Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Sibyl de Neufmarché/1

Sibyl de Neufmarché

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review

Result: Withdrawn by nominator I am going to withdraw this reassessment as a result of a discussion at my talk page[1]. An editor has said they will try and fix it, but not while this reassessment is running. Since the aim is always to fix these articles I am willing to give them that opportunity. If it still has issues in a couple of months then I may open a new reassessment. AIRcorn (talk) 22:57, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

There have been tags on this article since November 2010 August 2012 asking for more reliable sources regarding websites run by Charles Cawley (Medieval Lands and The Foundation for Medieval Genealogy). I have been to the reliable sources noticeboard and from what I can gather the general consensus is that they can be used if no better source can be found. However, the compromise at the moment seems to be to tag these with a "better sources required" tag. There was also comment there that an article that relies on these sources can not be considered Good. The current discussion can be found at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#The Foundation for Medieval Genealogy and there are also previous discussions held at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 131#Medieval Lands by Charles Cawley (2) and Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 115#Medieval Lands by Charles Cawley. Would be interested to know the Good article community opinion of using these sources in a Good article. AIRcorn (talk) 08:08, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

I have since provided the original sources Cawley used; seeing as there are few Primary Sources available online regarding a woman born in 1100 it's unlikely better sources than those of which Cawley used will be found. If the Wikipedia community feels that the article is undermined by the use of these (so far) only available online sources then go ahead and declass it. However, it bodes ill for future editors wishing to spend their time improving an article to GA class only to have it declassed because one editor does not like the sources provided notwithsatnding their having passed muster during the peer review and the GA review.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 09:13, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

The claim that there have been tags on this article since November 2010 asking for more reliable sources regarding websites run by Charles Cawley does not appear to be supported by the article's history and they were not there when I assessed the article in December 2010. The tags seem to have been added in this edit on 27th August 2012. Pyrotec (talk) 21:52, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

The tags were backdated when they were added. I have amended them there, and struck the comments here, on the talk page and the reliable source noticeboard. AIRcorn (talk) 23:25, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

You are perfectly entitled to strike out your own comments, and I would question whether you aught to be striking out other editors' comments without their agreement (I've not seem any discussion with them in respect of getting their agrement). Pyrotec (talk) 23:49, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

What other editors comments have I struck. AIRcorn (talk) 00:01, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm minded to close this review and keep GA status. AIRcorn failed to comply with the clause 3 of Community reassessment, i.e. "Please notify the most recent GA reviewer, major contributing editors....". I, as the last reviewer (see Talk:Sibyl de Neufmarché/GA1), was not notified and (As AIRcorn states): "The application of the Good article criteria is a bit subjective and reviewers will interpret the criteria slightly differently. According to the criteria references are only needed for "direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons". The "likely to be challenged" part allows a lot of leeway to the reviewer to ask for references. However, one of the criteria is also that there should be no valid maintenance tags. As not all tags are valid to the criteria this can be a little contradictory (tagged deadlinks is one I usually ignore when cleaning up articles). From reading the above there could be an argument made in this case that the sources themselves don't strictly fall foul of the GA criteria, but the presence of the tags themselves may. AIRcorn (talk) 22:05, 1 November 2012 (UTC)". The tags were not on the article at the time of the assessment in November 2010, they appear to have been added on 27th August 2012. This reassessment and some of the discussions in Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#The Foundation for Medieval Genealogy appear to have been prompted by the statements that appeared to imply that the article was awarded GA-status with maintenance tags on the sources. Having raised concerns here and on the article's talk page, the November 2010 dates have been struck out and replaced with more accurate dates. Pyrotec (talk) 23:49, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Note that the quote Pyrotec is using came from the reliable source noticeboard and "the above" refers to the discussion there. It should be noted that some of the editors in "the above" expressed concerns about the sources being used in a Good article. AIRcorn (talk) 00:08, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

But, do you think that an article can be considered Good with the tags currently present. The date is not really an issue, it just meant that I choose it first as I thought it was an old GA with problems. AIRcorn (talk) 00:03, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

I was not so sure that the date was all that unimportant: this review, and the preceding discussions on the article's talkpage and the Reliable Sources Noticeboard, appeared to start off with a every low key theme "here is an article that was awarded GA-status with tags on", but that was not checked at the start: wikipedia (well a bot-produced list) was taken as a reliable source, which it is not. But, I don't proposed to dwell any more on this point, as we know how this situation came about. To return to the article, the tags are on it because an editor objects to some of the sources used and there is much detailed discussions at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#The Foundation for Medieval Genealogy. The article is required to comply with WP:WIAGA. Generally, it is compliant: for instance, there is no evidence that the article is unstable (clause 5), its citations are tagged in places but there is no evidence of any edit war; it is also appears compliant with clause 2(a). There may or may not be minor problems with clauses 2(b) and (c), as the "noticeboard" discussions do refer in places to questions over primary sources and reliability of a web site (described as both good and poor in parts). Overall, the "noticeboard" discussions appear to be "positive" with quite detailed suggested corrective actions. I'm not convinced that this article is sufficiently non-compliant with WP:WIAGA to: (i) loose its GA status, or (ii) be placed On Hold. However, I'm not too keen on seeing GAs with "tags" on, and I suspect that your view is somewhat similar on this aspect. My suggested solution would be to leave this review open for a short while: (i) to see if any other views are expressed, and (ii) to allow interested editors the opportunity to improve the article in accordance with the discussion at the "noticeboard", if they so choose. For instance, primary sources could remain as references/further readings if they were supplemented with reliable secondary sources (if/when they exist). At the end of the process a decision needs to be made: is the article compliant with WP:WIAGA and if, not how is it non-compliant? Pyrotec (talk) 10:03, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. That was one of the reasons I went the community route instead of conducting an individual reassessment. I was interested in what other reviewers thought about the status of Good articles with maintenance tags. AIRcorn (talk) 14:52, 10 November 2012 (UTC)