Talk:Joe Biden/GA3

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• The article's neutrality has been questioned, it is clearly not stable and has been subject to full PP because of edit warring. Perhaps it can be reassessed after the 2020 election when things have calmed down but as it stands now, it fails GA. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 14:59, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

  I agree, this is a clear delist for the time being. Mz7 (talk) 17:32, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

• It was promoted to GA back in 2008, before he even became VP. The article has since grown by leaps and bounds, and is unrecognizable compared to the 2008 version. Now I do harbor some hope that the article can be kept at status however, as was done with Obama's article. Obama was made an FA in 2004. It received a whopping 10 FA reviews between 2007 and 2012, but hard working contributors ensured that it kept FA status throughout Obama's campaign and presidency. Now...do I think that could be done here? Perhaps. But unless a group of contributors is willing to come together to save it, I would opt to delist (And no, I don't have time to join a GA team I'm afraid). My main concerns is neutrality, especially as we come into the election. Everything is pretty much sourced, but I would like to see a thorough source review. I personally don't think stability is an issue as long as any controversial changes are made into RfC's and gain consensus...which is probably how most big edits to this page are going to need to be made in the next year anyway. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 19:32, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

That isn't how GA works, CaptainEek. We don't leave it with a GA rating when there is edit warring and controversy surrounding it. If it ever settles down, it can be renominated. Just because it passed in 2008, doesn't mean it remains a GA 12 years later. That's why we have GAR. It would be a different story if we were looking at promoting it to FA but that certainly isn't the case now. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 21:41, 16 April 2020 (UTC) ^{CaptainEek, after going back and reviewing your input, I'm concerned that I may have misunderstood your view about stability, and apologize if I came across too matter-of-factly. I'm of the mind that stability and NPOV are like bacon and eggs - they go together. 😊 Atsme _Talk 📧 23:56, 21 April 2020 (UTC)}

Atsme, we also do not delist without mentioning specific issues that makes it fall below GA. I do not think it is as unstable as you say. We should go for a couple editors to do a full review and see if some other editors can take care of any issues and rescue it. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 03:12, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Atsme, No worries, thanks for the clarification :) CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 00:22, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

• At the time this GAR was written (15 April): "as it stands now" edit warring had long ceased ("stability"), full page protection had ceased (in-line with the closing of an RfC dealing with BLP matters), and neutrality concerns remain(?) for a section in the article that is continuously being worked on (something that happens on Wikipedia every day). If the nominator for this GAR could please elaborate further as to why this article should be delisted, that'd be great. —MelbourneStar☆^talk 04:15, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
• Delist If it was going to be at GAN right now it would be an immediate fail as there is edit warring and several content disputes. Since it already is a GA but now is experencing edit warring, has content disputes and apparently editors have questioned the article's neutrality, it fails GA as shown here.--MONGO (talk) 19:20, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
• Remove GA It's not one. It won't be one during the election season. It fails a number of GA criteria and does not resemble the article that was assessed as a GA. There are major content RfC's, edit warring, content forks, and various other distractions. ConstantPlancks (talk)
• Remove GA As it stands, our article Joe Biden is partisan campaign literature in large part. Not only is it subject to edit warring, but there is massive partisan editing to minimize Biden's recent gaffes and accusations that Biden has engaged in nonconsensual physical contact with women up to and including fingerbanging a staffer while he was in the United States Senate. Compare our article Brett Kavanaugh to this article and it's apparent the degree to which this article glosses over important issues which were brought up in our article on Brett Kavanaugh.

The degree of political slant in Joe Biden makes a mockery of our WP:NPOV ethic. --loupgarous (talk) 17:30, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

• Here following a notice at the reassessment page. I am very familiar with the GAR process from a practical standpoint and don't really care about American politics if that is an issue. I haven't looked at the article yet, I am just commenting on what I am seeing at this page. This has been opened as an individual reassessment. This means that the person opening it is supposed to close it. Other comments are welcome, but in the end it is up to Atsme to close it as they see fit. In best practise the person opening the reassessment presents some clear examples of how it fails the criteria. However, we don't delist for edit warring or ongoing rfcs. The stability criteria is more a practical criteria for reviewers (it is hard to review an article if it is constantly changing). By the same principle, if there is an ongoing content dispute it is better to wait for that to settle down before conducting a reassessment. Also the GAR process should not be used as a tool to resolve content disputes (not saying that is the case here, but I have seen this in the past). AIRcorn (talk) 21:58, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
• While this is formatted as an individual reassessment, I will note that a lot of the comments here aren't particularly helpful. Assertions that an article fails one of the criteria are easy to make, but in the absence of substantiating evidence, carry no weight, and are not actionable. With respect to political articles in particular, assertions that an article fails NPOV are a dime a dozen. To be constructive GAR comments, opinions here need to get into the substance of what needs to change in the article, and why, with specific reference to the source material. Vanamonde (Talk) 02:10, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
• Thank you all very much for the input, but I disagree with the "keep" sentiment as this is a totally different article from the one that was promoted in 2008. The new article fails GA criteria which is why we have GAR, but there is more to it as the following will demonstrate:

1. GA/FA promotion has been my focus as a WP editor since 2011, and I was taken back a step or two when I discovered this article was promoted over a decade ago under dubious circumstances; the latter of which is part of the reason I initiated this GAR.
2. The article is not stable which makes it an immediate fail. It also requires a level of PP because of the disagreements regarding content - keeping in mind that consensus decides what does or does not get included but consensus can change, so if PP and DS are in place, and RfCs are ongoing as more material is added/removed, it tells us the article lacks stability and does not meet GA criteria; rather, it is a work in progress. As most long-standing editors are aware, edit wars and disputes typically arise when there are NPOV issues, and it matters not if the article is political or happens to be about dogs. An unstable article that gets promoted despite failing GA criteria makes a mockery of the process, especially when the instability is not caused by vandalism, and full protection has to be applied.
3. When an article wears the GA symbol and doesn't qualify, it sends the wrong message to editors and readers alike. It also depreciates the hard work that I and other longtime editors have invested as reviewers/promoters over the years.
4. After carefully reviewing this article from when it was first promoted in 2008 until now, I found that it was not only disappointing, it sadden me to think the process has been exploited and drug into the political arena. All one has to do is look at the spikes in revision history stats for the page.
5. GA1 failed on 9/17/2008 - read the discussion and what was involved, if you haven't already - it was supposed to fail. Two days later, GA2 unsurprisingly passes...a few months prior to the 2008 election. Look at the article that passed. The Biden article today is not even close to being the same article that was dubiously promoted to GA in 2008, 2 days after it failed.
6. During the time between elections, the article has not undergone a single peer review but it has changed dramatically and has expanded beyond what WP:Article length suggests.
7. I did not rush to remove GA status because I wanted input from other editors to see how they felt. I am quite confident that I made the right decision when I initiated this GAR.

I am going to demote this article for the reasons I mentioned above. Once all the issues have been resolved, it is possible that the article can be improved enough to meet GA criteria once it is stable, but I highly recommend a peer review first. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 18:50, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

I am not particularly familiar with the GA process so I will defer to others' judgement. However, I would like to respond to some of your points.

• 1, 4, 5) Could you please explain what you mean by "dubious circumstances" and/or why you disagree with GA2? I read GA1 and GA2 and nothing seemed dubious to me.
• 2, 6, 7) Coffeeandcrumbs and MelbourneStar both seem to have asked for specific issues with the article. The only issues you cited are stability, that the article's neutrality has been questioned, and length.

• With respect to the issue of stability, the recent "edit warring" was the result of an ongoing RFC. It can be expected to subside now that the Tara Reade RFC has concluded and the content has largely been moved to Joe Biden sexual assault allegation. (For this particular RFC, the unique circumstance of the gap in time between arguably-RS sources and definitely-RS sources reporting Reade's allegations contributed to the edit warring.)
• With respect to the issue of neutrality, you have only brought up that the neutrality has been questioned. Every article about a controversial/political public figure will have its neutrality "questioned" by someone. I can't tell if you are stating that the article is not neutral or just that others have stated so; if it is the former, please provide example(s).
• With respect to the issue of length, as you said yourself WP:Article length is a suggestion. WP:GAR states that compliance with the Manual of Style […is] not covered by the GA criteria and therefore not grounds for delisting.

I'd appreciate it if you could provide specific instances of where this article fails the GA criteria. I also note that WP:GAR says that the individual reassessment should be used if You don't see any ongoing content dispute or edit war, which was not the case. I believe a community reassessment is more appropriate. userdude 19:35, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

• See WP:GAFAIL: Immediate fail: It is not stable due to edit warring on the page;
• It also fails the following 2 of the 6 GA criteria:

4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.

5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.

And as I explained in detail above, it has a level of PP which is further proof of its instability. It is not the same article that was reviewed 12 years ago. Instability is a symptom of NPOV issues. Without the PP and DS, what do you think would happen? Suggestion - if you are so confident about the article's stability, then submit a request to have the PP and DS restrictions removed, and renominate it for GA. It's that simple. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 20:52, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Instead of asserting that you are correct, please provide specific instance(s) of where this article is not neutral. I am unaware of any rule that GAs may not be protected. User:Aircorn said The stability criteria is more a practical criteria for reviewers, thus WP:GAFAIL#4 should not be applied to GARs. As I said, the edit warring was due to an unusual circumstance that has since been resolved by an RFC. I would find it wholly inappropriate if this GAR were to be closed now as delist — it should not be an individual reassessment for the reason stated above. userdude 21:21, 21 April 2020 (UTC); edited 21:23, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Instability is a reason not to pass an article (again mainly for practical reasons), but not in itself a reason to delist. Otherwise any current good article that undergoes an edit war or disagreement (which are a lot) would suddenly need to be delisted. Even worse it opens the door to editors deliberately making an article unstable so they can delist it. Normal editing practices (which in this case appears to be a content dispute that turned into an edit war and now is being resolved by RFC) are not grounds to delist. In fact the Good Article process gives precedent to community consensus. So if there is community consensus established through a RFC, no matter how egregious that may appear to some, then it has to be accepted as good enough to meet the Good Article criteria. Nothing presented here has really explained how it fails the criteria. It is all very well to say it is not neutral, but examples need to be given. Protection in itself is not proof of anything apart from that the article is attracting disruptive editing. I tend to agree that this should have gone through the community process, although that can be a bit hit and miss at the moment. If someone want to challenge Atsmes close the could take it there themselves after the close. AIRcorn (talk) 23:30, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Atsme, I am the editor that brought it to GA way back when and I was the editor who kept it there for the next seven years, until I stepped away from these kinds of high-profile active political articles. I do not believe the promotion to GA was dubious and I believe it warranted its GA status for the whole time I was minding it. (I have 160 combined FA/GA/DYK credits and so I think I know something about reviewed content.) As for stability and edit-warring and NPOV claims and page protection, that comes with the territory with these kinds of articles and it has never prevented articles of this kind achieved reviewed status. Indeed, Barack Obama was FA through both his presidential elections and presidency, John McCain was FA throughout his presidential election in 2008, and the same was true for Mitt Romney in 2012 and Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2016 (I was involved in several of these). I can assure you there were always people, from both sides, complaining about the neutrality of each of these articles. That's almost the definition of neutrality – big fans will think it's too hard on the subject and big opponents will think it's too soft on the subject. I can't really speak to the current state of the article, but in my view the grounds you have for taking the GA away are not sufficient. Better would be to point out concrete, specific things wrong with it and see if those can be remedied. In my time doing these kinds of articles that was always a big frustration – people would complain in generalities but rarely list out specific, actionable points. Wasted Time R (talk) 22:40, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

• Delist - Per WP:GAFAIL points 3 & 4. The article still has maintenance tags Joe Biden#First term (2009–2013) and is far from stable with big changes and some edit warring. PackMecEng (talk) 22:59, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Decision

• The arguments to keep do not align with GA's core set of editorial standards. At the bare minimum, a good article should be neutral, stable, free of maintenance tags, and should not omit any major facets of the topic. An article is an immediate fail when there's edit warring but this one goes much further and has resulted in full or semi-PP, and DS restrictions of 1 revert per 24 hrs. A GA is exactly what its name implies - a good article, but when there is edit warring, disruption, NPOV issues and instability the article is clearly not good. Also, a GA should not be so long that it is unwieldy and difficult to read. This article is currently at 88 kB (14495 words) vs the 2008 GA article that was promoted at 31 kB (5122 words), so no, it is not the same article that was promoted over a decade ago. The delist arguments were the strongest and most convincing in support of delisting. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 01:48, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

• Atsme, I find your decision troubling. Neither you nor any of the delist !votes provided any specific examples where the article is not neutral, despite I and numerous other users asking for examples. You repeatedly said the article has grown significantly since GA2, but you have not provided any examples of new content that fails GA criteria. You cited the edit war over Tara Reade's allegations as an example of instability, but this issue has been resolved by an RFC and was caused by an unusual circumstance, as mentioned above. WP:GAR says that GAR should be used if you don't see any ongoing content dispute or edit war. You used the fact that this article is protected as evidence of instability, but per that argument no major controversial/political topic could have GA status. The only specific examples of this article failing GA criteria you cited are length and a single maintenance tag from April 2020.

You say the keep arguments do not align with GA's core set of editorial standards, but you have ignored the content of the arguments. Numerous users have asked for specific examples of neutrality failure, but none have been provided. The arguments that the article fails neutrality have not been arguments — they've been assertions. You've asserted that GA2 was dubious, but have not stated why. I and Wasted Time R challenged this assertion, but you did not respond. You used the recent edit war as evidence of failing the stability criterion, but you have not responded to my statement that the edit war was caused by an unusual circumstance and has since been resolved by RFC. You used the page's protection status as evidence of instability despite the fact that the page for a major party's presidential nominee would be protected under any circumstance, regardless of the article's quality.

I didn't come into this expecting to defend the article. Having never participated in a GAR, I was planning on just watching. But when I saw that you were planning on delisting the article after several users asked for specific examples of the article failing GA criteria and none were provided, something seemed wrong. I'm not sure even sure if this article does meet GA criteria, but you have avoided making substantive arguments for delisting and ignored arguments against delisting. I am unfamiliar with the steps of dispute resolution, but I would like for a neutral user to determine the consensus of this GAR. userdude 04:57, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

@UserDude: Atsme didn't even bother responding to my comment which had asked for further elaboration on why she intends to delist the article. Considering no elaboration was provided, it would stand to reason that the article's issues aren't "extensive" after all; yet, if that were the case, Atsme blatantly ignored the three steps to take prior to initiating GAR (particularly: #1: fix simple problems yourself, #2: tag serious problems you can't fix, #3: Remember, the aim is not to delist the article, but to fix it). So I'm not entirely shocked that Atsme came to this decision to delist... a week after she nominated the article for a GAR to delist. —MelbourneStar☆^talk 05:41, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

I agree this does not align with the principles of conducting a reassessment. The aim is to fix problems and for that to happen the problems need to be outlined. It feels very much like this has been nominated with the intention of delisting it without giving it a chance to be kept. The pile on !votes from editors not familiar with the reassessment process do not help the cause. If it is delisted with the current commentary here I would recommend it is taken to community GAR. It should probably have been raised there in the first place. I will do so myself if nobody else does. AIRcorn (talk) 06:30, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Seems fairly straightforward to me. She has explained the issues several times that I can see and there is a clear majority supporting it. PackMecEng (talk) 14:34, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Anyone can vaguely explain issues, that's not quite difficult. Difficult is providing examples of those issues within the article, when those issues don't actually exist. If this page were still fully PP, if edit warring was still occurring, and if there were a litany of actual examples of NPOV breaches – I'd be singing a different tune. That's evidently not the case on 15 April when this GAR was opened, or now. —MelbourneStar☆^talk 15:21, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

With reverts happening daily and content changing drastically I find it hard to say the article is stable in any sense of the word. Also as I mentioned there is still an active maintenance tag in the article that pretty much requires a re-write of the section to correct. PackMecEng (talk) 15:29, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

A maintenance tag that was placed after the GAR, and per GAR's "before initiating a reassessment" (underline mine) statement: (#2) Tag serious problems that you cannot fix with appropriate template messages, if the templates will help other editors find the problems. Do not tag bomb the article. So if it were tagged prior to the GAR, and nothing was done to fix it -- you'd have a point. Now that it's been delisted? not so much of a point. Secondly, there are a few reverts here and there, which does not constitute to edit warring. Yes, changes occur to this article... you'll find that actually happens a lot on Wikipedia (GA, Featured articles too). But that hardly makes it unstable. —MelbourneStar☆^talk 15:40, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

We do not look at the article in a bubble of when the discussion started, if that were the case there was serious edit warring at the time. You cannot have it both ways. Also yes big changes, constant reverts, RFCs, and lots of talk discussion indicate unstable articles. Thats how it works. That is what unstable means. PackMecEng (talk) 15:45, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

No that's actually wrong. The edit warring ceased with the commencement of the PP; the latter, it too, ceased with the ending of the contentious (and understandably so) RfC dealing with significant BLP matters. And then this discussion started. Lot's of talk and discussion, RfCs on serious matters -- whilst that to you makes an "unstable article", to me it actually looks like a proper functioning encyclopedia. —MelbourneStar☆^talk 15:51, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Sure I agree, proper functioning encyclopedia. That is not the same as a stable article. Also yes the RFC closed, now the contentious matter of what to say exactly and how. I guess me and the majority of people that agree it is not stable are all wrong? PackMecEng (talk) 15:54, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

We can play a game of semantics till the cows come home, I think it's implied that I believe this article has been stable, and was certainly stable at the time of the GAR. Yes, RfC has closed and people can continue to work collaboratively on here. And yes, I respectfully do believe on the matter of stability, you are all wrong. Just as I'd imagine you would believe I'm wrong. The difference is, it's the onus of the GAR nominator to outline how it's unstable. GAR nominator, you, and the others can't really explain that considering at the time of writing the GAR, the brief spell of edit warring has long ceased. I feel like I've repeated myself, whether you've listened is up to you... and so that's my cue to leave things. —MelbourneStar☆^talk 16:06, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

• As promised I opened a community reassessment. If you believe it doesn't meet the criteria please leave actionable comments there. AIRcorn (talk) 23:27, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Could someone uninvolved close this thread, and point folks to the new GAR in said closing? CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 00:24, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Post-close comments

• Atsme This is an individual reassessment, and you're technically able to close it however you want, at any point that you want. However, if you're closing it as "delist", you need to list actionable issues that anyone interested in rescuing can address. "Article is not neutral" is not an actionable issue. If you have NPOV concerns, you've to point to specific instances where the article does not accurately represent available source material. I haven't read all the source material, to be clear, so I have no opinion on whether or not it does; but having worked on both promoting and reviewing a lot of political articles, this is the only way to do it. Asserting a lack of neutrality without reference to the source material, and delisting it on that basis, will just mean someone will renominate it, and request another reviewer; and they'd be within their rights to do so. Vanamonde (Talk) 17:02, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for your input, Vanamonde93, it is very much appreciated. There are no clear procedures - one seems to contradict the other - and having been involved in a GAR myself several years ago which actually helped make me more aware of things to be cautious about and that has helped me immensely in my work at NPP, AfC, and as a GA/FA reviewer-promoter. The way GAR is written now tends to be quite confusing, especially since I was adhering closely (or thought I was) to the reassessment process which clearly states: The outcome of a reassessment should only depend on whether the article being reassessed meets the good article criteria or not. I will clearly list my reasons for closing this delist below, and again, thank you. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 17:42, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

@Atsme: I'd talking less about the written procedures, which are somewhat general, and more about behavioral best practices and broader policy concerns. Anyone can say an article isn't neutral. That isn't sufficient to delist an article, because if it was, we'd have no politcs GAs at all. Concerns with neutrality have to be based on the source material, and have to be actionable; these aren't things that are necessarily codified, but these are things administrators would consider if this blew up into a dispute needing administrator attention, for instance. So it's less about following the letter of the process, which you are doing, and more about minimizing drama from the outset. Vanamonde (Talk) 18:08, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

@Atsme: This is an exact copy of the instructions at WP:GAR, How to use this process instruction #8:

• Individual reassessment

  To close the discussion, edit the individual reassessment page of the article. State 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.

• Community reassessment

  To close the discussion, edit 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 and will add it to the current archive.

It doesn't appear that you need to use any fancy templates for an individual close; it's a pretty low-key thing to do. wbm1058 (talk) 18:34, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

But I should point out that the Template:GAR/current documentation does say it can be used for closing individual reassessments. – wbm1058 (talk) 18:42, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Oh, wait. It says that in the documentation for Template:GAR/AH. The documentation for those two templates is combined on the same page. wbm1058 (talk) 18:54, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

{{GAR/result}} is only to be used for closing community good article reassessments, per the documentation. Sorry about that. wbm1058 (talk) 18:57, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Close GAR

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.

---

My conclusion after carefully evaluating all of the arguments and discussion is that consensus weighed heavily to delist. The article has been delisted for the reasons I stated below:

The sentence before last in the first paragraph of WP:GAR, clearly states: The outcome of a reassessment should only depend on whether the article being reassessed meets the good article criteria or not. When we examine GA criteria, we can see that it clearly fails the criteria. Following are 4 reasons to immediately fail a GA:

1. It is a long way from meeting any one of the six good article criteria
2. It contains copyright violations
3. It has, or needs, cleanup banners that are unquestionably still valid. These include {{cleanup}}, {{POV}}, {{unreferenced}} or large numbers of {{citation needed}}, {{clarify}}, or similar tags (See also {{QF}})
4. It is not stable due to edit warring on the page

Joe Biden fails 2 of the 4 immediate fail criteria:

• Fails #3 - the article contains maintenance tags and clearly needs more. The article is unwieldy in length, difficult to read, contains trivia, and is overly promotional. MOS:LEAD states that the article should be well-written, and summarize the most important points, including any prominent controversies. The lead fails to include any prominent controversies, and there are several, including allegations of inappropriate touching and sexual assault; however, as evidenced on the article's TP there are ongoing content disputes. The article also fails neutrality in that it does not represent viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each. Another example, UNDUE: the article personalizes Biden by focusing on his personal tragedies and emotions, as though it were an effort to garner sympathy from the reader rather than focusing on his notability. Great stuff for a book or movie, but not for an encyclopedia. There is far too much detail throughout the article, which helps to explain why it is unwieldy.
• Fails #4 - the article is not stable, it is under PP, DS with a 1RR restriction, and at one point required full PP. A brief lull in edit warring typically occurs when an RfC is in the process attempting to resolve a dispute. When a dispute has reached a consensus, another dispute arises as to how the consensus material shall be worded in the article. The article changes significantly from day to day as the edit history demonstrates, including ongoing edit wars and content disputes. It is clearly not a stable article, and without the protection afforded, the article would be a battleground. See this discussion, this RfC, and this discussion and the Proposal that follows the RfC. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 01:16, 1 May 2020 (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.

Reply: The "immediate fail" criteria (these 4 criteria) are different from the "GA criteria"(these 6 criteria). The GAR quote (as I read it) refers to the latter set. Otherwise, any good article could be immediately delisted if it had a single maintenance tag (such articles can be seen here) — or, for that matter, if a single user was unhappy with the result of an RFC and took it upon themselves to make an individual review wherein they vaguely assert NPOV violations and edit warring, ignore requests for examples, and unilaterally decide that consensus is heavily in their favor. The immediate fail criteria exist to determine if an article is even worth a reviewer spending time on it; this article is already beyond that point.

In addition to that, your claim that this article has maintenance tags is (as of 01:45, 1 May 2020 (UTC)) untrue. MrX and I fixed the issues tagged during the course of GA3. That is the point of GAR. userdude 01:45, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

@UserDude: The 4 "immediate fail" criteria are not essentially different from the 6 "GA criteria":

• "immediate fail" #4: It is not stable due to edit warring on the page is essentally the same as 5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute
• "immediate fail" #3: It has, or needs, cleanup banners that are unquestionably still valid essentially is covered by 1. Well written and 2. Verifiable with no original research

In other words, any article that passes the "GAR six" will also pass the "immediate fail" 4. – wbm1058 (talk) 04:58, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

That is mostly true (some cleanup banners are not covered by the criteria). This is all moot now as the only one that can overturn it is Atsme and I see little chance of that happening. AIRcorn (talk) 05:38, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

@Wbm1058: My apologies, I was unclear in my previous comment. As I read it, the point of the "immediate fail 4" is essentially to shut down the GAn discussion before it starts because there is no chance of the article passing the "GA 6". It seems to me that Atsme is using the "immediate fail 4" to close the discussion in their favor, which is contrary to the purpose of GAR—to improve the article. In the course of a GAR, issues are supposed to be specified and/or tagged so the article can be improved. If a tagged issue resulted in an immediate fail, the process would be pointless. userdude 05:42, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

I have disagreed with Atsmes interpretation of the reassessment process here and since the delisting have opened it for reevaluation by the community at Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Joe Biden/1 AIRcorn (talk) 01:41, 1 May 2020 (UTC)