Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations

MainCriteriaInstructionsNominationsBacklog drivesMentorshipDiscussionReassessmentReport

Good article nominations

This is the discussion page for good article nominations (GAN) and the good articles process in general. To ask a question or start a discussion about the good article nomination process, click the Add topic link above. Please check and see if your question may already be answered; click the link to the Frequently asked questions below or search the Archives below. If you are here to discuss concerns with a specific review, please consider discussing things with the reviewer first before posting here.

Short GA review

I nominated Merchant's House Museum to GAN back in October. A few hours ago, V.B.Speranza reviewed the nomination and passed it with few comments. With gratitude to V.B.Speranza for taking the review up, unfortunately, the review seems very cursory. For example, I do not think the sources were adequately spot-checked.

As such, I would like to request a second opinion for this GAN. – Epicgenius (talk) 22:54, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm familiar with this user's editing and find they have a poor grasp of the GAN process. I would second the request for a second opinion. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 01:10, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

A second opinion would be somewhat a misnomer here, the review is checklist so any second opinioner would be performing effectively an entire review. If there is no agreement by the reviewer to return to GA1 then opening a GA2 (with the same nomination date) would be better than a second opinion request. CMD (talk) 02:01, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

We had quite a few cases recently of this issue, including two checkbox reviews of the article Arithmetic. The solution in those case was usually to declare the reviews invalid (violation of WP:GAN/I#R3) and send the article back to the nomination pool. Phlsph7 (talk) 07:49, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

That will probably be the path here, although it has been just under a week and the reviewer has not edited much in that time. Currently the article promotion was not completed on a technical level, so it's a simple template reset. CMD (talk) 13:21, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Wii U/GA2 should be also delisted. That article is huge and a lot of the sources were still not used and only minor problems that were brought before being passed immediately. 2001:4455:3AA:B000:258A:2817:BA68:E8D (talk) 01:33, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

GAs and AfDs

Regarding Good Articles, is there any requirement for reviewers to consider a recent AfD, particularly if the AfD was contentious and resulted in a no consensus close, or is the assessment purely based on the GA criteria? Thanks! Dfadden (talk) 08:55, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

There's nothing in WP:GA? suggesting an article's notability is relevant to its review. ——Serial Number 54129 12:31, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for that. I did find clarification in the link! Dfadden (talk) 10:28, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Using all GA nominations for the GA statistic rather than current promoted ones

I have refurbished an invisible part of ChristieBot that keeps track of all GAs back to around 2006, including failures and GAs that have lost that status (either via GAR or promotion to FA). Currently the "GAs" number on the GAN page only counts successful nominations. I could change it to include all historical promotions, or all historical nominations. I think the former at least would be appropriate, and there's a reasonable case for the latter. Any opinions? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:57, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

What is the difference between "successful nominations" and "historical promotions"? CMD (talk) 02:52, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

That would be interesting information, but I am not sure we should display it on the GAN page. It might have the effect of shaming people for having a lot of old GAs and not many recent reviews. I'm wondering whether we should rather display something like rolling 5 year noms and reviews. —Kusma (talk) 07:06, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

@CMD: That was poorly phrased on my part; I meant to distinguish three numbers:

1. The number of times a user has nominated an article for GA regardless of outcome;
2. The number of articles a user has had promoted to GA;
3. The number of articles a user has had promoted that are still GAs.

@Kusma, currently the GAN page shows #3 for each user; I'm suggesting it should show #1 or #2 instead. Wouldn't the effect you're concerned about be an issue now, if it is an issue? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:12, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Ah, for some reason I thought you were talking about adding more old GAs. Ignore that (it is an issue that might be worth addressing separately).

I think #2 would be more appropriate than #3 if we want to show "skill", while #1 shows "workload caused". Personally I prefer #2 as it is weird not to count GAs that have become FAs later. —Kusma (talk) 10:39, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

I agree that #2 would be better than #3, and I've had enough queries from various editors to make it clear that #2 is what they would have expected anyway, so I don't think there would be any objections to switching to #2. As you say, #1 represents work caused, so it does fit the original idea of the G/R ratio better than #2. It would have the effect (for those reviewers who look at the ratio when deciding what to review) of making the R/G ratio worse for nominators who have frequent fails. At the moment there are no negative consequences of a GA fail to point to, but if we use #1 people might start objecting to procedural fails (e.g. abandoned reviews) as it would harm their ratio. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:53, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

#2 is preferable to #1. More intuitive, and the G/R ratio was meant to be a nudge rather than a guiding principle. CMD (talk) 11:01, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

I agree. If nobody objects I'll make the change to #2 in the next few days. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:22, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Also agreed, that sounds like a good improvement. Thank you for the update! —Ganesha811 (talk) 16:52, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

I likewise agree. #3 is somewhat nonsensical as a measure. #2 reflects experience with writing (or, admittedly more accurately, nominating) articles that are up to WP:Good article standards. I think using #1 is a bad idea as it creates incentives related to failing nominations—in both directions: some reviewers might be inclined to fail nominations more frequently to affect others' statistics, while others might be disinclined to fail nominations to not affect the statistics (either by not reviewing the nominations at all or by putting in an outsized effort to make sure the nomination can be passed). That failed nominations do not impact nominators' statistics is, I think, a feature rather than a bug. TompaDompa (talk) 20:45, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Several reviews open at once

I recently reached out to SafariScribe (previously Otuọcha) regarding the reviews they've opened, a total of 22 over the last four weeks:

Completed:

• Talk:Il dio vagabondo/GA1
• Talk:Clean (2022 film)/GA2
• Talk:Migration (2023 film)/GA1 (failed for copyvio, but the copyvio revdel request was declined because it was backwards copy)
• Talk:Jacob Elordi/GA1
• Talk:Austin Wolf/GA1
• Talk:Dahiru Musdapher/GA1
• Talk:Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth/GA1

Open:

• Talk:Maybe You're the Problem/GA1
• Talk:To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar/GA1
• Talk:John Sterling (American football)/GA1
• Talk:Frank Butler (American football)/GA1
• Talk:Jug Bennett/GA1
• Talk:Merle Zuver/GA1
• Talk:The Skeptical Environmentalist/GA1
• Talk:Pure Japanese/GA1
• Talk:Sam Bahadur (film)/GA1
• Talk:An Act of Conscience/GA1
• Talk:Hounds (film)/GA1
• Talk:Apocalypse Clown/GA1
• Talk:Jude Law/GA1
• Talk:Dwayne Cooper/GA1
• Talk:Lashauwn Beyond/GA1

I've expressed my concerns that this is an unreasonable number of reviews to be doing at once and that they may not be fluent enough in the language to pursue reviewing at this time, but they disagreed. As I said to them, I appreciate their drive and I think they could do a lot of good for Wikipedia, but this isn't the best way to go about it. Previous discussions at their talk page (permalink) and mine (permalink). Thebiguglyalien (talk) 08:06, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

I've noticed them, but as they haven't actually abandoned a review yet, I haven't engaged. I would suggest that they try to pick up reviews one at a time though. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 10:23, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Hm, the grammar in their replies to you is not encouraging... -- asilvering (talk) 00:57, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

And it's reflected in the copyedits they're asking for in reviews, which is why I was hoping this could be addressed. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 08:39, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Change in positioning of "good article" template in promoted articles

ChristieBot adds the {{good article}} template to promoted articles, if it's not already there. It's been adding it to the front of the article, but that's incorrect; per MOS:ORDER it should be after short descriptions, DISPLAYTITLEs, and hatnotes. I've updated the bot to put the template after short descriptions and DISPLAYTITLEs, but not after the hatnotes as those are much harder to identify safely. The change appears to be working. If you see any problems, please let me know; or if you can think of a reliable way to identify hatnotes in the article's wikitext then please tell me! Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:09, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

How much detail is too much detail?

The GA criteria say not to go into unnecessary detail, but how much is "unnecessary"? Do excessive images count towards this metric? I am looking specifically at Angels in Neon Genesis Evangelion (promoted 2022), which has many explanatory images for minor details related to each angel, like a diagram of apoptosis to accompany text suggesting one of the angels "undergoes apoptosis"; or a diagram of the Dirac Sea plus a picture of Dirac to help describe the physical and geometric patterns of one particular angel's "AT Field". AFAICT the textual relevance supporting these images is sourced only to offline explanatory booklets from DVD releases and other material produced by people involved in the show. In fact, I'd say a substantial majority of the article is sourced to such primary and/or non-independent sources, which I guess isn't specifically against the GA criteria, but...

Is this really what a Good Article is supposed to look like for manga? JoelleJay (talk) 21:59, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

"Unnecessary detail" refers to coatrack articles, where the article gets away from its nominal subject, and instead gives more attention to one or more connected but tangential subjects. As to the second point, there is nothing wrong with the majority of an article being sourced to such primary and/or non-independent sources. Such sources are often preferred, being authorative.New editors sometimes confuse the requirement for independent sources to establish notability with what is required for sourcing. The article in question is fine. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:27, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

the majority of an article being sourced to such primary and/or non-independent sources.

Policy definitely does not agree with this...

Do not base an entire article on primary sources, and be cautious about basing large passages on them. and Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources, and to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources and primary sources. and Base articles on reliable, independent, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy.

I'm not talking about notability here. I'm talking about a 150kb article on particular characters in a manga franchise that goes into extreme detail based only on primary and/or non-independent in-universe sources. How do we achieve NPOV if the only sources talking about particular material are directly from the producers of that material? JoelleJay (talk) 23:53, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

@JoelleJay, can you point out a particular sentence or two that you find objectionable on the grounds that it shouldn't use primary sources? I had a quick look and nothing jumped out at me. What I notice more is some stuff that looks WP:SYNTHy at a glance, eg, the discussions of the meanings of various names. Again just at a glance, I do think there's a bit of a focus issue here. I don't know that it's "unnecessary detail" so much as it is a list article that has some non-list stuff grafted onto it. -- asilvering (talk) 00:50, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

It's not any particular sentences, it's the whole thing. I realize that the GA criteria do not say anything about primary or non-independent sources, but surely there's a common sense aspect to this where it's worse for 10.5 thousand words of detail to be sourced almost entirely to the manga itself or other companion materials by its creators rather than to secondary analysis by people with no conflict of interest. Policy is very clear that basing an article around primary or non-independent sources is not acceptable. Not to mention we're AGFing that all of that primary and non-independent sourcing, which mostly appears to be offline and in Japanese, actually makes the real-world connections we're presenting in wikivoice and that they are accurately summarized. Not to mention many of the passages that aren't cited to people directly involved in Eva are interpretations by random bloggers...

I'm bringing this up now because I'm in the midst of revisiting an article I was involved in delisting last year for being excessively detailed and this seems much worse. Pinging @AirshipJungleman29 and @Trainsandotherthings who also weighed in on that discussion since I've been interpreting this as analogous to the "Keith Miller" series if those articles were instead based largely on his team's own reports and memoirs. JoelleJay (talk) 08:50, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

I think the article that prompted you to start this discussion is a good example of someone with a pet interest who decided it needed an extremely detailed article (or in this case, many someones because this particular show is quite popular). If it were up to me, articles like this would get ported off to some Fandom Wiki where they belong. There are certainly secondary sources present in the article, but so much of it is based on primary sourcing that it makes me wonder if the article should even exist.

Sure, most of this website is just people writing about their special interests (and I'm no exception), but that can't trump the requirements for secondary sourcing, summary style, and avoiding WP:NOT situations. There are sources to support everything in this article, but how many of those sources are about the angels in the show as a topic? I've said before, I could write an extremely detailed article on everything the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad did in a given year, but it would just be cobbling together things from a bunch of sources, none of which would show that the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad in a given year is itself a notable topic. Perhaps the most infamous example of this is the Tolkien madness that has seen more GAs written on things like Tolkien and Trees than we have on wars or famous scientists or leaders.

At the same time, at least they are well sourced and not filled with OR. Perhaps we need to pick and choose our battles. While I don't like articles such as the one that prompted this discussion, I'd take something well sourced over articles filled with unsourced cruft such as this. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 01:51, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, @Trainsandotherthings, @Thebiguglyalien, @Chipmunkdavis, @Asilvering, @TompaDompa. Do you think having so much(*) of the article sourced to primary and non-independent sources at least warrants "too detailed" and "third-party" tags? I also find it hard to believe we can assume that the literally hundreds of citations that are inaccessible and non-English are accurately being summarized. The extremely brief review didn't mention spot checking any sources, let alone any offline Japanese ones. I would expect a lot more analysis in general to go into a GA for a 150kb article with nearly 500 sources...

(*) Out of 471 sources, I count 243 to completely non-independent entities: 87 to Kadokawa Shoten (publisher); 5 more directly to Gainax or Gainax-controlled media; 21 to the Platinum Booklet and other "Booklet" DVD extras (some weirdly using the "cite journal" template without filling the "journal" parameter); 7 to GroundWorks (NGE publisher); 4 to Fujimi Shobo (NGE publisher); 6 to Khara (NGE film studio); 18 to NGE "Laserdisc" and "Blue Ray" Encyclopedias (DVD extras); 17 to other "Collector's Edition" Encyclopedias from the creators; 25 to Evangelion crewperson Poggio; 28 to Evangelion editor Cannarsi; 1 to Evangelion crewperson Asari; 2 to NGE artist Sadamoto; 4 to NGE editor Horn; 2 to other Kadokawa employees; 5 to Evangelion, Dynit (NGE studio), and Famitsu App (owned by Kadokawa) websites; 12 directly to Evangelion media; 2 to press releases; 1234 (Studio Voice interview of Anno) 5678 to primary, non-independent Q&A interview transcripts.

There are additionally 90 to Evangelion Chronicle from Sony Magazines (commercial products supervised/endorsed by Gainax); 1 (9 individual cites)23 to non-expert blogs; and 2 to a user-generated ranking site. Not to mention numerous dubiously-qualified contributors like
12 and many clickbaity listicles. The independent secondary RS coverage is almost entirely constrained to the sections after In other media; very little is used for the lengthy descriptions of the angels. JoelleJay (talk) 01:43, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

The non-expert blogs and clickbaity listicles are definitely a problem pretty much regardless of context. I also find that review very curt given the article at hand. For things like the descriptions of the angels, I'd expect a lot of primary sources in there (who is a better source for "what did the creators intend?" but the creator?), but I would worry if there are neutrality concerns (eg inappropriate wikivoice, under-attributed quotes, etc) or WP:OR involved. Having skimmed it, I think the latter is probably an issue. -- asilvering (talk) 02:57, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

I can't say I disagree with the concerns you've raised here. I'd probably vote in favor of delisting based on all of the issues you've identified. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 20:02, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

GA requires compliance with WP:OR, which includes WP:PRIMARY. WP:NPOV also encourages (though does not strictly require) independent sources per WP:BESTSOURCES. I haven't read the article, but if the excessive detail is WP:FANCRUFT or could reasonably be tagged with {{Overly detailed}}, then most reviewers would expect rewrites or removals. I don't think I've ever seen images or diagrams described as a criterion 3 issue. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 08:36, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Agree with this, although I note the lead image licence should be updated following the page move. CMD (talk) 11:17, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Let's remember that while primary and/or non-independent sources can be used for WP:Verification, they do not establish WP:WEIGHT of viewpoints or WP:ASPECTS. TompaDompa (talk) 15:21, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Yes, BALASP is exactly what I feel is most in danger of being violated here. If the only people writing about these extreme details are themselves contributors to the NGE universe (or at the very least supervised by its creators) and have a direct commercial interest in promoting NGE, then how can we have a neutral summary of real-world engagement with the material? JoelleJay (talk) 17:15, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

My read through is it's a very thorough, researched article that absolutely does not belong on Wikipedia. It's a very useful example of why you need secondary sources to lead the path on due weight for a topic or parts of a topic because if you just use secondary sources to argue notability, you enable breathless and well-nigh indecipherable fancruft to fill articles. If reliable secondary sources can't be used in place of most of the primary sources, it suggests that aspect isn't important enough to spend time on, certainly not thousands of words' worth. The article absolutely should be delisted, and then it needs to be gutted to establish if it actually meets notability or this is something that should be covered briefly in the parent article. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 12:24, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Speaking of fancruft, if anyone wants to start removing chunks of the article, it would probably be a good idea to copy some of the text to the eva wiki, since it does appear to be well-researched, just out of scope (and maybe even notability) for wikipedia. -- asilvering (talk) 15:26, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

 I have opened a GAR for the article. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 15:54, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Should ChristieBot remove old GA transclusions when it transcludes a new review?

This is an enhancement suggested by Prhartcom; I've been working on the code this week so it would be a good time for me to add this functionality if we want it. The idea is that if the bot transcludes review2, it should delete the transclusion of review1, if it's present. I am a bit concerned that the bot wouldn't be able to tell if there was any other trace of the prior review on the article talk page. Perhaps it would be better if one of the bots that creates/updates {{Article history}} removed the old GA reviews once they're linked in article history? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:46, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

Why would we want to remove old conversations about a subject? Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 11:25, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't really see the point. What if a GA gets reassessed and then nominated again? Does the first review still get deleted? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 12:20, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Please don't. Transcluded GA nominations are sometimes the only on-topic content on article talk pages; it is fine to archive them when the talk page becomes full, but simply removing them just makes the talk page less useful. —Kusma (talk) 12:25, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

(ec) Prhartcom hasn't edited for a few days so they may not comment immediately, but the example they gave when they requested this was this rev of Talk:Chris Rock–Will Smith slapping incident. A visitor to that talk page would probably scroll to the first GA transclusion and think it was the current one. As I said I don't think it's a good idea to just remove all traces of the old GA, but the bot could change an old transclusion to just a link along with some text that made it clear this was a superseded review. (I don't think the bot can build the article history template, which would probably be the best approach; that's very complicated to do.) However, even changing the transclusion like that might have some negatives -- for example it would probably prevent bots like DeadBeefBot which does implement AH from picking up the old GA and adding it. (Post ec): I agree it should not be removed with no trace left behind, but I don't see a problem with avoiding the transclusion so long as it's easy to see that there was a prior GA. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:30, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Our talk page model is "newest information at the bottom", which is old-fashioned, but once a user understands that, they know where to look. I don't think a transcluded GA review is in any way different from other information on the talk page, and I don't think transclusions should be removed. If you want to make it clearer that one GA review is closed and the other is open, it is better to use closing templates than to hide relevant information. During a new GA review, previous GA reviews need to be as easily findable as possible so it is easy to check whether issues mentioned in old reviews have been addressed. —Kusma (talk) 13:04, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

I am of the opinion that in general, GA review transclusions should not be removed from talk pages without simultaneously being added to talk page archives. TompaDompa (talk) 15:16, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

If an {{Article history}} entry is made for the previous GA review, I don't see any problem with removing the transclusion of it, since a link to the review will still be accessible from the Article history box near the top of the page (though you'd want to also remove the {{GA}} or {{FailedGA}} from that prior review). As noted, this may not be a job for ChristieBot... BlueMoonset (talk) 21:51, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure a link in a template is a suitable alternative for a long and detailed discussion of an articles quality. I don't really know why we'd want to hide it. If it gets archived along with other discussions (due to time), that's fine, but removing it because it's in a template seems a bit OTT. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 09:31, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks to Mike for raising this and of course thanks to him for ChristieBot. I can see where the consensus is going, and it makes sense: Do not remove the old GA transclusions unless they are added to the talk page archives. If Mike were to add that enhancement, it sounds like we approve. If he doesn't want to add that enhancement and leave the old GA reviews on the talk page, it sounds like we are fine with that. Prhartcom (talk) 11:40, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure why we'd need ChristieBot to do this. The old transclusions should be archived the same as other threads. Are they not getting archived? Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 11:42, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

I suspect they won't get archived because they don't have a visible timestamp. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:17, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps that's the part we need to come up with a technical solution to fix. Maybe we should actually subst the review when it's been promoted/failed so it can be archived. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 14:47, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

SyntaxZombie

A 1 month user opened a GA review and has no idea what to do. 2001:4455:3AA:B000:D0C5:47BA:7023:4E1A (talk) 12:33, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Hello! I would be happy to address any specific concerns you have with my ongoing review. I have been carefully following the instructions, but if there is something glaring I have missed, I would greatly appreciate your feedback. I have also contacted a good article mentor to make sure my final review is in line with expectations.

Regarding my experience, I understand that I am a fairly new user so if it is truly inappropriate for me to be conducting a good article review I would certainly be open to changing the reviewer. Furthermore, if newer users should not review good article nominees I would appreciate your help in improving the instructions to make that clear. It was not clear to me and I suspect it would not be clear to other new users.

SyntaxZombie (talk) SyntaxZombie (talk) 16:02, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

@SyntaxZombie: You checked boxes, but how are we to see that you actually checked what the boilerplate points you to? The article uses four photos. Are they each properly licensed? How did you run the COPYVIO check? This article seems to rely entirely on online sources that are not paywalled. Do each of them actually support what the content asserts? All of these and more are required per WP:GACR. You can find more detailed directions at WP:RGA, which I suspect you didn't bother to read, let alone follow. If you actually checked these items you would probably find problems for the nominator to address, like MoS. If you don't understand MoS, then why are you reviewing a good article? This is QPQ for your GA nom? Please examine any of my GA reviews to see what right looks like. Chris Troutman (talk) 16:22, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

I don't see how this tone is helpful in teaching a new user—whose contributions to this point reflect quite well on them—how to use Wikipedia. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 19:47, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Hey! Thank you for joining us in reviewing good articles. Don't worry too much about it, I'm sure you will become a great reviewer after a few small adjustments (and after gaining some experience, of course). The table you used in your review is supposed to be supplementary, used to summarize the review. It sounds like you did follow the instructions, but right now other editors have no way to actually check that and it may seem like you just randomly checked boxes. If you were to express your thought process on the review page it would help greatly to clear up the confusion. It doesn't have to be extremely detailed.

Another thing people expect to see in a review is "spot check", a review of sources used in the article. But it looks like you already know that. As for the number of sources you should check, I don't believe there's a specific number or percentage required. In theory, an article doesn't need to reach a certain arbitrary number of sources used, as long as the provided sources support everything. Say, the article could be based on a couple of super detailed books. However, usually articles have numerous sources. As far as I know, you are supposed to check the ones that you would actually question. Sales numbers, chart peaks numbers for music albums, some specific facts, dates, maybe some of the quotes if there are any. And if I run out of these, I just pick a few more random refs to check, until I reach 10ish. Some editors do more, but for good articles you don't need to check everything. Anyway, good luck! I hope to see you again in the future. AstonishingTunesAdmirer 連絡 21:36, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

It's perfectly appropriate for a new user to review GANs. The skills required - careful reading, following instructions, decent writing skills, communication - are in no way exclusive to long-time wikipedians. If you are carefully following the instructions, you'll be fine. -- asilvering (talk) 22:17, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

I am confident that SyntaxZombie can review this appropriately as well as take The Prince (play) through the nomination process, given some support. SyntaxZombie contacting a mentor was the right action and the IP volunteer bringing it to this forum was not. The short of it is that while some articles already meet all of the GA criteria at the time of nomination, it is good practice to provide several sentences of feedback: (1) because many editors primarily go through this process in order to improve articles; (2) so that scrutinisers can distinguish a thorough review from an inadequate review. Everyone develops their own style: mine is always changing, even after 50 or so reviews, and my latest idea is to use a "Strengths" section like here to really spell out how I have checked every criterion.

Also, you can always find some wording improvements, and almost always find some verifiability issues by reading the sources. (Take a look at RSP, too, which often lists some of the publications used as references. In the case of Maui (Moana) you find that all except BuzzFeed and The Times of India are generally reliable, and you might conclude that those two are appropriate in context for this particular article.) — Bilorv (talk) 00:32, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

They've reached out to a mentor,[1] and I've left a message on their talk page offering to help if that mentor is unavailable.[2] Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 04:08, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

What is spot-check actually in the case of reviewing articles

I have seen that some article nominations require reviewers to do a so-called spot-check. My knowledge about this means that the reviewer may check the verifiability of the sources and whether they match the written facts. However, sometimes the spot-check may be referred to arrange the format sources properly.

I wonder if some users may have a different opinion about "spot-check". Dedhert.Jr (talk) 05:34, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

"However, sometimes the spotcheck may be refer to distribute the format sources." I'm not sure what this means. Can you clarify, @Dedhert.Jr? ♠PMC♠ (talk) 05:35, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

@PMC I haven't copyedited the words. Done. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 05:38, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

The spot check has nothing to do with source formatting and nitpicky stuff like that. (In fact, correct source formatting isn't required for GA; per the GACR, as long as the citation points you to the source, it's sufficient.)

The spot check refers to the first thing you said - whether or not the source says what our article says it does. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 05:50, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Slightly more relevant is that we require all reviews to have a spot check, where a reviewer takes a selection of sources and checks that what is in the article is adequately backed up by the sources given. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 11:43, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

New statistics tool to get information about an editor's GA history

I've created a GA statistics page that takes an editor's name as input and returns some summary information about their interactions with GA. It shows all their nominations and reviews, and gives a summary of their statistics -- number promoted, number that are still GAs, and the review-to-GA ratio. Please let me know about any bugs or enhancement suggestions. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:20, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for creating this tool, Mike. I noticed when I input my name, I'm credited for two nominations that weren't done by me. This is because I reverted some out of process promotions (see this diff) and it appears the tool thinks I was the nominator, because I was the one who made the edit restoring the nominee template, even though the real nominator's name was present within the template. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 14:24, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for that -- the tool can get confused by things like that. I fixed the one you linked to; if you tell me what the other one is I'll fix that too. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:03, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

That would be 1990 San Diego Chargers season. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 21:50, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Fixed. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:29, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

One other comment: the tool makes it look like my nominations to promotions ratio is lower than it actually is, because it is actually counting GAs later promoted to FAs against me (4 such articles in my case). Is there a way this could be accounted for by the tool? Trainsandotherthings (talk) 14:27, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

I would consider that to be working as intended: the tool is now reporting your actual ratio of reviews to successful nominations, rather than artificially inflating it by not counting some of your nominations. This was discussed at §Using all GA nominations for the GA statistic rather than current promoted ones above. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 14:56, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I'm planning to make that change in the numbers on the GAN page too. I haven't done it yet so please comment at the earlier discussion if you disagree. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:03, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

My concern is not with the review ratio, I agree that it should reflect all nominations I've made to be fair. It's more that it makes it look like I've had 5 GAs that were delisted, when only 1 was actually delisted and the other 4 are now FAs. I'm not sure what the answer is for this. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 22:01, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks Mike!

One comment: it looks as though there's something wrong with the "Promoted GA nominations that are still GAs" field: it returns 0 for me, but it should be 21 (Brothers Poem and Corinna are now FA). I see for your stats it instead reports that all of your GA noms are still GAs, though two (Amazing Stories and Ghost Stories (magazine)) have since been promoted to FA. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 14:28, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

The numbers for my stats confused me too, but it's because two of them predate the cutoff for ChristieBot -- Space Science Fiction Magazine and John W. Campbell. That coincidentally cancels out the two that have since been promoted to FA. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:07, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

The "Promoted GA nominations that are still GAs" number is now fixed; it was case-sensitive and now is not. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:54, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Hmm, also comparing the results given against SDZeroBot's attempt, I notice that your tool misses Women in Classical Athens Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 14:39, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

It appears about 70 GAs were not properly categorized in the database; not sure why, but I'm doing a run now that should fix them. Please let me know if you see more omissions. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:42, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Superb work, Mike. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 14:43, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

GA nominations: 197

Promoted GA nominations: 179

Promoted GA nominations that are still GAs: 0

GA reviews: 301

Ratio of reviews to successful nominations: 1.7

What does "Promoted GA nominations that are still GAs" actually means? I have about 150 or so that are still GAs. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 14:46, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Looks like there's a bug in that calculation; I will take a look at that next. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:07, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Should now be fixed -- the tool was case sensitive for that value, but I've made it case-insensitive. If we ever get two users at GA whose usernames differ only in case I'll have to change it back. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:54, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Looks like the issue was actually that my search was "Lee Vilenski " rather than "Lee Vilenski" (mobiles tend to add additional spaces for reasons). Searching just for the username gives the correct info. In case someone else mentions it. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 12:49, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

One small thing in the GA reviews section, the table lists the nominators as reviewers instead. -- ZooBlazer 16:03, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Fixed. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:42, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

The stats for me seem incorrect.

GA nominations: 0

Promoted GA nominations: 0

Promoted GA nominations that are still GAs: 29

GA reviews: 0

Ratio of reviews to successful nominations: Infinite

Obviously, I have done GA nominations which were then promoted to have that number that are still GAs; and I have done a number of reviews. All of these were within the last 6 months, so they were surely captured by ChristieBot. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 17:28, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

It seems the problem is the tool sometimes gets into a state where it can't get to most of the data. I fixed the problem for now by restarting it so you should see your numbers now, but it will no doubt happen again. I'll see if I can figure out what's going on. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 17:49, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

I've got a similar issue with my stats:

• GA nominations: 0
• Promoted GA nominations: 0
• Promoted GA nominations that are still GAs: 14
• GA reviews: 0
• Ratio of reviews to successful nominations: Infinite

I tried checking PMC and Premeditated_Chaos in case the issue was with the space, or my signature, but no dice. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 18:26, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

User:Tim O'Doherty, who also has two FA nominations to his name, asserts to have nominated 8 successful GAs and reviewed 12 GAs, some of which I have been involved with. However, according to the GA nominations page and the new GA statistics tool, it shows that Tim has neither nominated nor reviewed any successful GAs. I was hoping you, @Mike Christie, could look into this since ChristieBot and the new GA statistics tool were developed by you. Regards, and yours faithfully. MSincccc (talk) 06:44, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

Fixed -- the apostrophe in Tim's username is what was causing the issue. Usernames with apostrophes should now work correctly. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 09:45, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

However, it appears the bot that maintains the "still a GA" number is not recording the data correctly for users with apostrophes, so that number is still showing as zero for Tim. I've left the maintainer of that bot a message. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:38, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

@Mike Christie: Adding my thanks for the creation of this tool. Looking at my stats, I see two oddities:

• It lists me as the nominator for Talk:California/GA2, and not the actual nominator. This one is confusing because I'd never edited any page associated with that GA review.
• Freetown station is listed as being promoted twice, because Talk:Freetown station/GA1 is incorrectly listed as "promoted".

Pi.1415926535 (talk) 20:24, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Both should now be fixed. I don't know why the California one was assigned to you; I reran that analytics step for that page and it corrected it. For Freetown station, part of the problem was that there was no easy way for the bot to figure out what the outcome was of the first review; there was no "Failed GA" template, for example. I added article history to the talk page and reran the analytics and that seems to have sorted it out. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:24, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

I'll be working on the tool this afternoon trying to figure it why it keeps producing zeros after a few queries. In the meantime here are the numbers for Generalissima:

• GA nominations: 33
• Promoted GA nominations: 30
• Promoted GA nominations that are still GAs: 29
• GA reviews: 29
• Ratio of reviews to successful nominations: 1.0

and for PMC:

• GA nominations: 31
• Promoted GA nominations: 30
• Promoted GA nominations that are still GAs: 14
• GA reviews: 107
• Ratio of reviews to successful nominations: 3.6

The tool will probably be mostly down this afternoon; I'll leave a note here if/when I think I've fixed it. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 18:48, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Is it possible to get a list of all GA reviews you're credited with? My personal count only has 104, I'm curious what ones I've missed ♠PMC♠ (talk) 19:17, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

I'll leave a list on your talk page. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 20:05, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

I think the bug is fixed and the tool should now be working. Please let me know of any other issues, or if this one recurs. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:37, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Hi Mike, would you consider a slight tweak of the sort order? The "reviews" are sorted by nomination date, so my first review is listed at number 5 (the first five are 5-2-1-4-3). It would make more sense to sort the reviews by review date (ideally by start of the review, actually). —Kusma (talk) 13:13, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Good idea, and an easy change to make, so done. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:07, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Great stuff, thanks, Mike Christie. Talk:Sarah Cooper/GA0 is listed in the results for me as "Nominated"; looks like there was some process issue around that review. Also, I think I messed up the template when reviewing Talk:Atul Gawande/GA1 - that should probably be updated to a fail. (I later nominated it myself Talk:Atul Gawande/GA2). Regards, BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 21:57, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

These should now be fixed. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:34, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

Very interesting, thanks for creating this. A slight bug in my results, may have been reported above. The tool reports 19 nominations, 19 promoted nominations, and 14 that are still GAs. None of my GAs have been delisted. Three have been promoted to FA. I think the discrepancy for the other 2 is that there were abortive initial reviews, and both were promoted after GA2. That's my guess, and it's not a big deal. Mackensen (talk) 22:55, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

(Also @Trainsandotherthings, since you raised the same question): the "still GAs" isn't meant to imply that the others were delisted; just that they're not currently listed as GAs -- in many cases this will be because they were promoted to FA, not demoted. I'll find a way to phrase this on the tool's output page to make this clearer. Mackensen, I'll have a look at the other two you mention and see if I can figure out what happened. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:34, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

Could the tool tell me which promoted GA nominations are no longer GAs (as a column in the table)? Could it even track which promoted GA nominations are neither GAs nor FAs? (Using myself as a test case the tool indicates there should be 4, of which I expect one to be the delisted The Game (mind game) and three to be the featured San Junipero, The 1975 (song) and Why Marx Was Right.) Also, I'm impressed that it seems to track page moves appropriately (Nosedive moved to Nosedive (Black Mirror)). — Bilorv (talk) 18:47, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

It's not easy to tell whether a page is FA, GA, A, B, etc; there's no single place I can look. However, SDZeroBot does keep track of which articles are currently GA, so I could try checking that and see if I can match up the article names. I might be able to search for the article names in WP:FA or the various GA pages as well. I probably won't work on this for a couple of weeks as I'll be traveling next weekend but will put it on the list. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:24, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

Promotion percentage

I thought it would be interesting to see the promotion percentage for our most prolific reviewers -- that is how many of their reviews end by promoting the article to GA. Here's the list for everyone with at least 100 reviews. This doesn't account for name changes (e.g. Malleus Fatuorum -> Eric Corbett) but I can probably fix that if I turn this into a query on the tool's webpage. I don't think there's necessarily anything negative about a very high promotion percentage -- a reviewer who picks up articles from nominators they know are very reliable might well have a promotion percentage close to 100%, for example, whereas a reviewer who makes a point of reviewing articles by inexperienced nominators (as I've done intermittently) might have an unusually low promotion percentage. Still, I think the numbers are interesting. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:26, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Very interesting! For comparison, what is the overall promotion rate? —Kusma (talk) 17:33, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

43,027 passed out of 52,395 in the database; 82.1% promotion rate. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 17:46, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

In case anyone else is wondering why my percentage is so low: I don't think it's because I have unreasonably high standards, but more because I tend to pick articles to review where I can reasonably predict the outcome: either a quick fail or a relatively easy pass. I don't want to get drawn into games of whack-a-mole where I point out examples of problematic material in a nominated article, the nominator fixes those examples but not the general problem, and I have to keep finding more examples ad nauseam. For a while that was leading me to deliberately seek out nominations that could be (justifiably!) quick failed, hence my high fail rate. I think for the ones where I initiated a full review rather than a quick fail, my pass rate is much higher. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:04, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Very interesting indeed. By my quick calculations, the mean promotion rate for our most active reviewers listed in your table is 86.3% (excluding David Eppstein pushes it up very slightly to 86.6%), and the median promotion rate for the reviewers listed is 91% – so you are marginally more likely to have your nominations promoted if it is picked up by a very active reviewer. This data doesn't let us say why that might be, but a couple of thoughts:

• Historically reviewers had relatively lower standards than today and were more prolific because reviews used to take less time, and so are disproportionately represented in the "very active reviewer" dataset (there are a lot of names which I do not recognise, or which I do recognise as no longer editing, in that dataset, so this is entirely possible)
• Very active reviewers have a better idea of which articles are going to pass (either because they recognise the nominator or they have a better preliminary assessment of how good an article is) and favour reviewing better articles
• Very active reviewers are careless and more willing to promote articles which are not at GA standards (anecdotally I suspect this is not true given the names I recognise on the list)
• Less active reviewers overcompensate and require things above and beyond the GA standard, and therefore fail things which an experienced reviewer might pass (I have certainly seen this behaviour, but I've also seen inexperienced reviewers pass things which I would not have, so I'm not sure which direction this actually tilts the stats in)
• Passing reviews take less time on average than failing them, so the most active reviewers are the ones who review the most articles which go on to pass
• The most active reviewers are the most willing to handhold a borderline article through to passing (perhaps because they generally spend more time onwiki, so they can devote more time to any given review)

Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 11:44, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Who wants to be my 50th fail? ;) Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 19:52, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Agreed that this is interesting! As you say, I suspect the main differentiating factor is the reviewer's personal choices about what kinds of articles to review. —Ganesha811 (talk) 18:26, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Promotion percentage for GA reviewers with 100 reviews

Reviewer               Promoted Not_promoted % promoted West Virginian         150 0 100% Anotherclown           158 1 99% Ian Rose               137 1 99% Simongraham           116 1 99% Rcej                   245 3 99% Grapple X             122 2 98% ThinkBlue             356 7 98% Iazyges               254 6 98% BennyOnTheLoose       122 3 98% Seabuckthorn           161 4 98% Gog the Mild           156 4 98% Damien Linnane         129 4 97% Dr. Blofeld           231 8 97% Shearonink             111 4 97% CatRacer22             447 18 96% Zawed                 219 9 96% LunaEatsTuna           117 5 96% The Rambling Man       730 33 96% Parsecboy             169 8 95% Wilhelmina Will       123 6 95% Dom497                 123 6 95% Hawkeye7               185 10 95% Courcelles             239 13 95% Gen. Quon             140 8 95% AustralianRupert       155 9 95% Ealdgyth               288 17 94% A person in Georgia   326 20 94% QatarStarsLeague       141 9 94% Hog Farm               376 24 94% Xtzou                 121 8 94% KCVelaga               120 8 94% Usernameunique         132 9 94% Peacemaker67           354 25 93% Sturmvogel 66         872 62 93% Nova Crystallis       161 12 93% Eddie891               120 9 93% Status                 119 9 93% Ruby2010               132 10 93% Dough4872             330 25 93% ProtoDrake             130 10 93% Rp0211                 104 8 93% Auntieruth55           115 9 93% Whiteguru             102 8 93% Razr Nation           114 9 93% Ecpiandy               160 13 92% 12george1             185 16 92% Jaguar                 682 63 92% Yellow Evan           171 16 91% Ed!                   217 21 91% Kyle Peake             506 49 91% Tomcat7               171 17 91% Vami IV               99 10 91% Casliber               324 33 91% Zanimum               107 11 91% Jackyd101             125 13 91% Cerebellum             91 10 90% Aoba47                 270 31 90% Sainsf                 281 33 89% Mattisse               210 25 89% Pyrotec               436 52 89% Juliancolton           107 13 89% MathewTownsend         179 23 89% Tim riley             172 23 88% AryKun                 107 15 88% Sammi Brie             261 37 88% FunkMonk               261 38 87% Miyagawa               225 33 87% Carbrera               181 27 87% Lemonade51             97 15 87% GhostRiver             191 30 86% Malleus Fatuorum       169 30 85% Chiswick Chap         298 58 84% Lee Vilenski           251 49 84% Jens Lallensack       148 30 83% Zwerg Nase             86 18 83% Cartoon network freak 154 33 82% Sarastro1             88 19 82% J Milburn             386 85 82% Wizardman             581 129 82% Cwmhiraeth             133 30 82% Hurricanehink         194 45 81% MarioSoulTruthFan     165 41 80% Arsenikk               245 63 80% ChrisGualtieri         102 27 79% Kosack                 98 26 79% Amitchell125           188 50 79% Dana boomer           348 93 79% Jim Sweeney           86 23 79% Mike Christie         355 97 79% Harrias               150 43 78% Sasata                 145 45 76% Kingsif               102 34 75% Calvin999             190 65 75% Cirt                   209 82 72% Ritchie333             127 51 71% Ganesha811             103 42 71% Hchc2009               73 32 70% Khazar2               253 117 68% Premeditated Chaos     72 34 68% Jezhotwells           386 187 67% SilkTork               114 71 62% David Fuchs           66 44 60% MPJ-DK                 59 44 57% Aircorn               60 47 56% SNUGGUMS               124 101 55% Gary                   101 112 47% TonyTheTiger           101 113 47% David Eppstein         35 89 28%

New mentorship page

The old good article mentorship page can be found at Wikipedia:Good article help/mentor, where it consists solely of an outdated list of usernames. There's clearly interest in mentoring, as it managed to gather 27 mentors over its run, but a simple list of usernames isn't that helpful. I created a basic outline at Wikipedia:Good article mentorship for a new mentorship process. The key difference here is that instead of having to choose from an intimidating list of names, aspiring reviewers can request a mentor in a similar format as GOCE requests.

Subpages:

• Wikipedia:Good article mentorship/Top – The transcluded text and formatting of the page. Transclusion allows for the separation of page content and discussion, including automatic signing.
• Wikipedia:Good article mentorship/Mentors – A transcluded list of available mentors. We could create a new page or move Wikipedia:Good article help/mentor to this location.
• Wikipedia:Good article mentorship/Preload – The default preload text when creating a request. This will create a new subsection, inviting the mentee to specify what aspects they need the most help with, and to state what subject area they'd like help starting a review in if they haven't chosen a nom.

It's just an outline right now, so please edit the text and layout. Formatting is not my forte. If even just a few people become regular reviewers through this, it would be a significant improvement to the backlog and the good article process. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 21:14, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, that seems pretty good to me. I'd be happy if newish reviewers (and nominators) had a guiding hand rather than some of the crazy threads we see after the fact here sometimes. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 21:27, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

Sounds great. Maybe we should start a new page rather than using the old mentors page, since that way we know all the mentors are familiar with this system and actively watching it. -- asilvering (talk) 17:15, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

I agree, and I've created a new one with a similar format. Maybe once this is up and running a message can be sent to anyone on the old list who's still active to see if they're interested. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 22:24, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

All of the individual pieces should be put together now. But before this gets "launched", I assume the community here would want to discuss how much involvement a mentor would have, and if there are any specific aspects that should/shouldn't be included in their role. And whether the "norm" would be for the mentor to be more active on the review page or on the reviewer's talk page. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 23:14, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Add new category for books?

I think it would be helpful if we had a separate category for books under the general "language and literature" heading. Right now, books are diffused throughout the categories according to their topic, which (imo) is a sensible way to arrange them for readers, but not so much for editors, and GAN is not a really "reader-facing" part of the project. Right now you can sorta-kinda get around this by looking at the article alerts page for WP:BOOKS, but I think a separate subcat would be better. -- asilvering (talk) 17:13, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

For the benefit of editors, mathematics books should be listed under Mathematics and cookbooks under Food. Why should they be put together? —Kusma (talk) 17:51, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Because both writing and reviewing articles on books is much more about what makes a good book article than what makes a good math/food/whatever article. -- asilvering (talk) 18:11, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Not to mention that books are often pretty hard to classify into the categories that we already have. -- asilvering (talk) 18:11, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

I like the current system. Right now, I count (may have missed some) three books in the "l&l" section, and two books (The Glorious Cause and Waste Siege) elsewhere; I think that a separate "books" subsection would normally be empty, and would additionally confuse people when it comes to allocating to WP:GA categories. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 20:09, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

What is a 'significant contributor' to an article?

There's a helpful and friendly editor who is keeping tabs on articles I write, and then making some minor edits and then nominating them for GAN. Whilst the intent is welcomed and the articles I create are certainly not 'my' articles to gatekeep through any editorial process, I would prefer to be involved in the GAN process as these often delve into scope, reliability etc. discussions that require an understanding of the sourcing used in the article. I just want to confirm that a 'significant contributor' is someone who has provided what could be called content additions and not edits, and that I'm not being unduly discouraging to this person in suggesting that their approach may not be the best approach. Any ideas on how to involve them on the journey, and whether co-nomination of GANs is a thing, would help too. Thanks. ＶＲＸＣＥＳ (talk) 05:06, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Generally we look for something over 10% authorship so as not to be considered a drive-by nomination, which is grounds for immediate removal. That being said, in my opinion it's a bit...overbearing...to walk into an article that someone else has obviously and recently done the work on and nominate it as your own GAN without asking. (As opposed to a situation where there is no main author, or the main author is AWOL, or the article is not actively being developed.) As you say - you're the one with the understanding of and access to sourcing, you're the one who's familiar with why certain editorial decisions were made. You could certainly invite them to co-nominate if you're into that, but if you're not, I personally don't think it would be unreasonable of you to suggest they ask you before nominating. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 05:38, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

I would also be a bit put off if another user regularly nominated articles I was the main contributor to on-wiki processes. Irrelevant to that however, if the additional edits aren't themselves contributing content, these sound like drive-by nominations and are discouraged by current guidelines. Per PMC they could be removed by another party. CMD (talk) 05:50, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

I agree with the others that this is very weird behaviour. I've tidied up an article and nominated it for GA before, but that was after I got the explicit go-ahead from its original main contributor, who declined to be involved but was happy to see the article shepherded through. It might be an awkward conversation to have, but I would say you're well within boundaries of acceptable conduct to tell the person nominating the articles you wrote to cut it out. -- asilvering (talk) 22:29, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Multiple project listing

This has probably been asked before, but is not in the FAQ (where it probably should be if asked and answered). I made a GAN which should be both "Chemistry and material science" and "Physics". Note that their was once a "Materials science" project, but it appears to have collapsed some time ago and the gap is now partially filled by Chemistry and (Solid State) Physics. Is there a simple way to do this, the instructions indicate to only choose one. Ldm1954 (talk) 08:38, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

@Ldm1954: On the GAN page, we list pages exactly once (and there are good reasons for that; we'd quickly get people listing an article about a historical novel involving a WWII submarine in three different places if cross-listings were allowed), so you just have to pick one topic area (at random is fine). However, the nomination will be listed in other places than on the main GAN page, for example the GAN section of Wikipedia:WikiProject Physics/Article alerts if the articles has a WikiProject Physics tag on the talk page. You can also use the "comment" field on the nomination template to mention potential other fields. —Kusma (talk) 09:30, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. Add to FAQ? Ldm1954 (talk) 09:53, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Red links in recent good articles section

Not sure why there are two (as of right now) red links. TWOrantula^TM (enter the web) 14:32, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Vandalism, not noticed until the change was picked up by the bot who populates the recent good articles section. —Kusma (talk) 14:43, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Please nullify the reviewer's commitment to review due to lack of review actions (similar to abandoned review) on Talk:Modafinil#GA_Review_3

I would like to ask appropriate administrators or appropriate persons involved in overall management of the GA process for a reconsideration of the review commitment by User:Irruptive Creditor for the review page Talk:Modafinil#GA_Review_3. The assigned reviewer has not undertaken any review actions, such as providing feedback or asking questions, leaving the review section empty and in a state of limbo, apart from my message where I tried to contact the reviewer. I tried to contact the reviewer on the review page, their user page, and via Wikipedia email, there has been no response; still, the reviewer was active on Wikipedia on April 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 12 according to their edit history, yet, as of now, they did not reply to any of the outreach attempts; therefore, I believe that the commitment to review may have been a misclick.

As such, I propose that the review commitment be nullified, and the review request for the Modafinil article be returned to the queue. However, rather than treating it as a new request, I suggest it retains its original position and date, as if the review had never commenced. This is akin to an abandoned review, but without the disadvantage of returning to the queue anew. I tried to engage with the reviewer, and the lack of activity from the reviewer’s side should not penalize the progress of the article’s review process. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 16:04, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

I am unsure what you mean by "akin to an abandoned review" Maxim Masiutin; this is an abandoned review, and the procedure followed for them is precisely to return the nomination to its original position in the GAN queue. I will tag the page for G6 deletion. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 16:47, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Deleted. Thanks AJ29, and good luck MM with the renom. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 16:50, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

I checked now the articles nominated for review and the date of Modafinil is as I requested, i.e. 23 February 2024, the date it had initially. This is exactly what I asked for. Thank you! I didn't know whether it is handled automatically when you delete a review, or you had manually to adjust the date. Please let me know if it was handled automatically, so If next time it will be the same situation, I will just ask you "to request a G6 deletion of the review page" as specified in WP:GAN/I#N4a -- sorry for my initial lenghy request, as I don't have full knowledge of the what's going behind the scene. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 22:00, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

By the phrase "akin to an abandoned review" I meant a situation where a review process has been initiated but not followed through by the assigned reviewer. This is similar to an "abandoned review" where the reviewer has stopped participating in the review process, but with a key difference: in a typical "abandoned review" scenario, as per the Wikipedia instructions, the review would return to the backlog and be treated as a new request. This could potentially delay the review process as it would need to wait for a new reviewer to pick it up from the start in a priority similar to new nominations. However, in my case, I asked the administrators to handle so that the Modafinil article be returned to the queue, retaining its original position and date, as if the review had never commenced. Particularly relevant instruction in my case is (quote): "If the reviewer has not made any comments other than opening the review, it may be better to request a G6 deletion of the review page and start over" - still, it is not explained to which position the nomination should return in the queue. In my case, I asked that the review would not be treated as a new request, but rather continue from where it left off, thus avoiding the delay associated with starting the review process anew. This is what I meant by "akin to an abandoned review, but without the disadvantage of returning to the queue anew". Maxim Masiutin (talk) 21:55, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

My understanding is that this was an abandoned review. The process described at WP:GAN/I#N4a was followed. If there had been more comments and if the G6 were declined, I believe the nom would still be in the same place in the queue. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 23:16, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Going to hijack this to ask about a related issue. Talk:Melania Trump/GA1 received just a few bullet points about the first few sections before the reviewer CSD'd it, but an admin rejected the CSD and set it to second opinion instead. Is this the correct process? Thebiguglyalien (talk) 21:57, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Can you please start a new topic instead and when you refer to a related issue put a link, e.g. write: "my issue similar to that mentioned in Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations#Please nullify the reviewer's commitment to review due to lack of review actions (similar to abandoned review) on Talk:Modafinil#GA_Review_3 - it will help us handle both issues separately. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 22:06, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

It's the same issue. The solution to one is the solution to the other. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 23:08, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

I don't see why that would help Maxim Masiutin; in any case, you're not handling anything.

Thebiguglyalien, as the review is seemingly complete in the reviewer's eyes, and you're the one dissatisfied, I would say that asking for a second opinion is the correct process; you can of course also ask the reviewer to fail the nomination and renominate the article. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 23:20, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Proposal 1: Regular backlog drives

I've made the backlog drives subpage "permanent" in the tab header to give it more visibility, since we've agreed that we ought to be having drives more often. We didn't agree on timing or number of backlog drives, though. Here's an inventory of most of the suggestions that seem applicable and possible:

1. We have three backlog drives a year
2. They are regular and recur in the same months every year
3. Some are themed/only address part of the backlog, to cut down on reviewer fatigue (this is proposal 14)
4. January and August look like good times
5. Swap Unreviewed nominations with Old nominations at Backlog Drives Progress (this is proposal 6)

In light of those, here is a proposal:

1. Three drives a year, in January, May, and September
2. The January drive is the "main" one, targetting all nominations, but especially old ones (ie, prop 6); bonus points are given for reviewing longer and older articles
3. The May drive is particularly newbie-friendly; we put extra effort into recruiting new reviewers, give points for mentorship, etc (I'm happy to brainstorm/co-ordinate on this)
4. The September drive is focused on some particular element of the backlog drive, and the co-ords will draw up a list of qualifying GANs in advance (possible examples: articles by editors with no GAs, articles by editors with more reviews than GAs, etc); points will still be given for reviews that aren't on that list, but the aim is to wipe out that list in particular.

In the earlier discussion, @AirshipJungleman29 said I mean, sure, but all of them require people to do the things. If you want to showcase model reviews, reward good reviews, be a mentor, or anything else, get on with it. I stepped forward with GAR and have been basically running the process for a year. So, here I am, getting on with it. -- asilvering (talk) 21:59, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Thank you very much. Regardless of whether we will have regular backlog drives (I expressed against regular backlog drive on Proposal 1 discussion and gave arguments), I liked very much to have a list of past drives at Wikipedia:Good_articles/GAN_Backlog_Drives#Past Drives. I didn't know that we had this list. Anyway, the special permanent page for GA drives, even if we will not have many GA drives the future, is a good think that I appreciate. For example, we can have announcements of future drives or analysis of past drives there. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 22:14, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Major usability issue in the user interface of the Good Article nominations list - proposal to fix

Let me raise the major usability issue in the user interface of the Good Article nominations list that I observed first time I submitted an article for GA review a few years ago.

The number of reviews and GAs in parentheses before the user name is misleading as if it was a number of reviews ans GAs that the article received, not the user.

Consider the following example:

Boot Monument (talk | history | discuss review) – American Revolutionary War memorial – (6 reviews, 0 GAs) Relativity (talk) 02:29, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
 Review: this article is being reviewed (additional comments are welcome). (32 reviews, 19 GAs) Harper J. Cole (talk) 11:12, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

It looks like the article "Boot Monument" so far has 6 reviews and 0 GAs or 32 reviews, 19 GAs, suggesting a collective review process for a first-time users who don't understand the process.

Initially, it was only me who understood this way, but later I saw other editors understood the same way as me, suggesting that it was not my fault but a major usability issue in the user interface of the Good Article nominations list.

I could not find particular examples in the archive to prove my point that other users understood as me, but such cases existed. Maybe I will manage to find examples. However, please do not consider my examples as crucial for considering my request, evaluate my request without the examples.

My proposal is to present the list differently:

Boot Monument (talk | history | discuss review) – American Revolutionary War memorial – (nominated by Relativity who has a past history of 6 reviews and 0 GAs) Relativity (talk) 02:29, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
 Review: this article is being reviewed (additional comments are welcome). (being reviewed by Harper J. Cole who has a past history of 32 reviews and 19 GAs) Harper J. Cole (talk) 11:12, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

The exact phrase "who has a past history of" can be slightly different, for example consider other variants, such as:

1. (nominated by Relativity with a track record of 6 reviews and 0 GAs)
2. (nominated by Relativity who has accumulated 6 reviews and 0 GAs)
3. (nominated by Relativity boasting 6 reviews and 0 GAs)
4. (nominated by Relativity known for 6 reviews and 0 GAs)
5. (nominated by Relativity with a background of 6 reviews and 0 GAs)
6. (nominated by Relativity having 6 reviews and 0 GAs to their name)
7. (nominated by Relativity with a history of 6 reviews and 0 GAs)
8. (nominated by Relativity who has previously achieved 6 reviews and 0 GAs)
9. (nominated by Relativity credited with 6 reviews and 0 GAs)
10. (nominated by Relativity who has been recognized for 6 reviews and 0 GAs)

We can use any of these alternatives to convey the experience and contributions of the nominator and the reviewer in a clear and concise manner.

My proposal makes lines longer by having the names used twice per line: first time in parenthesis and the second time as a signature similar to that generated by four tildas ~~~~, still, it will resolve the usability issue.

If you are concerned about the lengths of the lines, remove the signature, the user name will be used only once. Signatures provide automated way to reply, but there is no need to reply in the GA nominations list.

Additional benefit of my proposal is that will not only make the list easier to understand, but it will bring clarity for new users on the steps of the GA review process. The current format can be confusing for new users who are not familiar with the Good Article nomination process. By explicitly stating the track record of the nominator and reviewer, we eliminate any ambiguity regarding the source of the reviews and GAs.

I believe that my proposal is consistent with Wikipedia standards. Wikipedia values clarity and transparency in its content and processes. The proposed change aligns with these values by making the information more accessible and understandable. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 22:38, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

I will appreciate if the editors or administrator who take care of the overall GA review process nominate my proposal to the whole list of proposals as "Proposal N:..." by putting to to the list of the all proposals. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 22:45, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

The proposal drive has ended. And for what it's worth, I never once read the nominations this way, and I don't know if anyone else has either. The proposed change would require a huge use of space on a page that's already full to bursting. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 23:06, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Please take your concerns about accessibility and apply them to your own comments, which are probably second to none in sheer tediousness on this site. You have been told such before, on this very page—if you can't remember, you will find it in the archives; no need for miffling about with "maybes". ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 23:34, 16 April 2024 (UTC)