impact on GA. Option 1 as a standalone is unworkable because the GA and List criteria clash significantly. Mr rnddude (talk) 20:21, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

  Nobody could possibly vote for 2 without a draft proposal on what constitutes a GL and why it would be different from an FL and what possible niche it would fill. That would be liking voting Leave in Brexit and claiming to know what the overall impact would be... The Rambling Man (talk) 21:49, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

• Status quo, but in any event not 1: Lists do not belong at GAN; the criteria are/would be very different. If a "good" level is truly necessary—there's a set of criteria less stringent than FL but nevertheless a compelling set worth reviewing for—those interested can pursue a parallel process to GAN, but I've yet to see a convincing argument that includes what the GL criteria might be and why FLC needs supplementing. BlueMoonset (talk) 21:48, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
• Status quo Definitely against lists at GAN. As others have said the criteria are not particularly applicable to lists. I'm not sure I'd support a whole new project, especially given there's no real criteria for something less than FL. I'd cross that bridge if we got to it, but I wouldn't support GL unless there were some criteria to judge. Wugapodes [t^hɔk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɻɪbz] 01:54, 5 December 2016 (UTC)
• 2 - Yes, a new GL criteria is a great idea. Give it a separate project page all its own that does not merge with any other. Not all lists make it through FL. There should be an alternative for the editors/creators of stand-alone lists. GA is too backed up and slow to add yet more to it. — Maile (talk) 02:33, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

  Not all lists make it through FL. so what? Why should articles or lists (or DYK nominations for that matter) be guaranteed some kind of pass? That attitude I'm afraid is part of the problem here. We're not all here for special awards. Some articles will never make it to FA or FL or GA or whatever, we should accept that and move on. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:38, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

• 1 or 2 basically per Peacemaker. In addition, having written some lists that are currently GAs (here and here), there needs to be a place for those lists the sages at FLC determine aren't really lists. Parsecboy (talk) 19:17, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

  Parsecboy, that's an interesting comment. Do you mean there are articles that aren't accepted at FLC and which are also not eligible for GA because they're too listy? Can you give an example? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 19:48, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

  Looking at the talk page of the second link provided, this was given as an example of why it was put through the GA process as opposed to an FL process. VegaDark (talk) 20:02, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

  That was indeed the case. Parsecboy (talk) 20:09, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

  Indeed, the project has to draw a line somewhere were defining how many entries makes a "list". It's usually around 10. Four is too few. And besides, the Greek "list" is far more prose than list. So GA is perfect for it. The Rambling Man (talk) 12:38, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

• Yes to 2 (create separate criteria) or 3 (status quo for now).
  I'm a little concerned about the desire to make "Good Lists" be a stepping stone to "Featured Lists". AFAICT, "Featured Lists" is actually "Featured Tables". I don't follow FL very closely but I've never seen an actual "stand-alone list" be accepted by FL. So if you start from the POV that a "Good List" is an actual WP:SAL (i.e., with true list formatting) that meets relevant sourcing criteria, etc., then you will be very disappointed when you take it to FL. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:24, 6 December 2016 (UTC)
  • @WhatamIdoing: Necro-response: It's rare, but it happens (Anatomical terms of motion); there's also a bunch of "character" lists that are really a series of 1-paragraph sections. That said, I'd argue that a bare list of names/terms/whatever, even with sources, rarely meets what I would even consider "good", as in, gives you a solid overview of the topic at hand even if it's missing details. --PresN 17:26, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
    • I think that reasonable people could easily disagree about whether that prose-heavy page is any type of list at all. At a glance, I'd estimate that the page is only about 20–30% lists. But I still think that if "GL" is created, we need to be explicit that editors should not expect it to be a useful path for reaching FL. The occasional exception doesn't justify disappointing 95% of editors. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:16, 9 December 2016 (UTC)
• Comment It's been a long time since I participated in the good articles process so my opinion might be a bit out of date. I was fairly active at one point and in fact delisted the Delaware article mentioned above three years ago. After some discussion there and at other points I came to the conclusion that there is a large grey area between what is a list and what is an article and no clear definition of what a list article is. For example simply changing the name of the Delaware article to Counties of Delaware would solve the list perception and in fact was the name of the article when it passed GA. There are also some types of articles that seem to fit in both processes, television series/seasons being one that springs to mind (compare featured lists The Simpsons (season 1) and 30 Rock (season 1) to good articles Parks and Recreation (season 2) and South Park (season 1)).
  I don't see a need to have a separate Good lists process. The principals requirements for featured lists and good articles are close enough and there is enough overlap that anyone getting an article reviewed should be able to find a process that will do so. So I guess this is a !vote for status quo although some clarification of the wording at WP:GA What cannot be a good article? -> Stand-alone lists, portals, sounds, and images: these items should be nominated for featured list, featured portal, featured sound, and featured picture status, respectively should be made to reflect the current practise. AIRcorn (talk) 20:32, 6 December 2016 (UTC)
• 2 I wanted this a long time ago, and I'm glad to see a formal discussion! White Arabian Filly ^Neigh 23:42, 6 December 2016 (UTC)
• 2, tentatively. Not 1. If there's consensus for 2, then obviously there would need to be a subsequent process through which criteria, etc. are developed. I went back and forth on this one. My inclination was 2, for reasons I'll get to, but seeing the FL coordinators argue against it seemed cause for concern. I think it could be pulled off and would be worth another conversation about what it would look like. I suppose 2 supports that conversation more than actually supporting any particulars. We have a lot of really awful lists that I think would benefit from some designation between just "list" and "featured list". A good starting point may be to just say that a good list is one which has a notable, clearly defined subject, has an unambiguous inclusion criteria met by all items in the list, includes sourcing for each item on the list, is more or less complete (relative to available articles), is effectively organized, and uses consistent formatting. The key differences between FL and GL would be prose (not a factor beyond the lead), the lead (similar to FA vs GA standards for the lead), media (not a factor), finer style details (TBD), and visual appeal (not a factor beyond thoughtful organization). My support of 2 isn't contingent on these actually being the criteria, of course... only breaking it down because others have asked how it would be different from FL. That I say all of this having no experience with FLs whatsoever is not insignificant, but I would reiterate that actually creating a good list (or whatever) system is a step or two away from this RfC. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 04:55, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
• Comment: I think lurking in the background here is a puzzle about what constitutes a list (I note comments about "drawing a line" between lists with x entries and lists with x+1 entries, and, in the above section, the bizarre claim that something is not a list "by definition" because it only has three entries). Maybe a more productive RfC would determine the precise line between a list and an article; that way, we would be more easily able to say whether something should be nominated at FLC or GAC. Given this existing ambiguity, there's no guarantee that a hypothetical GL process would provide what its proponents want; we might still see pages batted back and forth between the two processes, with neither particularly keen to "take it on". This doesn't help anybody. Josh Milburn (talk) 14:56, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

  If you are referring to my comment on the Delaware GA then your take on it is slightly off from what I was trying to say. For that article the "list" only has three entries, the bulk of the article is written prose more than anything else, which to me is an indicator that it's an "Article" more than a "list", the true test is that the list at the bottom could be removed and the article would not be significantly impacted by it. That to me is the deciding factor, not that it "only has three entries'.  MPJ-DK  03:48, 8 December 2016 (UTC

  Noted, but, in my defence, your exact words were "[t]he Delaware article is not a list by definition, only 3 entries, too short for FL and really could be renamed 'Counties of Delaware' without problems and clearly be a GA." I don't think my reading of what you said was unfair. This isn't really the point, though; my worry is not about entry-counting per se, but the fact that different users and processes seem to have differing views of what constitutes a "list". Josh Milburn (talk) 17:51, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

  On no need for a defense, I totally realize that what I said and what I wanted to say were two different things, glad I got the chance to actually clarify.  MPJ-DK  22:07, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

• 2 more or less per Od above. If I were to propose any GL criteria, I might say that they would include relatively stable lists with well-defined parameters for inclusion that don't get new additions on a daily or rapid basis. John Carter (talk) 00:53, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
• Not 1. I don't think the good article criteria make sense for lists, so we shouldn't start encouraging people to apply them. I don't have a strong preference between adding separate good list criteria or maintaining the current status quo. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:34, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
• Status quo As the many times this has happened in the past, no one has articulated how GL criteria would be different from FL criteria except with less reviewers. By their nature, list articles are just simpler beasts than prose articles, and thus have less stops on the way from OK to Great. --Jayron32 02:19, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
• Status quo we should neither misapply a set of criteria designed for prose articles, nor create a new set where the FL criteria serve the purpose well. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 01:56, 9 December 2016 (UTC)
• 2 - It's a very good idea. If establishing criteria is an issue, work on it, i.e. be bold by adding one criterion or two. George Ho (talk) 08:11, 10 December 2016 (UTC)
• 2 - Good idea; I was thinking of it too. J947 03:34, 11 December 2016 (UTC)
• 2 - I think it is a good idea to have a Good List class for lists that are well-sourced and complete more so than a regular list but don't quite meet the FL criteria. We need to set a Good List Criteria similar to how we have Good Article Criteria and can then either nominate GL's here or create a separate Good List Candidate process. Dough4872 04:11, 11 December 2016 (UTC)
• 2 I have never really understood why lists have to go straight to FA FL with no intermediate rating, but if we create good lists, then I don't see much reason to also allow those lists to also be GAs. Gluons12 ^☢|☕ 20:17, 12 December 2016 (UTC).

• Lists don't go to FA, and never have, as is clearly stated above. Eric Corbett 20:30, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

• Fixed that, I meant FL. Gluons12 ^☢|☕ 15:21, 13 December 2016 (UTC).

• Status quo unless and until someone can explain how the criteria for a "good list" would be significantly different to those for featured lists. No disrespect to featured lists or their authors (I've written a handful myself), but featured lists are generally not hard work. They don't require large quantities of prose or thorough research and reviews tend to focus more on the technical aspects. Whereas there is a big gap between what is required of a good article and what is required of a featured article, and the review process for the latter is much more rigorous, nobody has come up with criteria for a "good list" that wouldn't essentially duplicate the existing featured list criteria. Further, Wizardman makes good points about bureaucracy for its own sake and about the shortage of reviewers we already have for the existing processes, which would only be exacerbated by adding another process into the mix. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 00:01, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
• Comment by Rfc requestor In my review of all the comments above, it seems that there are more or less an equal number of editors who wish to go for either status quo or option 2 (or 1 in a few cases). While the 1 and 2 supporters have a clear view of wishing a new criterion, the status quo supporters make valid points about (a) FL being relatively easier to achieve, therefore a jump from a list to an FL being not as considerably tough as a jump from an article to an FA; thus there being no need for a GL criterion (b) there already being a backlog at FL, and that a new GL criteria would only worsen the backlogs in both these desks (c) most importantly, the fact that unless clearcut GL criteria are not specified, there cannot be support for or against the idea. Under these circumstances, in my view, there is no consensus for a new GL criteria and the status quo should be followed. I'll request any administrator to close this. Pinging Iridescent and Ritchie333 if they can close this... Thanks. Lourdes 05:27, 20 December 2016 (UTC)
• 2 I suggest creating a new category—Good lists. Presently we have Good articles project for article (prose) type ones, but there is no such thing for list type of articles. Prose type articles have assessment at different levels. Individual projects review for stub, start, C, B classes. A few project also have A-class review. But for lists there is no such thing. In most of the cases, it is a list or a FL, thats it (MILHIS project has assessment for lists—CL,BL,AL—only very few such projects). Once a list is nominated for FL, directly from list class there are a lot of issues that has to be dealt, also the process will be grueling for the nominators. So I propose to create a WikiProject Good lists as it is WP GA, and create the necessary stuff. I think the LegoBot that is currently used to manage good articles can also be used for this. I know this is not an easy task, it can take 3–5 months once the proposal is approved to be effective at full scale. But it has to be started somewhere. Regards, Krishna Chaitanya Velaga (talk • mail) 13:29, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

  If you want Legobot (talk · contribs) to be used, you need to obtain willingness from Legoktm (talk · contribs) to add and maintain the appropriate extra code. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:38, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

• 2 and definitely not 1: keep lists and articles separate. - Beyond My Ken (talk) 06:40, 31 December 2016 (UTC)
• Status quo. I am having trouble conceiving the idea of what constitutes a Good List. Therefore I cannot consent to something that is not even defined. In the meantime, FL seems something not as hard to achieve as FA but definitely more difficult than GA. This looks like a good compromise to me. Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 09:59, 31 December 2016 (UTC)
• 3 - We first need an idea of what exactly constitutes a "Good List" and how this would be different from a "Featured List". Then that should be proposed as a guideline. Voting on abstracts is never a good thing, because the end-result is unknown.--MarshalN20 ^✉🕊 18:37, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
• 2, 1 as second choice - It may be that there isn't a reasonable step between a list and a FL, but I think it's worth trying to see if we can find a GL criteria that works. Hobit (talk) 07:17, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

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

Need sources? Try the Resource Exchange

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Incomplete review

Hello all, I just realized that the reviewer for the nomination of Proposed expansion of the New York City Subway has not edited in 3 weeks. Should another reviewer look over this article, or should the review wait another week or so to see if the nominator comes back? epicgenius (talk) 23:27, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

Seems safe for any uninvolved editor to pick up the review. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 23:47, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

The review appears to have recommenced with the original reviewer. BlueMoonset (talk) 04:40, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Proposed change to the Good Article criteria

There is a proposed change to the GA criteria at GA criteria talk page, adding a preamble to the main section's intro line, currently "A good article is—". The proposal is that it should be changed to "In addition to meeting the policies regarding content for all Wikipedia articles, a good article is—". Any discussion should take place there. BlueMoonset (talk) 18:25, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

Seven GA reviews in 40 minutes

Earlier today, DrStrauss post seven GA reviews starting at 15:19 UTC and ending at 15:58 UTC. The first two were immediate failures, in part based on incorrect interpretation of the GA criteria; the last five were immediate approvals. I pointed out on DrStrauss's talk page the impossibility of doing that many thorough reviews; the reply there was I didn't realise that GA was such a refined endeavour, rather just a sort of stamp.

I have already reversed the two failures and will be reversing the approvals. How should we proceed from here? We can increment the review number to orphan these inadequate reviews or simply delete the pages. In the former case, I can add an explanation much like those at the two failures—see Talk:Genic/GA1 and Talk:William M. Branham/GA1—while in the latter, there's no need. They need to be put back into the reviewing pool regardless, unless someone wants to take them over here and now. The "approved" nominations and their original nominators:

• Talk:Jesse Eisenberg/GA1: nominated 15 September 2016 by KGirlTrucker81
• Talk:More Hall Annex/GA1: nominated 16 December 2016 by SounderBruce
• Talk:History of agriculture/GA1: nominated 4 January 2017 by Chiswick Chap
• Talk:Master Apartments/GA1: nominated on 19 February 2017 by Epicgenius
• Talk:Nearest-neighbor chain algorithm/GA2: nominated on 31 October 2016 by David Eppstein

I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on how to proceed after the reversal, both with the approvals and failures. (In the latter case, I think incrementing the review number is the only way to go, as I don't believe DrStrauss should continue on as reviewer given the circumstances, and I gave advice to the nominators that probably shouldn't be deleted, though I could copy it to the article talk page if people believe these should be deleted as well.) Thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 19:39, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

Hi

I'm not planning on continuing GA reviewing. I'll stick to what I do currently.

DrStrauss 19:44, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

This is (frustratingly) the second time Nearest-neighbor chain algorithm has had a review that has had to be backed out. (I completely agree that these reviews should be reversed, by the way.) The first time it happened, the bad review was left in place (that's why this one was GA2). So I suppose, for consistency, it would make sense to do it that way again. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:47, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

I wouldn't delete these, BlueMoonset. It's almost always best to leave a paper trail when there are issues that need the attention of experienced editors to fix. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 19:47, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, David Eppstein, BU Rob13; I won't put in for deletion on these. I'll post a little something on the review pages noting what the problem was and why the reviews were disallowed. The five approvals have been reversed, and the nominations are back in the pool of nominations awaiting reviewers. Now to put the two failures back into that pool as well. David Eppstein, my heart sank when I realized that Nearest-neighbor chain algorithm was one of the articles involved; I remember having to put it back in the reviewing pool the last time. Sorry this happened. BlueMoonset (talk) 20:00, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

Oh, bother. I wonder if there's any benefit to a recommendation that new reviewers NOT try to tackle the backlog? There's a reason those articles haven't been picked up by other GA reviewers previously... Jclemens (talk) 07:43, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

I'd struggle to do 7 GA reviews in 40 days myself. But I am generally patient and don't particularly mind waiting 4-6 months for a review to happen, provided it's done properly. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 12:08, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Keyboard warrior killer reviews

Can I get a third opinion on:

• Talk:1:54/GA1
• Talk:Ugochukwu-Smooth Nzewi/GA1
• Talk:Emeka Ogboh/GA1
• Talk:Edson Chagas/GA1

The reviewer appears to be confused about what constitutes a review, and copy/pasted a rant across all four reviews (within the span of 20 minutes) about a slew of topics unrelated to the GA criteria (and sometimes even unrelated to the article under review...) czar 20:02, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

The pages under consideration are not GA Reviews. I see no evidence of an editor's work of systematically going through the various GA Criteria.

• If the editor in question wants to engage in a discussion about the articles then that would be better-placed on the articles' talkpages,
• if they want to engage Czar in a discussion about Czar's editing behaviors then that should happen on Czar's usertalk.
• If this particular editor wants to engage in community discussions about their issues with Czar's editorial behavior, then a more-appropriate place for that would be to go through the dispute-resoluaiotn process, perhaps starting at DR/N and going through AN/I, etc.
• There is no WP prohibition that I know of against an editor assessing their own articles to see if they fulfill WikiProjects' various parameters - if Kwk thinks that something untoward is happening regarding the present Class of these articles, then that should be discussed on the WikiProjects' various home talkpages.

The editor indicates a misunderstanding of WP:GAREV. They have posted this material (as a "vote" no less) and from their edits to these pages are indicating that they are intending to do no further work on the Reviews, all of which is against policy.

I have no idea about how these pages (which are basically malformed Quick-Fails) should be dealt with. A sysop might have to deal with reverts, putting these GA noms back in the GAN queue, etc. Shearonink (talk) 20:40, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

@BlueMoonset, might you be able to help? Not sure what the standard next steps would be but figured you might know czar 20:43, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

I've iterated the templates for nomination on each article talk page. I think the bot will then go through and re-add these to the list at the old nomination times. Someone should talk to the editor. I'm off to see a play, so I can't do it myself tonight. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 20:46, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

• Thank you for the feedback and I apologize if I have created unnecessary work. My concern here is that Czar appears to be single-handedly creating, reviewing, and nominating his own articles, and I wanted to bring that to the attention of other wiki editors. I appreciate further guidance in how to deal with this. I however do stand by my opinion that as a reader, these articles are difficult and somewhat confusing reads, and would benefit from more complete infoboxes and better illustrations. Keyboard warrior killer (talk) 21:14, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Have I made significant contributions?

I'd like to review Civil War II, but first I'd like a second opinion on if my edits there are significant to exclude me. I've made 27 edits total, but I'm the 4th most frequent editor. Only 5 of those 27 were larger than 100 bytes, and 3 of those were to remove plot bloat. TriiipleThreat is the primary author with 269 edits. Argento Surfer (talk) 18:49, 1 March 2017 (UTC)