Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations/Archive 30

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Neutrality concerns (Billy Strachan)

I am currently reviewing the article Billy Strachan which has been nominated by The History Wizard of Cambridge. I hadn't really looked at the sourcing side of the article yet because I tend to do that towards the end of my reviews. The nominator has recently been the subject of this discussion on the administrators noticeboard about the neutrality of their editing. I have now been told that some of the main sources in the article are non-neutral. It would be helpful to have some advice on what to do here. Llewee (talk) 11:01, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

See also Talk:David Ivon Jones/GA1, and I have lodged source-to-text integrity and paraphrasing/copyvio concerns also at Talk:Billy Strachan. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:03, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
Additionally, Trevor Carter will need a GAR if the issues aren't corrected (POV as well as the same sourcing issues and puffery). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:05, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
And see also the FAC for Strachan where many of the sources were deemed unreliable. Hog Farm Talk 15:55, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
And see the ANI for BLP vios now as well. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:01, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
I've learned to always do the source checks first. If there's something that isn't immediately apparent but can bring the review to a halt, it's almost certainly going to be found there. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 16:30, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
If only that had happened at most of WP:DCGAR, where AGF took over after a certain number of GAs. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:09, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
Yeah, got to say the best (in terms of learning for me) GA review I had was my first. I'm not saying that the others were bad - they were good also - it's just that having a microscope run over your sources and how you used them was a really useful experience that wasn't repeated to the same degree in the subsequent GA reviews. Hopefully that's because my use of sourcing was better in the latter articles! FOARP (talk) 08:04, 24 August 2023 (UTC)
This is something I've given a lot of thought to the last few weeks, having reviewed ~30 articles for the drive. I've both learned and taught a lot about Wikipedia best practices through the GAN and FAC processes. I've started to make a point of going into a little more detail when explaining corrections if the nominator has no previous GAs. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 16:24, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

@FOARP and Thebiguglyalien: FYI,

SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:28, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

Proposed wording change to WP:CITE

As a result of a recent conversation at a FAC, I have proposed a wording change to WP:CITE. Please comment there if interested. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 19:07, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

The change to CITE has been made. I have now suggested a corresponding change to the close paraphrasing essay, here. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:50, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

Close paraphrasing in a GA review from a prolific nominator

I found some minor close paraphrasing in Talk:William L. Keleher/GA1 (not enough to quickfail the review on its own but there were other more serious issues that led me to quickfail it). As the nominator has 45 approved GAs and multiple ongoing nominations, further attention may be warranted. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:40, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

Could you post the comparison? It would be easier for commenting if we could see it side by side. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 00:54, 29 August 2023 (UTC)
Source [1]: Father Keleher was born January 27, 1906, in Woburn, Massachusetts. After attending Boston College High School, he graduated from the College of the Holy Cross and entered the Society of Jesus in 1926. He was ordained a priest in June 1937. Before his appointment as president he served as assistant to the Jesuit Provincial and as director of Jesuit novices.
Our article as reviewed: Keleher was born on January 27, 1906, in Woburn, Massachusetts. He studied at Boston College High School and then the College of the Holy Cross. Keleher entered the Society of Jesus in 1926. He was ordained a priest in June 1937. He then became the assistant to the Jesuit provincinal superior. On November 1, 1942, he was made the province's master of novices.
Source [2]: Father Keleher was later professor, administrator and trustee at Holy Cross College. He was also associated with the Jesuit retreat house in North Andover, Mass. Three brothers and a sister survive.
Our article as reviewed: Keleher was a professor, administrator, and trustee at the College of the Holy Cross. He also was worked at Campion Hall, the Jesuit retreat center in North Andover, Massachusetts. ... Three brothers and one sister were alive at the time of his death.
—David Eppstein (talk) 01:37, 29 August 2023 (UTC)
That doesn't look good to me. (t · c) buidhe 01:38, 29 August 2023 (UTC)
It's not the best look, but a lot of it is basic biographical fact that's hard to restate. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 01:55, 29 August 2023 (UTC)
Which is why I put it at the level of not serious enough to be the main cause of a quickfail. But it's a lot of text to be so similar. —David Eppstein (talk) 03:43, 29 August 2023 (UTC)
Close paraphrasing is the right term to use. It may be simple biographical fact but wording and sentence structure needs to be changed from the source more substantially than this. — Bilorv (talk) 22:11, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

What the good article criteria are not

When I first starting reviewing, I found the Wikipedia:What the Good article criteria are not essay by WhatamIdoing to be really helpful in teaching me how to review and how not to review. But now having nominated a few dozen good articles myself, I've found that many reviewers–probably more than half–make several of the "mistakes to avoid" in a given review. The most common is the one highlighted on that page in bright yellow. Besides the fact that this allows reviewers to enforce their personal preferences, this is one of the things that makes GA a heavier and more demanding process than it needs to be. I say it would be beneficial to make this essay more visible and to keep it more actively maintained. It might also be a good place to describe standard practice on copyediting during GA: how much is necessary, and when it's more efficient for the reviewer versus the nominator to do it. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 07:43, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

I don't know that GACRNOT has full agreement. (I don't know that the guideline it explicitly contradicts in parts does either. That's GACR interpretation for you.) I find Renaming GA to something like Wikipedia:Articles that, in the opinion of a single human, meet six specific criteria, which suggests they are probably better than most articles but you wouldn't necessarily want to call them 'good' because there is definitely room for improvement, especially since they're not required to comply with all of the policies and guidelines, some of which are obviously important might give editors a clearer idea of what the process is really supposed to achieve[1] way, way lower-reading than I'm comfortable with, and that's the GACR reading it's written from. There's probably a gap for an RGA supplementary-essay that incorporates the clear-cut-common-mistakes in GACRNOT.
On the references thing: this is something I think about a lot, because of just how common the perception is that GACR asks for something "higher than not-a-bare-ref". There's a tricky balance here between not violating CITEVAR and having...understandable references. Technically GACR doesn't require that refs have dates of any kind, but "bare refs don't have dates of any kind" is the exact reason they're discouraged. I saw "does GACR require ref dates?" come up very recently, so this isn't a hypothetical, and either answer feels unsatisfying (it "technically doesn't", but if it doesn't, why do we prohibit bare refs?). Vaticidalprophet 08:03, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ WhatamIdoing (8 August 2023). "Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Osteopathic medicine in the United States/1". Wikipedia. Retrieved 20 August 2023.
What we really need is, similar to what's just been done at DYK, a reorganisation of these diverging and often-contradictory guidelines (WP:GACR, WP:GANI, WP:RGA, WP:GACRNOT). GACRNOT is out of date, RGA is looked at nowhere near as much as it should be, GANI is a structural and organisational mess, and GACR is superficially fine but is a little wonky underneath. Until someone finds the time to draft a reorganisation, we'll continue having this discussion every six months. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 12:44, 20 August 2023 (UTC)
I was being rather vocal about this exact suggestion a few months ago. There wasn't much interest in doing the legwork, so I tried to figure it out myself. User:Thebiguglyalien/Good article reviewing guide is my progress in that area. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 15:28, 20 August 2023 (UTC)
I think it's worth noting that some reviewers (myself included) would review an article and give you lots of things to benefit the article. Not everything I mention will be to do with the GA criteria, but they should (hopefully) improve the article. Once the nominator has looked at all my points, I would then judge to see if it meets the GA criteria. For instance, reforder is not part of the criteria (and we've even had a long discussion about it not being a barrier for any reason), but I don't see a reason not to mention it if you see it (and also care about these things). If someone said "ah, I see it's wrong, but it's not part of the criteria", I would agree and not require the change. Personally, my opinion of the "no-bare refs" argument is that if it's a website, you can run one script to fix it. If it's another type, (say a deadlink, or a badly written book/newspaper ref), I'd want to be able to read it. I don't consider it to be a big deal as it's usually very fixable with minimum fuss. Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 14:36, 20 August 2023 (UTC)
In my experience, noms (especially inexperienced noms) assume that everything you put in the review is required for GA status. Or, more precisely, is required to for you personally to accept the article as GA. Noms often experience a review rather like being stopped by a police officer. If the officer says "Please take one baby step forward", very few of us feel like saying "Actually, I have a legal right to stay where I am."
The common problems seem to run in waves (e.g., bare URLs, extra MOS pages, citation formatting, minimum number of refs...). The overall trend, however, is that reviewers exceed the requirements. If you want to know more why we created that page, then Geometry guy could also give you some of the history. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:43, 20 August 2023 (UTC)
Short answer (in archive): In 2007 GA was not widely well-respected as a process, so it needed to be improved with more consistency and clearer guidelines. Now it is well respected. Geometry guy 03:28, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
This is what I thought as well. There's definitely a power imbalance aspect, even if it's over something trivial. This is why I always specify in reviews if something is "just a suggestion", "a personal preference", "not part of the GA criteria", etc. Even my usual requests are often phrased in a way that puts it to the nominator whether they think it's a good idea or not; GA should be a collaboration when possible. And on the other side, when I'm the nominator, I absolutely feel an implicit pressure to go along with what the reviewer said, even if I'll grumble to myself while running whatever non-GA errand they sent me on. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 16:56, 20 August 2023 (UTC)
I ran into a lot of trouble with trying to get History of penicillin through GA. I thought the article was fine, but eventually had to abandon the article completely. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:37, 20 August 2023 (UTC)
If I were in your shoes, I'd have told the reviewer flat-out that I thought they should back down a little. Have you considered returning to the review? It's been a month. Mackensen (talk) 21:56, 20 August 2023 (UTC)
Wow, that reviewer has started 30 reviews during the nine months since creating their account.
Some reviewers find that the FA or PR processes are more to their taste. Wikipedia:Peer review, in particular, does not have any criteria, so you can provide feedback according to what you think is important. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:33, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
Please do not let GAR becone anything like the opaque, unfathomable DYK process. Billsmith60 (talk) 18:51, 20 August 2023 (UTC)
There's clearly a balance to be done between making a review difficult to follow, and one that is a straight reflection of what is on the article with no means to improve it. I get that there is a power imbalance, but if something improves the article, there is rarely a need to not do it. The issues come up when something is debateable if it improves the value of the article. Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 11:17, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
Fair enough, but I think it's good practice to prefix non-GACR comments with "not necessary for GA" or something like that. As well as making it clear the nominators doesn't have to address it, it also helps new nominators learn what is and isn't required for GA. I would bet that some reviewers who ask for e.g. ref formatting do so because they were asked to do that in GA reviews. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:43, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
My allusion to ref formatting is this: quality assessment criteria are not written in stone. If we have a constant phenomenon throughout basically the concept's entire history of the absolute majority of reviewers believing ref formatting of some kind is in GACR, then it is -- just de facto rather than de jure. The categories were made for man, not man for the categories, and if practice is very unlike the written GACR document, then that implies the document should be moved towards practice. (Extrapolate this across thousands of PAG disputes all across the project.)
Ref formatting specifically is a mess for this, because you very quickly run into CITEVAR, which for all its status as "probably the single most IARed major non-MOS PAG" (how often do you go out of your way to make sure you're reproducing the existing citation style when rewriting from scratch a stub no one else has cared about since 2009?) is still vitally important in a system with several major competing styles and literally thousands of minor ones. Nonetheless, there are still meaningful questions. I refer back to the ref dates issue -- if we don't require ref dates, why don't we permit bare URLs? Bare URLs aren't discouraged because Policy Sez, they're discouraged because they're hard to fix in case of linkrot -- access dates are the one missing element that actually makes this hard, because you can't plug the link into IA and know immediately what the last guy was looking at. Vaticidalprophet 13:59, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
At the top of the guideline in which CITEVAR lives, it says While you should try to write citations correctly, what matters most is that you provide enough information to identify the source. Others will improve the formatting if needed. There is, therefore, according to that guideline, no requirement that you always match the citation style yourself.
Also, it may be helpful to know that back in the day, when we talked about a consistent citation style, we meant that you shouldn't have half the article using little blue clicky numbers and the other half using the now-deprecated parenthetical citations. GACR has never required consistency beyond that, and every past attempt to apply the FA standard has been rejected.
Speaking of which, the FA standard is that they never actually reject an article over citation formatting. If that's the only remaining problem with an article at FAC, someone will just fix the citation formatting. FA rejections over sources are because the books and articles are bad, not because the citation has a comma in the wrong place. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:08, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
No one archives FACs because the refs aren't All Standardized To Title Case...though I honestly think they would be archived if I pointed out "no, I think this bit of MOS is absurd and I'm not going to do it" and dug my heels in, which is why I don't dig my heels in and dutifully standardize all refs to title case during or prior to FAC. (I think that bit of MOS is absurd, and I think the GACR-FACR gap on source formatting leaves GA writers coming to FAC for the first time underprepared. This is not necessarily all on GAN.) There's a pretty large chunk of FAC that I think amounts to "a lot of people think this is absurd, but no one wants to fail their FAC solely because they didn't do it". I think this is a bigger matter at FAC than GAN, because the single-reviewer structure of GAN gives less of an 'onslaught' impression and more of a 'level playing field' one, and because FAC's reputation precedes it. I strongly disagree that 'FAC rejects this source' is a synonym for 'this source is bad', but that's another matter for another place.
I've read probably low double digits of the currently-29 WT:GAN archives, though obviously large chunks of that in the earlier ones are skimming or clicking to the interesting bits of the TOC. Still working through, though. Vaticidalprophet 20:41, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
There's more fun to be found on other pages. I think that this link is the earliest version of what became CITEVAR in 2011. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:53, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
There is a commonality to reviewer comments that exceed the GA criteria: they are cosmetic changes rather than substantial content changes. It is easy to check how a source is formatted; it is harder to check it is used correctly in the article (#2: Verifiable); it is harder still to check the sources that are not cited (#3(a): Broad; #4: Neutral). It looks like you have done a very thorough job if you ask that the inline citations to refs #20 and #17 be swapped to maintain ascending order. A legitimately thorough review requires thought about what could be missing from the article entirely. — Bilorv (talk) 16:49, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
I agree. Many comments that exceed the criteria are putting appearances ahead of substance.
Maybe we should consider a change to the reviewer templates, to say things like "Did you think about what might be missing? It may help to check articles on similar subjects for ideas." (Although I say this with some trepidation, as I remember the new reviewer, looking at a Nobel Prize article, and asking that it be expanded to describe the food served at the celebratory dinner.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:28, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
Of course everything is bad when implemented wrongly—some reviewers will just struggle no matter what (and in my opinion not every GA nominator has to be a reviewer)—but I would be interested in ways to encourage reviewers to check broadness more substantively. Or to inform reviewers that an intelligible reference list (that won't linkrot) is good enough for GA. — Bilorv (talk) 22:13, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

Proposal to change quickfail procedure

I propose that we change WP:QF so that instead of closing the review immediately, the nominator is allowed a chance to respond before the review is closed as a failure. The sudden fail with no immediate recourse is what makes quickfails so unpleasant. As standard practice, I've begun leaving reviews open when I expect to quickfail so that the nominator can respond. I've found that nominators are generally more accepting of the review closing as unsuccessful if it's a discussion rather than an imposed decision. This also has the benefit of the nominator being able to address it more easily if the reviewer made a mistake (for example, failing on copyright grounds when it's a case of backwards copying). Thebiguglyalien (talk) 00:26, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

I don't think having a hard rule either way is desirable (many QFs are obvious enough to make forcibly keeping the review open bureaucratic; whether an individual interprets an insta-quickfail or a quickfail-after-receiving-a-message as worse sounds fairly prone to individual variance). However, I'd support a thumb-on-the-scale encouragement to incentivize 'slowfails' for borderline articles, both between "QFing immediately or failing slowly" and "failing slowly or passing a substandard article after a bunch of frustration". (Fun note: the now-vestigial wording on holds is literal, as in, "for much of GAN history you were outright supposed to fail after the timer was up". I've been thinking a lot lately about reform to the categories, because they're holdovers from a very different GAN era and 2Os in particular were wildly contentious and unclear even when they were established, but the fact holds have drifted over time from "the pass-fail lightning round for borderline cases" to "a glorified ping sometime between three minutes and three months before an article is promoted" may have had complex consequences.) Vaticidalprophet 00:42, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
After posting the above, I wondered if I should have stuck the word "suggestion" somewhere in there. The main point is that we should try to prevent quickfails from being unnecessarily harsh. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 01:01, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
If we insist that nominators must have a chance to respond to a quickfail, what is the point of having a distinction between a quickfail and simply a fail? ♠PMC♠ (talk) 01:03, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
I always understood a quickfail to be a fail before the review was completed. If I review all six criteria and then fail, it's just a regular fail in my mind. I think of a quickfail as "there's no point in doing a proper review because the whole article needs to change before it reaches GA". Thebiguglyalien (talk) 02:17, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
In my mind the distinction between fail or quickfail isn't about the thoroughness of a review, it rests entirely on whether or not the reviewer gives the nominator a chance to respond and/or work on it before failing. I've done reviews where I brought up lots of issues, but felt they were reasonably fixable, so I kept the review open for the nominator to respond. I've done equally thorough reviews where it was only at the end that I concluded that the article was a long way from meeting the GACR and shut it down without waiting for a response. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 03:28, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
Yes. If, as a reviewer, I thought that a quick-fail review could drag out into a month-long "but what if I change each of the individual concrete examples that you listed as an example of a pattern of badness without addressing anything else in the article" battle, with added "just tell me what it should say so that I don't have to put the effort into it myself", the way DC used to drag out negative reviews, I would never begin the process. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:52, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
+1 on this. Vaticidalprophet 04:56, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
All right, but the next time a nominator demands to know why I had the nerve to fail their subpar article without giving them a chance to "fix" it first, I can't promise I won't get just a little snippy with them. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 05:23, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
Quickfails are explicitly included in the instructions, so it's not as if doing one is wildly off-book. It's not your fault if a nominator sends up an article that's well below the GACR. Unfortunately, disappointing people is sometimes part of the job when you're doing any type of content review, and sometimes people choose to express that disappointment. I would point them to the GACR/GAI and remind them they can nominate again whenever they like - there's no time limit. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 07:28, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
At the end of the day, it is a review, conducted by a reviewer independent of the nominator. If the reviewer comes across a situation where a reasonable person would quickfail, they should not be required to delay this inevitable action because of red tape. We should avoid adding more bureaucracy to GAN without good reason, in my opinion. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 01:45, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
When you say "respond" do you mean that as "ask questions" or "fix all of the problems"? For the first, I think that's respectful and have made a point not to close the discussion when marking a quick fail as not passed. Regarding the second, I think that would entirely depend on the individuals, Rjjiii (talk) 06:45, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
Definitely not. I think we’ve more or less set an expectation at GAN that the reviewer should essentially try their absolute hardest to ensure that the nominator can get the article passed, no matter how substandard it is, as long as it doesn’t have copyvio in it. This is absurd for a volunteer process where the actual requirements are only to provide comments on articles that are reasonably close to passing all the criteria. AryKun (talk) 03:27, 31 August 2023 (UTC)
If we wanted to change the culture to make it clear that no one is owed a GA and the reviewer is expected to be strict on the criteria, I'd be fine with that too. Right now it's the disconnect that I don't like. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 03:44, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

Two variables that I think I take into account when quickfailing are how well I know the nominator's work, and which criterion is the problem. I've had no hesitation in quickfailing nominations with multiple serious copyvios or multiple unreliable sources, for example, but in the unlikely event I was to run into a nomination by someone I personally knew did good work, even then I might hold off and post the issues first before failing. That probably applies to everyone who's commented so far in this section. Another way to say that is that if, say, a nomination by PMC (to pick a name at random from above) appeared to be quickfailable, I would have enough respect for their prior work to ask about it first, knowing how annoying quickfails are. There are other markers for editing ability that I use if I don't know the editor's work from my own experience: if they have tens of thousands of edits; if they have multiple GAs and/or FAs; if some of the material in the nominated article impresses me as the work of a very good editor; perhaps a couple of other things. Those could also persuade me to delay a quick fail. I think that's probably not entirely fair, but I would justify it by saying the quickfails I do are sticking to the rules, and it's up to the reviewers judgement to not go the quickfail route if they wish. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 07:53, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

Maybe, then, there should be more explanation of which failed criteria can be quickfailed right away vs giving time for the nominator to respond. I don't think, for example, that an article with 70+% copyvio (and not to a WP mirror) could be fixed anywhere near quickly enough to pass GAN. But if it's just prose or [moderate] broadness issues, then that theoretically could be fixed if the nominator is determined. SilverTiger12 (talk) 14:32, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
It's explicitly stated in the GACR that any of the six criteria can trigger a quickfail if the reviewer believes the article is a long way from meeting it. Yes, this means there is a grey area where some nominators will QF and some will hold out for improvement. There is no way to create an objective measurement for what ought to be a QF that will hold up every single time with no exceptions, so there will always be some element of subjectivity. That's a major reason that we don't put any limit on renominations. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 22:04, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
I struggle to think of when a quickfail would be justified on grounds of #6 (media), but I can think of cases where the other 5 in isolation could all be valid grounds to quickfail. It is a case-by-case process, so I'd be wary of trying to codify it. It's almost an in-built IAR for the GA review process: "if dotting the 'i's and crossing the 't's in a full review is a waste of time then don't bother". — Bilorv (talk) 22:11, 29 August 2023 (UTC)
Yeah, I almost wrote something similar about #6, but you never know - conceivably an article could misuse non-free images so blatantly that it would have to be revised from the ground up to make any sense, or could have a grotesquely overblown gallery that the nom refuses to trim. Perhaps a NOTCENSORED issue one way or another. I agree that one is the least likely for a fail, but overall the point is that we don't need to qualify which criteria can be quickfailed, because the GACR already state that any of them could result in a quickfail. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 22:22, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

Misclassified reassessments

Anyone have any ideas why the bot is listing Drosera (a carnivorous plant) and Osteopathic medicine in the United States under WP:GAN#Physics and astronomy reassessments? —David Eppstein (talk) 04:40, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

I have no idea if this caused the issue but it doesn't appear that they were approved with a subtopic in the template:
Rjjiii(talk) 05:00, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

Reviewed version

Would it be possible to change the version that John Romita Sr. became a good article on from this diff to this diff? I ask because there was a mistake I had missed before the article was passed. I had tried replacing the revision id on the talk page template, but the old revision still appears on Wikipedia 1.0 Server instead. FlairTale (talk) 12:38, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

I don't know if this is possible. It may not be desirable otherwise an article might never get completed. The same thing arose with my assessment of Mickey Mantle, where a couple of useful changes have occurred after GA being reached. Any article is able to be improved, after all Billsmith60 (talk) 14:12, 8 September 2023 (UTC)
They're both wrong; the version linked to on the talk page should be the edit in which ChristieBot added the GA icon. I have amended the talk page to reflect this, FlairTale. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 15:32, 8 September 2023 (UTC)
AirshipJungleman29 I looked at many other GAs and could not find one where the Reviewed version was of the ChristieBot adding the icon, so I will probably restore the original one if you don't mind. --FlairTale (talk) 06:54, 10 September 2023 (UTC)
FlairTale please let me know which these other GAs were as they will have to be corrected. See WP:GAN/I#R4: Fill the |oldid= parameter with the revision number for the current revision at the time of promotion. Linking to the talk page, as in your diffs above, is not useful in the slightest. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 11:18, 10 September 2023 (UTC)
AirshipJungleman29, oldid should be based on the time that the GA was passed, not when the icon was applied to the article by the bot. There could easily have been post-passage edits made in the time between the reviewer indicates passage by changing {{GA nominee}} to {{GA}} and when the bot gets around to adding the GA icon to the article. I have just fixed the GA template on the article talk page to reflect the correct date and oldid. BlueMoonset (talk) 18:17, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

Page tabs

Is it time to remove the (very successful) backlog drive from the tabs? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 11:15, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

Good article nomination doesn't seem to be added to the list

Hey there, The article Šipan doesn't seem to be added to the nomination list for Geography. I've waited for about 20 minutes and it hasn't been added. When I tried adding it manually, it got reverted. Is there a problem with the bot or is it just me? Normally, it takes just 2 minutes to put the nomination into the list. 🔥Jalapeño🔥 11:34, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

It regularly takes well over 20 minutes (I have the impression the bot runs at intervals). I don't see any obvious issue with the nomination, which was twelve minutes ago at this writing. Vaticidalprophet 11:36, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
Hmm, interesting. I didn't know that. Maybe I should just be patient. Thanks for letting me know. 🔥Jalapeño🔥 11:36, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
Checking quickly, my last three noms all went up in about 10-15 minutes. I recall having seen longer, though might just have been impatient. But yeah, 10-15 minutes is pretty normal. If you see things waiting for way longer, might be worth making a note. Vaticidalprophet 11:40, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
Legobot used to regularly take a lot longer. Just wait for a few hours, if it doesn't come through then there might be an issue with the bot. Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 11:44, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
Regarding @Vaticidalprophet's interval theory, it may be true, as the time of the edits always end with 4, which makes me quite curious why it's not 0 or 5 instead. Anyways, I'll keep waiting. 🔥Jalapeño🔥 11:47, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
Well, it's been added now, so that's good. 🔥Jalapeño🔥 11:48, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
The bot runs at 00, 20, and 40 minutes past each hour; it takes about six or seven minutes to complete a run. Šipan was nominated at 11:03 UTC this morning; you removed the nomination at 11:21, thinking the bot had ignored it. As far as I can see there was nothing wrong with the nomination so if you'd left it another five minutes it would have been fine. Then you re-added it at 11:23, so the bot picked it up on its 11:40 run, and added it at 11:44. If you see a new nomination get ignored for more than forty minutes, there's almost certainly something wrong; a twenty minute delay could just be unlucky timing, as happened here. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:54, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
Ah, thanks for letting me know. I'll keep it in mind if I nominate another article for GA. 🔥Jalapeño🔥 11:55, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

Adding MOS:QUOTE to the GACR

Currently, there's only a limited set of MOS pages that GAs must adhere to: lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation. I'm wondering if there's any appetite for adding MOS:QUOTE to that list (or, alternately, adding a "1c" that covers use of quotes in some manner). Wikipedia articles are expected to summarize what reliable sources say, in our own words. Per the MOS, quotes should be used where necessary to illustrate points or attribute ideas. Using large quotes to assemble the bulk of an article, joined solely by connective tissue like "Alice Smith said," is not a summary, and it's not appropriate encyclopedic writing. I've recently seen a few GANs that really pushed the boundaries of what I think is acceptable use of quoting for encyclopedic writing, but there's no explicit criteria to point to except saying that I don't feel it's well-written. I think it would be valuable to add this piece of guidance to ensure that GAs are actually summaries of their sources and not simply reproducing them. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 21:26, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

I think the idea is fair with the exception of things like critical reception summaries for works of fiction, which can tend to be quote-heavy out of necessity. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 21:47, 8 September 2023 (UTC)
I already check for this during reviews, but I've always done so as part of criterion two. Misuse of quotes is a plagiarism/copyvio issue. This is especially the case for critical reception sections, where I usually encourage the nominator to read the essay WP:RECEPTION. I think there's also a case that criterion one's requirement of clear and concise prose necessitates paraphrasing quotes whenever possible. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 22:00, 8 September 2023 (UTC)
The Manual of Style section on quotations is about 1,800 words long, not including linked content. That's comparable to The Boarded Window by Ambrose Bierce. I don't think this addition is necessary for two reasons. First, you could object on prose or copyright concerns; a work composed primarily of quotations is a collage which will be a collective or derivative work. Second, reviewers already object based on random Manual of Style pages and essays.
A couple copyright sources:
Regards, Rjjiii(talk) 00:01, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
It makes no sense to argue that we shouldn't include MOS:QUOTES because it's too long; we already expect people to be familiar with several other equally-long subpages of the MOS. The argument that people already object based on random MOS things actually supports my point - reviewers shouldn't be pointing to random MOS pages and essays that aren't in the GACR (especially essays). Assembling a whole article based on quotes is an issue in and of itself. We should expect nominators to avoid doing so at the outset by including it in the GACR, and we should give reviewers a clear GACR to point to when objecting to it. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 18:39, 10 September 2023 (UTC)
That's true. I'll quote an older post of mine regarding that, "I pasted every linked policy in the Good Article Criteria into wordcounter.net and they clock in at around 90,000 words. And that 90k is without counting the words in the hundred or so essays and policies linked from those pages. Hamlet, Shakespeare's longest play, doesn't even get to 30k." I believe that the longer the instructions are, the less likely people are to read them. Rjjiii(talk) 04:08, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
I definitely think this would be useful to have explicitly laid out, especially for biographies where selective quotation can really push something into non-neutral territory. JoelleJay (talk) 02:27, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
I think we need to be hesitant with any expansion of the criteria lest scope creep turn it into an inscrutable mess. Still, this specific piece of the MOS seems broadly important enough to include. casualdejekyll 18:05, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

If the quotation is sufficiently bad that it shouldn't be in a ga I think the reviewer can and should object under copyright or NPOV considerations. Adding to the GA criteria is not necessary in this case. (t · c) buidhe 19:14, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

I don't want reviewers to have to get into the minutiae of what is or isn't acceptable under copyright law and having to object on those grounds. If an article's body quotes one long passage from each of a dozen different books, is that a copyright violation, or just poor summarization of sources? As to NPOV, if the article correctly attributes all quotes and nothing is too positive or negative, is it still an NPOV issue? My fundamental issue is that it's poor writing, and it should be clearly spelled out so that nominators know to write to the standard and reviewers can point to something that specifically concerns quoting without having to wikilawyer on other grounds. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 18:34, 10 September 2023 (UTC)
If a reviewer isn't comfortable assessing compliance with the copyright and close paraphrasing policy (which does not require knowledge of the law in any jurisdiction, just the policy that is used on Wikipedia), they need to ask for help, regardless of the proposed rule change. (t · c) buidhe 01:13, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
My point is that overquoting is an issue outside of the narrow frame of assessing whether or not it's a copyright violation. From my extensive experience at CCI, there is no community consensus as to what level of overquoting even constitutes a copyright violation under our policy, so we should not be expecting reviewers to try to assess from that angle when the community doesn't even know how it feels. Instead we should be viewing it as a part of good writing, whether as a 1c or as an MOS section explicitly called out. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 20:55, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
I'd argue that the entirety of the MOS should be addressed at GAN. However, this is implicitly already true in the criteria about copyright. Long unwieldy copypastes of text, even if in a quotation is still a copyright concern. My general thoughts are:
  • If you have a full sentence quote, can it be rewritten to only certain words or phrases?
  • If you are quoting a full paragraph, this should be either a critical obversation of the subject, or a piece of the text of the subject that is going to be analysed.

It's pretty obvious we need to minimise the use of these, and don't need an additional entry in the criteria. Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 05:56, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

You say it's obvious, but I've had to fail one recent GAN for being 40% quotes in the body, and had to force changes to another for having a reception section comprised of three huge quotes with slight connecting tissue. JoelleJay brought another to my attention at my talk page when asking for advice recently. So I would say that avoiding overquoting is not obvious either to nominators or reviewers. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 20:58, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

Second opinion request on Lucy Parsons

I've been reviewing Lucy Parsons (review here). A large majority of issues I raised have been fixed, and the article is close to GA status in my view. However, some points remain, and the nominator and I are in disagreement over them. I believe I have raised issues of clarity, breadth, or neutrality; the nominator sees them as style issues. They include, in particular, the use of the term Negro, which I consider inappropriate. I would appreciate a second opinion. Vanamonde (Talk) 17:05, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

I've had a look at .../GA1 and can see that you and the nominator have reached deadlock. Should it not be the nominator who asks for a second opinion or your assessment? You have given generously of your time and, as the article stands, it is effectively "on hold" until the changes required are made. If I were in your shoes, I'd stick to my guns and do no more for now other than update the Talk page to "on hold" – if not yet done. I hope this helps Billsmith60 (talk) 18:13, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
I agree, procedurally the nominator could and perhaps should come here; but regardless of procedure, the fact remains that I would not like to fail an article that's so close, and I'm not going to pass it as it stands without a second opinion; so a second opinion is needed. If someone watching would be willing to opine, I'd appreciate it. I don't like placing articles on hold; I don't see what purpose it serves that is not served by saying "here are the points I would like you to fix", and this is particularly true when I may need to go back over modified text. Vanamonde (Talk) 18:55, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
That's fair enough. I suppose I was speaking for myself. It's your assessment, after all, and only you can pass or fail it. "On hold" is an integral part of the procedure when the end can't be reached fairiy quickly, as I'm sure you're aware Billsmith60 (talk) 19:23, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
"On hold" status is a bit of a pointless holdover from when GAN had a hard one-week limit, which we don't have anymore. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 20:03, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
I'm glad that hard one-week limit is gone Billsmith60 (talk) 20:16, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
This is specific to my workflow, but I like to post the review all at once. I find it easier to get all of my thoughts down first and then compile them into a proper review once I have everything. So for me, putting it on hold is basically me saying "I've done the review, now the ball is in your court". It's mainly helpful because it leaves an automated talk page message letting the nominator know.
As far as whether it's the nominator or reviewer's responsibility to seek outside help, I would say that it's ultimately the nominator's. However, I consider GA to be a collaborative process rather than a debate type process, so as reviewer I'll suggest a third opinion as soon as it seems like there's a disagreement where neither participant is willing to give. And if the outside opinions broadly side with the nominator, then I'll drop whatever objection I have. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 22:08, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
And to answer some part of the original question, I don't see any scenario where "negro" should be used unless the word itself is being discussed or it's in a direct quote (and even the latter should be avoided). It's entirely reasonable to reword older ideas in modern language, which is really just a basic part of the paraphrasing we should be doing anyway. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 22:12, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
It should be used when it occurs in the name or title of an organization or document; for instance in the 1909 "Call for the Lincoln Emancipation Conference to Discuss Means for Securing Political and Civil Equality for the Negro", which led to the creation of the NAACP (whose name uses another now-deprecated term). However its use as an ordinary word should be avoided. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:37, 11 September 2023 (UTC)
I looked at the article, and it looks like the word is used in three places: the first restating what a historian said, the second stating that the subject repeatedly denied this claim, and the third in a title. While I am no expert, I believe that the usage of the word in all three places is appropriate. The third is obvious- you can't change a title- but the other two are more contextual: the word is being conserved to reflect the claims made and denied. She denied being of African[-American]/black heritage does not carry the same, well, tone/weight/context. It's connotation, not denotation, at play here. Happy editing, SilverTiger12 (talk) 15:15, 12 September 2023 (UTC)
The third use is not at issue; but I disagree with your characterization of the others, and indeed I would say that in the absence of quotes, following it with "slave" gives it shock value without associated informational value. Vanamonde (Talk) 15:35, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Still need a 2O

I appreciate the above discussion on the procedural issues, and on the specific point I flagged (no, really, I do): but I still would like a 2O on the other issues on which the nominator and I differ. There aren't too many; is anyone willing? Vanamonde (Talk) 15:35, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

I am here to write and improve articles. I think when a GA review is done well it should help with that process, as nominator I haven't found Vanamonde's reviewing technique particularly helpful with Lucy Parsons, which I nominated for GA after rewriting. It was picked up for review end of August and now, three weeks later, the end is nowhere in sight. I think it best to withdraw the nomination and move it to peer review to get more opinions. Normally I'd of course be fine with people editing the article, but for a GA reviewer to introduce changes I clearly disagree with just seems rude. As I've already commented at the review, there is more than one way to write an article and a nominator should not have to make stylistic changes based on a rationale of IDONTLIKEIT. It seems to me these very issues have been recently discussed in "What the good article criteria are not", particularly as regards to Hawkeye's comment about History of penicillin.

Moving on, I would recommend Vanamonde focuses on clear communication over what is and what isn't a GA pass/fail requirement. To take one issue, namely the usage of the term "negro", which they here refer to by saying "They include, in particular, the use of the term Negro, which I consider inappropriate" .. this started with Vanamonde questioning it's use by saying "I wonder at your use of "Negro" - I replied with a rationale, namely "I'd say I'm following the sources here and I'm happy to change. I'm not really sure what the MOS guidance is here and I'm not familiar with US custom, what would you suggest to use instead?". There wasn't discussion, instead Vanamonde doubled down, eventually saying "The use of the word "Negro" is more than a stylistic matter, if you wish to keep using this term, please justify it" (this seems to be their general interaction dynamic, to demand a justification then ignore it). As someone said above, perhaps Vanamonde should stick to their guns and they are giving their labour for free, but then why can nobody in the discussion give me a clear response based on MOS guidelines? Sure, it seems that at least a few US-based wikipedians find the term distasteful and I have no wish to offend (indeed the only use now remaining in the article is within a title of a work written by Parsons) but I'd like to have my rationale for inclusion engaged with before making any changes. Last time I checked I'm not getting paid for this either. Mujinga (talk) 12:52, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

You're within your rights to withdraw, but there's a lot of inaccuracies in that statement that I'd like to correct FTR. It's quite untrue to say the end is "nowhere in sight" when I've noted above and at the review that only a handful of points remain. Likewise, to suggest that I was only concerned about the word "Negro" in a title, when you actively declined to change it in regular prose. Also, that I didn't engage; I offered two suggestions for replacement, one of which you accepted, but only after I posted here. I've reviewed for at least a dozen prolific GA creators who have an established style of their own, and this is the first time I've heard a complaint that I was preoccupied by stylistic concerns. I'm genuinely willing to hear constructive feedback, but when a nominator withdraws over suggestions of the same sort that dozens of others accept or discuss with no ill-feeling, I struggle to see what else I could do. Vanamonde (Talk) 16:36, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
I just saw your post below. "pretty baffled as to what the reviewer wants from me before finding it GA quality - after a FA level check on only two of the criteria" really? The outstanding concerns are evident any reader, and cover four of the six criteria; the other two are not highlighted because they aren't of concern. You can rest easy: I will not be reviewing your nominations again. Vanamonde (Talk) 16:41, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
Why don't you close this matter by either failing the nomination or putting it on hold? Otherwise it'll sit in limbo Billsmith60 (talk) 10:25, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
@Billsmith60: The nominator chose to withdraw instead, and had the community continued to ignore the request for a 2O, I would probably have failed it, yes. I continue to be confused by how putting it on hold would resolve anything; the opinions would not change. Vanamonde (Talk) 16:20, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
It wasn't clear that the nominator had gone ahead and put the withdrawal through, otherwise I'd not have made any further suggestion. I regret commenting on this topic at all Billsmith60 (talk) 17:04, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles/GAN Backlog Drives/August 2023 debrief

We're a couple weeks out from the drive now, so finally the opportunity to take a breath and write up a debrief.

First things first: this was astonishingly successful. We went from 638 to 198 unreviewed, a 69% decrease. I can't think of a single comparable drive. The last few drives mostly run around 50-60%; January 2022 was considered abnormally good at 64.3%, and started at a far lower total. We also didn't go a single day without an absolute decrease, again without precedent. Over a fortnight out, we're holding in the 200s for unreviewed and barely higher than we closed for total. At go time, there were 14 drive-eligible articles that had been waiting more than nine months for a review and another 65 that had been waiting for more than six months; we eradicated both categories. The average age of a nominated article went from ~90 days to ~30 days.

Our baseline situation was one of the most dire in GAN history. I was cautiously tongue-in-cheek hopeful we would get below June 2022's low of 357, because that was the last markedly-less-successful drive and we were starting well above it. I didn't expect sub-300; I emphatically did not anticipate sub-200. I did not expect we'd clear out several hundred 90-day nominations to the point we'd need to give bonuses to 60-days. I also expected more drama or dispute than actually happened, especially given the known drive-quickfail association. Instead, the worst you can say is we flooded DYK. (Sorry, guys.)

So, from a what-worked what-didn't perspective: clearly, quite a lot worked!

  • Removing the checklist seems to have been a good idea, as we ended up with very few disqualified checklist reviews.
  • The scoring system worked great. Length-related score modifications absolutely work -- they're more work as a coord, but clearly worth it.
  • Previous drives differed over how many reviews should be checked. I anticipated "check a representative sample" based on past drives and the experience of a coord-emeritus, but ended up checking everything to calculate length points. This worked alright, or at least I didn't feel too overwhelmed by it until the end. There are definitely things worth saying about coord burnout in previous drives, but we were able to keep things running smoothly here.
  • I was worried when working out the score system that it might be overly generous; it gave more points than the July 2021 drive the barnstar scoring came from, and I wasn't sure if we'd end up with sixteen Superior Scribes. It worked out well, partially because the checks-and-balances of the length threshold both meant a subset of reviews didn't count and helped discourage checklists. It might be simplifiable in the future, but the general shape of it is good. It also made higher-level barnstars markedly more accessible than they were in the last couple drives, encouraging stretch goals.
  • The preamble could use some simplification. I mostly lifted it from the boilerplate we've been using for the past couple years that itself traces to much earlier drives. It's mucho texto right now, and important things got buried (I found myself repeating "yes, failed short articles count" and "yes, reviews officially finished after the end count" a lot).
  • The signup form should also be trimmed down, as it's a holdover from a point raw numbers mattered. We really only need the articles and score.
  • Coordinating communication is a good idea, in general, for everything.

One thing that occured to me during the drive is that while many talk about drives as suboptimal "bandaid solutions", they seem more like a part of GAN's functioning than anything else. WT:GAN prior to the drive spent a fair while in hyperactive doom-and-gloom, which quieted down very quick once we got things up and running -- turns out even the state of crisis that was the first half of 2023 can be mitigated. We have a natural experiment with the late 2010s, where in the absence of the dramatics that triggered 2023-weirdness, no drives ran between late 2016 and late 2019. The result was an absolutely dire backlog, with reports of people in 2019 waiting over a year for reviews. People have dedicated their careers to researching how gamification solves such problems; we may do well to take their advice.

Having a generous scoring system, with sufficient checks-and-balances to maintain quality, also seems particularly worth calling out. Drives that have failed tend to be ones where expectations were far higher than made clear or rewards much lower than the amount of work. Being able to clearly reward people for their work, while simultaneously taking care to screen out things more likely to be problematic, allows for both high activity and the maintenance of standards.

I anticipate running another drive in...hopefully November. October is too close, December and really January are right out, February short, and I'm not pushing this into March. The project also tends to see a slowdown around December for the holidays, so it'd be good to get things sorted before then to avoid backlog panic. I wasn't totally sure about November given it's a holiday in a major enwiki market, but I checked the stats on GOCE drives (which run every other month, including every November) and their Nov drives consistently post good numbers, so it seems workable.

Thanks again, so much, to everyone, for all they've done. Golden, Buidhe, thanks so much for stepping up to coord. Reviewers -- this is your work. Every one of you was an integral part of this. Vaticidalprophet 19:32, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

I agree that we can't run it in October, it would be too soon. I would support November (but only if it looks sufficiently bad in mid-October), Jan, Feb, or March though. We had good results in the past from a Jan drive. (t · c) buidhe 19:50, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
I'm also happy with how the drive went, and I agree with all points above. The one thought I have is that November might still be a bit soon. I can't speak for everyone else, but I'm quite burned out from reviewing, and I really doubt I'll match my ~40 reviews at any point for the rest of the year, drive or no drive. But there are a lot of potential reviewers, so it all comes down to where they're at on this. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 19:55, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
I had only taken part in the June 2022 drive prior to coordinating this one, so my comparison is limited to that experience. Nevertheless, it's obvious that this drive was significantly more successful than the one in June 2022. I would like to highlight another factor that, in my opinion, contributed to the success: the speed at which the coordinators checked the completed reviews. Early in the drive, a user whose reviews had largely been left unchecked for several days approached me about this issue. Their comment made realise the importance of speed in maintaining the motivation of our reviewers.
As for the next drive, I personally have no objections to it being in November. A two-month interval should be enough time for most people to recharge their reviewing spirit. — Golden talk 20:44, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
This was the first drive that I had taken part in and I only recently started reviewing after many years of only nominating. I was surprised that you suggested another drive so soon, but in the last 2 weeks, we've already seen the backlog grow by about 80 noms. I think regularly scheduled drives could bring predictability to the process. Every couple of months I get a burst of motivation and expand articles for GA, only to quickly be discouraged by 6 months+ waits for the reviews. By the time a review occurs, I've forgotten a lot of tangential research sources and it becomes a chore to make the corrections. Having frequent drives does gamify the process and I think people do want to be rewarded for volunteering their time. At the same time, I do worry about reviewers waiting for drives instead of regularly reviewing, but perhaps regularly scheduled drives could reduce the chance that someone waits so long. With so many thresholds for barnstars, I think this does an adequate job rewarding even the reviewers who only do what they can. Thanks again to the coordinators. It was a great experience! Grk1011 (talk) 14:49, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
Yes, I would agree that one should move towards more recognition of reviewers even in non-drive times. I think permanent GA coordinators could help, but regardless anyone can find particularly high quality and/or quantity reviewers and give them recognition. For example, posting a barnstar and a note congratulating their GAN reviewing efforts. (t · c) buidhe 19:11, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
What do you think about a template banner that any user could add to a review? Like this: User:Rjjiii/sandbox2 I thought about this after this attempt seems to have stalled from the amount of work it would require: Wikipedia:Exceptional reviews Potential advantages of a simple banner that can go onto a completed review:
  • It creates a category of noted reviews to use as examples for new reviewers.
  • Potentially a bot could notify/barnstar the reviewer's talk page.
  • Potentially a bot could randomly select a review of the month and post a link here? Or maybe here Wikipedia talk:Exceptional reviews or use that page as a kind of reverse notice board?
  • It has very little overhead.
Opinions welcome, Rjjiii(talk) 19:32, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
I was thinking about a user talk page message to a reviewer, which I've done in the past both for articles I nominated and ones I didn't. However, it would also be good to have a banner for review pages. (t · c) buidhe 19:46, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
Removing the checklist seems to have been a good idea, as we ended up with very few disqualified checklist reviews. Briefly before the drive, the preload was changed away from a checklist.[3] The goal of having preloaded instructions was to aid new reviewers, but I have not seen a clear way to evaluate how many editors are doing first-time reviews. Regards, Rjjiii(talk) 17:28, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
Based on several talk page threads that occurred after the preload was added, it appears that it may have resulted in a greater-than-usual amount of disputed checklist-style first-time reviews. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 20:12, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
I am aware of this. Rjjiii(talk) 20:33, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
I know "the worst you can say is we flooded DYK" was tongue-in-cheek, but I do think that's a genuine concern and a pretty good reason not to wait too long between backlog drives. Or more accurately, a pretty good reason that backlog drives should not be this productive—preferably by not having such a large backlog to work from to begin with. TompaDompa (talk) 22:30, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
I'm active at DYK too (but wasn't nearly so active in August), so it's tongue-in-cheek but also slightly serious. I agree with your reading on how to handle it, though to some degree it's an inherent consequence. Vaticidalprophet 22:37, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
I think this isn't an issue that we should take into consideration with backlog drives. Let DYK handle it as they see fit. (t · c) buidhe 22:42, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
Agreed and an additional thought is that many GA-authors will have to do QPQ if they nominate at DYK. So it will increase their noms but also likely increase their pool of reviewers. Rjjiii(talk) 00:23, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
Maybe. Editors are exempt from QPQ for their first five DYK nominations, so if there is a large influx of first-time nominators at DYK the backlog there can be expected to balloon. TompaDompa (talk) 00:42, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
I don't participate in DYK any more but I would have thought since the time it takes a proposed DYK to be approved can vary so much, it wouldn't necessarily be a problem to have a staggered influx over a month Mujinga (talk) 12:14, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
First of all, congrats to all on a good drive and thanks to those who made it happen! Personally, I feel that January is a better time for the next drive than November - in the US, November is a holiday/travel month, and it's just too soon after the last drive. Regular reviewing should be better incentivized; too many drives will take away from that, as fun as they are. —Ganesha811 (talk) 04:15, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

As a reviewer of proposed GAs, I very much enjoyed this backlog drive, although I did come across quite a lot of close paraphrasing. Interesting to read the comments above about gamification, sure that plays a part for me but my main inspiration is the happy feeling of collaborating together with nominators and other reviewers to improve articles. So any way to build on that would encourage me to review more - there was certainly a fertile area of interaction with Women in Green.

As a nominator of GAs, I was slightly frustrated that for almost all of the drive I had four open noms. I haven't followed the ratio debate that closely, still I would have thought if I have around 80 reviews and 40 GAs then I would have a decent enough ratio. As I'll say when replying to the previous section later, I am primarily here to write and improve articles, not collect stars (although yes I do list achievements on my userpage since I am also proud of my attempts to counter systemic bias). From that perspective of article improvement, Villa Road had a nice review. Two reviews came in late at the end of the month: Hellé Nice was very quick and I had to check with BritneyErotica that they had made all the necessary checks - and they confirmed they had, which was great; Lucy Parsons is still open and I am pretty baffled as to what the reviewer wants from me before finding it GA quality - after a FA level check on only two of the criteria. So GA reviews are still a bit of a lottery but overall I enjoyed the backlog drive from both perspectives (and definitely reviewing improves my writing as well).

I'm unbothered as to when we should do it all again, primarily because my IRL schedule is currently all over the place - should we just trigger it when nominations pass a certain number or is that too random? There wouldn't be much buildup .. or perhaps there would be since we would see the number approaching - possibly another role which a co-ordinator could do. Mujinga (talk) 12:19, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

Request for Comment on Ellery Queen

Not sure if this is the right place to ask, but I have been editing Ellery Queen and would love some second thoughts on it. Obviously, a lot of work needs to be done before it meets the GA criteria but I am determined to do it. The lead is especially difficult to write as the article refers to both a pseudonym and a fictional character and the pseudonym itself was created by two individuals who were much better known under their aliases before being used by other people. Jack234567 (talk) 05:23, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

Jack234567 The trick to any good article is in the sources. The first thing you want to do when reworking an article is to find the sources that you're going to use, and then just summarize what they say. Eventually you'll be able to add references to the unsourced text or just replace it altogether. And this might be good news for you, but you can usually save the lead until last. It's supposed to just summarize everything that's in the article, so it can be fixed up after the other changes are made. If there are any specific issues you need help with, the Teahouse is a good place to ask. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 05:51, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
Hi Jack234567, alien above has sound advice. When it comes to sources, there is a page where you can request copies of sources from other editors. Archive.org is also an excellent free way to borrow books.
As you get closer to nominating the article, you can request a peer review. If you do so, feel free to drop a message on my talk page and I'll try to reply.
One thing I notice in the article is the usage of Symons (1972) 13. The book is used as the sole source at the end of three paragraphs and without page numbers. I would infer that to mean that the whole paragraph could be supported by Symons, but it would be difficult to verify without page numbers. There are 3 common ways to cite multiple pages from the same source.
And ending on a positive note, I like your editing of "In addition to the fiction featuring their eponymous brilliant amateur detective, the two men" down to just "They". Good luck! Rjjiii(talk) 07:16, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
Jack234567, you might consider splitting the article into Ellery Queen (fictional character) and Ellery Queen (author). You have material for both and they're not really the same thing; they're just joined by the title. In comics I believe one also sees "franchise" articles such as Hulk in other media, so if there's enough material that could also be a split from the fictional character article. I would think the author is the primary topic here, meaning that's what should be at Ellery Queen. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:18, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

Seeking clarity on list incorporation

I'm considering reviewing Ldm1954's Electron diffraction (I haven't yet decided if I can commit the time). I've got a question about the list incorporation aspect of WP:GACR. Under Electron diffraction#Further developments, there's a long bullet list that I'm not sure how to evaluate (and another example under "Dynamical diffraction"). I think it's fine per the "Children" part of MOS:EMBED, but seeking additional insight before I make up my mind to take this on or not. RoySmith (talk) 17:23, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

I personally don't think the bulleted list in this article is good style or good readability, and would encourage some kind of reorganization/rewrite on those grounds. (t · c) buidhe 17:33, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
As a reviewer, I'd want to take a closer look at that. Embedded lists should be used only when appropriate; sometimes the information in a list is better presented as prose. Generally, a list of information like this just means that the prose description hasn't been written yet and still needs to be done. It looks similar to the type of list that I would create as an outline before I actually write an article. I also discourage things like "further developments" in general because it's essentially a "miscellaneous information" or otherwise unsorted section. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 17:35, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
Response sorry, but these are lists. In all cases they are MOS:EMBED. Each is seperate, all are directly connected to the paragraph before them so I think this is almost a classic example of where they are (very) appropriate. Ldm1954 (talk) 18:06, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
I agree with the other reviewers here, the list in "Further developments" is basically unstructured notes for an article, and the section heading is inherently unstructured ("Later stuff") and equally unsatisfactory. The list in "Dynamical diffraction" isn't quite as egregious, but it's not ideal (six paragraphs/items begin "Include", too); and the claim that the seven items are "the main components" seems to be uncited. I don't think any of us would let it through GAN. Chiswick Chap (talk) 16:05, 22 September 2023 (UTC)
Sorry, as I stated before, they are not notes, they are valid MS:EMBED. I admit that this is technical, so unless you have a background which includes at least some of the underlying science it may not appear that way. As an example, if I take the first:
  • The Cowley-Moodie algorithm already has its own WP page, and is cited (as is John Cowley)
  • The Cooley-Turkey FFT algorithm is also cited
  • The use of the method is mentioned, as are links to the various current programs.
It is a self-contained, complete paragraph. If you want to make it a paragraph not a bullet, that is OK but then it is not apparent that it is a key development. All the others are similarly self-contained descriptions, not notes.
I don't mean to be nasty, but at the same time it really matters that you understand the context and some of the science. You may want to check with WP:Physics or ping some of the authors of the other electron microscopy pages to better understand the context.
If you still want to reject it, then that's life and I will continue to disagree with you. Ldm1954 (talk) 16:38, 22 September 2023 (UTC)
Addendum: please note that the Further developments are all in the History section. For clarity I have added that many of them are discussed further later. As techniques extensive description does not belong in history. Ldm1954 (talk) 16:48, 22 September 2023 (UTC)
No-one is disputing the physics: just the writing style. Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:52, 22 September 2023 (UTC)
I would appreciate retraction of the statement "unstructured notes for an article". Some of the other comments also appear to not exactly be WP:CIV. Ldm1954 (talk) 17:56, 22 September 2023 (UTC)
I'm not sure I see where Chiswick is being uncivil here. I have to agree with him and with the other people commenting here that the lists are not suitable as embedded lists and should be revised as prose. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 23:45, 22 September 2023 (UTC)
I also don't see anything uncivil happening. What caught my eye here is that I commented on a similar embedded list on your Talk:Triboelectric effect/GA1; you pushed back a bit and I let it go. When I saw the same construct here, I decided to get more input from other experienced GA reviewers. Nobody here is commenting on the science. They're just commenting on the writing style, which is exactly what you asked them to do when you listed this for a GA review.
When you submit a paper to a journal, you need to comply with their house style. Sometimes it bristles, because sometimes journals get overly picky about stupid shit. At that point, you have to decide what you want to do. You can suck it up and deal with the stupid shit, or you can withdraw your paper and submit it elsewhere. Arguing with the editor that the house style is stupid is unlikely to get you anywhere useful. RoySmith (talk) 23:58, 22 September 2023 (UTC)
I think the list in "Further developments" is fine; it meets MOS:EMBED (Such "children" logically qualify for indentation beneath their parent description. In this case, indenting the paragraphs in list form may make them easier to read, especially if the paragraphs are very short) and looks perfectly fine. I wouldn't say the same for the list in the "Dynamical diffraction" section, which is much less logically structured, and much more the type of writing MOS:EMBED is meant to halt. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 00:26, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
To reiterate:
  • The "Further developments" follow the first three sections in History: "Electrons in vacuum", "Waves, diffraction and quantum mechanics" and "Electron microscopes and early electron diffraction". These three cover the history up to about 1932. The next section I have renamed as "Further developments in methods and modelling" (so, hopefully what it contains is more obvious) and, briefly, bring us up to the current day. Something has to be included as much happened after the early breakthroughs in electron diffraction and the invention of electron microscopes. I have added a couple of specifics that this is what these items are for.
  • In "Dynamical diffraction" the list describes the main components of "Dynamical diffraction" which is based upon the 1928 work of Bethe and how it has been extended and expanded. For instance, Bethe did not include inelastic scattering and had no access to computers. All of the components of modern dynamical diffraction of electrons are well cited in this section, including a number of books which deal with some of the math in detail. The term "include" is somewhat theoretical, and refers to "including a term in the analysis". Since it was perhaps too ambiguous I have changed it. To try and make more obvious what this is I have changed the sentence before the list to "The main components of current dynamical diffraction of electrons include:"
I have no objections to reasonable suggestions. However, my feathers are ruffled when someone calls carefully constructed list items with 3-5 good sources each "unstructured notes", or "miscellaneous information". Ldm1954 (talk) 02:06, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

Focused on the topic

I think criterion 3b "focused on the topic" should point to WP:COATRACK and not WP:SIZE. To my mind, an article can be quite short but still unfocused, which is the issue that WP:COATRACK addresses. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 18:41, 23 September 2023 (UTC)

This may or may not be connected to the ongoing discussion at Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/John von Neumann/1. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 18:58, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
I didn't even notice that "focused" was piped to Wikipedia:Article size before today. While is is true that length can be an issue, Hawkeye7 is right to notice that "focus" isn't directly related to length. I don't agree with the suggestion to pipe to Wikipedia:Coatrack articles, though, as that essay is neither completely on topic nor really focused enough to explain what "focused" should mean. —Kusma (talk) 22:00, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
SilkTork added that piping in this edit on 2 January 2014; I wonder if they can recall whether there was any discussion which prompted them to include it. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 22:05, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
I have now removed the pipe. The link to Wikipedia:Summary style should be sufficient to explain what we are talking about. —Kusma (talk) 10:00, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
Agreed in a loose sense. I'm not sure if there's a bikesheddingly-ideal pipe, but SIZE clearly isn't -- it's one of the guidelines that falls most near-parodically into "strong statements on What Readers Are Definitely Looking For" crossed with "absolutely no evidence it corresponds with anything readers are looking for". (It's also actively backwards about maintenance issues, which people seem to get right every other discussion and somehow flip on here.) This is not to say there's no reasonable limit to article length, but we neither know what they are yet (I'm working on it) nor how to enforce them well across a diverse range of articles. It also produces the weird outcome that even though writing too short is more or less infinitely more common at GAN level, people hyperfocus on the idea someone might be writing too long. Vaticidalprophet 22:11, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
At FAC I see way more articles that could be improved by cutting than expansion. Unlike GAs that are unreadably long or packed with excess verbiage, under detailed GANs are not a problem imv. We absolutely should not expect nominators to do the same amount of research and writing expected for FAC. That would kill off the entire purpose of GAN. (t · c) buidhe 00:04, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
I generally agree that size isn't the issue, it's extraneous detail that doesn't contribute to reader understanding. Per Vat, I personally find lack of detail rather more common than too much, at the GA level: beyond a point pruning hinders clarity. COATRACK, however, is an essay, and only covers the tendency for non-neutral inflation of material; whereas extraneous detail comes in many types. I suggest dropping the piped link altogether; "focused on the topic" is as clear as any part of the GA criteria. Vanamonde (Talk) 00:54, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
I do not disagree that a short article can be unfocused, but that doesn't make WP:SIZE irrelevant. It is not an either/or. Articles should adhere to both SIZE and COATRACK. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 02:53, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
COATRACK is about an article being used to write about a separate or tangential topic, or a related topic in an excessively undue manner. It is a POV issue that is different to the more general question of focus. CMD (talk) 03:25, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

(Answered) Minimum words for GA?

How much words are needed for an article to become a good article? I saw in the August 2023 backlog drive that people accepting articles under 800 points wouldn't get any points and it was listed as an incorrect acceptance. So is 800 words the minimum? 🔥Jalapeño🔥 Stupid stuff I did 07:11, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

Every single thing about article length and quality assessment, in both directions, is an "is Wario a libertarian" deal. There are no formal minima or maxima outside certain contexts (like drive points). Past that, work your intuition. "Hey, this sounds like a topic different people will interpret in wildly different ways." It sure does, doesn't it? Vaticidalprophet 07:15, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
As long as an article meets the criteria, specifically "it addresses the main aspects of the topic", there is no defined length requirement. Harrias (he/him) • talk 07:17, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
(edit conflict) It's a longstanding perennial debate, without a settled answer. The drives sometimes have their own quirks to help manage the format, but they don't formally resolve any wider questions. See also Wikipedia:Very short featured articles. CMD (talk) 07:18, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
Notably, three of the six examples are >800 words. (The shortest FA at present is 580 words; this is a fairly recent promotion and substantially shorter than the shortest-before-it.) Vaticidalprophet 07:21, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
This made me check the length of my GAs. My shortest is Frederica Planta at 506 words, followed by Peter Schöffer the Younger at 694. I don't think any substantial aspects of these biographies are missing. —Kusma (talk) 08:34, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

Women in Green event notice

Hello Good article nominations:

WikiProject Women in Green is holding a month-long Good Article Edit-a-thon event in October 2023!

Running from October 1 to 31, 2023, WikiProject Women in Green (WiG) is hosting a Good Article (GA) edit-a-thon event with the theme Around the World in 31 Days! All experience levels welcome. Never worked on a GA project before? We'll teach you how to get started. Or maybe you're an old hand at GAs – we'd love to have you involved! Participants are invited to work on nominating and/or reviewing GA submissions related to women and women's works (e.g., books, films) during the event period. We hope to collectively cover article subjects from at least 31 countries (or broader international articles) by month's end. GA resources and one-on-one support will be provided by experienced GA editors, and participants will have the opportunity to earn a special WiG barnstar for their efforts.

We hope to see you there!

Thebiguglyalien (talk) 22:11, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

Should (parts of) MOS:ACCESS be incorporated into GACR?

From my review of the talk page archives, it appears there has never been a true discussion here about whether MOS:ACCESS (or parts thereof) should be incorporated into GACR. The last major discussions related to alt text for images at FACR, and occurred over a decade ago. (The consensus appears to be that since MOS:ACCESS is in the MOS, an alt attribute is required under FACR.) Since then, WCAG guidelines have been adopted by the ISO, ETSI, and the US Access Board, amongst other national and international entities. Good articles must meet "a core set of editorial standards". Accessibility should be included in that set; otherwise, we are doing a disservice to Wikipedia's disabled readers. At the very least, we should ensure that images in good articles include an alt attribute and alt text as necessary. voorts (talk/contributions) 16:15, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

The criteria do require "suitable captions", so it wouldn't be a stretch to say that this does include alt text. I'll admit that I myself am not great at remembering to put alt text, and I often don't know how it's supposed to be different than standard captions. But if a reviewer says that alt text is necessary, I'll add it without questioning whether it's part of GACR. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 16:21, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
Alt text is for screen readers specifically. A suitable caption might be something like "Article subject pictured at XYZ event", whereas appropriate alt text might be something like "Article subject, a white male with red hair and a beard, standing in front of an alien spaceship, holding a waifu body pillow". Put another way, alt text is meant to be descriptive of the entire image, whereas a caption need only provide context. voorts (talk/contributions) 16:24, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
What I personally do now is include it as a standard encouragement for reviewers. I also often will add other accessibility items because I readily recognize a lot of editors just aren't familiar. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 16:29, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
I would support requiring some minimal accessibility requirements or perhaps even the whole accessibility MOS. At the very least, ALT tags and {{lang}} templates are easily added and helpful. —Kusma (talk) 16:29, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
Yep. It would be great if all this kind of ACCESS cleanup that a lot of us do over and over again and page after page were spread out a bit into the general article improvement process, instead of being cast aside as something that "someone" will do later on the way to FA.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  16:37, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
I think this sentiment overlooks the fact that understanding ACCESS is not straightforward and takes time and effort that many editors don't have. The more requirements we heap onto GAN the less likely it will be that nominators will fulfill them all to a good standard and that reviewers will be able to accurately evaluate them. Having some volunteers who understand alt text well and add it where they see fit is more likely to generate alt text that is actually useful. (t · c) buidhe 17:19, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
I agree that the {{lang}} guideline is also something that should be easy to follow. Additionally, the layout requirements in MOS:ACCESS basically comport with MOS:LAYOUT, insofar as that guideline requires a rational organization of section headings. Likewise, it should be easy for a reviewer to check on the block text requirements, given that MOS:EMBED is already in GACR. Finally, I assume most GAN reviewers are already following best practices for wiki markup per other MOS requirements. Basically, all of MOS:ACCESS should be easily addressed in most GAN reviews. voorts (talk/contributions) 16:46, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
I don't think alt text is even required at FAC. Unfortunately, the last I heard is that most alt captions on Wikipedia are not helpful to people who use screen readers, and there is not much guidance on how to write them so as to be actually useful. I don't think we should be adding requirements to GAN unless there is a compelling reason to believe it will benefit readers. (t · c) buidhe 16:34, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
"most alt captions on Wikipedia are not helpful to people who use screen readers" - Huh? Alt text and captions are different things. If people would stop confusing them and would write proper alt text (an actual description of what the image is depicting, instead of a half-sentence label for it, which is a caption) then there would be no problem. This is a fixable, wikieditor-educational issue, not a problem with alt text as a class.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  16:37, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
I meant alt text, obviously.
I agree that it should be possible to write good alt text, but I think the focus should be on making existing alt text actually useful rather than requiring it for all GANs when most editors cannot do it well. I think the likely outcome if it were required would be more bad alt text, rather than more useful alt text. (t · c) buidhe 17:12, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
I think the same can be said for other criteria; editors might make bad edits that they think are good when trying to get an article up to GA standards. Wouldn't the bad alt text be corrected during the GAN review? voorts (talk/contributions) 17:27, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
The argument for keeping GA criteria minimal is to reduce the required knowledge from both nominator and reviewer and increase the chance that the criteria is done well in articles passing GA. A lot of things could potentially improve GA articles, but may not produce a net benefit if included in the criteria—because of this tradeoff in complexity and willingness of nominators / reviewers to deal with increased overhead. (t · c) buidhe 18:48, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
I think what you've last heard is what's in the discussion regarding the removal of MOS:ACCESS from FACR 13 years ago. Since then, MOS:ACCESSIBILITY, WCAG, etc., have all been updated. Moreover, MOS:ALT contains guidance on how to craft good alt text, and a link to that can easily be provided in GACR. voorts (talk/contributions) 16:41, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
Your statement that alt text has not been discussed at FAC in the last 13 years is not accurate. That particular talk page is not the only place that discussion happens. (t · c) buidhe 17:12, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
Fair enough. I'd be happy to take a look at other relevant discussions if you happen to know of any. Are there particular editors you think ought to be involved in this discussion? Happy to ping them here as well. voorts (talk/contributions) 17:25, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
You can take a look at recently promoted FACs at the monthly logs (WP:Featured article candidates/Featured log)
Some image reviewers check for alt text; others don't. If they notice alt text is missing, the usual comment is "Suggest adding alt text" (not "alt text is required"). If the nominator produces alt text, it is not usually checked by anyone before the FAC is promoted. Since many nominators have never written alt text before, I don't think this process is particularly useful for generating helpful alt text. (t · c) buidhe 18:54, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
In general I support the principle, however given recent difficulty around having sources checked, there are practical reviewer considerations. Keeping that in the back of the mind for the moment, Alt text as mentioned might be easy enough to incorporate, especially as we already have a line for image licences to which alt text could easily be appended (and perhaps text on sandwiching and extraneous galleries). The Article structure section is mostly easy enough to check for those familiar with it (sandwiching was a bit trickier to check in the past, but the Vector 2023 fixed width makes that more consistent), as it's mostly noticing if something is wrong. The Text section is a bit harder to check, but is also the sort of thing that's not a common problem, so most articles will be compatible. Verifying Other languages would require checking each piece of foreign text in wikicode, which seems it might potentially be a substantial addition to a review. Links, Color, Block elements, Animations, video, and audio content, and Styles and markup options get quite technical; I am not sure how well they would fit into a review. CMD (talk) 17:30, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
In addition to the points CMD raises, this old discussion was never resolved. I don't think the alt text recommendations make sense at the moment, for the reasons given there. I do them for FACs but I would oppose adding them to GACR unless either the definition is improved or someone can explain what I'm missing. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 17:31, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
I think the use of the Napoleon image is confusing, and should probably be changed, but I think that the final paragraph of the lead as well as the toothbrush example later in the essay both make clear what the proper practice for that situation is. voorts (talk/contributions) 17:37, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
Without prejudice to the decision on whether to include it in GACR, wouldn't it make sense to fix any perceived issues with the ALT page before making that decision? I do think there are other reasons for not adding it to GACR, but while it is giving bad advice as I believe it currently is I don't see how to support including it anywhere. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 18:15, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
This is a good point. Without good examples and instructions, we risk adding really poor ALT text, especially if neither nominator nor reviewer have experience with accessibility. —Kusma (talk) 18:28, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
 Comment: I've started a discussion on changing MOS:ALT at the essay talk page. voorts (talk/contributions) 19:02, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
The criteria currently include, "alt text – for visually impaired readers – should be added to informative (but not purely decorative) images", Rjjiii (talk) 03:34, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

Strongest possible support Accessibility is not optional and if someone can't be bothered to add table captions and alt text, we should not be promoting this work as good. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 11:09, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

Even if we do go the route of adding this to the criteria, we shouldn't be overly rigid on this. For instance, I'm yet to see a single bit of good guidance on how to adequately handle something like File:Vicksburg Campaign April-July 1863.pdf in alt text, and an overly rigid application of this is going to see a spate of GARs and quick-fails simply over things like handling a very complex map in alt text. Hog Farm Talk 23:39, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

I think the best way to handle that would be to describe the campaign in the main text and then make the alt text something like "Map of campaign movements as described in main text". voorts (talk/contributions) 23:46, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

We should never delist articles

Yes, the heading is entirely facetious. But what other conclusion am I supposed to come to after a "discussion" like this occurs? When I submitted it to GAR, I did so because I believed it was a clear cut case of delisting. And then it turned into multiple personal attacks directed at my intelligence and my intentions, as well as those of other editors who believe that the article does not meet the GA criteria. Why should any editor volunteer to use GAR at all if this is a possible outcome? Right now, it's in my personal interest to turn a blind eye toward bad GAs rather than helping out in a thankless clean up job. How do we fix this? Thebiguglyalien (talk) 05:38, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

WP:1AM. TrangaBellam (talk) 06:24, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
If you're going to WP:HOUND me after I called you out for calling someone a Nazi, at least read the relevant discussion first. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 06:36, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
This thread reinforces what I was getting at in the Lucy Parsons one above: personal attacks notwithstanding, the reviewer or the "delister" must stick to their guns and have the final say. The entire process fails otherwise Billsmith60 (talk) 10:28, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
I fail to see the relevance of WP:1AM. This is a GA review that was started three months after a valid maintenance tag was added to the article, and that has turned into a debate about the criteria and content policies (peppered with some personal attacks) instead of about the article. This is highly frustrating for everyone involved. —Kusma (talk) 10:48, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
Yeah, to be fair, the op was pretty badly treated there. SN54129 11:38, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
I have closed probably 90% of discussions at GAR since March. I am disappointed that the one with the most experienced editors participating has seen the largest amount of personal attacks and digressions. I, TBUA, and others have been characterised as, inter alia: bureaucrats; busybodies; extreme anti-intellectuals who have no place on Wikipedia; time-wasters; bean counters; vacuous, lazy, threatening, emotionally charged complainers; "goddam fucking waste[rs] of time"; inattentive readers; bloodthirsty; butchers with knives; and probably more (did I mention time-wasters?). Incidentally, can anyone reading guess which two of those characterisations, both directed at me, are from User:David Eppstein, an administrator? Perhaps we can make a separate ghetto subsection of this review for ad hominem sniping so that the rest of us can concentrate on the article content? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 12:31, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
I saw "mindless stupidity" and this challenge to my literacy as personal attacks as well. Based on that latter link, I suspect that this editor genuinely does not understand where the line is between civil and uncivil discussion, in part because of how often ANI has vindicates this sort of disruptive behavior with a "boys will be boys" mentality. It's also worth noting that this particular editor was canvassed (warning, long load time – it's EEng's talk page). Thebiguglyalien (talk) 16:18, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
I will say this is not the first time I have witnessed blatant incivility from David Eppstein. I am concerned this is a recurring pattern of poor behavior. If this is how he intends to participate in GAR, quite frankly he should not consider himself welcome. I wasn't aware of the canvassing until now, and this has made me even more concerned with the very poor behavior on display by multiple highly experienced editors one would think would know better. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 02:14, 30 September 2023 (UTC)
This is unfortunately a Wikipedia problem, and probably one of the many reasons the overall editor count keeps declining. I just ignore it because ANI will never hold experienced editors and admins who routinely behave poorly accountable, but it does make me question why I contribute to this project in general. voorts (talk/contributions) 13:01, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought of this as an editor retention issue. Every time we retain one uncivil editor, we lose several potential contributors. This is one of the reasons why I try to keep an eye on ANI: to provide a voice against the victim blaming and the "ANI buddies" that come to vindicate one another. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 16:22, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
@Thebiguglyalien One exhaustive experience at reassessment was enough to help me realize that my efforts would be better spent on writing/reviewing only. It can get heated and personal for absolutely no reason and then turn into a massive time sink. Other than ANI, I can't think of another place where WP:AGF means so little. Ppt91talk 20:00, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
All true, unfortunately. It may help to know that the essay WP:Unblockables was written by an experienced editor back in 2011; and it seems still to apply all these years later. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:32, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
Beeblebrox, of this parish, funnily enough. Talk about prescience. Serial 22:16, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
  • The GAR in question has now been open for over two weeks, is there anyone who has not posted there who is willing to close it? CMD (talk) 09:47, 7 October 2023 (UTC)
    @WP:GAR coordinators: two of you (Lee Vilenski and Iazyges) have not contributed to this discussion, nor to the GAR in question -- would one of you be willing to close it? Though I see Iazyges has not been active for over a week. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:42, 7 October 2023 (UTC)
    I tend not to close GARs while improvement is ongoing. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 13:39, 7 October 2023 (UTC)
    That's a long ol' read - but if there is a general resolve to improve the article, then we shouldn't be closing a GAR. It being open two weeks is pretty standard. I can take a read through later - but it does seem like there's a lot of dirt throwing in there. Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 20:51, 7 October 2023 (UTC)
    While there have been edits, I requested the close as the rate dried up and I don't read in the discussion a general resolve to address the issue. The only timeframe that has been mentioned was three to twelve months, which seems too long. However, happy to cede to consensus otherwise here. CMD (talk) 01:48, 8 October 2023 (UTC)
    I favor keeping it open as long as there's still some form of movement; but with care to avoid devolving to personal attacks. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 21:54, 8 October 2023 (UTC)
    Re: "I requested the close as the rate dried up and I don't read in the discussion a general resolve to address the issue.": Have you been looking at the article history? Because to me this looks a comment that only addresses the GAR discussion. Article improvement has been ongoing and significant but the GAR discussion has almost entirely focused on the pre-improvement state of the article. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:50, 8 October 2023 (UTC)
    It is as stated a specific comment on the article history, referring to the rate going from the huge amount of activity in late September reducing over time. CMD (talk) 01:06, 9 October 2023 (UTC)
    I can see here that my efforts are unappreciated. Perhaps the goal is to discourage anyone from editing the article so that a clean GAR decision can be reached? —David Eppstein (talk) 01:19, 9 October 2023 (UTC)
    Both unexpected conclusions to come to that I don't see supported in the discussion here or at GAR. CMD (talk) 01:30, 9 October 2023 (UTC)
    Then maybe I should be more forthright rather than writing indirectly. I have been working on making parts of the article more concise, the main issue identified in the GAR. I have been continuing to do so, sporadically, because my time is limited and (it may come as a surprise to you to learn) I also have other things to do on Wikipedia that are higher priorities to me than retaining a pretty green star for an article that I didn't write and is otherwise in pretty good shape. Also, my interest in this article is mainly in its technical sections rather than the biographical parts, and those take significant effort to work through.
    Your comments, earlier, suggesting that things have stopped happening on this article were mildly hurtful to me, because they specifically imply that the continuing efforts I have been making on the article are not significant, and somehow do not count as "resolve to address the issue". I was hoping they meant that you had superficially looked at the GAR and overlooked the history of ongoing improvement to the article, but no. Your clarification meant that you had in fact seen my improvements, deemed them unimportant, and felt it important to make a point of saying so here.
    Regardless of whether they had that intent (and I have good faith that they did not), you have succeeded in discouraging me from putting effort into this article, because I see that this effort will likely be disregarded in the close of the GAR. Congratulations for driving another subject-expertise editor away from improving this article during its GAR (not the first one to be driven away nor even the second). —David Eppstein (talk) 07:12, 9 October 2023 (UTC)
    My post observed that the editing rate dried up, which makes no comment on the importance (or lack thereof) of any individual edit. I apologise that this was misconstrued as a specific comment on your contributions; it referred to the entirety of edits made in October (compared to September) by all editors, rather than specifically the four edits you had made. My words you have quoted without the rest of their sentence refer to "the discussion", not edits. If forthrightness is desired, you were asked to withdraw a clear personal attack during the GAR, and have not done so. In your previous comment you implied others sought to discourage editing, and in this comment you have decided to snidely accuse me of not knowing people have other priorities, both in a discussion that started to discuss incivility. No-one has sought to have editors not edit the article, but we will have to disagree on the quality of the "pretty good shape" article, which still credits the individual with the theory linking CO2 with global warming. CMD (talk) 07:56, 9 October 2023 (UTC)
As Kusma notes, this has turned into a debate about the criteria and content policies instead of the article. I am a military historian, and I took the article to GA based upon the subject's importance in that field. When it comes other fields, I defer to editors with more expertise, like David Eppstein, and I expect everyone else to do likewise. I am willing to work on improving the article, assuming I have the time to do so, but I am not willing to reduce an article simply to conform to an overly literal reading of WP:SIZE, a guideline that no longer has consensus. If an article can be improved by removing the GA rating, then so be it. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:42, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

'Israeli settlement' - what category is best?

I want to nominate Israeli settlement.

What category is best--- Politics & Government or Geography? or some other?

I know this is a difficult topic, but I think that's all the more reason for the community to put in the work to make it officially a "good" information source. any other related feedback welcome.

thanks, skakEL 17:27, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

skakkle before you worry about what category to use, I would advise fixing all cleanup banners in the article and consulting major contributors on the talk page. It is currently quick fail eligible. (t · c) buidhe 18:35, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

Wrong category

Muhammad of Ghor is listed as a GA nominee for "World history," but it should be in "Royalty, nobility and heraldry". Can I just change the GAN template on its talk page, or is there a different procedure for this? Aintabli (talk) 19:08, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

Aintabli, you can just change the template; I've done it for you. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 23:53, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

GA drive-by user warning?

Having removed a bunch of drive-by nominations since the rule was implemented, I think the process would run a lot more smoothly if there was a boilerplate text that we've agreed on to leave on the user's talk page. I wrote up a rough draft of a standardized notice template:

I noticed that you recently nominated [an article] for good article status, but you have not significantly contributed to the article. It is important that nominators are familiar with the article's content and sources, because there are usually questions about them during the good article review process. The article's nomination has been removed. If you have any questions about the good article process, or if you believe this was done in error, you can seek assistance at the good articles talk page.

Regardless of whether it's made into an actual notice template or if it's just a general idea of what we should be saying, it would save the trouble of trying to figure out how to word the message each time. The most important thing is finding a wording that's non-bitey. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 22:16, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

I would suggest including a link (perhaps to the FAQ at the top of this page) that gives the relevant rule. What about the option to check with other contributors first? If all significant contributors are no longer active and don't respond, we still permit a nomination so long as they've been asked. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:10, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

I've used the phrasing

Hi! I noticed that you nominated the article Example article for WP:Good article status. You do not appear to have edited the article prior to this, and there is no discussion about nominating the article on its talk page. It used to be the case that anybody could nominate an article, but it was decided back in January to only allow editors who have significantly contributed to the article to nominate it (see Wikipedia talk:Good Article proposal drive 2023#Proposal 11: Ban drive-by nominations for the discussion that led to this change and Wikipedia:Good article nominations/Instructions for further details). I have consequently removed the nomination for now. Consider discussing whether the article is ready to be nominated with the article's principal editors on the talk page.

when I've come across this situation. "January" could be replaced with "January 2023" or plain "2023" as time goes on. TompaDompa (talk) 16:36, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

I like that this version states it as a matter of policy for the project, and with the reason for the policy too. I think that's something that's easy to infer after editing a while, but I see new editors get told things like "you can't do original research" and respond with frustrated confusion. Rjjiii (talk) 17:19, 2 October 2023 (UTC)
Yes, it's good to name the policy, but the mention of Wikipedia:Good article nominations/Instructions is sufficient here, we should not be mentioning 2023 and the discussions and proposal drives and such like, so "(see Wikipedia:Good article nominations/Instructions)" will be best, i.e. we have the wording

Hi! I noticed that you nominated the article Example article for WP:Good article status. You do not appear to have edited the article prior to this, and there is no discussion about nominating the article on its talk page. It used to be the case that anybody could nominate an article, but it was decided back in January to only allow editors who have significantly contributed to the article to nominate it (see Wikipedia:Good article nominations/Instructions). I have consequently removed the nomination for now. Consider discussing whether the article is ready to be nominated with the article's principal editors on the talk page.

It will certainly be useful to have this as a template. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:40, 4 October 2023 (UTC)
I agree. I think @Chiswick Chap's version of this message would be good, but "January" should be changed to "January 2023", with a link to Wikipedia talk:Good Article proposal drive 2023#Proposal 11: Ban drive-by nominations as in @TompaDompa's version of the message. – Epicgenius (talk) 22:17, 7 October 2023 (UTC)
Linked or unlinked both would be fine with me. Is {{uw-ga-driveby}} acceptable for the template name? Rjjiii (talk) 22:49, 7 October 2023 (UTC)
Update: check out the link in my previous message. This is based on the discussion here with small changes to match other warning templates. Feel free to change the text there. I haven't added a documentation page or posted to the user warnings talk page yet. Rjjiii (talk) 23:11, 7 October 2023 (UTC)
Looks good to me, though I changed {{{article|1}}} to {{{article|{{{1}}}}}} so that:
1. It will still work if someone uses {{uw-ga-driveby|Articlename}} rather than {{uw-ga-driveby|article=Articlename}}.
2. If the article name isn't specified, the template doesn't link to the actual article for the number 1. – Epicgenius (talk) 23:57, 7 October 2023 (UTC)
Thank you for catching that; I've gone ahead and removed the named parameter. The user warning template guidelines seem to discourage them to keep the templates uniform. Rjjiii (talk) 06:38, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

Other changes

 Courtesy link: WT:Template index/User talk namespace § Uw-ga-driveby

I've made a few changes resulting from this overlapping discussion and follow-up to it:

  • shortened the text referring to old practice prior to last January (with further changes proposed for down the road);
  • made param-1 optional, and adjusted the doc accordingly;
  • added shortcut {{uw-ga}} and linked it from the doc;
  • used the {{single notice}} template in the doc (rather than multi), and asked whether it's too early to mention Twinkle installation at this point.

Mathglot (talk) 19:45, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

I have changed You do not appear to have edited the article prior to this to You do not appear to have made significant edits to the article prior to this, since we want to cover not merely people who have never edited the article, but also those who have edited it but only in minor ways. BlueMoonset (talk) 20:17, 9 October 2023 (UTC)
That is an important change Billsmith60 (talk) 21:25, 9 October 2023 (UTC)
@Mathglot: If {{uw-ga}} will work better for the name, you can go ahead and move it there rather doing a shortcut. I'm not attached to the existing name. And thanks for taking a look.
@Thebiguglyalien: Do you want to try and include this template in any scripts, gadgets, or so on? Rjjiii (talk) 00:34, 10 October 2023 (UTC)
That's a bit beyond my area of expertise. I suppose it should be treated like any other "will only be used occasionally" user talk notice template. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 00:38, 10 October 2023 (UTC)
Imho, the current name works better as the PAGENAME, because it also appears automatically as the H1 title of the page, whereas "uw-ga" is more cryptic, except for those in the know. Reminds me a bit of {{interlanguage link}}, a template I use all the time, but never in that form, only as {{ill}}; otoh, I wouldn't want to see it renamed {{ill}}. As far as this user warning template, I think the fullname and the shortcut are both right where they ought to be; but it's your template, so if there's no particular consensus for one way or the other, you should have first refusal on any name change. Cheers, Mathglot (talk) 00:46, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Adding to the instructions

I've added the above template to the user warnings page.[4] Should it also be linked from the instructions? Perhaps in this footnote:

−
If the nominator is either the author of less than 10% of the article or ranked sixth or lower in authorship, and there is no post on the article talk page, it can be uncontroversially considered a drive-by nomination.
+
If the nominator is either the author of less than 10% of the article or ranked sixth or lower in authorship, and there is no post on the article talk page, it can be uncontroversially considered a drive-by nomination. You can [[Template:Uw-ga-driveby|notify the nominator]] on their talk page.

Feedback welcome, Rjjiii (talk) 18:27, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

I don't know what the precise numerical thresholds here are supposed to mean. 10% of what number? The total bytes ever added to the article? The current size of the article? If I trim a lot of junk from an article in the process of bringing it up to Good Article worthy status, does my authorship total in the article suddenly become a big negative number? If I revert a page-blanking vandal, am I suddenly credited with 100% of the article? This would appear to rule out any possibility of bringing large existing articles up to Good Article nominations, because even a significant amount of effort in doing so is likely to be counted as "less than 10% of the article".
I think we should forgo this false precision and rely on human judgement on whether a contributor's contributions have been significant or not. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:07, 28 October 2023 (UTC)
I presume that it means 10% of the authorship of the current version of the article, as measured by WP:XTools. Here's the breakdown for the Wikipedia article, as an example. TompaDompa (talk) 20:25, 28 October 2023 (UTC)
It still would make it difficult or impossible to bring articles like triangle up to GA status. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:35, 28 October 2023 (UTC)
As I wrote in the edit summary, I used the language from Wikipedia:Good article nominations/Instructions when adding the template to the list. If it's controversial, other editors are welcome to change it or propose what it should be. My intention was to describe existing policy, not change it. Rjjiii (talk) 21:05, 28 October 2023 (UTC)
The instructions allow for the removal of drive-by nominations. Removal is not mandatory or automatic in any way, but at at reviewer discretion. Presumably if an experienced editor was to nominate an article they had minimal edits to, an experienced reviewer will assume they know what they're about. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 23:59, 28 October 2023 (UTC)
@Premeditated Chaos, David Eppstein, and TompaDompa: Is this preferred?[5] Rjjiii (talk) 01:29, 29 October 2023 (UTC)
I like it better, at least. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:31, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

Is this a drive-by nom?

There is an article which I improved from a previous account of mine. Am I allowed to nominate it from my current account? Moazfargal (talk) 10:56, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

The point of disallowing drive-by nominations is to ensure that nominators are sufficiently familiar with the article and its sources to be able to deal with any issues brought up by the reviewer, so it should be fine. TompaDompa (talk) 13:52, 4 November 2023 (UTC)
Maybe put the information in a note on the nomination so the reviewer doesn't mistake it for drive-by? —David Eppstein (talk) 16:38, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

SoHo Weekly News vs. MOS:EMBED

I'm thinking of getting SoHo Weekly News in shape for GA. Before I do that, I'd like some input on how people feel about the Alumni section vis-a-via MOS:EMBED. I personally think it's fine, but if there's going to be pushback, I'd rather know about it before I nominate. RoySmith (talk) 15:05, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

Are there any similar examples for how these people lists are treated? In my experience they've been removed from a lot of location pages (replaced by categories), and continue to be present on university pages, although I'm unaware of any specific policies or guidelines for either. Browsing through some top UK and US unis, they often have a bit more of a "parent" paragraph before the list of "children" bullets, but in principle it does not seem an uncommon presentation. (The two FA newspaper articles, Illustrated Daily News and Sunderland Echo do not have such lists, but one is a very old FA nomination, and from the sample of 1 examples I can't at a glance see any discussion about alumni on its talkpage, GAN, or FAC.) CMD (talk) 01:58, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
I'm not sure it would be a problem for GA, but I'm also not sure the current setup is optimal. "Significant careers" is a broad brush, and that's currently what we're saying about all of these people. Sometimes, the brief intro gives a slightly misleading impression: for instance, Gerald Marzorati is correctly listed as the publication's art editor, but he's more known now as a tennis writer.
If I were doing this myself, I'd try to make paragraphs, perhaps grouping together the writers, the editors, and the photographers, and give a brief synopsis of where each person has gone to make them notable. That might mean taking out a few names, which is fine: the information about their SoHo Weekly News job can be part of their page, so won't be lost from Wikipedia.
Would there be any mileage in a "List of SoHo Weekly News alumni" article, which might be a better place for some of this information and then allow a briefer, prose synopsis here per WP:SUMMARYSTYLE? UndercoverClassicist T·C 10:36, 29 October 2023 (UTC)
Thanks everybody for the input. I just finished hunting for more articles that had "Soho Weekly News" in them but weren't linked, and added the links. Turns out there's a lot more alumni than we had listed before, and it's clear that expanding the list to include them all would be silly. So I'm thinking Category:SoHo Weekly News alumni (I'll need to brush up on my AWB skills) and then cherry-picking the most notable ones to write something about. RoySmith (talk) 17:15, 30 October 2023 (UTC)
Roy Smith a category would need to be wp:defining for all individuals in the category, per categorization rules. If someone worked at several newspapers across a career, it's unlikely that they all would be defining. I don't think that AWB would be a good choice for populating this category because just because it's mentioned in a biographical article does not mean it is defining. (t · c) buidhe 06:05, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

Troubleshooting review count mismatches

Mike Christie asked me to bring this up here for visibility. Since the GAs reviewed count now somewhat "matters" in that it decides the sort order and is prominently displayed along with the GA count... do we have any special guidance on what to do for mismatches between who created a GA subpage and GA review credits? Currently, by default, the bot will credit whoever creates the GA subpage immediately, but maybe there will be wacky cases where a reviewer leaves halfway through, or never starts the review but the review doesn't get a pro-forma close + new review.

My inclination is just that if any explicit thumbs-up is required, the bot maintainer (Mike Christie for now) is empowered to have some admin script that +1s an editor's GA review count. It used to be anybody could edit the User:GA bot/Stats page, but now the "real" data is stored in an inaccessible database and any on-wiki edits will just get reverted and overriden, so it's made whoever maintains the DB part of the core flow. If something weird happens and there should be multiple credits for a review or the wrong editor was credited, whatever, just increment the count and move on. In the unlikely case of an editor repeatedly pestering for extra credits and wasting Mike Christie's time, bring it here to WT:GAN to determine if this was just the unluckiest editor ever or if something fishy is going on. SnowFire (talk) 23:56, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

I recall some discussion on this topic at the time, but there are always going to be fuzzy areas. We don't really have an established way to handle a 'partial review' (so to speak). Is it multi-credits, or is it half each? I have personally leaned further towards preferring closing+incrementing reviews instead of 2ndopinioning them, but there is still a point where doing so is likely unduly frustrating for a nominator. While specific cases of potential count offsets can be identified, I have trouble imagining it will matter more than at the margins, and agree that if any example becomes notably egregious it can be brought to wider discussion. CMD (talk) 14:17, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Gasparilla Pirate Festival/GA1

The reviewer has asked to be replaced, but I don't know the process to handle that. Could somebody please see Talk:Gasparilla Pirate Festival/GA1#Status? and perform the required magic? RoySmith (talk) 16:11, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

RoySmith, I've done the steps at WP:GAN/I#N4a. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 18:27, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

Second opinion on whether an article is a list

I was wondering whether Prime Minister of Albania counts as a list or an article. Lists of course can't be good articles and a majority of Prime Minister of Albania is taken up by the list of prime ministers, but there is also a large portion which consists of prose, which gives it the possibility of being considered an article. I would like to know the thoughts of others. Steelkamp (talk) 05:26, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

I think it's well over enough prose to be considered not simply a list. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 05:35, 15 November 2023 (UTC)
I agree with PMC, it's an article including a list. At a brief glance, if that list was spun off (ala List of prime ministers of the United Kingdom) the rest of the content would remain appropriately placed in that article. CMD (talk) 12:18, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

Link drive-by template in the instructions?

Would anyone oppose or support adding the below text to link the user talk template for drive-by nominations to the end of footnote [a] on Wikipedia:Good article nominations/Instructions:

You can notify the nominator on their talk page.

I proposed this before but sidetracked the discussion.[6] Rjjiii (talk) 02:30, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

ChristieBot down for 15 hours

ChristieBot has been down for the last 15 hours; I was just alerted to the problem by a post on the bot's talk page and have fixed it. I *think* it will catch up with everything correctly since it runs from categories, but if anyone sees something that looks like a bot error or omission, please let me know. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 03:01, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

Protecting the GAN page

Hi, if you watch this page you know it's a common occurrence for editors to post notes on a nomination on the GAN page, unaware that it will be overwritten by the bot. Over the last years I must have left dozens of messages on users' talk pages letting them know why this won't achieve what they are trying to do and telling them how to edit the GAN template on the article talk page. Besides confusing newer editors and leading to disappearing notes/co-noms, this issue also causes watchlist clutter. I was thinking it would be easy to fix by template-protecting the page and giving edit privileges to ChristieBot and any other bots that need to edit the page. Mike Christie suggested bringing this issue for discussion here in case there is any difficulty I am overlooking. (t · c) buidhe 01:05, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

This is a good call that will reduce confusion and time-wasting. Barring any technical concerns, I think we should do it. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 01:37, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
I also can't see any particular significant downside. Perhaps combined with an edit notice this might help some new users. CMD (talk) 01:56, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
Agree Moxy- 02:05, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
What about those of us who know what we're doing and have edited the page dozens of times over the years? Also, will this protection prevent editing to transcluded pages in the initial sections? I don't edit the GAN page much any more, but in the Legobot before times, I did a fair amount of clean-up, and not just reverting like Buidhe mentions. I also edit transcluded pages several times a year for things like the start and end of backlog drives and for updating the list of the oldest unreviewed GANs when many of them have been reviewed. If all that goes away, I think some other solution should be found. BlueMoonset (talk) 04:57, 5 November 2023 (UTC)
BlueMoonset I believe all of the items on the GAN page that would need to be edited manually are indeed transcluded (such as the header, which needs to be changed when a drive occurs). These would not need to be additionally protected to prevent the issues I was noticing. To be clear I'm not proposing the protection of any page other than Wikipedia:Good_article_nominations. (t · c) buidhe 05:17, 5 November 2023 (UTC)
It looks like everything is transcluded (or added by a bot) except this bit:
Alternative lists of articles awaiting review
To add good article nominations to this page, please see the instructions.
@BlueMoonset: would it help to move those links above to a transcluded sub-page as well? Rjjiii (talk) 16:03, 5 November 2023 (UTC)
Rjjiii, you should ask SD0008 about the SDZeroBot. My assumption is that admin requirements not an issue for ChristieBot if Mike Christie was the one who pointed Buidhe here. It could be that I'm worried over nothing; my experience is with DYK, which has cascading protections that reach down into subpages, but that is because the process ends with material that goes to main page, so special protections are needed. If that won't be the case here at GAN, then the times we might want to edit the page directly would tend to be those that will heal themselves the next time ChristieBot runs, or during times when the bot is down or wonky and Mike Christie isn't around to fix things. Might the entire editing issue be solved, at least mostly, by causing a special edit notice to come up surrounding the edit window whenever someone tries to edit the page, like the one that happens when one edits a DYK nomination template? BlueMoonset (talk) 21:17, 5 November 2023 (UTC)
Mike Christie is a template editor and we will be requesting template (not full /admin) protection for the page. Obtaining the same permission for the bot shouldn't be an issue. I f the bot did fail the page could be unprotected by any admin. There is already an edit notice clearly stating not to edit, but I guess it gets missed. (t · c) buidhe 22:54, 5 November 2023 (UTC)
Is there a particular reason you proposed template protection than EC protection? I idly feel that experience will correlate with understanding of the GAN process, but have not had the reverting experience you have had. This may assuage BlueMoonset's concerns, although due to the transclusions I remain unsure that there will be any real issues if template protection is implemented. CMD (talk) 14:20, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
Chipmunkdavis I believe the page is already ECP. The erroneous edits are made by ECP users (the latest non bot edit was by an editor with tens of thousands of edits). (t · c) buidhe 18:03, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
It is currently semi-protected, not ECP, but if ECP would not help then that answers my question handily. Best, CMD (talk) 01:18, 8 November 2023 (UTC)
FuzzyMagma (an editor with 23,000+ edits) made the error around an hour ago. Template protection is probably best. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 12:21, 8 November 2023 (UTC)
Each of the last four users to edit the page erroneously have been extended confirmed users. Harrias (he/him) • talk 13:29, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

This seems to be getting close to a consensus. I'll post a request at Wikipedia:Requests_for_permissions/Template_editor for ChristieBot to get the template editor permission if there are no objections here over the next couple of days. I'll post a note here when I do so in case there are any questions there. Once that's done any of the admins in this discussion can change the GAN page. I don't believe any code changes to ChristieBot will be needed. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:21, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

Now requested. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:24, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
And granted. If any admin in this discussion wants to template protect GAN, please go ahead; revert if you don't see ChristieBot successfully editing that page. Thanks. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:49, 11 November 2023 (UTC)
 Done –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:51, 11 November 2023 (UTC)
Is the bot just copy pasting from the sub pages? Any reason these aren't transcluded instead? Changing these to transclusions might also solve the problem and be less confusing. –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:49, 11 November 2023 (UTC)
Novem Linguae The bot works by finding {{GAN}} templates substituted on the talk pages of articles nominated for GA. No type of transclusion could work because the template is not in the right format. (t · c) buidhe 06:41, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

Abandoned reviews

Eurohunter currently has fifteen reviews open, all of which were opened during the August GAN backlog drive. Of these, one has been awaiting a second opinion for over eight weeks (Talk:Chuck Person's Eccojams Vol. 1/GA1), one received a brief comment from them in late September (Talk:Kwyet Kinks/GA1) but a request in response to complete the review one way or the other has been ignored, and the rest haven't been touched since sometime in August despite Eurohunter being pinged on their talk page. It could be that they burned out before the end of the backlog drive; it has happened to a number of participants in the past. One way or another, the reviews need attention.

Two of these review pages were opened but no review ever posted; I have requested a G6 speedy deletion for them both, since it has been eight weeks without action for both noms, and Eurohunter has another dozen reviews that clearly have a higher priority. It would be great if an admin could delete the two review pages—Talk:Mis Mejores Canciones – 17 Super Éxitos/GA1 and Talk:16 Super Exitos Originales/GA1—so these can go back into the pool of unreviewed nominations, where they would be the eighth- and ninth-oldest nominations awaiting review.

Even with those two deleted, there are still thirteen open reviews. The other eleven not yet mentioned are:

Some of these may be awaiting nominator action, in which case the nominator should be contacted on their talk page (unless they post here) and if they aren't prepared to address the issues in a timely fashion—they've had as much as a couple of months already—the reviews should probably be closed by someone here. Thanks to anyone who can help move these along in some fashion. BlueMoonset (talk) 20:28, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

Noting here that BlueMoonset and Mike Christie have already handled the talkpage templates for the two G6ed reviews. Of the remaining, all except Elle Leonard are songs, if that interests anybody. If no-one wants to pick up directly within these reviews, it would perhaps be best to close them and open new GANs, backdating them to the original nomination date. CMD (talk) 01:57, 17 October 2023 (UTC)
CMD, that might be a good idea to reset many of those nominations without loss of seniority, but if the nominator has yet to address any of the issues raised in the review, I'd just close them as unsuccessful. For example, Magiciandude has responded to issues raised in Talk:Abriendo Puertas (song)/GA1, but has yet to respond or make a single edit to the other four nominated articles: those four strike me as candidates for closure unless work begins in earnest. BlueMoonset (talk) 02:34, 17 October 2023 (UTC)
As a week has passed here, I have closed the four with no replies or later edits (struck above), and pinged the nominator of Talk:Bang (Rita Ora and Imanbek EP)/GA1, where Eurohunter had not received replies to some comments. The others appear to have received more substantive reviews, at first glance mostly on prose and source formatting. Music is not an area I've edited before, but perhaps these just need a quick source spotcheck on the existing GANs. CMD (talk) 12:51, 25 October 2023 (UTC)
Bang is up for 2ndopnion now, someone has taken up Abriendo Puertas. CMD (talk) 01:15, 4 November 2023 (UTC)
A few days ago, I started working through the oldest list to see if I could move things along. I was just coming here to note my discovery that @Eurohunter is the major roadblock and found this thread. So far, they have ignored my entreaties, but I guess that's not a surprise to people here. This kind of behavior is abusive. Nobody requires that you do reviews, but if you're going to start them, you have an obligation to see them through, or at least step out cleanly so somebody else can take over.
If the excitement of the backlog drive got the better of you and you bit off more than you could chew, say so and withdraw from the reviews so other people can pick up the work. Sitting on them and steadfastly refusing to respond to enquiries from multiple editors is reprehensible. I think the next step is going to WP:AN and asking that Eurohunter be WP:TBANed from all processes which require reviews from their fellow editors (i.e. DYK, GA, and FA). Eurohunter, please give me some reason to not do that. RoySmith (talk) 17:44, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
On another note: there are several open nominations where the nominator has not been active for a month or more. Would there be any value in closing those to reduce the clutter on the page and increase the chance that reviews with a reasonable chance of having a nominator respond will be picked up? UndercoverClassicist T·C 18:56, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
I agree Billsmith60 (talk) 10:19, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
I didn't see this whole discussion because no one mentioned me, but I have answered. Eurohunter (talk) 19:46, 18 November 2023 (UTC)
minus Removed these nominations by inactive nominators where there is no ongoing review. (t · c) buidhe 19:56, 18 November 2023 (UTC)
Noting that 2 additional reviews RoySmith identified, Talk:Chuck Person's Eccojams Vol. 1/GA1 and Talk:Kwyet Kinks/GA1, seem mostly complete, one thanks to a 2ndopinion input from RoySmith. CMD (talk) 05:49, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
I am available to take over abandoned reviews or reviews that have been pending for a long time without the reviewer taking action in the "on hold" status. If there is a need for this in Biology and Medicine articles, please feel free to ping me now or in the future. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 18:45, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

Reviewer's revenge

I need assistance with handling cases of reviewer's revenge. During the article review process, I requested certain edits from the nominating editor and placed the review on hold at Talk:Mammalian_kidney/GA1.

However, it seems that the reviewer went through my contributions and discovered that I had nominated an article for GA status on Russian Wikipedia. It is worth noting that this happened only after I provided my opinion on the Mammalian_kidney article. Then the nominating editor enrolled as a reviewer and expressed opposition to granting GA status to my article at ru:Википедия:Кандидаты_в_хорошие_статьи/16_ноября_2023#Против_(Обходной_путь_биосинтеза_андрогенов)

Please advise on how to handle these situations effectively in order to prevent such objectionable behavior in the future.

I would not have taken on the role of reviewing this editor's work if I had known that retaliatory actions would ensue. Unless this situation is clarified and resolved appropriately, future reviewers may also face similar retaliatory actions.

Maxim Masiutin (talk) 09:44, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

In general, there is no prohibition on someone reviewing an article submitted by an editor who has reviewed their articles; given that editors have particular topics of interest and if you are nominating articles in one subject you are likely also interested in reviewing them, and given the small number of GA reviewers and their overlap with nominators, any such prohibition would I suspect be completely unworkable. Obviously retaliatory reviews are not acceptable, but simply reviewing and criticising your article when you have put their article on hold does not strike me as sufficient evidence that their behaviour is retaliatory – I do not read Russian and am not familiar with the GA process on ru.wiki, and both of your articles are completely outside my area of expertise, but from what I can glean from Google translate their review is not obviously frivolous or malicious.
If you have reason to think that this is a retaliatory review it would help to provide some more evidence, because it's going to be hard for most editors here to assess behaviour on ru.wiki (though I note that the editor in question is an established editor on ru.wiki with 25,000+ edits there, including nearly 1,500 to wikipedia space this year).
As for what to do in future, this talkpage seems like the best place to come with concerns, though if an editor's behaviour is severe enough there is of course the possibility of reporting it to WP:ANI. I will note that I have reviewed over 40 GA nominations and contributed to a similar number of FA reviews, and I've never experienced any sort of retaliatory evidence, nor do I recall any discussions of such problems on this talkpage, so I do not think that you are likely to face such an issue in future. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 12:33, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
Caeciliusinhorto-public, thank you very much for your response! I contacted editors and administrators on Russian Wikipedia, who informed me that such behavior is considered normal and familiar there. However, it came as a shock to me personally. In my case, the reviewer D6194c-1cc (which is Участник:D6194c-1cc in Russian Wikipedia) openly admitted that he deliberately searched for my contributions after I placed his article on hold, only to discover that I had submitted an article for review myself. He then enrolled himself as a reviewer and provided a negative opinion.
As a university professor with experience in academic literature, this kind of behavior would be met with administrative penalties or even banning from the reviewing process altogether. While it is acceptable to review each other's work at different times, specifically seeking out articles awaiting review by your reviewers and enlisting yourself as a reviewer on those articles in order to express any opinion (negative or positive) is considered highly unethical where I work. Opposing opinions are seen as acts of revenge, while positive opinions are viewed as attempts at bribery or favoritism. Ultimately, the quality of academic reviews suffers greatly if such behavior is tolerated.
You mentioned that such practices do not occur on English Wikipedia; however, people from Russian Wikipedia have assured me that this is indeed the norm there. Therefore, I will probably consider refraining from nominating any articles for GA status or contributing further content to Russian Wikipedia (except maybe small edits) due to the low ethical standards prevalent in that environment.
You stated that you translated the reviewer's opinion using an automated tool and found them not obviously inappropriate. While I understand your perspective, objections should have their limits, and everything should be common sense, not taken to absurd. It remains unclear whether these objections were influenced by personal bias, making it difficult for me to objectively assess the challenges I am facing within this context, whether it is a biased nitpicking or a reasonable objection.
Considering all these factors, it seems best to avoid engaging in an environment where what I consider unethical behavior is widely accepted as normal practice.
I appreciate your efforts to investigate this matter and for providing me with information about the cultural differences in reviewing practices between Russian and English Wikipedia. However, as a contributor to the English Wikipedia community, I believe it is essential to uphold high ethical standards in our reviewing process to ensure the quality and integrity of our content.
I hope this issue can be brought to the attention of higher authorities in Russian Wikipedia so that steps can be taken to address and improve these practices if they deem necessary or share my concern; who knows? It is essential for the overall credibility and reputation of Wikipedia as a reliable source of information.
Once again, I thank you for your time and consideration in addressing this matter. I look forward to continuing my contributions to English Wikipedia while advocating for ethical reviewing standards. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 16:52, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
I'm speaking generally here, because this isn't a forum to discuss a specific editor's conduct. The cross-wiki nature of this makes it tricky. If there was an obviously retaliatory review on en.wiki, I would as an admin consider warning an editor, and consider sanctions if the behavior was repeated. Retaliatory behavior on ru.wiki could also be sanctionable, but it would need to rise to the level of harassment, which is a somewhat higher bar than just disruption of the process to make a point. Vanamonde (Talk) 17:03, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
Thank you for your guidance and input on handling such situations, I appreciate that measures are in place to address retaliatory behavior on English Wikipedia and ensure a fair reviewing process. Although cultural differences exist between different language versions of Wikipedia, individuals within our communities need to hold ourselves accountable for promoting ethical practices. Your insights have been invaluable in helping me navigate these challenges and contribute ethically to the reviewing environment on English Wikipedia, and thank you once again for your time and guidance. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 18:41, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
Maxim: I kind of want to echo Vanamonde that I think the problem here is the editor's actions on ruwiki and so it's that wiki where this behavior needs to be examined. If there were to be behavior on enwiki as well that would suggest a reason to go to ANI for appropriate attention. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:37, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
Greetings! You can read the discussion through the Google Translator:
https://ru-m-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wiki/%D0%92%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%BF%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%B8%D1%8F:%D0%9A%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B4%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B0%D1%82%D1%8B_%D0%B2_%D1%85%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%BE%D1%88%D0%B8%D0%B5_%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B0%D1%82%D1%8C%D0%B8/16_%D0%BD%D0%BE%D1%8F%D0%B1%D1%80%D1%8F_2023?_x_tr_sl=ru&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=ru&_x_tr_pto=wapp
Although the Maxim Masiutin's request to administrators:
https://ru-m-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wiki/%D0%92%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%BF%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%B8%D1%8F:%D0%97%D0%B0%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%8B_%D0%BA_%D0%B0%D0%B4%D0%BC%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B8%D1%81%D1%82%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%BC?_x_tr_sl=ru&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=ru&_x_tr_pto=wapp
Some terminology will be translated wrong, but the key points will be clear enough. D6194c-1cc (talk) 19:36, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

Misti

Greetings, can someone remove the nomination for Misti? I was too quick, the article needs some work still. JoJo Eumerus mobile (main talk) 17:30, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

That's super easy, you can just remove the template like I did. (t · c) buidhe 17:56, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

GAN Review Tool disables Computing and engineering?

I'm trying to close Talk:Cross-site leaks/GA2. When I go to the (absurdly long) "Topic, subtopic, and sub-subtopic" menu, there's no "Computing and engineering" item. Digging into the HTML, I find: 

<option value="Engineering and technology" disabled="">===Computing and engineering===</option>

Why is this disabled? RoySmith (talk) 14:31, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

Pinging @Novem Linguae, for if they're not watching this page. They might be able to answer. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 18:37, 11 November 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for the ping. At the time I wrote the code for this, that level had no articles in it, so I assumed people were supposed to use its sub-categories. It looks like someone manually added an article to it, so now it is a proper category. I'll go ahead and update GANReviewTool :) –Novem Linguae (talk) 20:43, 11 November 2023 (UTC)
This ended up being more complicated than I thought. Will circle back to this. –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:03, 11 November 2023 (UTC)
@RoySmith. Taking a fresh look at this, if I were to undisable ===Computing and engineering===, it would allow inserting articles here. That doesn't seem like a good spot to insert articles. I think we're instead supposed to choose a heading farther down. So I am leaning towards keeping ===Computing and engineering=== disabled. Does that seem reasonable? I also notice you manually added this article to the similar-sounding =====Engineering technology=====, which is an option farther down in the drop-down list and is not disabled. So hopefully this is all resolved? :) –Novem Linguae (talk) 08:41, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
@Novem Linguae thank you for looking at this. Yes, I did manage to get things done manually, so it is resolved in that sense. I still find the interface difficult to use. A drop-down menu with this many items in it is very difficult to use. You can't even search for the item you want in a browser unless you figure out that you need to prepend "===". Perhaps that's just a Chrome thing? RoySmith (talk) 15:47, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
@Novem Linguae Here's another example. I'm trying to close Talk:Protector Shoal/GA1. In Wikipedia:Good article nominations, this is listed under "Geography and places" / "Geography", but both of those entries are disabled in the drop-down. I'm mystified how this is supposed to work. RoySmith (talk) 16:01, 22 November 2023 (UTC)
Novem Linguae will no doubt correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that the top level categories ("Geography and Places") are not meant to have any articles listed directly under them; instead they should be in the most applicable subcategory. In the case of Protector Shoal, I guess that's Wikipedia:Good articles/Geography and places#Landforms? Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 16:13, 22 November 2023 (UTC)
Wouldn't it make more sense for the nom to pick the subcategory themselves and embed it in the {{GA nominee}} template in a way that the script could pick it up automatically. In fact, {{GA nominee}} does apparently have both topic and subtopic slots, but most of the templates I see leave the topic blank and put what I would think is the topic in the subtopic slot, as in this example:
{{GA nominee|...|subtopic=Geography...}}
which has me scratching my head every time I do one of these. RoySmith (talk) 16:27, 22 November 2023 (UTC)
RoySmith. The |topic and |subtopic parameters are actually identical (they both do the same thing and are aliases of one another). And counter-intuitively, they are only for picking the very top level topic (basically the WP:GA subpage name, such as WP:GA/Warfare), for displaying in the template. The template will then use that to link to the appropriate WP:GA subpage. What sub-sub-subtopic the GA gets placed into by GANReviewTool is separate from what |topic is entered in the template. I agree that the drop-down list needs improving, and will try to work on it when I get some time. It should be possible to convert it to a drop-down list that also lets you start typing and displays search results for you to pick. Hope this helps. Happy editing. –Novem Linguae (talk) 09:24, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

GA apprenticeship

Let me propose an idea of GA apprenticeship, where all editors are by default considered "GA reviewer apprentices". They can do reviews, but their verdict is not binding until approved by any "GA master", a status received by an editor with N reviews (similar to the Extended autoconfirmed status received by K number of edits). GA masters may supervise apprentices or may not, but they guide the process and should review the quality of the review process made by the apprentice, all communication, arguments and the verdict. After an apprentice made N/2 edits, such apprentices' verdicts are binding, but a nominated editor has a simplified appeal procedure whereas any master can review and uphold or change the apprentices' verdict in a lightway procedure. After an apprentice does N reviews (of which N/2 must be approved by a master0 and becomes master, such review verdicts cannot be appealed by the simplified procedure, and the contestation should be done as it is done now.

This process will attract the new editors to the review process because they would feel safe under guidance and would not fear to do anything bad. Also, it will make review process fair and will also not frighten new reviewers who may be subject of attacks by the editors who disagree. The master will guide the apprentice on how to withstand such attacks. It may add extra work to the masters, but this will pay up by the bigger number of reviewers that such system may potentially bring. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 06:08, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

I'd like to hear from someone involved in FAC mentoring to see whether that system works. My impression is that it is not widely used, but it's also not required. I would oppose any binding model of apprenticeship for GA reviewers since GA is a low bar and soliciting outside opinions is fairly simple. Urve (talk) 06:35, 22 November 2023 (UTC)
I don't know if apprenticeship is the right thing, but I do think the GA process needs some kind of improvement. As noted, FA has multiple reviewers plus a dedicated team of experienced coordinators who do the actual closes and watch over things in general. DYK, even though holding submissions to a less stringent standard, has every nomination looked at by three reviewers in sequence, with the final reviews being done by admins. Plus there's often additional input on WT:DYK. It's only GA where reviews happen largely unsupervised by a single person who may or may not have any experience doing reviews. Not surprisingly, I see a lot of substandard GA reviews. RoySmith (talk) 17:38, 22 November 2023 (UTC)
When I did my first FAC, I asked for a mentor and was told I didn't need one. That FAC ultimately took two tries to succeed. Mentorship for FAC is a lot of work, since you essentially need to review the entire article and all its sources. I'd hope that people could simply look at existing GA reviews as a basis for how to do reviews of their own. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 20:38, 22 November 2023 (UTC)
A similar idea has been tried: Wikipedia:Good article help/mentor. Fell out of use because, quite frankly, GA reviewing is not a very difficult thing to do. There was support to revive it at WP:GAPD23, but no one cared enough to do the donkey work. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 18:19, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

Talk:Kirby (character)/GA2

I think this review could needs some eyes, zero issues at the article??? 2001:4455:663:D600:3DB4:2299:F74E:C668 (talk) 20:44, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

What is the particular concern with the review, or with the article? CMD (talk) 02:04, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

Understanding of p. 1b of the GA criteria

Hello, we have difficulty on understanding and disagreement p. 1b of the GA criteria. See discussion at Talk:XXXYY_syndrome#Conclusion

As a second reviewer, I believe that the article does not meet the criteria because it lacks proper layout guidelines. Certain sections were missing from the article without any justification provided by the author. In my opinion, these sections are essential for that particular article to be considered GA unless a solid justification is provided on why these sections are not needed; they cannot be just silently ommitted. However, the first reviewer argued that I cannot insist on including specific sections in order for an article to be considered GA. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 09:11, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

Hi Maxim Masiutin, the GACR 1b states on structure that the article should follow Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Layout. This does not lay out any particular section topics/titles, being a very general guideline. It seems that you may be raising a point regarding broadness, ie. if the article is missing key sections is may lack key coverage, however you seem to have passed the article on this criteria. If the issue is purely section headers, that is not a GACR issue. If it is to do with coverage, I suggest making that clear. CMD (talk) 10:40, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
My evaluation of the article (XXXYY_syndrome) was not solely based on section headers. I firmly believed that specific sections were crucial for the comprehensiveness of the article, and therefore requested the nominating editor to either include these sections or provide a detailed explanation as to why they should be omitted.
In my view, it would have been inappropriate for a GA nominee to silently exclude sections that I deemed important without any justification or explanation. Therefore, I encouraged the editor to address these concerns and clarify their reasoning behind omitting said sections. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 10:47, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
I agree with Chipmunkdavis: what you are talking about appears to be an issue with criterion 3 ("broad in its coverage"), particularly 3a ("addresses the main aspects of the topic"), not 1b. Biology is not at all my area and I'm in no position to comment on whether the article does in fact meet criterion 3a, but if you do not believe that it does meet that criterion then yes, that is absolutely a reason not to promote the article. If you consider some particular topic to be an essential "main aspect" of the subject, then it is absolutely correct to say that it should not pass GA unless it addresses that topic. For instance, I would contend that no article on World War II could be a good article if it did not address the causes of the war. That said, I don't think it's true that you could insist on any particular layout: if an article discusses some essential topic I would not think you could insist that the section header changed. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 12:49, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
Thank you very much for the explanation! Very helpful for the future. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 12:55, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
I feel like you may be getting hung up on the notion that the article must be comprehensive to be broad. Explicitly, this is not the case: per GACR, "The "broad in its coverage" criterion is significantly weaker than the "comprehensiveness" required of featured articles." If something is not a "main aspect" of the subject as discussed in the existing sources - let's say "Society and culture", which you criticized this article for not including - then it should not be expected to be included in the article. There are only 8 recorded cases of this syndrome. How can you expect an entire "Society and culture" section for something with eight cases without resorting to original research? ♠PMC♠ (talk) 19:35, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
Your observation about society and culture is correct. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 20:22, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
Right. Do you think there's a possibility that my observation might also apply to other sections that you originally believed were mandatory under MEDORDER? In other words, do you think that your assessment that the article fails 3a might be worth revisiting? ♠PMC♠ (talk) 20:56, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
Yes, I think so. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 21:25, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
Given that, would you be all right with reversing the fail and letting RoySmith finish the review, assuming he wants to? It would probably be less frustrating for the nom than having the article go back in the queue for another however many months when he decides to renominate. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 21:36, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
To be honest, if I took over the review again, I would still be looking for a SME to confirm that it is correct to use "male" to describe these patients. It might be best to let somebody else take this. RoySmith (talk) 21:39, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
Prefacing this comment with a disclaimer that I haven't read the sourcing, as medical content is way over my head. Assuming Vati is correct in saying that all the sourcing says "male", and assuming that the sourcing appears reliable to you, what would a subject-matter expert be able to say that would be different? ♠PMC♠ (talk) 21:47, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
I suppose that's a fair question. As I was reviewing the article, I found myself repeatedly bugging my wife (who is a molecular biologist) to explain stuff to me. At some point it became obvious to me that there was enough that I didn't understand (the "male" thing was just the final thing) that I didn't feel competent to complete the review. RoySmith (talk) 22:21, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
Ah, okay. From the original wording it seemed like the "male" thing was the specific issue but it makes sense if it's a broader question of making sure you understand enough to provide a solid review. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 00:08, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
Such definitions as "male" are highly controversial, because they vary on context, culture and environment. For example, for a clinical practitioner in a hospital in one country it may mean different for a intersex organization member in a the organization's meeting. You would not be able to find an expert on "male" that will be one size fits all. You can give any definition you like and make a reliable source and it sill be controversial. For example, you can use a definition of male as a human having at least one Y chromosome, and it sill be controversial.
Although the definition of male as a human having at least one Y chromosome is a somewhat commonly accepted definition, however, it is not the only definition of male. There are other definitions that take into account other factors such as hormonal balance, reproductive organs, and secondary sex characteristics.
Therefore, you can simply write in your article on XXXYY syndrome that "according to a definition of male given at .... that denotes male as ....., the individuals with XXXYY syndrome are considered males.
Then, you can either do the following:
1) further write that "further in these article the individuals individuals with XXXYY syndrome are denoted as males, however, it is not the only definition of male, there are other definitions that take into account other factors such as hormonal balance, reproductive organs, and secondary sex characteristics.
2) avoid using male, man, boy and other sexual denotions, and instead write person, adult, child, newborn, fetus, embryo, adolescent, etc...
Sex is a sensitive topic in Wikipedia and my colleague receved tematic ban on editing anything related to "sex" for arguing on Wikipepedia talk pages, so try to avoid this issue rather than waiting for a subject matter expert. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 22:06, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
there are other definitions that take into account other factors such as hormonal balance, reproductive organs, and secondary sex characteristics ...by which definition, it's a male SCA. It's not a condition that causes people to have DSDed reproductive organs or secondary sex characteristics -- none of the SCAs are. Some sex chromosome disorders are, but that's not the normal phenotype for any of the polysomy SCAs. (This is why I never worked on the male X-polysomy articles, despite the constant begging amongst XXY support groups for literally any information about those disorders that isn't deeply stigmatizing and several decades out of date.) Vaticidalprophet 22:15, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
Here, for reference, is the review that's the first source in the article and used most throughout. It consistently uses "male" to describe XXXYY men. So do all the sources it cites. Vaticidalprophet 22:20, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
Thank you, good catch! Maxim Masiutin (talk) 22:46, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
Did you mean by the abbreviation SCA "sex chromosome aneuploidy" which refers an abnormal number of sex chromosomes, such as XXY, XXX, XYY or XXXYY? Maxim Masiutin (talk) 22:51, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
If we are in a medical context, than we are OK with SCA, but outside the medical context if we identify an XXXYY individual as male we may be in trouble because even according to Wikipedia's definition of male we can find that "In humans, the word male can also be used to refer to gender, in the social sense of gender role or gender identity. The use of "male" in regard to sex and gender has been subject to discussion."
That what I mean. If you only need to stay in a medical context, you don't have to be an expert in genetics or molecular biology to identify XXXYY as a male SCA :-) Maxim Masiutin (talk) 22:55, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
@Vaticidalprophet, I can try write a small section on newborn screening and prenatal screening if you wish. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 18:34, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
Just tell me what you think of it. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 18:35, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
I think I would not be able to do this objectively; I'm not insisting on all these articles, I just wanted the reviewer to explain why something is omitted or write these sections. For example, why the editor objects from making Classification a distinct standalone section or a subsescion with classification to be able to easier navigate the article and find the text there and understand better the context while skimming it?
Also, the explanation of the mechanism is not especially irrelevant, but if it is not relevant, an explanation on the Talk page should be given why it is not relevant, and if it is relevant, while not to group it under this title for future easier digestion of this topic?
It is also nothing written on prevention and section on screening, neither as as subsction nor among other text at all! Why screening is not covered? It was only mentioned that patients were screened in prisons and institutions, forming an image of such conditions as severely disabling, but it was not said anything about newborn screening at all. Is it a part of newborn screen kits or not? If yes, than in which countries? If not, than why? I understand that it is a part of karyotype test that may be used to screen other conditions which are more frequent but also involve sex chromosome abnormalities. Were there arguments to screen newborns for sex chromosome abnormalities or not? Are there advocacy groups that lobby screening other sex chromosome abnormalities that would also cover this symptom? What other genetic conditions or abnormalities are typically included in newborn screening programs? Are there any known cases of XXXYY syndrome being identified through routine newborn screening? What are the potential long-term health impacts and outcomes for individuals with XXXYY syndrome if not detected through newborn screening? Is there a recommended timeframe within which newborn screening should be conducted to accurately detect XXXYY syndrome? Are there any specific challenges or limitations associated with implementing widespread newborn screening for sex chromosome abnormalities like XXXYY syndrome? How does the cost of incorporating XXXYY syndrome screening into existing newborn screenings compare to the potential benefits it provides? Have any studies been conducted on the effectiveness and accuracy of current methods used in newborn screenings to detect sex chromosome abnormalities, including XXYYY syndrome? Have there been any animal studies conducted, such as in mice, to investigate the potential factors that may contribute to an increased or decreased occurrence of milder forms of sex chromosome abnormalities like XXY or XYY? What specific conditions or experimental manipulations in animal models have shown an increase or decrease in the frequency of sex chromosome abnormalities, potentially leading to a noticeable occurrence of XXXYY syndrome? Can findings from animal studies provide insights into the underlying mechanisms that may contribute to the development and manifestation of XXXYY syndrome? Given the rarity of XXXYY syndrome, are there any specific guidelines or recommendations for healthcare providers on when and how to consider newborn screening for this condition? Considering the low prevalence of XXXYY syndrome, what factors should be taken into account when deciding whether to include it in routine newborn screenings? Are there any ongoing research efforts to improve the accuracy and reliability of newborn screening methods for detecting rare conditions like XXXYY syndrome?
There is also nothing written on treatment or management at all, not even a single sentence like that the treatment options are not known. Omitting treatment or management for chronic conditions is unacceptable for an article nominated to GA, such article about a disease or medial condition cannot be classified as complete enough it it does not say a word about treatment or management!
There was also nothing written on research directions. If no treatment of management is known, it should probably be written whether it is researched or not, although research directions can be omitted.
These were the issues that I initially raised in my review. The nominating editor could have replied on them, at least on the most relevant and improve article in part and explain the irrelevancy of these questions in part.
However, as I mentioned earlier, I may be biased, therefore, I would not be suitable for reviewing the same article again unless the issues I initially raised in my review are addressed.
I will put these comments to the Article talk page for them not to get lost. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 22:34, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
I'm not sure that you're biased, but I will say I don't think you are quite clear on the GACR. If sources don't include this information, then we can't either. We can't hold gaps in the sourcing against an article if the article is able to address major aspects of the subject despite other gaps in the sourcing. It would be original research for Vati to make assumptions about things that aren't written in the sources - even to say that treatment options or research directions aren't known. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 00:14, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
As a reviewer, I want to ensure that the information in an article is backed up by reliable sources. I am sorry that you felt that I encourage the reviewer to make assumptions or close gaps with guesstimates. I didn't encourage to do that. I kindly request that the nominating editor justifies any missing sections that I consider important, instead of simply leaving them out without explanation. It would be helpful if the nominating editor could provide a brief explanation of their search process and any sources they found, even if they feel those sources may not be sufficient or reliable. It's always better to have a constructive discussion rather than just insisting on disagreement without providing any supporting arguments. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 00:36, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
I suppose I could make the same point - it seems that you are assuming the sourcing to justify those sections exists but are providing no evidence to indicate that they do. Anyway, earlier we agreed that your assessment that the article fails 3a was incorrect - have you changed your mind back? That seems unfair.
Something else I just noticed that I find really unreasonable is that you didn't even give Vati the chance to justify or correct any "missing" sections. You started leaving comments at 03:23 hours my time and failed the GA at 08:28 hours after disagreeing with RoySmith about the degree to which you were taking over the review. Vati wasn't even editing during that time, so how could he possibly have responded to you? If you really are as open to discussion as you say, I will ask you again to do the reasonable thing and revert your closure of the GAN as a failure rather than forcing a renomination. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 00:51, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
Agree. You're asking questions that may be pertinent to a researcher, but are well beyond the scope of an encyclopedic article. It's impossible to answer some of your questions without performing original research, such as: [c]onsidering the low prevalence of XXXYY syndrome, what factors should be taken into account when deciding whether to include it in routine newborn screenings? Others are beyond the scope of this specific article, such as: [w]hat other genetic conditions or abnormalities are typically included in newborn screening programs?
You've also now twice repeated the concern that the article excludes material that I consider important. The nominator is de-facto justified to ignore such concerns (though this isn't what happened as demonstrated by PMC). Wikipedia is explicitly disinterested in what any editor believes should be there. That's the basis of WP:V. Articles cover the subject matter as discussed within RS (in this case MEDRS) directly related to the topic. If you've identified material contained within MEDRS that is missing from the article, that is worth discussing. Otherwise, the generalized concern behind 'why does x section not exist?' can be addressed with 'because it isn't discussed in the relevant literature'. Mr rnddude (talk) 01:03, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
Thank you for taking the time to provide your insights on my list of questions. I appreciate your perspective regarding the scope of an encyclopedic article and which questions from those that I listed may be deemed pertinent or irrelevant.
I would like to clarify that not all of the questions listed were intended as mandatory requirements for inclusion in the article. They were meant to serve as examples highlighting potential areas worthy of consideration. I apologize if this was not clear initially.
In retrospect, it might have been more productive if we had focused on discussing the most relevant and significant questions from my list rather than singling out potentially less important ones. By doing so, we could have engaged in a more constructive dialogue about aspects that are truly impactful within the context of this article.
Furthermore, I must note that during previous discussions, my concerns and inquiries were left unaddressed without any supporting arguments suggesting their irrelevance. This led me to conclude that certain sections deemed important by myself were overlooked or given insufficient attention in relation to conforming with the criteria for a good article.
While Wikipedia emphasizes its commitment to verifiability (WP:V) and relies on reliable sources (such as WP:MEDRS) directly related to the topic at hand, it is crucial for us as editors to strive for comprehensive coverage whenever possible. If there are materials within WP:MEDRS that appear missing or underrepresented in the current article, exploring ways to incorporate them can enhance its overall quality.
As for your concern of "I consider important", I don't understand why it brought your attention. Earlier in the discussion, there was a sentence by Caeciliusinhorto-public that "For instance, I would contend that no article on World War II could be a good article if it did not address the causes of the war. Therefore, Caeciliusinhorto-public considers important the topic of the causes of the war in an article on World War II. This means that if the user Caeciliusinhorto-public were a reviewer in such an article, than the user would have indicated to the nominating article that such article should address this question before it can be considered to be a GA.
You made a blanket statement 'why does x section not exist?' can be addressed with 'because it isn't discussed in the relevant literature' but this statement does not apply for particular case. In this specific case, the newborn and prenatal screening topic is widely covered in reliable literature (secondary sources such as reviews, meta-analysis or books, for example, these are the titles of the publications indexed on MEDLINE about the newborn and prenatal screening for XXXYY syndrome and other conditions of sex chromosome aneuploidy:
  1. Fragile X-related element 2 methylation analysis may provide a suitable option for inclusion of fragile X syndrome and/or sex chromosome aneuploidy into newborn screening: a technical validation study (PMID 23060046)
  2. Genomics-based non-invasive prenatal testing for detection of fetal chromosomal aneuploidy in pregnant women (PMID 29125628)
  3. A review of neurocognitive functioning of children with sex chromosome trisomies: Identifying targets for early intervention (PMID 31267526)
  4. Rapid methods for targeted prenatal diagnosis of common chromosome aneuploidies (PMID 21316319
  5. Chromosomal microarray versus karyotyping for prenatal diagnosis (PMID 23215555)
  6. Chromosomal mosaicism detected by karyotyping and chromosomal microarray analysis in prenatal diagnosis (PMID 33201576)
  7. Advances in genetic prenatal diagnosis and screening (PMID 25211161) # Chances and Challenges of New Genetic Screening Technologies (NIPT) in Prenatal Medicine from a Clinical Perspective: A Narrative Review (PMID 33805390)
  8. Genomic newborn screening: Are we entering a new era of screening? (PMID 37403863)
  9. Genomic newborn screening-research approaches, challenges, and opportunities (PMID 37831095
  10. and so on....
Why didn't the nominated editor analyze the content of these articles and include them into the article if this information is both important for the topic described and confirmed reliable sources?
Once again, regarding your remark about "considering important," I apologize if there was any confusion caused by my use of similar language. I understand now that it was an attempt at illustrating how individuals might prioritize different aspects based on their perception of importance within specific contexts. In this case, highlighting the significance of addressing key topics like causes in an article on World War II further emphasizes the importance of considering various viewpoints when assessing articles' eligibility criteria.
Once again, thank you for engaging in this discussion with an open mind and collaborative spirit. I believe our collective efforts will help improve the quality and comprehensiveness of this article.
Additionally, it is important to note that not all articles may provide valuable information for inclusion in the current article. For example, articles specifically focused on prenatal diagnostics may not be directly applicable to the topic of newborn screening.
Prenatal diagnostics and newborn screening are distinct procedures with different objectives. Newborn diagnostics are typically prescribed when there are known concerns or risk factors present in the family history. In contrast, prenatal diagnostics aim to identify conditions or abnormalities during pregnancy. Since XXXYY syndrome is not an inherited condition, there is no indication for prenatal diagnostic testing specifically for this syndrome.
However, it should be acknowledged that newborn screening methods like karyotyping or genome sequencing can still be relevant as they have the potential to detect sex chromosome abnormalities including XXXYY syndrome. Therefore, articles related to newborn screening may offer valuable insights and information that could contribute to enhancing this article's content.
Furthermore, exploring research directions within the context of newborn screening would also benefit from incorporating relevant literature and resources. These sources can shed light on emerging advancements and future possibilities in diagnosing and managing XXXYY syndrome.
By considering these distinctions between prenatal diagnostics and newborn screening while utilizing appropriate resources, we can ensure a more comprehensive representation of XXXYY syndrome within the scope of this article. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 02:36, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
There is one known case of XXXYY syndrome discovered through prenatal screening, which did not survive to birth. This is discussed in the article. This specific pattern for sex chromosome tetrasomy/pentasomies is fairly common -- their extreme rarity combined with the generally negative portrayal of them in older literature means the number of described prenatally diagnosed cases for almost any given one is about 0-1, and I've never ran into a report of a liveborn case. Fragile X is a completely unrelated disorder (this is a common problem for finding gscholar results on rare SCAs, because it's fairly common and has a lot of research on it, so it clogs up hits). The other articles are about different disorders that are discussed in this article/this article suite when relevant. Because XXXYY doesn't correspond "directly" to either male trisomy SCA, it's much more OR to draw comparisons in the way you can for e.g. tetrasomy X/pentasomy X, where the sources frequently discuss the relationship between those phenotypes and that of trisomy X.
The article discusses the complex history of prenatal and newborn screening in SCAs, and how this specifically applies to tetra/penta disorders, which are much rarer and have generally not benefitted nearly so much from it (e.g. Few adults with the disorder have been reported, and there are no reports of people diagnosed prenatally who survived to birth. This lack of prognosis information is common in sex chromosome tetrasomy and pentasomy; though longitudal studies exist for the sex chromosome trisomies, higher-level aneuploidies are far rarer and information more sparse and These assumptions were later disproven by longitudinal studies of people diagnosed at birth with sex chromosome trisomies, which found people with 47,XXY, 47,XXX, and 47,XYY karyotypes blended into the general population and had little unusual propensity for criminality. Despite these advances regarding sex chromosome trisomies, the tetrasomy and pentasomy variants remain understudied. Due to their extreme rarity, none were detected in these cohort studies, and no unbiased information exists on their long-term prognosis). This is the fourth article on a tetra/penta SCA I've nominated at GAN, and the rarest disorder of the bunch; the amount written here is generally representative of these articles and the sourcing that exists for them. Vaticidalprophet 02:47, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
On relevant studies
Thank you for providing further clarification and insights into your reasoning. I agree with your points regarding the lack of research and information available on tetra/penta SCAs, particularly in comparison to the more common trisomies. This is indeed an important aspect to consider when discussing prenatal screening and prognosis. I also understand the points that you have raised regarding prenatal screening and newborn screening, as well as the challenges in obtaining reliable information on rare conditions like XXXYY syndrome.
However, I would argue that it is still important to acknowledge the potential relevance of articles related to prenatal diagnostics or newborn screening in informing our understanding of this condition. While there may not be a wealth of information available specific to XXXYY syndrome, studies on sex chromosome aneuploidies can provide valuable insights into common trends or patterns that may extend to this disorder. I must reiterate my previous statement that it may be beneficial to explore incorporating relevant literature from newborn screening into this article. While it may not directly correspond to XXXYY syndrome itself, as you have pointed out, articles related to newborn screening can still provide valuable information and perspectives on the broader topic of SCAs.
Utilizing appropriate resources can also shed light on emerging advancements and potential future directions for diagnosing and managing these rare disorders. Therefore, neglecting or dismissing such sources simply because they do not directly address XXXYY syndrome could limit our understanding of its implications within the larger context of SCAs.
While there may only be one known case of XXXYY syndrome discovered through prenatal screening currently discussed in the article (which I appreciate you mentioning), this does not mean that it will remain unchanged forever. With advances in technology and research methods, more cases could potentially be detected prenatally in the future. Therefore, considering how newborn screening has evolved over time could offer valuable insight into potential developments in this area. This can be explained in the "Research directions" section, for example.
Again, as with the case at hand, please consider focusing on what is relevant rather than on what is irrelevant for argument's sake alone. You mentioned about fragile X syndrome earlier but seem to avoid addressing my point about the title of this article is "fragile X syndrome AND/OR sex chromosome aneuploidy". It is a reliable source discussing both topics together. It would benefit readers if we explored ways to incorporate such sources without disregarding their relevance simply because they do not fit neatly under one specific disorder label.
As Wikipedia emphasizes verifiability through reliable sources (WP:V), incorporating these findings from secondary sources can strengthen the article's content and enhance its comprehensiveness. Again, my intention here is not to suggest mandatory requirements but rather offer insights on possible areas worth considering for improvement in future revisions.
As highlighted earlier with regards to prioritizing key topics like causes in articles on World War II or assessing eligibility criteria holistically rather than focusing solely on individual items from lists.
On GA criteria
As for the article's readiness for a Good Article award, it is far from complete and does not meet the GA criteria at this time, as I expressed earlier. Since you didn't complete the article, my opinion is the same, and the arguments that you gave avoid important topics while focusing on what is easy to rebutt. We should focus on good content in Wikipedia. Content could have been improved rather than arguing. The lack of comprehensive coverage and the omission of important topics and relevant literature are major concerns that need to be addressed before the article can be considered for a GA award. Again, I urge you to consider focusing on what is relevant rather than on what is irrelevant for the sake of arguing, and to strive for a more comprehensive and well-rounded article that meets the GA criteria. Thank you once again for engaging in a collaborative discussion aimed at improving this article's quality and comprehensiveness. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 11:51, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
This comment demonstrates that you still don't understand that the GA criteria explicitly do not demand comprehensiveness. It is unreasonable to fail an article on something which is explicitly not required by the GACR. I would strongly recommend you not take up any further GA reviews until you have a better handle on the GACR. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 15:15, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
See the comment on World War II above. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 15:29, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
I once nominated an article about a human gene that encodes enzyme protein and nominated for GA and the reviewer failed the nomination because there has not been mentioned in the article about work done with this gene by the scientists on knockout mice :-) I agree that this information is important. But some may disagree. It is easier to add information on knockout mice than argue :-) Maxim Masiutin (talk) 15:45, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
That's an interesting take on why I failed that GAN. I invite others to have a look and see the review for themselves. Esculenta (talk) 20:27, 22 November 2023 (UTC)
That's a diplomatic response, Esculenta. If I were you, I'd have used the word "lie". Trainsandotherthings (talk) 20:35, 22 November 2023 (UTC)
I'm sorry that you suffered what sounds like an unfair review, but that doesn't mean you should inflict that unreasonable standard on other people, especially without actually giving them any chance to add information or discuss the situation. Adding a bunch of smiley faces to your response does not make what you did any less unfair. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 16:39, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
I thought that it was fair. I had a couple of reviews where reviewer were very demanding, so I thought it was a normal process. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 16:48, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
It's reasonable to be critical in line with the GACR. It's not normal to demand things that have no connection to the GACR. It's not reasonable to demand that the nominator engage in original research by synthesizing content about treatment or screening for other disorders, which is exactly what you're doing here. It's not reasonable to blunder into someone else's review and abruptly fail the nomination without even giving the nominator the chance to log on and respond to your comments. Fucking hell, man, take a step back and realize that every single person who has responded to you here has disagreed in one way or another with your interpretation of the criteria. You are the one who's in the wrong. You have been the entire time, and all the walls of text in the world are not going to change that. Have some grace and revert the fail. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 17:00, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
It is not screening for other disorders, it is about sex chromosome aneuploidy. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 17:31, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
You do not need different screening for XXY, XYY, XXXYYY. Sex chromosome aneuploidy screening covers them all. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 17:32, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
Broad in its coverage and it addresses the main aspects of the topic, 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.
Although not every major detail or fact should be covered, some major details or facts should be covered still.
The notions of "major", "some", etc. are relative and subject to personal interpretation. For example, how many major details may not be covered, 1, 2 or 3?
A probable explanation is that the difference on interpretation depends on traditions for a particular area.
I was writing in medicine and had broader articles in its coverage than XXXYY and they still failed.
Therefore, I understood that the traditions for medical articles are differnt from the other articles, and demanded the same on average than was demanded from me, not more, not less. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 16:56, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
And in the example on World War II given above, the article would just have failed GE because of just 1 major detail is omitted (causes of war). Maxim Masiutin (talk) 16:57, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
MM, I agree with those above that are saying your standards are too high for the GA process. The stuff about omitted major details is something of a red herring. A GA quality article can be missing hundreds of major details. It needs to address the major subtopics of the article. "Causes of the war" is not a detail, but a major aspect of the topic with uncountable potentially major details. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 17:00, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
Newborn screening, management and treatment of a desease are also not details but major aspects. When I reviewed, my opinion was that without those major aspects the article was not ready for GA. Why you then blame me? Maxim Masiutin (talk) 17:09, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
There were the following discussion:
-- Why didn't you write about newborn screening?
-- Because it is not required by GA criteria.
-- But this topic is important and well-covered by the articles.
-- It is still not required by the GA criteria. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 17:12, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
You're very likely to be wrong, and you certainly have not proved, that newborn screening is important and well-covered by the articles. You brought up a bunch of sources about newborn screening for other conditions. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 17:30, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
I brought sources for newborn screening for sex chromosome aneuploidy and for whole genome sequencing. It is not a screening for other conditions. Sex chromosome aneuploidy covers XXXYY and whole genome sequencing also covers XXXYY. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 17:34, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
Can you point to one source that discusses newborn screening for XXXYY? Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 17:36, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
Look for sex chromosome aneuploidy screening and whole genome sequence screening. XXXYY is a sex chromosome aneuploidy that is detected by such screening. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 17:38, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
Can you point to one source that discusses whole genomic sequencing for newborns that mentions XXXYY? Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 17:39, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
Why should it mention it? Maxim Masiutin (talk) 17:43, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
Still, there is an article DOI: 10.1159/000101523 which mentions XXXYY in context of screening. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 17:45, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
Not an article, just commentary. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 17:50, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
It was peer reviewed and it confirms that XXXYY is addressed by newborn screening, that was what you needed. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 17:56, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
It doesn't address that at all. The full quote of its mention of XXXYY is "Mosaicism (46,XY/47,XXY) is observed in up to 10% of cases, whereas other variant karyotypes, e.g., 48,XXYY, 48,XXXY, 49,XXXYY, or 49,XXXXY, are rare." It then goes on to discuss newborn screening for Klinefelter's. We already have sufficient sourcing for the fact that XXXYY is rare Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 18:12, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
Maxim Masiutin, it is a non-trivial amount of work to track down and review these references. It is so disappointing to find that you've misrepresented their content. Rather than my continuing the work, can you provide quotes from the remaining sources you've found that show that they discuss newborn screening or newborn genomic sequencing in the context of XXXYY. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 18:16, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
I can write a section on newborn screening for XXXYY if you wish, based on these sources. By the way, I save the sources to the talk page so there are the links that XXXYY can be detected by sex chromosome aneuploidy screening and genomic newborn screening. The articles on these methods are at Talk:XXXYY_syndrome#Literature on newborn screening methods that can detect XXXYY syndrome
Articles that expressly mention XXXYY in context of newborn screening are at Talk:XXXYY_syndrome#Articles that expressly mention XXXYY in context of newborn screening
There is also an article on sex that may be interesting to which that commentary replies. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 18:22, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
This one also mentions XXXYY in context of screening: https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.96.4.672 Maxim Masiutin (talk) 17:47, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
This one also mentions: 10.3390/children9111719
And there are other sources, but you requested only one. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 17:49, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
You dont need separate screenings for separate genetic conditions. If you do whole genome sequnce you cover all known conditions, such as congenital adrenal hyperplasia, sex chromosome aneuploidy, etc. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 17:37, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
It's possible that there may have been some confusion regarding the spirit of the rules for Good Article criteria on Wikipedia. It seems like there was an oversimplification of the requirements on your part, suggesting that the comparison could be handled mostly by a bot with a focus on technical aspects, and such bot could have given the Good Article status to an article submitted by the bot, if it were all too simple as you say. However, it's important to note that this approach goes against the intended essence of the rules. The inclusion of options such as "hold" and "2nd opinion," which aim to attract subject matter experts, further emphasizes the need for broad coverage. A subject matter expert plays a vital role in evaluating whether most major details have been adequately addressed. If broader coverage would not have been required and minor issue were easier to fix, there were no options like hold review for seven days to improve the article or verify by a second expert. Small issues like consistent citation formatting does not take as long as seven days for which the hold option is given. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 17:07, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
What you say does not match the consensus interpretation of the GA criteria on en-wiki. Lack of sources that cover an aspect of a topic has never been considered on en-wiki to permit a GA fail on the "broad coverage" criterion. For a fail on broadness, a reviewer must show that sources exist. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 17:11, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
I put about 10 sources here on newborn screening. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 17:13, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
And we already spent more kilobytes of text on arguing; these kylobytes would have been better spent on information on newborn screening. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 17:15, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
Most of the kbs are yours, and it would help if you could provide briefer responses. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 17:31, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
My opinion is not absolute and I may be wrong, you may probably nominate the article to GA again without modification and another reviewer may consider it meets GA criteria in its current form. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 12:13, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
Compare the same article as a GA and a FA. There's a world of difference. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 23:46, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Regarding WP:MEDORDER specifically, criterion 1b lists precisely 5 MOS guidelines with which a good article must comply; MEDORDER is not one of them. The fact that MOS:LAYOUT links to WP:MEDORDER does not mean that MEDORDER must be complied with to meet the GA criteria, and even if it did, MEDORDER is (in its own words) a list of "suggested sections ... intended to help structure a new article or ... an existing article [which] requires a substantial rewrite". MEDORDER does not require any specific sections: indeed it specifically caveats the list by saying "some sections will necessarily be absent or may be better merged". Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 12:56, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

Next step for XXXYY syndrome

I think we've moved past the point of useful discussion above. It is crystal clear that the article's first reviewer is demanding original research from the nominator. I think the nominator is wise to decline. Vaticidalprophet, would you like to renominate and ask for a new reviewer? I would be happy to create the review page and add a note pointing to this discussion, explicitly asking the new reviewer to disregard the quickfail criterion about addressing issues from a prior review. Is this option ok with VP, and would anyone else oppose it? Is there a better next step? Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 17:49, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

That's not my interpretation of the discussion. It seems like MM is asking for explanations (ie. no sources exist") why certain standard content that would usually be a major topic for a medical article is omitted. He also seems to have found some sources that were missed by the nominator. The way he is going about it is suboptimal though. (t · c) buidhe 17:54, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
He's been given explanations above but ignores or doesn't accept them. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 17:55, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
MM was given the "no sources exist" explanation, and their source dump includes stuff that is irrelevant to the topic. When asked to provide a source that mentions the article topic, they said "Why should it mention it?" It is deeply unfair to the nominator to have to wrangle with this level of policy understanding in a reviewer. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 17:57, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
I am sorry that you are cherry-picking certan quotes from my reply wrere I provided you with the sources which expressly mention XXXYY in context of newborn screening:
You can also look for similar articles that mention expressly XXXYY in context of newborn screening. Maxim Masiutin Maxim Masiutin (talk) 18:08, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
As I noted above, the second of those (the first one I checked) does not expressly mention XXXYY in the context of newborn screening. I did not cherry-pick a quote from you, but I chose one that was demonstrative of the overall issue, which at least two other editors pointed out to you before you made the quoted comment. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 18:19, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
I happen to have read all three of these articles already. None of them do so in the sense you are asking for. The third one is cited extensively in the article (you may notice it as the third source), including for content regarding newborn screening, and the other two do not provide information relevant to the article. None of them talk about newborn screening as relevant to XXXYY, because newborn screening in the context of SCAs refers to either 1. large newborn screening studies that only found trisomies or 2. speculation about potential future screening programs that are only discussed regarding trisomies. The former is to some degree relevant to the subject, which is why there is a lot of information in the article about the ways in which it is relevant. I genuinely do not understand your contention, and I feel bullied and patronized by your comments. Vaticidalprophet 05:35, 22 November 2023 (UTC)
Thank you very much! Your explanations are more than plausible. I made analysis and after the arguments presented I think that the article passes the GA criteria. Still, I'm not sure what is the right process. I didn't find on the rules of GA review on whether a reviewer who failed a GA nominee later change its status to pass without the nominating editor will renominate it again. Can you please renominate it again so we adhere to the normal process? If the renomination is not required, please let me know and I will try to change the status. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 05:47, 22 November 2023 (UTC)
@Maxim Masiutin: The GAN was failed by you just a few days ago, so you can simply self-revert this action (ie. reverting this). Once you have done that, you can add the explanation for the pass to the bottom of Talk:XXXYY syndrome/GA1 and then pass the article normally. CMD (talk) 06:53, 22 November 2023 (UTC)
OK, will do! Maxim Masiutin (talk) 07:32, 22 November 2023 (UTC)
I now the see the article XXXYY syndrome in the list at Wikipedia:Good_articles/Natural_sciences#Biology_and_medicine Maxim Masiutin (talk) 08:03, 22 November 2023 (UTC)
@Firefangledfeathers just to correct a minor point, I'm the first reviewer. I asked for a 2O on one particular question, and MM inappropriately took over the review. I don't think what they did was correct, but I just couldn't work up the energy to fight him over this. Personally, I think he's being an ass. And, yes, I think starting from scratch with a new reviewer is the best way forward at this point. RoySmith (talk) 18:01, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
An important correction. Thank you RS; reliable as always. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 18:02, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
You already done great job improving the article, so the article is ready from all technical aspects. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 20:19, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
Do you wish me to try to write a section about screening? Or we should better now refrain from editing, submit to GA and after it passes GA write such a section? Maxim Masiutin (talk) 20:18, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
You're not banned from editing the article (yet) and I would always encourage editors to WP:BEBOLD and make improvements as soon as they are able to do so. (t · c) buidhe 21:47, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
I mean that an article should more or less "settle" when submitted to GA, and since you decided to sumbit, my edits may interfere with a review. That's why I asked which time would be better: now or after the review. If it is not a problem that my edits may interfere, than I may try. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 21:54, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
Just to be clear, you've talked to (counting quickly) seven different people in the course of this conversation, of which I (the nominator) have participated pretty little. (The response my heart gives is "none, the article isn't worth this problem, I'll BLAR it to an article on sex chromosome aneuploidies". I'll see how I feel when the conversation dies. In a year.) Vaticidalprophet 21:56, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
OK, if you don't wish, I would not do that even on the Talk page. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 21:59, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
It's not a wholly literal response. I am very overwhelmed and exhausted by this. I have the impression six other people are, too. I don't believe any article with transcluded sections prescriptively-should pass GAN. Vaticidalprophet 22:10, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
What about the second option then? I mean explaining in a few sentences that there is a common or similar issue between SCA variations and link to a dedicated page that will explain this issue for all the variations, probably given differences where relevant? This way we would not need to duplicate information as you mentioned earlier. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 22:30, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
I'm working in the long run on an article about SCAs, which won't be ready for primetime until a lot of the individual SCA articles are in better shape. I don't think individual ones should require the main one to exist in order to pass GAN. Vaticidalprophet 22:32, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
OK, I understand. However, having multiple different pages all for each SCA variations with lots of repetitions on things like meiosis whereas on one page meiosis the process is thoroughly described and on another is not is a questionable practice because all conditions are equally imporant from the encyclopedic point of view and should be equally covered. Either explain the process of cell division on all by copy-paste or use translucion or make a page that is common for SCA and move information there. I understand your drive to have as many GAs as possible, but there should be common sense. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 22:36, 21 November 2023 (UTC) --- striked Maxim Masiutin (talk) 02:51, 22 November 2023 (UTC)
It's really insulting of you to assume that Vati's goal here is to have "as many GAs as possible" and not to provide information on this disorder. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 22:38, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
I understand your drive to have as many GAs as possible I'd appreciate if you struck that. I do not have a drive to "collect GAs" -- I have a drive to write high-quality articles. The article suite does consistently define things such as how these disorders originate, and will do so regardless of how it's long-term organized. I'm genuinely not sure what you mean by saying it doesn't -- are you only looking at section headers? This is the question I had before about "what do you mean by it not discussing newborn screening and prenatal diagnosis" -- it does! Vaticidalprophet 22:39, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
I sincerely apologize that I mentioned "I understand your drive to have as many GAs as possible", this was a significant error on my part. Such comments are not acceptable, because they are personal attacks. We should focus on good content for the readers since readers are the primary users. Editors are secondary users. Still, if we are secondary users, we still have to be people, and my comment was far from humane, I should not have done that. Sorry. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 02:52, 22 November 2023 (UTC)
Still, we could have used Transclusion or a statement like "The newborn screening issues are the same as for the all other variants of sex chromosome aneuploidies (or a different wording to avoid speculation and original research and improper syntheiss of sources) and then a transclustion part will follow or there will be a wikilink to a separate article that addresses these issues. This information should be available on the article at hand, so when a user read the article from start to end they had full high-level coverage on basic concepts such as screening and management, without the need to specifically search for that. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 22:03, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
Maxim, would you be willing to add a concise note on the GAN page providing a summary of this area you think is lacking, along with the sources you've found, and leave that to the original editor/a new reviewer? This is getting a bit beyond the scope of this page, and appears at best to fall within the grey areas of editorial interpretation rather than any clearcut WIAGA lack. CMD (talk) 01:44, 22 November 2023 (UTC)
Yes, I did that on the article's talk page in separate sections:
Maxim Masiutin (talk) 01:51, 22 November 2023 (UTC)
  • Update: Maxim has now determined that the article meets the GA criteria and passed the review. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 13:54, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

Minor logistical issue

Just at the end here...it seems something about how the GAN was passed (never technically being reopened) resulted in the bot not processing it properly, such that it e.g. was never given a GA icon. Would just manually adding the GA icon be enough for e.g. it to be properly read and categorized as a GA? Vaticidalprophet 00:54, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

Handled by PMC. CMD (talk) 02:06, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

Ask an administrator to delete page keeping prior history

I retracted as a reviewer and copied the GA review discussion to the page talk. Still, a new reviewer should get a non-existing GA page Talk:Mammalian kidney/GA1, but I cannot delete it. Can an administrator please mark this page as deleted, preserving history, so the new reviewer will start the review from scratch? Emptying the page didn't because a potential new reviewer would not find a page pre-filled with the required templates when clicking on the review link. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 17:40, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

Why wouldn't they either get to continue on the review page, or a /GA2 instead? Is deletion particularly healthy in a process which often depends on knowing what's happened previously (e.g QF#5)? ——Serial 17:46, 22 November 2023 (UTC)
I copied all the discussion, and deletion can preserve the history, so no information will be deleted, the page is now blank anyway, it should be like a status change; GA2 might have screwed the bot that updates various pages, it is not actually a second review; the bot does not seem to be aware of retractions. Second opinion is not suitable for this case. I therefore asked for a deletion that preserves history whereas the textual information is already saved on the talk page where GA review are transcluded, so no information is lost. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 17:51, 22 November 2023 (UTC)
It is standard practice to delete GA review pages that are non-reviews (typically this includes pages created in error by the nominator, or pages created by editors who have no intention of reviewing, or who drop out of reviewing for whatever reason before doing any reviewing), so the article goes back into the pool of nominations without losing its place. If there's been actual reviewing done, then a second opinion should be requested, rather than the page being deleted. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 20:30, 22 November 2023 (UTC)
I initially requested second opinion, but later I understood after reading rules mentioning it that the second reviewer is more like a consultant to the first reviewer. Additionally the review is counted as done only to the first reviewer anyway. Thanks to AirshipJungleman29 who explained that I should have followed the procedure of "abandoned" review. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 20:54, 22 November 2023 (UTC)
Why would you do ANY of this, instead of simply following the relevant part of the GA instructions? You are not the unilateral arbiter of the GA process, and simply writing many WP:WALLOFTEXTs does not give you the power to hide your disputes when you want! ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 17:59, 22 November 2023 (UTC)
The instructions at WP:GAN/I#N4a have been implemented, and your changes reverted. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 18:11, 22 November 2023 (UTC)
Thank you for your help! Please consider apologizing for your false accusation on hiding disputes, or provide the proof. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 18:17, 22 November 2023 (UTC)
@Maxim Masiutin: Please consider apologizing for wasting several editors' time. ——Serial 23:06, 22 November 2023 (UTC)
I apologize for spending the time, actually! I didn't think it will turn out this way! Maxim Masiutin (talk) 23:08, 22 November 2023 (UTC)
But now I know how to do that and will no longer spend time. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 23:09, 22 November 2023 (UTC)
Closed per request on my user talk ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 14:09, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

== Clarifying the process of retracting the reviewer and returning the nominated article to backlog ==

I propose to update slightly the instruction, without altering the meaning, but to improve clarity, so that the process of retracting the reviewer and returning the nominated article to backlog will be easier to understand.

1. Update slightly the wording in Step 4a to emphasize that this action return article to backlog; 2. Adding section 4b or a separate item somewhere else with explicit purpose "What to do if I need to retract as a reviewer" (to be able to find easier).

A possible proposed version is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Good_article_nominations/Instructions&oldid=1186395619 Maxim Masiutin (talk) 12:58, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

Mate. Read the damn room. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 13:10, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

Maxim Masiutin again

Check out Talk:Eileen Niedfield/GA1. On top of everything else they've done, they took on this review. They found some missing dates and decided to fix it themselves, sourced to ancestry.com, which is such a well-known non-RS it's got it's own shortcut: WP:ANCESTRY. This guy is a menace. Either he's trolling us or this is the worst case of WP:CIR I've seen in a long time. Either way, he can't be allowed to continue to wreak havok on GA. I'm way too WP:INVOLVED so I can't block them. Could some non-involved admin please deal with this? RoySmith (talk) 02:38, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

I think they've got what the kids call "main character syndrome"-they're convinced that because they've thought it, they must be completely correct (no need to ask anyone else/do their own reading). Look at this heap of vapid puffery they added to the article they were reviewing for GA status. But of course, they thought it would be nice to have in the article—no need to worry about core content policies or any of that. I think it's a WP:CIR issue covered up by a superficial veneer of long words. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 03:21, 23 November 2023 (UTC)
Thank you for mentoring. I removed the previously uncited dates and the paragraph I added, the issues you pointed out. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 04:48, 23 November 2023 (UTC)
I also told about this case to to the nominating editor User_talk:Fortunaa#Review_descrepencies.
Do I need to do something else? Maxim Masiutin (talk) 04:55, 23 November 2023 (UTC)
Hi Maxim, perhaps you might consider slowing down here. From what I understand you have only started reviewing in the past few days, and have run into a few different issues now on these separate reviews. It is worth stepping back and getting a better understanding of the usual processes, perhaps looking at a few other reviews and working on the GANs you are the nominator of when they are picked up. CMD (talk) 05:58, 23 November 2023 (UTC)
Yes, I didn't want to review, but I thought that if a editor nominated N articles for GA that editor should review N*2 articles, otherwise the backlog of pending reviews will not move. I initially waited for about a month after nomination my articles to GA but then decided to contribute as a reviewer. I didn't understand the process correctly. I had some experience with steroids, but in the medical section were instead biographies, and I never dealt with biographies, so I made mistakes. I saw how other GA reviews are made based on the articles I nominated in the past, and in both cases case reviewers edited my page, so I thought it was appropriate to edit, didn't see it was prohibited. There are so many complex rules scattered and that was why I asked about GA reviewer apprenticeship, I was not very comfortable reviewing and understood that I could do something wrong. There are also some controversies that I cannot understand. On one hand, people say GA is a lightweight process. On the other hand, submissions could wait for months. It turns out that we can make GA articles faster than reviewers could check them. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 06:54, 23 November 2023 (UTC)
That's certainly a good ambition, but you are correct that under the lightweight process is a complex of nuanced and sometimes inconsistently applied practice and convention. Refraining from reviews and focusing on constructive discussions with GA reviewers on your nominations is probably the best way forward. Apologies as always that articles can take many months to get reviewed, I hope it's clear that this is a general issue that all nominators deal with. Best, CMD (talk) 07:13, 23 November 2023 (UTC)
I think it might be best to revert the review, and let someone else carry it out; pinging the nominator, Fortunaa—would that be okay? On a quick look I can see issues that should have been picked up during the review, such as incorrectly tagged images, layout problems, and somewhat confused prose. To be clear, these are not disqualifying problems, but the review should resolve them instead of introducing new ones.
Maxim Masiutin, in case you are unclear, you need to engage "in-depth" with the article, and systematically compare it to the GA criteria. If you take on reviews in the future, after better understanding what you are expected to do during a review, there are templates available which will help you structure your work. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 06:11, 23 November 2023 (UTC)
OK, I will revert Talk:Eileen Niedfield/GA1.
Can you please suggest on whether should I also revert Talk:Ruth_Ann_Davis/GA1? Maxim Masiutin (talk) 06:59, 23 November 2023 (UTC)
This isn't a GA issue, but I can't see how Ruth Ann Davis meets any element of WP:NACADEMIC. What is a GA issue is that the article is quite tedious to read. Section 4 of the article particularly is dedicated to listing out long names of organizations that Davis was a member of which is thin of encyclopedic value. The only significant claim in that entire section regards a substantial donation Davis made to one college. The majority of the sources are local newspapers. I'm interested in other editor's opinions on notability. Mr rnddude (talk) 20:52, 23 November 2023 (UTC)
I agree fully that this person meets none of the requirements required for a "noted" academic and that her article should be listed for deletion for failing notability Billsmith60 (talk) 21:25, 23 November 2023 (UTC)
She appears not to pass WP:PROF, but we have in-depth stories about her from multiple dates and events in multiple local newspapers. That would appear to pass WP:GNG, which does not have the stronger prohibition that we have for businesses of basing notability on sources that are reliable, secondary, and independent, but not of significant scope. If you want the article deleted because you think she somehow does not deserve to be notable, you need to move away from basing notability on the availability of sources and towards something based on accomplishment (like WP:PROF). But as it is now, we allow academics to be notable as academics even when they fail WP:PROF but pass other criteria including GNG and WP:AUTHOR. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:33, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

Combined citations?

In Talk:Guillermo Torrez/GA1#General comments, I objected to the way multiple sources were lumped together in a single citation, but I'm not sure my objection is justified. Could somebody who knows better please comment directly on the review page please? RoySmith (talk) 01:18, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

Those are not prohibited. In fact they're often encouraged to reduce visual clutter. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 01:32, 25 November 2023 (UTC)
Additionally see footnote 3 of WP:GACR: For references, consistent formatting or including every element of the bibliographic material is not required. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:58, 25 November 2023 (UTC)
It's not a practice I love -- it's often used as a way to bundle together a ton of sources for a particular controversial statement, and source analysis on those doesn't always turn up shining examples of verifiability -- but it's allowed and in this context, with a couple of cites bundled at once for uncontentious things, not something worth fighting over. The next point about Greek letters for footnotes is one I'll differ on more -- it makes footnotes markedly more visually prominent, which they should be (I expect readers completely gloss over efn footnotes). I really prefer {{NoteTag}}, but the Greek letters are probably second best. Vaticidalprophet 01:57, 25 November 2023 (UTC)
If it were not allowed, the existence of Template:Sfnm would be odd. See WP:CITEBUNDLE. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 04:22, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

Notifying nominator

How do I notify the nominator that I have begun reviewing their article, or is it done automatically? —M3ATH (Moazfargal · Talk) 20:01, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

If you have started the review through the correct page, it should be automatic. CMD (talk) 01:04, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

Bug in short description?

For Raymond Flynn and Mario Choque (and maybe some others?) the short description is duplicated: "American politician (born 1939)American politician (born 1939)" and "Bolivian politician (born 1954)Bolivian politician (born 1954)" respectively. a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 09:39, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

G6?

If I WP:G6 a review under WP:GAN/I#N4a, I assume I should leave the page= attribute of the {{GA nominee}} template unincremented, yes? RoySmith (talk) 17:34, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

Yes, that seems correct, since there is no longer a standing review at the first page. Eddie891 Talk Work 19:02, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

Reviewing your friend's GAN?

I saw History of transgender people in Brazil was nominated for GA. I've been looking to learn GAN reviewing, and thought that could be a good one to do, as I got my first GA on a similar article. However, it's written by a WikiFriend of mine. Is it considered bad form to review nominations from friends? -- Maddy from Celeste (WAVEDASH) 22:42, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

No, as long as the review is appropriately thorough and in line with the GACR. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 23:31, 25 November 2023 (UTC)
Agreed, also, feel free to post back here if you have any questions or if you'd like an experienced reviewer to double-check your work. Rjjiii (talk) 00:08, 26 November 2023 (UTC)
As a cautionary tale, see WP:DCGAR though. Just make sure the review can be conducted objectively and don't skip out on any portion of the review based on familiarity/reputation of nominator. Hog Farm Talk 00:36, 26 November 2023 (UTC)
Of course! And yeah, I'm planning on asking feedback to make sure I did it right. -- Maddy from Celeste (WAVEDASH) 08:50, 26 November 2023 (UTC)
We're almost done, now at Talk:Transgender history in Brazil/GA1 (just waiting for one minor licence issue to be resolved). Could someone with more experience have a look to make sure I didn't overlook any part of the process? -- Maddy from Celeste (WAVEDASH) 19:49, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
Hi Maddy from Celeste, at a quick read through of the review page, the GAN looks quite thorough, with clear allusions or explicit mention of each GACR and clearly laid out spotchecks. If you think the criteria is met, then I think you would be fine to promote it. CMD (talk) 01:23, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Please help understand the reviewer's concerns

Can you please help me understand the concerns of the reviewer User:BeingObjective on two of my failed GA nominations:

The reviewer mentioned that articles did not meet certain GA criteria without any particular hint on how the articles could be improved so they for sure pass GA on renomination.

I asked the reviewer for help in understanding on how can I improve the articles.

The reviewer provided a reply at Talk:Ketotifen/GA1 that I could not understand. Can you please help and give me guidance? The reviewer also indicated that the articles fail but did not formally conclude the review, so the status of those reviews are still in progress.

Please help me understand the reviewer's concerns. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 22:40, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

They are saying that the prose in the article is too technical and thus WP:MTAU is breached, although the language they have used is, let's be honest, about as unclear as anything in the article. For me, the prose is not as big a problem as the layout—there is considerable MOS:OVERSECTION; the lead of Ketotifen violates the relevant guideline by not summarizing the article, etc. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 22:48, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
Thank you for your help. Do you think that I should resolve the MOS:OVERSECTION and rewrite the lead and resubmit for a GA review, also trying where possible to address WP:MTAU where possible? In this case, the reviwer should finalize the review first before I could resubmit? --Maxim Masiutin (talk) 22:55, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
You should ask them if they intend to close the review or not. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 23:20, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
The reviewer asked to invalidate the reviews due to lack of time to complete the reviews. @AirshipJungleman29 can you please handle that invalidation? See https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3ABeingObjective&diff=1187825144&oldid=1187824658 Maxim Masiutin (talk) 17:30, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

@Iztwoz, @D6194c-1cc, can you please help? Maxim Masiutin (talk) 16:13, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Just to note that the reviewer has just passed an article with no comments on an article needing work and has not actually followed this through. Seems as though the responding editor AirshipJungleman has a better knowledge of the subjects than myself but I shall have a look and offer help--Iztwoz (talk) 17:24, 1 December 2023 (UTC) if I can.
The reviwer asked to invalidate the reviews due to lack of time to complete the reviews. I asked @AirshipJungleman29 to perform this process, but I also do not have good knowledge on exceptions from the process. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 17:31, 1 December 2023 (UTC)
The process has been performed. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 18:17, 1 December 2023 (UTC)
Maxim Masiutin, as the editor seems not to have read the instructions, if they do not commit to completing them adequately, the "reviews" will be considered invalid and the nominations returned to the process. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 17:27, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Review for Walter Tull

I am unable to disclose this review of Talk:Walter Tull/GA1, is there anyone available or would like to take over and review it? JC Kotisow (talk) 02:30, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Given no review has been completed, would you be amenable to simply having that GAN page deleted so the article is returned to the queue? CMD (talk) 03:13, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
@Chipmunkdavis Yes that would be helpful. Sorry for the inconvenience. JC Kotisow (talk) 03:17, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
While looking to reset the talkpage I found that AirshipJungleman29 had already incremented the review number in August, so the article has apparently already been back in the queue for a few months. CMD (talk) 03:27, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
Ah, I didn't catch that when I pinged JC. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 14:56, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
Me either! I think it's a minor difference whether the GAN is deleted and de-incremented, or just left as is. CMD (talk) 02:34, 1 December 2023 (UTC)
Yeah, if it's already been incremented I don't see the point doing a deletion. @JC Kotisow my apologies for hassling you unnecessarily. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 18:26, 1 December 2023 (UTC)
@Premeditated Chaos All good bro. JC Kotisow (talk) 23:22, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 2 December 2023

185.69.6.18 (talk) 07:57, 2 December 2023 (UTC)
 Not done: You should state what exactly you want to change in the page. —M3ATH (Moazfargal · Talk) 08:16, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

Potential issue with check-the-boxes review

See Talk:Arithmetic/GA1 (recent checkbox review by User:ThatChemist25), discussion on User talk:ThatChemist25#GA review of Arithmetic by nominator User:Phlsph7, and Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Arithmetic/1 (initiated by User:DannyMusicEditor). I'm not sure an immediate GAR is the right process for handling checkbox reviews; shouldn't we just void the review and return the article to the nomination queue? (Potential COI: I am the nominator of another article that ThatChemist25 has promised to review but has not yet reviewed, Talk:Erdős–Anning theorem/GA1. I know a checkbox review is not what I want to get out of this process and I expect Phlsph7 feels similarly.) —David Eppstein (talk) 21:35, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

I agree: if no real review has happened then having a reassessment to replace the review is not a good idea. But ideally, this would be something that the GA instructions themselves deal with. As I understand it, checkbox reviews are not prohibited. Another question in relation to this case would be whether very new editors should be allowed to do their first review by themselves (rather than with the help of a mentor). I haven't followed all the discussions here so I'm not sure about previous discussions on these issues. Phlsph7 (talk) 21:53, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
Thank you for reaching out. I thought I was doing the right thing, but if in fact I was not, by all means let's take the better route. dannymusiceditor oops 22:26, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
Edit: I made this hastily and thought this was on my talk page 😅 dannymusiceditor oops 23:03, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
Phlsph7, see the GA instructions: "An in-depth review must be performed in all other cases. This must include a spot-check of a sample of the sources in the article to verify that each source supports the text in the article that it covers, and that no copyrighted material has been added to the article from the source." This has clearly not happened. I will close the open GAR and revert the close of the review. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 00:01, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
I have adapted the instructions at WP:GAN/I#N4a. The article is now back in its original position in the GA queue; ThatChemist25 is allowed to pick it up and review it again should they wish, but they are requested to follow the reviewing instructions this time. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 00:15, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
Relatedly, I reverted a drive-by nomination (zero article contributions) by ThatChemist25 of Indiana Pacers. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:22, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
invalid review. Must provide info, no check-the-boxes review ThatChemist25 (talk) 01:16, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
That's good to hear that this problem is already addressed by the current instructions. Would it make sense to replace An in-depth review must be performed in all other cases with An in-depth review must be provided in all other cases? This would close the backdoor to reviewers who retroactively claim that they indeed performed an in-depth review but just didn't write it down. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:09, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
I'd support this in the spirit of clearer instructions, rather than closing down backdoors. CMD (talk) 02:32, 1 December 2023 (UTC)
I implemented the suggestions. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:51, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

Update: Situation now resolved. Reviewer has been blocked as a sockpuppet and the bad reviews speedy-deleted per WP:CSD#G5. Both articles should be back on the queue where they belong. I restored the review-number count of the arithmetic nomination back to 1 to avoid the issue of eventually having a review 2 with no review 1. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:23, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Killing of Wadea al-Fayoume

How to find out if there is copyvio in an article. Is there a bot or tool that does that? Also, how can I check if an image used is appropriately licensed and/or has a fair use rationale.

I need this information for my first review: Killing of Wadea al-Fayoume. Since that is my first review, can I request a more experienced reviewer to chip in with their thoughts on the review page?

—M3ATH (Moazfargal · Talk) 17:28, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

There is a tool, Earwig's copyvio detector, but it is not foolproof; it both flags things which are not necessarily problematic and misses some things which are issues, and is not a substitute for human judgement. I have written more about Earwig's limitations here; I'm sure there's also discussion in the archives of this talkpage Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 20:39, 1 December 2023 (UTC)
How about the image? —M3ATH (Moazfargal · Talk) 18:53, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

Reviewing articles previously reviewed on DYK

The article for a recent WP:DYK hook I reviewed has now been nominated for GA. DYK rules prevent users from reviewing hooks for articles they also reviewed for GA. Before proceeding, I wanted to make sure there wasn't a similar rule the other way around here on GA. Krisgabwoosh (talk) 10:04, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

I don't think there is a rule in this respect, GA checks are a bit more thorough than DYK ones. CMD (talk) 11:49, 4 December 2023 (UTC)
I don't agree. The DYK process is a total farce and led me to give up on the hook from the article I'd successfully nominated for GA Billsmith60 (talk) 12:06, 4 December 2023 (UTC)
That's great but doesn't answer my question. Krisgabwoosh (talk) 12:26, 4 December 2023 (UTC)
There's nothing in the GA rules to prevent you from reviewing an article for GA just because you reviewed the hook for it at DYK. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:45, 4 December 2023 (UTC)
Alright, I'll go ahead and review the article. Thanks to Mike Christie and CMD. @Billsmith60: preach your truth comrade. Krisgabwoosh (talk) 12:50, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Bot issue?

I just got my account renamed from Moazfargal to M3ATH. Prior to the rename, I had reviewed one article and had two nominations (still unreviewed). However, now when checking on the GAN page I find that my nominations have been pushed to the bottom of the list (they were the first noms in Places and Politics and government) and my number of GAs and reviews also got messed up. Is this a bot issue? P.S. the nominations in question are Jenin refugee camp and Mohammed Deif. —M3ATH (See · Say) 22:07, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

The bot doesn't know the two user names are the same editor unless I tell it; I'll connect them, some time this week. It would also be best to change the nominations to use your new username instead of the old -- I don't think the bot will cope with a redirect when it tries to notify you when the article is reviewed. Once you do that, and I connect the two usernames, the review count will show up under your new name. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 03:19, 5 December 2023 (UTC)
I've now made these changes and added some notes to the bot's userpage explaining how to handle username changes. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:58, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

FuzzyMagma

In case participants here might not have seen it yet: there is a long discussion of editor FuzzyMagma and alleged close paraphrasing of translated sources ongoing at WT:DYK#september 1983 laws (where it started), WP:CCI#FuzzyMagma, and WP:ANI#User:FuzzyMagma and close paraphrasing. This affects several current unreviewed GA nominees: Mafeje affair, September 1983 Laws, 1976 Sudanese coup attempt, BlueforSudan, Marianne Bachmeier, Satti Majid, Ukuthwasa, Makwerekwere, Khalwa (school), Bona Malwal, Archie Mafeje, and Child abuse in association football; for the relevant GA criteria see WP:GAFAIL #2 and WP:GACR #2d. As well, the bot counts 8 already-passed GAs by FuzzyMagma which might need re-review with an eye to paraphrasing from foreign-language sources. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:37, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

In their most recent edit FuzzyMagma stated they were taking an editing break. I have removed the GAN tags on that basis, with no assessment as to whether these articles have close paraphrasing problems. A CCI request has been made here, if this is accepted I would encourage the checking of the existing GAs to be done there to help that process along. CMD (talk) 04:00, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

Edo literature

I have concerns about this very recent promotion of November 2023 (nominator Vanderwaalforces, reviewer Reading Beans). The GA review did not follow the instructions, which require "an in-depth review to be provided", together with a source-spotcheck to ensure text-source integrity. The review was not in-depth, and a spotcheck was not carried out.

This is bad news, as a quick look shows that some information is not verified by the source. See for example the final paragraph: Eweka Osagie Osifo is an author who has made substantial contributions to Edo literature through his novels, short stories, and essays. Works such as Tales of a Village Schoolmaster and Echoes from Eden (1998) offer insightful glimpses into Edo's way of life, tradition, and societal issues. This is cited to Usuanlele & Agbontaen 2000, but a quick look at the source shows that Osifo is not even mentioned. The article also contains large amounts of semi-promotional phrasing and weasel words. I think the review should be considered invalid, and that the article should be returned to the GAN queue.

Full disclosure: I have previously queried Vanderwaalforces on how they picked up a GA nomination from Reading Beans within seven minutes, before it appeared at WP:GAN. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 17:21, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

How bold of you to assume that source-spotcheck where not carried out. I assumed good faith in sources that I could not access (as at then) and so should you. If you have access to the source and it didn't verify the claim, the {{Failed verification}} tag is there for a reason and should be used. It does not suprise me that you would bring this up (instead of removing or tagging [as you’ve done]) after accusing me and Vanderwaalforces for "dubious off-wiki coordination". Check all the sources once more. See if more did fail verification. Jesus Christ! Reading Beans (talk) 18:52, 3 December 2023 (UTC)
I’m sorry if my reply comes off as ABF, I just haven't seen this before. I’ve contributing to the encyclopaedia when someone, somewhere, thinks I’m engaging in meat-puppetry. Best, Reading Beans (talk) 18:55, 3 December 2023 (UTC)
One wonders what source spotcheck you carried out Reading Beans, if you failed to notice that a freely-accessible source titled "Military System of the Benin Kingdom", which was cited fifteen times, has absolutely nothing to do with the article.
Out of interest, which sources did you have access to? And can you confirm whether you checked for words to watch, as required by 2b) of the GA criteria? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 19:58, 3 December 2023 (UTC)
Reading Beans, did you see the above? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 14:29, 5 December 2023 (UTC)
Forgive me, I just have. I cannot really (in details) explain what I really want to say (or type?) at the moment and would oblige to the consensus reach here about the article.
This does not mean that the meat-puppetry accusation I found out about yesterday have been ridden off of my mind atm. Best, Reading Beans (talk) 14:51, 5 December 2023 (UTC)
It is apparent that unless the valid concerns raised above by AirshipJungleman29 are replied to satisfactorily, this article will have to be removed from GA consideration Billsmith60 (talk) 16:41, 5 December 2023 (UTC)
Vanderwaalforces appears to have been paring down a lot of the superfluous puffery, which is good. It should be clear that I did not accuse anyone of meatpuppetry; that was an example I gave after Vanderwaalforces assuaged my suspicions in November. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 16:48, 5 December 2023 (UTC)
Aliswell. Reading Beans (talk) 13:47, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

GA by length

Would it make sense to update Wikipedia:Good articles/By length? Maybe with readable prose size? It would be an easy way to identify some GA that have grown a lot in size since their promotion and that may require some trimming and/or re-assessment. a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 11:37, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Good article redirected

Early life of L. Ron Hubbard -> Life of L. Ron Hubbard from 1911 to 1950 per a talk page discussion. Could someone please update the bookkeeping properly? Thanks. * Pppery * it has begun... 01:09, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

 Done CMD (talk) 02:00, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

New subsections for some very populated topics

Certain subcategories have so many members that it becomes almost impossible to parse them as a reader. I think that it might improve the usefulness of the GA listing to have these be broken up. Some ideas on how this might be done:

  • Storm sciences, tropical cyclone seasons, and storm effects (291 articles):
    • Break into "storm sciences", "tropical cyclone seasons", and "storm effects" subcategories.
  • Mammals and other synapsids (252 articles)
    • Hominid evolution topics would make sense as their own separate category, perhaps with other articles about human evolution. This would also allow for grouping topics such as a paleolithic lithic culture with human evolution in general, rather than shoving it into... engineering and technology, I guess?
  • Performers, groups, composers, and other music-related people (640 articles)
    • A split by loose genre seems to be the most helpful to parsing this.
  • 2000 to 2004 songs (215 articles), 2005 to 2006 songs (132 articles), 2007 to 2008 songs (186 articles)
    • Split into individual years, like for more recent years listings.

I bet there would be a lot of other splits we can make to make these listings more human-readable. Much above a hundred articles, the lists get very hard to parse. Generalissima (talk) 03:33, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Well that's good news for our coverage of those topics! Previously I've tried to find a balance of coherent topics and readability at an upper bound of around 250 articles, but that was in the Vector2010 skin and looking at the lists now the compression of Vector2022 seems to have had quite a large impact on their visual length.
  • Tropical cyclones splits seem natural, especially a seasons category.
  • Mammals appears to have 6 Australopithecus, 7 Homos, Denisovan, Lantian Man, Human, Tautavel Man, and Neanderthal. I may be missing a couple of others. Slightly under the 25 I have looked for in the past, but I may have missed some and others articles as mentioned might be added. It feels like a helpful navigational topic to me.
  • For performers I wonder if splitting individuals from groups might be another step, but no strong preferences and if anyone wants to take up the task of doing a genre analysis I wouldn't oppose.
  • For the song subsections I would have said the splits seem less imperative in Vector2010, but they're good examples of the impact of Vector2022. 2000-2004 should certainly be split up, probably reasonable to split the others up at the same time. CMD (talk) 03:57, 5 December 2023 (UTC)
And I did miss at least Dmanisi hominins. CMD (talk) 04:09, 5 December 2023 (UTC)
  • Rail bridges, tunnels, and stations (440) is an obvious candidate for a regional split. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 06:53, 5 December 2023 (UTC)
    Appears to be another victim of high quality New York City articles. CMD (talk) 11:01, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

(Wikipedia:Good_articles/Natural_sciences#Meteorology) I have split up the large "Storm sciences, tropical cyclone seasons, and storm effects" category. This brought to light that the original subsection included items that don't seem to fit into either of those 3 titles, with the remnant grabbag now left in the Storm sciences subsection. "Meteorological observatories" (currently 6 articles) is also odd, with some of the 6 not being meteorological observatories. My current thought is to merge that into "Storm sciences", and pull the ill-fitting items into the (currently empty) general "Meteorology" subsection. CMD (talk) 16:38, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

Going to post at WP:WEATHER and see if they have some broader input. I can't see why Outflow (meteorology) and Outflow boundary would be in different subsections. CMD (talk) 16:41, 7 December 2023 (UTC)
  • Split off Humans and human evolution as well per the suggestion, as looking closer I had missed quite a few. CMD (talk) 06:44, 10 December 2023 (UTC)
  • "Road infrastructure: [Various US regions]" could probably be split by state, as there are hundreds in each. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 07:21, 10 December 2023 (UTC)
    If there is interest these could be split further, although to some extent they sort themselves out per state alphabetically. CMD (talk) 06:15, 11 December 2023 (UTC)
    I split out New York, to the tune of almost 200 articles. It could honestly even be split further into NYC and NY State, if we're aiming for ~100 in each cat. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 08:55, 11 December 2023 (UTC)
    New York City has 895 GAs scattered amongst our subsections, the State has a paltry 438 and is living on stolen valor. CMD (talk) 10:56, 11 December 2023 (UTC)
    We might as well make a GA subpage for anything EpicGenius wrote, if we want to get them all on one page :P ♠PMC♠ (talk) 11:01, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

COI?

Are there any problems with a COI editor nominating an article for GA? I'm talking about User:CommunityNotesContributor who nominated Community Notes. They haven't officially declared a COI, but it's pretty obvious from the user name. There's almost certainly a WP:PROMONAME problem as well, but that's another issue. RoySmith (talk) 17:20, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

Good point, hadn't thought of that and no-one has mentioned it before. I assumed it would be the same as Twitter users editing Twitter articles, which also wouldn't be a conflict of interest? CN has about 500,000 contributors these days, not quite the 500 million users Twitter has, but maybe context is useful here, as it's effectively developed into 0.1% of users. I'm not a developer or otherwise, just a contributor. I'll look into changing username for reasons mentioned, unfortunately I couldn't think of a better username at the time so it ended up sticking. CommunityNotesContributor (talk) 19:10, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
Have checked WP:PROMONAME, re: Usernames that unambiguously represent the name of a company, organization, website, product.. Fortunately I'm not representing the product here, I'm representing myself as a contributor. So I'll assume exemption for now, but maybe someone could post at WP:RFCN for clarity? CommunityNotesContributor (talk) 19:23, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
OK, I'm satisfied with that. You still might want to consider a different username though, to avoid similar confusion in the future. RoySmith (talk) 19:35, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
Name issues aside, there isn't a COI issue with a hobbyist nominating something related to their hobby. Appropriate NPOV scrutiny should be applied in the GAN, of course. CMD (talk) 02:21, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

Third editor giving contradictory advice during GA review

Hello! I'm reviewing Talk:Doctor Who (series 2)/GA2. The nominator is OlifanofmrTennant. We were chugging along steadily, when some of the changes that the nominator made in response to my comments were evidently noticed by a third editor, Alex 21. One of the issues at hand is the reliability of a certain website, DoctorWhoNews.net. Based on my judgment and an WP:RSN thread opened by the nominator, I think it is not reliable enough for GA, and urged the nominator to remove it and replace with a more reliable source. Alex has begun giving the nominator directly contradictory advice in the review thread, on this and on a related topic. I think this is confusing and unfair to the nominator.

While Alex is certainly acting in good faith and trying to improve the article, we can't have multiple reviewers simultaneously giving contradictory advice. My understanding has always been that there is only 1 reviewer at a time, for precisely this reason. What's your advice for resolving this issue? Thanks everyone! —Ganesha811 (talk) 13:41, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

Other editors are welcome to participate, although the final decision should probably be up to the reviewer unless the discussion is shifted elsewhere. The correct process to follow here was the opening of the RSN thread. I read that discussion (Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 422#Doctor Who News) as a small-scale but clear consensus against using the source. CMD (talk) 14:25, 14 December 2023 (UTC)
(edit conflict) See WP:GAI: "Other editors are also welcome to comment and work on the article, but the final decision on listing will be with the first reviewer." If the nominator and reviewer are unable to come to a consensus, whether that be only involving them or other editors, the nomination should be failed. As Alex 21 is the primary author of the article, I'd say they are within their rights to act as a nominator, which they appear to be doing. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 14:30, 14 December 2023 (UTC)
If the two article editors are unable to reach a consensus on whether to replace the source, criterion 5 (stability) may come into play. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:53, 14 December 2023 (UTC)
If the nominator and reviewer can't reach agreement on a small number of points, should the article not be placed "on hold" until the reviewer's requirements are met? It won't necessarily be the nominator who will need to make the changes required Billsmith60 (talk) 12:09, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Thank you all for your thoughts. I'll see if we can land on consensus re: Doctor Who News. Otherwise, it's looking likely the review will fail this time around, unfortunately. —Ganesha811 (talk) 22:36, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

What if the review of a drive-by nomination has started

I wonder if a drive-by nomination should be removed when its review has long started, and there is considerable work done. Do we automatically stop the review or respect the effort put and allow the review to continue? Aintabli (talk) 01:34, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

We should not automatically stop an ongoing review. However, it is worth dropping a line to the reviewer to let them know about the situation. CMD (talk) 02:22, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
Yeah, I wouldn't remove the nomination directly and would instead notify the involved users of the situation, but I assume your response means that the eventual outcome would be determined by the reviewer. Aintabli (talk) 02:26, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
That is my thought, if the reviewer feels they can contribute something that hopefully another editor can look at later, they are welcome to. If they feel it is not worth their time, they are welcome to close the review. CMD (talk) 02:58, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
Okay, thanks for the answer. I've done enough inspection and left a notice about possible drive-by nomination. Aintabli (talk) 03:13, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
@Chipmunkdavis The review is very much in our hold and the reviewer Tim O' Doherty will be passing it as GA possibly by the coming week. Further I have nominated the article only because 1) Its worth it and 2)Because I meet the criteria of a nominator. How can it be a drive-by nomination? I have made the ssecond largest number of edits to the article and further rank among the top 15 in authorship as such. Also I have an atbe of 1 and have contributed almost every day to the page these last two years. Also the reviewer knows that I am a significant contributor. Regards MSincccc (talk) 05:58, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for the information MSincccc. No specific review was linked here, and my statements are in the abstract. CMD (talk) 06:00, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
Then can I delete the section which suspects the article of a possible drive-by nomination from the GAR page. It does not look good in that way. Regards MSincccc (talk) 06:02, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
Again I have no link to the review/article/section in question, but again in the abstract GAN pages fall under WP:TPO. I would not worry too much about a side-discussion to the GAN. CMD (talk) 06:06, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
Its regarding the GA review for Catherine, Princess of Wales. I might be 8th in terms of authorship but I have made the second most edits and noteworthy ones too+ I have edited this page regularly for the last two years. You can come yo the page yourself and check the situation. But please the article should be passed and the GA not abandoned at least at this stage. I have the consent of other significant contributors to the page like Keivanf. who ranks first in terms of authorship and edits both. MSincccc (talk) 06:09, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
@Chipmunkdavis The article in question here will possibly be passed as GA in the coming week or so. Just the prose section needs a few fixes. You are free to review every spect of what I have said and will find it to be true. To close this review at this stage would be of course disappointing. The article has been prepared with effort and please note that I am a significant contributor. Regards MSincccc (talk) 06:01, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
I've quoted WP:GAI there and will share that here as well. It clearly states: If the nominator is either the author of less than 10% of the article or ranked sixth or lower in authorship, and there is no post on the article talk page, it can be uncontroversially considered a drive-by nomination.
I suspect that MSIncccc is assuming this implies that they've nominated the article in bad faith, but that is not the case at all. Frankly, because this criteria isn't that out in the open, I or any other editor could have done the same mistake. Aintabli (talk) 06:09, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
The only other editor with 10% and higher authorship has been inactive for long and the one ranking first in terms of authorship was fine with my nomination and is currently working on the article's GA along with me. Regards MSincccc (talk) 06:14, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
Okay, I've pinged them on the review page, and if getting some sort of permission during the review does not contradict with the policies, all could be good. I can't know if another editor agrees that you can nominate an article for GA when you've discussed it on their talkpage. Aintabli (talk) 06:21, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
These numbers are completely irrelevant in my opinion. What matters is whether the nominator knows the article sources well enough to respond to concerns. We also don't want the main authors to feel this is happening behind their back. Is there any evidence of a serious problem here? —Kusma (talk) 07:43, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
@Kusma No serious problem has or will take place here. Also I know all the sources cited in the article very well as well as the prose that has been used. I will continue to further improve the article. MSincccc (talk) 08:04, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
@Aintabli and @AirshipJungleman29 I am very much familiar with the article in question and have strived a lot to brin it to GA status. My contributions as second highest editor and editing a page an average daily will tell you about it more. Regards MSincccc (talk) 07:00, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
@MSincccc Could you please move your comment above, because this sub-thread was supposed to be about a possible edit to the Instructions page?  Done I've already responded on the review page I don't think there is anything to further discuss. If Keivan.f sees this and gives a thumbs up like CMD, the review will continue, so there is no need to further this discussion. Thanks, Aintabli (talk) 07:06, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
Sure. MSincccc (talk) 07:08, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
In short: no, because WP:Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. To give a bit more detail, I'll reiterate what I said a month ago: The point of disallowing drive-by nominations is to ensure that nominators are sufficiently familiar with the article and its sources to be able to deal with any issues brought up by the reviewer. If the nominator has that familiarity, there is no problem—in principle, it should be fine even if they have not made any contributions to the article whatsoever (though it might be difficult to demonstrate that familiarity to whoever happens to come across their nomination). So basically, what Kusma said. TompaDompa (talk) 21:00, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

Possible changes on WP:GAI

I believe GAN eligibility criteria should not be within a footnote. The text isn't dense, so having a footnote only hides important details. Having them visible to all would be much more helpful and would prevent GF drive-by nominations. Aintabli (talk) 06:26, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

If it were more prominent we'd likely get more drive-by nominations with 10.1% authorship. Good-faith drive-by nominations are nothing to worry about. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 06:48, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
By GF, I mean users who didn't intend to claim work for themselves and are simply unaware of the criteria but would be clearly not eligible (and able) to respond to a review. I started comparing a few nominators against this criteria, I've already removed two drive-by nominations. I believe removing the footnote would be helpful. Aintabli (talk) 06:52, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
As a note, MSincccc's nomination is not one of the "two drive-by nominations I removed". So, my earlier comment has nothing to do with MSincccc. Aintabli (talk) 07:08, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
@Kusma, I believe your point relates to this sub-discussion. If numbers are irrelevant, that may be expressed on the Instructions page, or they could also be removed. Aintabli (talk) 08:17, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
I'm personally in favour of removing any hard numerical thresholds. For an article about a major country or a pop culture icon, these are much harder to reach than for an obscure 17th century biography. The nominator needs to be in a position to take responsibility for the article, but that can be done by someone taking a ten year old article, verifying all citations and polishing it slightly. That is different from the "drive-by" of the type "hey I like Justin Bieber! His article has citations so I nominate as Good Article!" that just needs to be shut down because the nominator is unlikely to know the sources better than the reviewer. —Kusma (talk) 09:35, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
Any thresholds should not be hard, if they are being read as such it's a problem. They're low bars meant to inspire a closer examination. CMD (talk) 09:44, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
If the effect of a hard threshold is that people suggest that we should procedurally close reviews initiated by editors who have 350+ edits to the article in question, and who have been actively engaged in the GA review, as "drive-by nominations" then I would argue that it is the threshold rather than the existence of drive-by nominators that is the problem. As far as I know this is the first time it comes up, but if it reccurs as a problem then I would rather change the instructions to make the intent clearer. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 12:51, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
We don't have a hard threshold, that is a red herring. We know drive by nominations are a problem from experience. A change to the wording would not be because they are not a potential problem. CMD (talk) 14:18, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
The footnote reads uncontroversially, though. But I am okay with any decision to be made here. We can wait or change the wording. Either is fine by me. Aintabli (talk) 15:35, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
You and I both know that, but the text at WP:GAI reads "If the nominator is either the author of less than 10% of the article or ranked sixth or lower in authorship, and there is no post on the article talk page, it can be uncontroversially considered a drive-by nomination". The straightforward reading of this is that there is a hard threshold as to what counts as a drive-by nomination; reviewer discretion only comes into whether they remove the drive-by nomination immediately. As I say I don't think this has caused enough issues to require rewording it, but if we agree that the intent of the rule is not to impose a hard threshold, and the current wording continues to cause problems, I would be in favour of considering re-writing the rule to not cause problems. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 12:52, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Quick fail of Virtual Self (EP)

I would like to request for opinions regarding a recent quick fail of the article Virtual Self (EP) (review here) by TechnoSquirrel69, which was followed by the addition of the {{primary sources}} tag to the article. The article was quick failed because the "Background" and "Concept and inspiration" sections are almost entirely based on interviews. However, as I see it, sections like these and similar ones, such as "Development" and "Production", in works such as albums, video games and what not, will tend to be referenced to mostly, if not entirely, of interviews and primary sources, as they generally address the creator's personal feelings, motivation and what not. I've seen many GAs and even some FAs promoted with such sections being entirely, or at least a very big portion of it, composed of such sources, and I thought the high usage of interviews in such sections was widely considered acceptable. We tried to reach a consensus on the talk page of the article without success. Any opinions from uninvolved editors would be widely appreciated. Skyshiftertalk 01:57, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping, Skyshifter! Other editors are welcome to address any comments or questions to me either here or on the article's talk page. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 02:04, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
I agree with @Skyshifter in part. The background section should definitely include non-primary sources that discuss what happened in the lead up to the album. However, I don't see a good way to cite sections like "Concept and inspiration" without primary sources: how else would you know what the inspirations for an album were without talking to the musician? I disagree that BLPSELFPUB makes these sources non-reliable. A musician's internal artistic process is something that only they would know and there's nothing controversial about that aspect of an album. voorts (talk/contributions) 21:12, 16 December 2023 (UTC)
@Voorts: Thank you for your comment. Some parts in the Background section, such as the ones talking about Robinson's struggle to produce a new album or that he suffered from depression at that time, will probably still need to use interviews. But indeed, there's definitely some parts that could be replaced with secondary sources, and I'll work on that. Skyshiftertalk 21:27, 16 December 2023 (UTC)
Good to see you, Voorts; thanks for chiming in! I still have my reservations about the prose, but I think Skyshifter and I have said everything we need to say, and the general idea of renominating after incorporating some secondary sources sounds perfectly fine to me. Skyshifter, I've realized over the last few days that a lot of the content in Virtual Self (EP) § Background can be supported by some of the sources I've used at Nurture (album), since both of those works come at relatively similar times in Robinson's career. You may have noticed that as well as you've been reviewing the article. They're all secondary sources, and so would be a good supplement to the existing references. I wish you luck with your second nomination! —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 23:42, 16 December 2023 (UTC)
@TechnoSquirrel69: Thank you! I'll certainly incorporate some of the sources from Nurture in Virtual Self. Skyshiftertalk 23:46, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Muslim–Muslim ticket

User:Vanderwaalforces left a warning [7] on User:Harukkaaario's talk page earlier today. In response, Harukkaaario instantly failed one of Vanderwaalforces' nominations with zero comment, refusing to even create the review page. I fail to see how this is anything other than overt misconduct which should be undone. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 19:26, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

Actially, I messed up the order of events. It does not appear to have been in response, but it is still misconduct to instantly fail a GAN with zero comment. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 19:28, 17 December 2023 (UTC)
Thank you. Actually the user has been making unconstructive edits since today, like the reversion I made, plus one other GA that they tried passing without a proper review. I think this should be addressed, I was going to drop them a message on their talk page. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 19:31, 17 December 2023 (UTC)
It seems the egregious vandalism by Harukkaaario came after Vanderwaalforces reverted this mistake by Harukkaaario. Definity grounds for a WP:CIR block. Chris Troutman (talk) 19:34, 17 December 2023 (UTC)
@Chris troutman @Trainsandotherthings Actually, because I have those pages on my watchlist, I saw exactly when they started the whole GA vandalism. I don't think it was a revenge because their last edit before my reversion was by 18:45 and my reversion was at 19:18, so perhaps it wasn't a revenge. Just wanted to clear that. Either way, this is still a CIR issue. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 20:56, 17 December 2023 (UTC)
Noting the mentioned 'quickfail' was reverted. A reason should always be given for quickfailing. In terms of bookkeeping, one way to quickfail is to remove the nomination template without a review page, but that should not be coupled with a Failed GA template. CMD (talk) 01:22, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

There is also the Talk:Small set expansion hypothesis/GA1 review page that Harukkaaario opened. Rather than start a review, 11 minutes later they quick passed the nomination on the article's talk page with a GA template. The pass was reverted by Vanderwaalforces, but the effectively empty review page remains, and the bot will continue transcluding it as long as the page is there. If the review page is deleted, we can revert the talk page to the point just after the GAN, but not until the page is gone. BlueMoonset (talk) 05:05, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

I've deleted GA1 as a G6. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 05:40, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
Thanks, from the nominator! I was assuming the pass was just an accidental reviewer mistake when starting a review, but the other evidence above casts it in a different light. And I'm always happier to wait for a real review (which in this case may take some time as the article is on a somewhat specialized and technical topic) than to get a quick pass. —David Eppstein (talk) 08:22, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

Talk:Ottoman destroyer Yarhisar/GA1

I think this is going to need an admin: the GA1 page linked above is basically empty; the review itself has been conducted on the article's talk page under where the GA1 page has been transcluded.

Can those portions of the talk page below the transclusion and the related edits be merged with the GA1 review page and its history? Thank you for taking care of this; I didn't want to copy the review onto the GA1 and lose the history thereby. BlueMoonset (talk) 02:59, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

Premeditated Chaos, might you be able to take care of this? Or suggest an admin who might? Many thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 15:14, 19 December 2023 (UTC)
I've fixed the history. I also note that the state of the GAN is unclear - both the nominator and the reviewer have implied it should be failed, but nobody did the bookkeeping to close it as failed. * Pppery * it has begun... 18:25, 19 December 2023 (UTC)
I'll do so on their behalf. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 19:58, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

Editor withdrawing interest

I'm not quite sure what to do with Talk:Portsmouth Square pedestrian bridge/GA1. The article is in okay shape - not yet GA quality, but close enough to get there in the course of a review. I left the first portion of my comments; after they sat for a week, I pinged the nominator, User:Kylelovesyou, who hadn't been active during that time, asking if they were still interested. They left a noncommital response and removed the GAN template from the article talk. Should I fail the nomination (with no prejudice to a renomination) since they're no longer interested? Pi.1415926535 (talk) 01:42, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

If no-one is going to fix the article (nominator or otherwise, although it can't be the reviewer) then it should be failed. Your review will be there in case anyone wants to pick it up later I have restored the GAN tag in the meantime for correct processing. CMD (talk) 02:26, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

Does a Commons violation introduced during GA review invalidate the GA assessment?

Legal trouble may have been introduced during a GA review of an article I had worked on. The reviewer suggested the addition of a compatibly-licensed image from Flickr, which I then imported to Commons, but now there is a deletion request pending for that image since it might be infringing copyright regardless of the license attached to it. If the file does get deleted, since it was introduced per a suggestion on the GA review, will this invalidate the GA assessment and cause the article to be stripped of GA status? Additionally, does this require getting an admin involved to redact the revisions that link to the image (including the revision that had been GA-approved)? This is my first time getting involved in the GA process and I am unsure how to proceed, as well as how to ensure this does not jeopardize my ability to contribute to Wikipedia or Commons in the future. huntertur (talk) 06:55, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

huntertur, thanks for asking. It's no big deal. You can just remove the image if it's not allowed on the Commons. The presence of media is not required for the GA criteria. Also, GAs are not voided like that but reassessed if they have issues. If your GA was reassessed, someone would just remove that single image and it would be fine. Take care, Rjjiii (talk) 07:19, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

Unsure as to how I should proceed wrt to partial GA review

Hi y'all! Recently @Maury Markowitz opened a GA review for DOM clobbering. They mentioned that they were not doing a full review and raised some issues which I subsequently fixed. However, based on comments on Discord and my own understanding of recently reading the GA guidelines, there doesn't seem to be a scope/established procedure for a partial review. Given that, I'm unsure how to proceed with the nom going forward ? Sohom (talk) 08:40, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

No one should really open up a GA review, if they have no plans to actually fully review the article. Comments can just go on the talk page of the effected article. I would just move the comments to the talk and either start a new GA page, or ask for the one that exists to be deleted. Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 08:54, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
I've moved the comments to the article talk page and deleted the GA review, given the user who opened had no intention of completing such a review. I forget if I have to do anything else to nudge the bot? Harrias (he/him) • talk 09:43, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
Sohom appears to have handled the template fix, if the bot has a problem it'll let us know. CMD (talk) 11:13, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
The edits to the talk page have removed the status= parameter from the GA nominee template. I can't look at the bot's code at the moment, so it might cope with the correctly, but if there's a problem, adding "|status=" should fix it. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:42, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
I've added the required status parameter, moved the page parameter earlier where it's usually placed, and moved the GA nominee template to the top of the page per WP:GANI. BlueMoonset (talk) 02:30, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Talk:Eddie Gossage/GA1

The "review" at Talk:Eddie Gossage/GA1 does not appear proper. Perhaps someone who knows how to "unstart" a review could handle that one, so that it no longer shows up as under review in the list? Ljleppan (talk) 14:35, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

I've deleted the non-review per WP:G6 and reset the {{GA nominee}} state on the talk page. I've also handled the request to remove some material from the article under WP:BIODELETE. RoySmith (talk) 23:12, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Need suggestions for list -> prose conversion

I recently failed Fyappiy for a number of reasons, one of which was over-use of lists as opposed to prose. The nom has asked me for help on this, and while I do feel an obligation to give them assistance, I'm afraid I'm coming up short on concrete suggestions for how to rewrite this in a WP:GACR compliant way. Any assistance folks could provide would be appreciated. RoySmith (talk) 22:21, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

I don't think MOS:EMBED adherence is that much of a problem, relatively speaking; the Demographics section could fairly easily be converted to prose, but that's not that big of an issue. I'm finding the Composition section most notable, in a bad way: note i says "The information in the table is based on several archive documents..." which immediately raises the question of whether there is original research or if the information contained is WP:DUE. The prose is also substandard so a trip to WP:GOCE might help. I personally wouldn't have failed it immediately—the nominator seems to be doing a fairly good job removing MOS:OVERSECTION etc.~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 22:39, 28 December 2023 (UTC)
Hello @AirshipJungleman29! I used censuses as my source for the table, is that an issue? WikiEditor1234567123 (talk) 10:48, 29 December 2023 (UTC)
WikiEditor1234567123 Censuses are primary sources. If "The information in the table is based on..." means that you have interpreted these primary sources in any way, that is forbidden by policy. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 11:36, 29 December 2023 (UTC)
Many articles about cities, districts etc. use censuses as primary sources. Furthermore, there's literally shortage of sources on the Ingush topic—I could barely find sources on the history of Fyappiy which is why the section is so short. You should try finding yourself a secondary source about a census conducted in Fyappin society—that's like asking someone to imagine a new color. Also, how would the secondary source differ in any way? At the end of the day, the number of population is same. WikiEditor1234567123 (talk) 12:14, 29 December 2023 (UTC)
You should try finding yourself a secondary source about a census conducted in Fyappin society—that's like asking someone to imagine a new color. Precisely. That is original research about due weighting. At the end of the day, the number of population is same. I am not talking about the demographics section, I am talking about the Composition section. See my first comment. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 12:17, 29 December 2023 (UTC)
I used the censuses as my source to add Fyappin villages to the table. Is that also not allowed? WikiEditor1234567123 (talk) 13:38, 29 December 2023 (UTC)
If none of the secondary sources think the composition of the villages and surnames necessary to mention, then yes, they should be removed. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 13:47, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

I could use a helping hand

Is there anybody willing enough to assist me with the backlog at Biology and medicine? Of the 28 articles nominated, only 5 are under review. I wish GA nominaters were more willing to review articles and help with the backlog. 20 upper (talk) 06:31, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

That is generally what happens at GA. I do not think there is any evidence that the order rearrangement, meant to encourage reviewing, has worked. Nominators are perfectly content to nominate hundreds of articles without reciprocation and sit at the bottom of each list for probably less time than the ones in the middle. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 13:50, 29 December 2023 (UTC)
Hi 20 upper. Yes, certainly it's a bummer, and it's reasonable to expect those of us who write Biology and medicine articles to do most of the heavy lifting on this front. I'll try to work in a review per week in the new year so we can start chipping away at the backlog. It's great to see new-to-the-GA-process users like yourself and the other new nominators getting involved in the process. Ajpolino (talk) 14:09, 29 December 2023 (UTC)
Indeed, it is evident that change is necessary. I believe I'll do my best to review more than 100 articles by 2024. In the meanwhile, I'll start working on the brown rat article, which is about the most hated animal in the world. Well, Ajpolino, I'm not exactly new; my account was born in 2022—roughly 13 months ago. Thank you for having me, and maybe I can nominate up to 100 articles the following year. I'll play my part, and ideally other editors from GA will follow suit. 20 upper (talk) 15:38, 29 December 2023 (UTC)
Apologies for the assumption. Fixed, above. Ajpolino (talk) 21:30, 29 December 2023 (UTC)
This is indeed a long-standing issue, and a good example of the tragedy of the commons. We have a finite number of reviewers with a finite amount of time, and those who choose to consume reviewer time without replenishing that resource by reviewing themselves degrade the process for everyone else. If everyone refused to review, no nominations would ever succeed. I have made a personal choice to embargo nominations by anyone who has more than a few GAs and refuses to do reviews themselves, and personally maintain a 1:1 review to nomination ratio. The only way we can fix the issue for good is by creating a culture where reviewing is expected of frequent nominators. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 15:33, 30 December 2023 (UTC)
I don't think that's really a "tragedy of the commons", a phraseology that implies that the entire project (good articles, I guess?) eventually gets ruined by the common utility. I think this is just the "ordinary nature of the commons", as it were. Remsense留 15:48, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Potential issue with review of Arithmetic (again)

The article Arithmetic was just promoted to GA status after a checkbox review without any review text. After I prompted the reviewer (History6042), they added a few minimal comments. I was wondering whether this fulfills the GA instruction of providing an in-depth review (see WP:GAN/I#R3).

There was a similar issue about one month ago, see Wikipedia_talk:Good_article_nominations/Archive_30#Potential_issue_with_check-the-boxes_review and Wikipedia:Good_article_reassessment/Arithmetic/1. In that case, the review was considered to be invalid. I'll ping the editors that commented back then: @David Eppstein, DannyMusicEditor, AirshipJungleman29, Chipmunkdavis, Jacobolus, and Sergecross73:.

Phlsph7 (talk) 18:58, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Well, there isn't a source spotcheck, so yes, the review is invalid. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 19:00, 30 December 2023 (UTC)
Normally, I'd expect it to be a sock, considering the parallels between these two cases. But it looks like this person has had their account for almost a year. Though the original reviewer was eventually found to be a prolific socker. Would you like to look into it again, Yamla? Sergecross73 msg me 19:18, 30 December 2023 (UTC)
@Sergecross73 and Phlsph7:, I believe there is no need for that. From History6042's two subsequent posts at The wub's talk, it is clear that they were attempting to fulfil this Reward Board task, presumably not understanding that the reward goes to the nominator of the article, not the reviewer. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 19:24, 30 December 2023 (UTC)
Gotcha. Well, either way, it should be overturned and/or redone. It's too important of an article for such a brief review. Sergecross73 msg me 19:39, 30 December 2023 (UTC)
I think the normal procedure is to G6 delete the review page, but since in this case the review wasn't actively malicious, I think just incrementing the counter will work. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 19:43, 30 December 2023 (UTC)
The similarity with the previous case was also my first thought. I notified Yamla but they found no relation in technical data.
Do we have some kind of standard procedure for dealing with (regular) invalid reviews? Incrementing the counter would work. Phlsph7 (talk) 19:43, 30 December 2023 (UTC)
I have incremented the review count and informed the reviewer on their talk. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 19:50, 30 December 2023 (UTC)
Hi this is me, the reviewer. I'm sorry for doing this wrong, this is one of my first GA reviews. History6042 (talk) 23:09, 30 December 2023 (UTC)
@History6042: Thanks for chipping in! Nothing major to worry about, like everything on en.wiki there can be a learning curve. CMD (talk) 03:13, 31 December 2023 (UTC)
@History6042: Agree with CMD. The first step to knowing how to do something is not knowing how to do that thing. The first infobox I ever made for an article was scrapped by another editor as "inappropriate". Thanks for trying a review and for taking responsibility. If you decide to review another article in the future you're welcome to post back here for guidance/questions/etc. Rjjiii (talk) 03:59, 31 December 2023 (UTC)
Thank you. History6042 (talk) 04:21, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Not a sock (based on technical evidence), see Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Eluike. --Yamla (talk) 21:30, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks all for clearing this up. I agree this article needs a new real review, and given the size and complexity of the topic it should probably be by an experienced GAN reviewer. the wub "?!" 17:49, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Spot checks?

I noted in the #Potential issue with review of Arithmetic (again) thread directly above,, there isn't a source spotcheck, so yes, the review is invalid. I'm embarrassed to admit that after doing 29 reviews, I wasn't aware that doing a reference spot-check was required. I generally just look at the reference list to see if I notice any that don't seem to meet WP:RS, and look through the article text to see if there's anything that's not sourced. And I run earwig's tool to check for copyvios. If I see anything suspicious, I'll drill down, but otherwise I haven't been doing spot checks in the way WP:GAN/I#R3 requires. To assuage my embarrassment, I looked at a dozen random historical reviews:

  1. Talk:Argentina, 1985/GA1
  2. Talk:Revenue stamps of the United Kingdom/GA1
  3. Talk:Liberty Arming the Patriot/GA1
  4. Talk:Bristol County Jail/GA1
  5. Talk:Richard Hamming/GA1
  6. Talk:DeepStateMap.Live/GA1
  7. Talk:River Rother, West Sussex/GA1
  8. Talk:Lenyadri/GA1
  9. Talk:Big Cat, Little Cat/GA1
  10. Talk:Dox (poet)/GA1
  11. Talk:Gypsy Restaurant and Velvet Lounge/GA1
  12. Talk:Anne de Pisseleu d'Heilly/GA1

The two I listed first are the only ones that had any tangible evidence of a spot check having been done. So I guess I'm not alone in my ignorance? Or maybe people are doing them and just not saying anything about it?

And, yes, before I do my next review, I'll go back and re-read the instructions to see what else I've been doing wrong. RoySmith (talk) 03:30, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

It's a relatively new rule, added in March, after discussion at Wikipedia:Good Article proposal drive 2023. Historical reviews are fine without it. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 03:36, 31 December 2023 (UTC)
As a contextual note it was required in a couple of GA drives prior to its addition to the general rules, so the mass GA delisting in early 2023 prompted an expansion of its implementation rather than created it anew. CMD (talk) 03:45, 31 December 2023 (UTC)
Ah. OK, I picked 5 of the most recent GAs. Three of the reviews mentioned spot checks:
  1. Talk:Marshall Islands at the 2020 Summer Olympics/GA1
  2. Talk:AC/DC/GA4
  3. Talk:Bonnie Blue Southern Market & Bakery/GA1
Two did not:
  1. Talk:Five Nights at Freddy's 2/GA1
  2. Talk:Mountain Fountain/GA1
RoySmith (talk) 04:11, 31 December 2023 (UTC)
Mountain Fountain's reviewer says they checked all of the digital sources. ForksForks, thank you for being a GA reviewer. Please make sure that spot checks are a part of your process, and it's helpful to note specifically that you've checked some of the sources. I'm not sure when you last reviewed the |instructions, but they have changed recently and you might benefit from a re-read. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 04:24, 31 December 2023 (UTC)
Hello, I should have mentioned in the review but I did go through all of the sources in the 'release and reception' section and checked them against Wikipedia:VG/RS, as well as making sure that several of the claims cited were backed up in the cited sources. I read a few recent reviews, is the magic phrase that I need to say is that I did a spot check? I guess I figured I would just need to be able to back up what I said. I keep reading some GA reviews that are a little sparse so I figured that was fine. But I will try to write out my thought process more in the future. ForksForks (talk) 17:12, 31 December 2023 (UTC)
The magical phrase is to mention the specific sources spotchecked, and you mention checking specific claims to listing these against those sources would help too. There is a range of sparseness in GA reviews, but I would say that if you do a chunk of work as part of the review it would make sense to make a note of it on the review page. CMD (talk) 18:11, 31 December 2023 (UTC)
I was the reviewer for Talk:Anne de Pisseleu d'Heilly/GA1 and while there was no requirement for spot-checks back at the beginning of 2020, and I didn't explicitly mention spot-checks, it looks to me as though I was checking to see if the sources verified the claims being made: I say at one point This looks to me like a misreading of the source cited and at another what in the source cited supports this?
Even under the current guidelines, I think this would be an acceptable review from a verifiability spotchecking point of view (though it would probably be advisable to be more explicit about what I had checked these days). There's no mention of copyvio/close paraphrasing, and today I would advocate explicitly commenting on that, but given that I had clearly read the sources used I am reasonably confident that I would have noticed and commented if there was an obvious issue there. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 14:24, 31 December 2023 (UTC)
This seems to have been quite common, many users have checked sources for a long time. The need for reasoning becoming more explicit has been a slow cultural shift, likely inevitable as the process has expanded and as deep time has overtaken older GANs. CMD (talk) 15:31, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Hold or remove nomination from blocked nominator?

Strangers' Hall was nominated in September by User:Willbb234, recently indef-blocked for harassing another editor. Is there some way to place the nomination on hold, in case they successfully appeal their block (as has happened before)? Or should it just be removed? —David Eppstein (talk) 08:36, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

I have removed it as they will be unable to participate. If unblocked, they can restore the template. CMD (talk) 10:30, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Scotland - review page created by nominator

@Goodreg3: has nominated Scotland, but has then opened a review. Could someone delete Talk:Scotland/GA1 please? Mertbiol (talk) 10:09, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Have asked for G6 CSD. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 13:00, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Backlog Drives page location

Hi, Is there any reason why Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles/GAN Backlog Drives is located on the old WikiProject area, and not at Wikipedia:Good articles/GAN Backlog Drives? Other than that's where a pair of shortcuts point to. Thanks. -Kj cheetham (talk) 14:01, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Not really. Probably should be moved. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 14:04, 24 December 2023 (UTC)
Relic of the time. CMD (talk) 16:17, 24 December 2023 (UTC)
I was tempted to be WP:BOLD and just move it myself, but just noticed it has a lot of sub-pages plus their associated talk pages, so wasn't sure what to do about those. Move them all? Obviously leaving redirects in place. Feels like something for 2024. :) Template:WikiProjectGATasks (as there aren't really GA task forces anymore), Wikipedia:GAD, and Wikipedia:GABD would ideally need tweaking too. -Kj cheetham (talk) 16:31, 24 December 2023 (UTC)
I moved all the sub-pages, was automated with the WP:Page mover permissions ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 23:24, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

WP:ARBPIA article reviewed by non-ECP editor

Killing of Wadea al-Fayoume - reviewed by M3ATH, who currently has 257 edits and had less at the time of the review.

I’m not sure what the appropriate response is here?

In general, I’m not sure if editors who are not extended-confirmed have the experience to review these articles. BilledMammal (talk) 11:31, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Procedurallyy I do not see an issue because a reviewer does not directly edit the article, but only raises questions/makes recommendations. Whether this review is sufficient or not is another question, and I agree that ARBPIA articles should have extra scrutiny. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 12:51, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
Seems to have been a thorough review; they even consulted this talk page for advice. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 12:53, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
The user is extended-confirmed (manually added). In general I'd expect us to consider non-XC reviews of contentious topics on a case-by-case basis. — Bilorv (talk) 14:10, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
This editor appears to have done everything by the book, and even consulted on the areas where they were not familiar, I see no issues with the review personally. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 01:44, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Proposal: redirect WT:GAR to this page

Can we redirect Wikipedia talk:Good article reassessment to this page (WT:GAN) as was done last year with Wikipedia talk:Good articles? Occasionally I want to ask a GA criteria-related question, but know that it'll get a lot more views here than on WT:GAR. As Wikipedia talk:Good article criteria already redirects here, I think it makes sense to have a centralised talk page for all GA-related processes. @WP:GAR coordinators: ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 22:56, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

done; and copied the recent comments here for ease ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 23:28, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
Apologies for the bold and premature move. I do think centralising discussion will reflect shared vision of GAN/GAR together, as well as make it easier for new people to contribute. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 10:43, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
Personally, I'd prefer to leave WT:GAR as its own page, but I'll defer if the majority consensus is otherwise. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 01:22, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
I agree with centralising GAR discussion here. I think this follows the move to have WP:GAN list GARs too, for higher visibility. I conceive of one community interested in GAs (both adding and removing) rather than two communities, one interested in adding GAs and the other in uphauling or removing them. — Bilorv (talk) 01:39, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Older GARs needing comments

Posting here to encourage participation in reassessments from more people than the regulars at the GAR page. These are older discussions where improvement is not ongoing and which could use more participation.

Any comments on the above would be useful. Many thanks, ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 18:12, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Proposal: clarify instructions

This change [8] was made to Wikipedia:Good article nominations/Instructions years ago, citing this discussion [9].

It added the text below to the nominating and reviewing instructions:

Ensure all articles meet Wikipedia policies and guidelines as expected of any article, including neutral point of view, verifiability, no original research, and notability.

But: the cited discussion actually came to a consensus against adding notability as a criteria to review against, and a consensus for using existing procedures for notability. The language is also confusing as WP:NOR, WP:NPOV, and WP:V are already explicitly in the criteria. I'm going to propose the below language as a more clear description of norms. To be clear, I don't intend to change the process. I am looking for wording that best reflects existing practice.

If an article does not meet Wikipedia's notability policy, instead of reviewing you may nominate the article for deletion or propose merging.

More clear alternative wording ideas are of course welcome, Rjjiii (talk) 12:36, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Janko Drašković/GA1

Could somebody who is more experienced in the GA process than I am please take a look at Talk:Janko Drašković/GA1. This is a review which has been dragging on for a couple of months. I tried to prod the participants into picking things up and now it's devolved into a content battle between the reviewer and the nominator. RoySmith (talk) 14:41, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

If Borsoka thinks the article does not meet the GA criteria, ("This article is far from the level of a GA. I suggest you should withdraw your nomination.") they should fail the nomination. That is a critical part of the GA process. They can find the instructions at WP:GAN/I#FAIL. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 14:48, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
Agreed. As the review appears to have reached an impasse whereby the reviewer doesn't see a likely situation in which they can pass the review, they should fail it. Any outstanding content issues can then hopefully be resolved via the talk page, and once the article is stable, it can be renominated. Harrias (he/him) • talk 14:50, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
@Borsoka:, if you say that the article “is far from the level of a GA”, then it is the job of the reviewer to fail the nomination and provide reason and feedback. The onus in not on the nominator to withdraw their nomination or anything like that. REDMAN 2019 (talk) 15:33, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
@AirshipJungleman29:, @Harrias: after it became clear that we cannot agree on a specific issue I requested a second opinion ([10]). Do you think I should fail the article without waiting for the second opinion? I still think the article is below the level of GAs for multiple reasons. Borsoka (talk) 00:35, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
You should only ask for a second opinion if you are truly unsure whether the article meets the GA criteria, Borsoka. If you feel that the article below GA criteria for multiple reasons, you should fail the review. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 00:38, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
When I requested a 2nd opinion I hoped that the problems can be solved. I was wrong. Now, I failed the article. Borsoka (talk) 01:03, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
RoySmith, AirshipJungleman29, Harrias; The reviewer appears to be biased and has failed the article arbitrarily. (The type of POV espoused by the reviewer is documented in a source offered in the relevant article itself - as a POV held by Hungarian nationalist authors.)
To demonstrate this arbitrariness: the reviewer, when prompted by an uninvolved editor at the review page wrote that in addition to the "personal union" dispute, "There is a further (minor) issue: I do not understand in what capacity was Draskovic member of the Sabor (as a delegate or as a titled nobleman). Furthermore, I have not reviewed subsections 1.3 and 1.4, and sections 2-6." i.e. not a single section was reviewed completely in two months. Yet, in the same review they claim "This article is far from the level of a GA." and indicate in the checklist on the top of the review page failure of criterion 3a (broad in coverage, covering major aspects) - in spite of self-admitted failure to bother to review most the article.
The statement above "I still think the article is below the level of GAs for multiple reasons." while failing to specify the "multiple reasons" is also telling. Since the reviewer did not review most of the article as they admit, their opposition seems arbitrary, doesn't it?
I'm aware there is no safeguard against a nomination being picked up by a poor reviewer, and that the remedy is to renominate the article. I'm just wondering what other articles (edited by such a reviewer) are pushing the Hungarian nationalist POV.--Tomobe03 (talk) 12:00, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
That's quite a lot of words to say you're "just wondering". Happily, you can answer your own question: a list of reviews they've taken on is on their userpage, if you want to investigate. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 12:18, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
Thanks. Sorry for the wall of text.--Tomobe03 (talk) 12:27, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
@Tomobe03: could you ping me when accusing me of misconduct and nationalism in the future? You cannot quote a single text from me proving that I hold a Hungarian nationalist POV. Actually, my POV is much closer to one of the dominant Croatian POVs ("union of crowns") than the POV presented by the authors of the work you are referring to above ("Hungarian domination of Croatia"). The principal problem was that instead of making attempts to understand and address my concerns, you were making google searches for "Hungary Croatia personal union". Please assume good faith in the future. Borsoka (talk) 17:56, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Odd change of review numbers

Hi, anyone know what happened with this change of numbers from March last year? Special:Diff/1142554023 Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 16:04, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Sure: Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations/Archive 27#Updating the GA reviewing statistics per the extracted history. Harrias (he/him) • talk 16:10, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Passed GA didn't get put on list

My article Shilling (New Zealand coin) recently has been passed by a reviewer (see Talk:Shilling (New Zealand coin)/GA1. However, I think the reviewer passed it manually instead of using the GAN tool; it was miscategorised as a Media and Drama article instead of an Economics and Business article, and was not put on either section's listing of articles.

(On a side note, the "List of all Good Articles" fails to transclude a number of sections.)Generalissima (talk) 18:58, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

ChristieBot did correctly add the good article icon to the article. The listing needs to be done manually assuming a script isn't used, if the article is listed in the wrong place or not listed you can rectify the issue yourself. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 19:12, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

MLS Cup 2010

I noticed that MLS Cup 2010 was listed as a failed GAN from back in 2011, however looking at the review page, there was never an actual review. Is it possible for the review page to be deleted in this case? -- ZooBlazer 06:53, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

@ZooBlazer: There was a review at Talk:MLS Cup 2010/GA2, presumably because the nominator created the GA1 page by mistake. I do intend to eventually rewrite the article and bring it back to GAN as part of my MLS Cup series if you're interested in working on it. SounderBruce 07:09, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
@SounderBruce Ah. I probably wouldn't be much help. I'm basically a slightly more than casual Timbers fan, so beyond that I'm pretty useless when it comes to the MLS. I was just looking through the MLS Cups and decided to check why it failed the review. Good luck with the GAN process! I'll try to pitch in if you or someone else works on the 2015 Cup though. -- ZooBlazer 07:25, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

0.8 ⩼ 0.5

Not that I really care about being bumped from #13 to #14 in a list (solution in either case: pick up some reviews!), but am I forgetting some bit of elementary school math and/or some quirk of the ranking rules that explains why at 4:5 I'm a spot behind someone at 1:2? I perused the source code and couldn't find an obvious cause. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|she) 19:35, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Because we add one to the number of reviews, giving you both 5:5 = 2:2. This is deliberate, as a way of giving more priority to newer contributors (for whom both numbers are small); for instance, someone with 0 reviews and 2 nominations would end up having higher priority than someone with 3 reviews and 10 nominations. In this case you're tied and the tiebreak goes to the earlier nomination. For details, see Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations/Archive 29 § Possible small tweak to prioritization formula. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:44, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
Ah okay. Thanks for explaining. Should that be explained in the GAN header? I ran this by several other experienced users before posting here, and none could figure it out either. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|she) 20:39, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
Yes, probably should be explained there, though it's going to be a bit tricky to describe concisely. The transcluded instructions are at wikipedia:Good article nominations/guidelines if anyone wants to have a crack at it. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 00:11, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
Marginally related, but, at what point are we going to admit that the sorting algorithm is not doing its job incentivizing people to review GANs? It produces far more confusion than results, as this very thread indicates. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 00:48, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
Tamzin's copyedit, here, looks good to me. PMC, last time I looked at the effect of the sort order it seemed clear it had had *some* impact -- the main symptom was that there were more older nominations accumulating more quickly than in the past, if I recall correctly. Also anecdotally we know there are reviewers who use the stats to decide which nominations to review, and who now keep an eye on their own review ratio. It certainly hasn't completely changed GAN, but I don't think we ever thought it would. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 02:41, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
I would argue that older nominations by nominators who infrequently or never review is not a bug, but a feature, as reviewers prioritize those who give back to the process. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 19:04, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
Specifically for the case of newcomers to the GA process, it's probably better for them to get a few articles reviewed first, and to start reviewing others' articles later. There are of course exceptions. (DYK does something similar where QPQ only applies after the first 5 nominations, encouraging users to start by nominating an article or two, and only start reviewing after that.) SnowFire (talk) 20:32, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

Review count mismatches, part 2

Hello again,

See Wikipedia_talk:Good_article_nominations/Archive_30#Troubleshooting_review_count_mismatches and User_talk:ChristieBot#Inaccurate_GA's_reviewed_count. The short version is I performed a GA review, but wasn't credited by the bot because I didn't create the GA subpage. I have asked MikeChristie to just manually add a credit anyway, because, well, that's what actually happened. He has refused and said that I need to get a consensus that this is okay first. So... if any community members watching this page think that manually adjusting the GA reviewed count in such circumstances is acceptable, please chime in. It feels weird to do a pseudo-RFC like this, but this is apparently the standard required.

Since I suppose I need to formulate an "argument", the map is not the territory. There was no warning about needing to be the one to create the subpage at the time, and it'd be ridiculous to perversely reward creating the subpage but not the actual work. If a bug happens, just fix it. If it happens all the time, then update the documentation to make it less likely. I wouldn't have cared before, but per the GA reforms last year, the nominated-to-reveiwed ratio actually matters, and I don't particularly want to look like I'm cheating the system by nominating articles and not reviewing them. And while I'm not trying to threaten WP:DIVA-esque behavior, I will say that as a general principle, this feels absolutely shitty to have happen, and I presume would be equally awful for others. Why piss people off over what's basically a bug? It's so easily correctable that not correcting it makes it feel like a petty slight. But I don't want to make this about me personally - this is the kind of thing that should just be quietly fixed regardless. SnowFire (talk) 23:47, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Since I'm the one who said no, I guess I should give my reasons. When I proposed a way to track GA reviewers via template parameters there was some mild opposition, and there's been little interest shown here in fixing the issue, so I didn't feel I could unilaterally make the change. If there's a clear consensus here that a fix would be beneficial, I'll put it on my to-do list, and will try to get it done sooner rather than later. The simplest way would be for me to create a list of corrections that get added to the numbers shown on the GA nominations page -- e.g. +1 review for SnowFire, -1 review for whoever created the review page. But I think any such correction would need an audit trail; it should be possible to see why the change was made, and perhaps not everyone should be allowed to make the change, or some consensus process should apply. For example, what happens if a second opinion reviewer comes along and says they want credit too as they did more work than the original reviewer? I don't want to be the arbiter for such debates. Finally I should add that I'm not convinced myself that the changes is necessary; I understand why SnowFire is annoyed by the situation, but I'm not sure there's a simple cure. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 00:02, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
As your bot already maintains the page in its entirety, I don't see any problems with letting you make corrections to its data. Would the audit trail not just be the people asking you to make the corrections? If there's a difficult situation, bring it to WT:GAN, but there can't be very many of those. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 00:12, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
I don't think it would work to directly edit the tables; I'd have to dig through my notes and the code to be sure but I think it recalculates those totals from the GA history, which I rebuilt from 2006 when I wrote the bot. I could make a subpage of the bot's with a table that contains username, correction (e.g. +1), and reason/link to relevant GA. I could have the bot grab that data at the start of every run and add the resulting corrections to the counts. Anyone could edit it to correct errors. Would that be acceptable? If so I can probably get to it in the next couple of months. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 03:10, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
There hasn't been a consensus around how partial reviews might be assessed. I agree with Mike above they are quire simple. We could consider them a rounding error and not manage them as a default, which is simple but may be annoying for individual cases. This is not asserting the case in question is a partial review, just a general point. For a full review, we should be more thorough on explicitly deleting/incrementing abandoned/poor/unfinished reviews, to avoid this issue as much as possible. In terms of +1/-1 records, would keeping a link to the reviews that count for that +1/-1 fulfil the traceability need? CMD (talk) 03:26, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
I updated the sandbox template to support the |reviewer= parameter which was briefly a part of the template before (test case example). The instructions on incrementing at WP:GAN/I#N4a are both technical and kind of obscure. I just recently did this wrong until RoySmith fixed it for me.[11] I think we should either [a] re-introduce the |reviewer= parameter for record-keeping or [b] streamline the incrementing procedure. If we take route [b] then the GAN Review Tool used to close GAs should likely have a bullet point option for new reviewers starting a new review. Also if [b] is the community norm, then the norm should also be that abandoned reviews discussed here are incremented forward as a result of discussion. Rjjiii (talk) 06:59, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
I don't think the |reviewer= approach will work unless the parameter is also added to {{FailedGA}} and {{Article history}}. I suggested the latter here and got no response, and changing Article history would definitely require both consensus and some thought about the implications (e.g. would we need a followup bot run to populate the parameter?). I also raised the question here and got some pushback, so I think something closer to consensus would be needed before the parameter solution could be implemented. That's one reason why I proposed the simple "log it on a page and it gets picked up by the bot" as the approach. CMD, yes, I think a link to the relevant review, plus perhaps a permalink to whatever discussion happened, would work. In a case like SnowFire's I think SnowFire could just add the relevant row to the table, write whatever text they want in the explanations column, and if someone later feels the explanation is insufficient they can revert or raise a discussion here. I am a bit concerned that someone would later come along and put in +10 for themselves because they recall doing ten second-opinion reviews over the last few years but can't remember which articles they are, but if we don't mind policing that sort of thing from this page then it should work. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:24, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
  • To be clear, re the comment on partial reviews, while that's an interesting topic to discuss, it's separate for this particular issue I'm raising. The issue here is if someone performs a full review, should that review be counted. SnowFire (talk) 08:42, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Also, more productively, I think that the idea of some sort of additional "fix" table which is world-editable and gets used by the bot for ad-hoc additions is fine by me. I don't think the issues described by Mike Christie will be issues in practice - if someone is aggressively editing in controversial "extra" credits for themselves, we just tell them to stop. The nature of the wiki edit trail itself is the audit trail. My expectation is that this page of the wiki will be dusted and known by almost nobody, with people referred to it once in a blue moon after there's a mess-up. SnowFire (talk) 16:28, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
    Unless there are opposing opinions expressed over the next few days, I'll plan on implementing this approach. SnowFire, I'm afraid I can't commit to a date, but the next time I have a window to work on the code I'll make this my top priority to implement. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:17, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
    Sounds good. I've reverted my changes in the template sandbox.[12] Rjjiii (talk) 06:19, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
    Mike Christie: That's fine by me; thanks! To be clear, there's no hurry, we're all volunteers, etc. Just wanted there to be some sort of procedure for this, and that sounds like a generally satisfactory solution. SnowFire (talk) 16:19, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Per the spirit of the concerns expressed here, I have boldly closed Talk:Chris Rock–Will Smith slapping incident/GA1, where the reviewer withdrew before significant engagement, and reopened a new GAN at the original nomination date. This should ensure that any reviewer, who will have to perform a full review given the incompleteness of the previous one, is appropriately credited. CMD (talk) 04:10, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

Proposal: mandate compliance with WP:TOOBIG in GA criterion 3b

There was a contentious GAR at Talk:John von Neumann last year where the article writers were, in my view, able to get around 3b by arguing that an article with over 15,000 words complied with the idea of "without going into unnecessary detail" and that WP:Article size and WP:Summary style are not a firm upper bound on how long an article can be.

As a result, I'd like to propose strengthening WP:GA? criterion 3b by mandating compliance with WP:TOOBIG in addition to the link that's already there (to summary style). Ed [talk] [OMT] 22:57, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

The problem on that page is not that the GA criteria aren't adequately clear, but that the process can be hijacked and disrupted by bad actors actions, principally by those of Jacobolus and David Eppstein who contributed nothing but vitriol derailing any attempts to discuss improving (let alone improving) the article. The end result is a GA that contains unencyclopedic trivial bullshit like:

Von Neumann was a child prodigy who at six years old could divide two eight-digit numbers in his head[24][25] and could converse in Ancient Greek. When the six-year-old von Neumann caught his mother staring aimlessly, he asked her, "What are you calculating?"[26]

and

He was also interested in history, reading his way through Wilhelm Oncken's 46-volume world history series Allgemeine Geschichte in Einzeldarstellungen (General History in Monographs).[29]

What? These are von Neumann's notable contributions to science that an encyclopedia is meant to summarise? It would be an embarrassment for a Buzzfeed 'Top 10 things you didn't known about von Neumann' claptrap, clickbait, brainrot piece; but it passes for 'focused and on topic' on Wikipedia. It took me two minutes to find a section with excise-able trivia in it, yet those editors couldn't for one and a half months of pure disruption. And that is the problem. Both editors should have received a clear warning, then a block, and finally a PBAN. The criteria do not need to be changed to address the problem of disruption. Mr rnddude (talk) 02:49, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
Certainly with that GAR, the issue isn't that the article was "able to get around 3b", it's that there seemed to be a preference for arguing about theoretical 3b instead of addressing the clear issues with the article. A quite standard case where 3b was an indicator of issues with other criteria, rather than being the problem by itself. CMD (talk) 03:11, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
Mr rnddude, can you please strike the personal parts of your comment. If you have a conduct dispute that you'd like to continue, those aren't the appropriate words and this is not the appropriate venue. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 03:22, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
What specifically are you referring to? Mr rnddude (talk) 03:31, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
I'm referring to your description of two named editors as "bad actors" who "contributed nothing but vitriol" and "pure disruption", and your opinions on how their conduct should have been handled. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 03:36, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
What do you expect me to refer to comments such as What is someone with such an extreme anti-intellectual point of view doing editing Wikipedia? by an administrator as? That was a targeted personal attack levied by David Eppstein against AirshipJungleman29 in that discussion. And what do you mean continue a conduct dispute? I wasn't even remotely involved in that discussion and have never edited either that talk page or that article (I think). I am outright accusing two editors of disrupting the encyclopedia based on the evidence on that talk page. However, that disruption ended two months ago. It is not feasible to start an AN/I discussion now. Had I seen such commentary at the time, I might have intervened to seek sanction then. Mr rnddude (talk) 03:55, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
Thank you for the partial striking/re-wording. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 05:14, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
@Mr rnddude: yeah, Eppstein basically trolled that discussion. ——Serial 14:09, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
An encyclopaedia is not meant to summarise; "an encyclopedia is a written compendium of knowledge.". Hawkeye7 (discuss) 02:59, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
An encyclopaedia is not meant to summarise; "an encyclopedia is a written compendium of knowledge.". Hawkeye7 (discuss) 02:59, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
"Hey Google, define encyclopedia". According to Wikipedia [a]n encyclopedia (American English) or encyclopædia (British English) is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge, either general or special, to a particular field or discipline. Mr rnddude (talk) 03:17, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
"Hey Wikipedia policy no original research define tertiary source". Tertiary sources are publications such as encyclopedias and other compendia that summarize, and often quote, primary and secondary sources. Wikipedia is considered to be a tertiary source.[i] Many introductory undergraduate-level textbooks are regarded as tertiary sources because they sum up multiple secondary sources. Mr rnddude (talk) 03:21, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
I would be fine with adding WP:Article size to 3b. I think that we'd be punting some problems down to those willing to argue over the "almost certainly should be divided or trimmed", but the guidance would be helpful in most cases. If any of our GA tech wizards are around, it would be helpful to know which current GAs are over 15k words. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 03:34, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
That's a good point, Firefangledfeathers. Perhaps instead of just adding the link, 3b could be "it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail and remains below 15,000 words."? It feels strange to write that in directly, so I'm not sure it's a good idea.
Re: tech wizards. I think User talk:Dr pda/generatestats.js is the answer, but I can't get the prose size version of it to list more than 500 articles. (If anyone else wants to give it a go, note that you have to turn off the "wikitext mode inside the visual editor" aka 2017 wikitext editor, assuming you have it enabled.) So with the caveat that I think it's missing many GAs, here's the longest ten articles it spat out. All are over 15,000 words:
  1. Joseph Stalin (130 kB; over 20,000 words[!])
  2. History of Scotland (113 kB)
  3. Augustin-Jean Fresnel (112 kB)
  4. Mikhail Gorbachev (108 kB)
  5. American Civil Liberties Union (106 kB)
  6. Citizen Kane (103 kB)
  7. Lesbian (103 kB)
  8. John von Neumann (102 kB)
  9. Alkali metal (99 kB)
  10. Franklin D. Roosevelt (98 kB)
I last used this tool in full in 2014. Looking through the top ten there and manually checking them today shows:
Note also that in the last ten years, Christian Science was cut down to under 5,000. Ed [talk] [OMT] 04:52, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
PetScan suggests that there might be more than 1,000 long articles. It can search by page size, and I went 50k over the 100k limit to be a bit more conservative. I'll have to think some more about the option of being more strict than the guideline. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 05:14, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
@Firefangledfeathers: If I'm correctly understanding what you meant by "page size" there, the kilobyte amounts I added above are total prose size (i.e. words) as expressed in kilobytes. That's not the same thing as the total wiki text size of the articles, which include infoboxes, reference wikicode, etc. That makes things trickier because e.g. the longest GA by wiki text, Philippines, clocks in at just over 9,000 words despite the weighty ~430kb of code. Ed [talk] [OMT] 05:20, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
I understand, but it's a helpful clarification anyway. Yes, the PetScan results are counting total page size, and I tried (lazily) to account for that building in 50kb of wiggle room. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 05:22, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
Gotcha, just wanted to make sure you knew. :-) I did a couple spotchecks of that data + the stuff I shared above, and page size does not map very well to long prose size. (Very unfortunately.) Ed [talk] [OMT] 05:27, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
Then wizardry is indeed needed. I know Mike Christie—the wizard I most hoped might appear—has updating Wikipedia:Good articles/By length on his bot's to-do list. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 14:03, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
@Firefangledfeathers: FYI that we have a new database report that tracks the longest/shortest GAs. Many thanks to Legoktm for putting it together! It looks like there are roughly 50 articles that are over 15,000 words. Ed [talk] [OMT] 19:18, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

I have opinions here, but I am not going to participate in a thread that Mr rnddude has so thoroughly poisoned with preemptive personal attacks, still quite visible. I will just say that the description of my behavior on that GAR is false; I contributed some significant simplifications to material in that article, in an attempt to cut its length while preserving its important content, until driven away by the toxic attitude still on display here. —David Eppstein (talk) 08:26, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

  • David Eppstein, you are once again the pot calling the kettle black. You won't even acknowledge your own disgusting attack on AirshipJungleman29 from that earlier discussion – let alone strike it – despite the fact that multiple users have called you out on it, but you're happy to complain about someone else's language. It doesn't work like that. Either everyone has to be civil, or no one has to. You're an administrator; you ought to be setting an example, not engaging in rank hypocrisy. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 12:45, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
    This is the inevitable consequence of bringing up conduct matters where they don't belong. We get defenses and counterattacks and distraction from the issue at hand. Can we please stop it here? Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 14:08, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
    Without restarting this, acknowledging that I have read this sub-thread. Mr rnddude (talk) 21:41, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose – I don't really see what this would achieve. In the linked example, the article is 15,113 words, so WP:TOOBIG says the following (my emphasis added): "Some useful rules of thumb for splitting, trimming or merging articles: > 15,000 words: Almost certainly should be divided or trimmed." Given the guidance uses non-mandatory phrasing, I don't really see how WP:TOOBIG could be enforced as part of the GA process. The current criteria contained in section 3 is much more appropriate for a qualitative review of an article. Harrias (he/him) • talk 09:55, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
  • I have to agree with Harrias that I'm not sure this will solve anything. The GA criteria already require that the prose be concise (1a) and that the article not go into unnecessary detail (3b). WP:TOOBIG is explicitly described as a "rule of thumb" and "approximate". In the John von Neumann discussion, the application of WP:TOOBIG was already disputed just as much as whether or not criteria 1a and 3b were violated; making TOOBIG an explicit GA criterion would not have changed that. (At any rate, the JvN article is currently only barely over the 15,000 words where TOOBIG suggests that splitting is almost certainly appropriate; if copyediting knocked another 113 words off would the people who think it too long be satisfied? I'm not sure they would...)
    I don't disagree that, e.g. Josef Stalin does not need to be 20,000 words long, especially given that we have at least three spinout articles on different parts of his life and one on his death, but either it already violates the excessive detail criterion (in which case it should be trimmed anyway, and adding more criteria does not change anything) or it doesn't (in which case people could reasonably argue that it doesn't violate TOOBIG). Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 11:05, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Removing material as "excessive detail" is a blockable offence, as it violates our WP:PRESERVE and WP:Consensus policies. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:06, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
    That's complete and total BS, to put it lightly. Your second linked page is irrelevant because there can and often has been consensus to cut excessive detail from articles. If you think that following summary style is a blockable offense, well, all I can say is I'm very relieved you are not an administrator. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 20:38, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
    PRESERVE emphasizes in bold that if an editor cannot fix a problem, they can tag or excise it: [r]ather than remove imperfect content outright, fix problems if you can, tag or excise them if you can't (emphasis as in original). This is the only emphasized content in that section. Further, the policy provides a subsection with justifications for removal. One such is the policy WP:NOT, which under WP:NOTEVERYTHING opens with: [i]nformation should not be included in this encyclopedia solely because it is true or useful. A Wikipedia article should not be a complete exposition of all possible details, but a summary of accepted knowledge regarding its subject. Mr rnddude (talk) 21:41, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
    It is also probably worth noting that our policy WP:ONUS says While information must be verifiable for inclusion in an article, not all verifiable information must be included. Consensus may determine that certain information does not improve an article. Such information should be omitted or presented instead in a different article. The responsibility for achieving consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content. TompaDompa (talk) 03:02, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
    As with JvN, the word count on Stalin may be an indicator of other issues, much like the trivia examples above: "Although he got into many fights, Stalin excelled academically...He had a light workload and therefore had plenty of time for revolutionary activity...In a celebratory mood, Stalin travelled by train to Petrograd in March...During his youth, Stalin cultivated a scruffy appearance in rejection of middle-class aesthetic values". At any rate, the splitting criterion is a bit of a red herring here; the article has already been split, so it's more a question of what is needed on that page for WP:SS. I would agree with your wider point that seeing this as a TOOBIG issue alone may miss the wood for the trees. CMD (talk) 11:24, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Unenforceable at GA, sadly, but there really should be an effort to split these types of article up. Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 13:34, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose Agree with Lee. I was in favour of a proposed solution to John von Neumann of creating subarticles (WP:SUMMARYSTYLE). The article seemed more amenable than most to this, as he worked in several distinct fields. Other editors argued that it would involved restructuring the article; there would be duplication between the main article and the subarticles, increasing the maintenance overhead; and that readers would be disappointed, as search engines would direct them to the main article even when a more appropriate subarticle exists. I've long thought that WP:TOOBIG should be abolished, as it no longer has consensus, and the only thing that has saved it is its own flexibility. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:06, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
  • Even hard numerical limits (like the four-paragraph lead limit) can be ignored per WP:IAR in the case of broad topics that don't lend themselves easily to splits. A particular content dispute would not be avoided by a bureaucratic change of wording. The GA criteria already require clear writing, concision and focus. — Bilorv (talk) 00:42, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

New database report for longest/shortest GAs

I'm creating a new sub-section to make sure people see the new database report Legoktm put together that lists every good article and its prose size: Wikipedia:Database reports/Good articles by size. I imagine this will have applications beyond the above discussion, which has gotten slightly derailed by my inadvertent restarting of a content debate. (Apologies for that.) Ed [talk] [OMT] 19:22, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

Personally, I think there is also some interesting things at the other end of that list - the smallest GAs are mostly all roads and Olympics articles. Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 19:31, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

Miles and Kilometers

I am reviewing an article that uses miles but no kilometers. I have always been told to use {{convert|60|mi}} to show miles and kilometers for my GA. Is this mandatory for GA? I have also had a similar experience with dollar amounts from long ago, and have been told to use code similar to ({{Inflation|US|595|1982|fmt=eq}}). Is this a requirement for GA? It seems like a writer would want to put this type of stuff in their article, but I have had some resistance. TwoScars (talk) 15:11, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

Ultimately, the simple answer is no. That said, I would argue that GACR point 1, "understandable to an appropriately broad audience" would certainly strongly favour a metric/imperial conversion, as I think that is something that can significantly affect a readers understanding of the article. Not so fussed on the inflation issue; there's so many factors that it is only giving a very broad-stroke comparison which can be misleading in some situations anyway. I also suggest it as a "nice to have". Harrias (he/him) • talk 15:21, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
I agree that "understandable to a broad audience" encourages us to use unit conversions, but there is no formal requirement to do so. I think it depends a bit on the unit, though: it isn't super important for miles (usually it is enough to know that a mile is somewhere between one and two kilometres so it is easy to get a rough estimate in your head), but I would personally like to see temperatures converted from Fahrenheit and weights converted from stone and volumes converted from ounces to something that is more familiar to me. —Kusma (talk) 16:30, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
The use of unit conversions is governed by MOS:CVT, which is part of MOS:NUM. This is not one of the five MOS pages which (per WP:GACR#1b) Good Articles are required to comply with, so there is no requirement for Good Articles to include unit conversions. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 15:24, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
(As for inflation, even MOS:CURRENCY only says that inflation conversions "may be appropriate" in some cases, and there are situations where I think they are actively unhelpful) Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 15:26, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
Thanks TwoScars (talk) 15:31, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
My own personal opinion is that Wikipedia should make temperature and distance conversions mandatory for GA. We have the Wikicode to do this, and the Wikipedia audience is international. They both contribute to "understandable to an appropriately broad audience". TwoScars (talk) 16:53, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
I disagree: a GA on, say, Hannibal that requires kilometres is going to look bizarre Billsmith60 (talk) 12:02, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
Billsmith60 Why? Why would adding a conversion to km in parentheses to help understanding for those who don't use miles "look bizarre"?! Harrias (he/him) • talk 12:34, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
(At a quick glance, Hannibal has one instance of measurement units, "encamped 10 km (6 mi) away") CMD (talk) 13:29, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
Gog the Mild has written around three dozen GAs/FAs on the battles of the Punic Wars. Most (perhaps all) have conversion templates and not one looks bizarre, Billsmith60. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 14:11, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
Obviously an article on Hannibal would use metric units. Equally obviously it would not pass FAC without conversions. Looking at a recent Punic FA (Battle of Zama) these don't strike me as bizarre, or even odd or jarring. Eg see here. I seem to have done the same with articles which I never intended to take past GA; eg I invite feedback as to whether the third paragraph of the lead of Battle of Leptis Parva looks bizarre, or even would be improved without the conversion. I do not believe it would, but a discussion here would at least not be over a hypothetical situation. Personally, if I was reviewing this article at GAN without conversions I would need some convincing that it was "understandable to an appropriately broad audience". Gog the Mild (talk) 17:20, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
I think everybody in Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history uses metric conversions, and I am glad we do. I would expect a Military History GA reviewer to let me know if I missed one—that is why I assumed everyone used conversions. Now that I have reviewed a few railroad articles, I have been exposed to people who do not use conversions. I also use temperature conversions for glassmaking articles, and I would think that would be important too. TwoScars (talk) 18:34, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
I think using unit conversions falls under WP:GACR 1a: "understandable to an appropriately broad audience". It's not part of the guideline linked to that text, but converting the units is a harmless way of increasing the understandability of an article. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:05, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
Since it's my GAN that's prompted the discussion, I will say I typically do use unit conversions in my articles and have added them to the article in question. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 19:09, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
Is it a part of the GA criteria? No. Would converting the units make the article better - yes. Perfectly honestly, I think it's quicker just to solve an issue like this than try to explain why it doesn't need to be done. Unless we are talking about lots of entries, it makes the article better, which is kinda the purpose of GA. Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 19:34, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
I see people don't agree with me, which is fine. Personally, I believe such articles read better in miles, as has been the case for the majority of history, and that the Km equivalent clogs them up Billsmith60 (talk) 18:40, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
Presumably, you are from a country where a mile is the predominant measure? It is not better to completely alienate people who have a different measure. Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 18:52, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

More GA questions

Duplicate Wiki-Links: I run the Highlight duplicate links Tool, and it finds duplicate links. Shouldn't these be fixed for GA?

Image location: Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Images#Location, "...a­void sand­wich­ing text be­tween two im­ages that face each oth­er". Shouldn't that be fixed for GA? TwoScars (talk) 17:03, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

Per the criteria, GA only requires compliance with five specific points of the MOS: "lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation". All the rest, it can ignore, as long as doing so doesn't affect any of the other criteria points. Most GA reviews ask for far more than is actually required for GA status per the criteria. Harrias (he/him) • talk 17:15, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
Duplinks are also generally tolerated if the repeat link is in a different section (the guideline was changed at some point in the last two years or so). —Kusma (talk) 17:42, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
Courtesy link to the mid-2023 discussion that led to the change: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Linking/Archive 21#DL, sections, and mobile readers. TompaDompa (talk) 16:04, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
Interesting, I hadn't seen that. Any ideas if we also did something similar with full names? It seems a bit odd that we would add a second link in another section, but only introduce people by full name once. Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 19:36, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
I have "cheated" sometimes with names in Military History articles. If I have already introduced Colonel John Doe, and mention him in a later section, I might call him "Colonel Doe" once. This reminds a reader that Doe is a leader and probably commanding a regiment. I have not been WikiLinking a second time. TwoScars (talk) 20:06, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
To echo what Kusma said, but more strongly: the old WP:DUPLINK guidance has been superseded and was wrong. The new standard is not to replicate links within a section, which is more reasonable and matches the mobile reader experience where sections are auto-collapsed and a reader might start at some unknown section, rather than reading top-to-bottom and clicking all links. SnowFire (talk) 22:03, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
The WP:DUPLINK guideline still reads: Generally, a link should appear only once in an article, but it may be repeated if helpful for readers, such as in infoboxes, tables, image captions, footnotes, hatnotes, and at the first occurrence in a section. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:27, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Category:Wikipedia CD Selection has been nominated for discussion

Category:Wikipedia CD Selection has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. A discussion is taking place to decide whether it complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. Schierbecker (talk) 03:57, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

Significant number of extremely short GAs - perhaps a new categorization is needed?

As seen at Ed's Wikipedia:Database reports/Good articles by size, there are about 650-700 GA's under 500 words in length. While I know that there are certainly mixed tastes on what size meets the breadth requirements required by GAs (I personally don't feel comfortable nominating or promoting anything under 800 words), I think sub-500 words definitely falls into the lack of breadth territory.

Most of these articles are certainly high quality! But I think it's also important to note that breadth is a factor in the GA standard purely beyond quality, and I'm not sure a lot of these make it. I think it's also important to note that some topics will never have the breadth of coverage to meet GA in quality, no matter how well-written the article is.

Let's take a look at some of the shortest GAs in this range:

  • M-132 (Michigan highway), 193 words. No problems in prose, sure, but fairly basal coverage in sources (alongside Google Maps)
  • San Marino at the 2006 Winter Olympics, 213 words. Primarily cites databases.
  • HD 217107 b, 228 words (Shortest good article that isn't a US state highway or the Olympics performance of a country which sent a single delegate). High quality sourcing for sure, but considering it is an exoplanet there is very little breadth of coverage we can reasonably expect to know on it.

I'd like to reiterate that these articles are certainly high quality, and by current GA criteria standards, where "breadth" is extremely loosely defined, there is no reason to assume they don't meet it. But I think some sort of actual definition of what constitutes breadth of coverage would be very helpful. Can we really look at a few hundred words about a single athlete's performance at one Olympic games, or an obscure exoplanet, or a 20 mile Michigan state highway, and assume that any encyclopedic coverage of those topics will be able to reach the level we expect of GAs? In my opinion, these articles fall under what is described at WP:PERMASTUB.

I think that there should be a clear delineation of what constitutes the breadth of coverage and sourcing available for an article to be "GA-able" to begin with, and most importantly some sort of other signifier for short articles where all known coverage of them has been incorporated, and that the prose has been looked over for quality. We already separate out lists as FLs, so why not some sort of "Quality Stub" criteria, to recognize that not all articles can be expanded beyond their size? Generalissima (talk) 01:56, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

Proper credit for the work done here should go to Legoktm! Ed [talk] [OMT] 05:02, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
This is a perennial question, see also Wikipedia:Very short featured articles. None of them are quite as short as the items you mention, but I'm not sure splitting something off here does much. Worth noting that notability is not a GACR, and GAs have been deleted/merged before. CMD (talk) 02:20, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
When looking at the WP:Good topic and Featured topic landing pages, there are icons allocated for "audited articles of limited subject matter" - however, I very rarely see this rank being used. I'd absolutely support reusing it to signify a high quality permanent short article.  Frzzl  talk; contribs  13:37, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
I have very strong opinions on the short-assessed-articles matter (which have come up before). The tricky thing about short GAs is that they're incentivized by the GT/FT process. GT/FT rules only have the "audited" exemption for lists, not articles, which means people "writing for the GT" need to take a lot of short-by-nature articles through GAN. Whatever solution needs to start there. (From some reviews I've done, I'm not sure every "needs to be short" GA actually needs to be.) Vaticidalprophet 14:42, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
How does GT/FT incentivise it? As far as I can see, the process is very slow and not well known. Wouldn't it also incentivise merging small articles so there are fewer to work on? CMD (talk) 15:03, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
I try not to name particular editors or articles, because most editors who produce a lot of high-quality articles are people I deeply respect, even if I see patterns I don't think are net-positive. But GT/FT is pretty well-known, and a decent share of articles-by-weight are produced as part of a successful or attempted topic (most people work on subjects which interest them, which often naturally link into topics), and there's a noticeable tendency to large topics in particular having small articles in them. If a possible topic has ten potential articles and two of them are going to be very short, you get the stubs through GAN or you don't get the topic. Vaticidalprophet 18:33, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
Looking at the numbers, there are apparently a little under 6,000 articles which are part of at least one Good Topic or Featured Topic, which is a little under 15% of all Good and Featured Articles. Of the top 20 shortest articles by word count, according to Legoktm's list linked above, only HD 217107 b is part of a good or featured topic. The next shortest to be part of a Good or Featured Topic is HD 217107 c, the 64th shortest. The only other GA with <300 words prose to be part of a Good Topic is Tuvalu at the 2016 Summer Olympics. The very shortest good articles are in fact underrepresented at the Good Topic/Featured Topic level. GT/FT might encourage shorter-than-average articles to be nominated for GA, but it doesn't explain the ultra-short GAs. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 19:04, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
(It is also interesting to note that two of these three articles were not only Good Articles, but part of a Good Topic, before 2010; the Tuvalu at the 2016 Olympics one wasn't for obvious reasons. The next topic article, Romanus (bishop of Rochester), weighs in at 301 words of readable prose and was also promoted before 2010.) Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 19:16, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
I think the go-to example is the Australian cricket team in England in 1948 featured topic, which produced such high-quality articles as Doug Ring with the Australian cricket team in England in 1948. Ironically the issue with these wasn't short length, but that they were just prosified sports results unsuitable for an encyclopedia article. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 21:42, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
I've seen this discussed before as a "how short is too short" and the answer has always been "when it's too short". Intentionally vague. I don't think creating a category for articles that are short and GA is wise. These articles are GAs until someone raises a suitable GAR. Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 15:59, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
I'd say all of the above should be reassessed, personally. But fundamentally the only way this stuff doesn't become a GA is if someone is willing to be the "bad guy" and say that if you can only say two paragraphs about a distant celestial body, it's not GA-quality. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 21:06, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
In particular, I wouldn't be surprised if just merging that to HD 217107#Planetary system wouldn't be the best solution for this. It exists, little is known about it and practically nothing else can be expected to become knowable in the near future. Merging it in with that section would also for reasonable documentation of this at the same time as also placing it in better context with its star and sister planet. Hog Farm Talk 21:14, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
Even the article on the star is only 376 words, so merging all three articles would still top out under 1000. A merge would make sense to me – but currently "this would be better off merged with another article" is not a reason to not promote/delist. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 21:40, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
But that isn't a GA issue—it is not within the purview of this process to interpret notability concerns, just as how it is not within AfD's purview to evaluate article quality. If you want to propose a merge between other articles, that is separate from the GA process. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 21:39, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
Conversely, a short article can be very much notable. An example I worked on is Bighorn Divide and Wyoming Railroad, where the article is rather short but there are several in-depth sources which show a GNG pass (one is behind a hard paywall sadly), this came up during the GA review. The article itself is 480 words. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 21:47, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
That is one I looked at very closely while writing this! I think that's a perfect example of a high quality and definitely notable article. If there was some sort of specific recognition for high quality short articles, that'd be a great example for how to do it. Generalissima (talk) 22:42, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

My feeling is that trying to categorize these separately would introduce a perverse incentive, encouraging editors to pad out articles with filler to avoid this categorization and aim for a real GA. Instead, we should encourage adherence to WP:GACR 3b and reward articles whose shortness is appropriate. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:49, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

Personally, any notable article can meet GA (or more specifically, WP:GACR). Point 3a is "it addresses the main aspects of the topic". If there aren't many aspects of the topic to begin with, it's impossible to force an article to address "main aspects" that don't exist (and as said above, this requirement could mean filler content being added to GANs -> fail of 3b). If the article isn't notable, then it can go through AfD or other processes and that is unrelated to the article's breadth. Skyshiftertalk 02:54, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

Agreed with this on all counts. Pure length is fundamentally irrelevant to whether an article can be a GA. —Ganesha811 (talk) 00:03, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

As a general rule of thumb, I would say an article needs 1500 bytes of prose, which is what DYK mandates. Anything less than that ballpark figure is probably a likely candidate to be merged and redirected to another article. I know I was vexed about size when nominating Fender Contempo Organ for GA, but that's three times the size of the Michigan state road article. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 14:54, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

GAR notifications

GabrielPenn4223 has listed a number of articles for GAR, but they were not aware of the notifications step. Pinging @WP:GAR coordinators: ; for an organized response to make sure all users and projects who need notified get notifications. Hog Farm Talk 18:54, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

I think it is more accurate to say that GabrielPenn4223 fundamentally does not understand any aspect of the GA process, which they unfortunately seem to have fixated on.
Yes, you read that right, they opened GARs on the same, not-GA article, twice.
  • They have not read the GA criteria, even while nominating numerous articles at GAR. This has lead to such ridiculous nomination statements as "2007 addition with a dead link" for Nature, "Short for a GA. failing a criterion I think?", and "Most of the material in the lead sentence is uncited. failing GA criterion 2b"
  • They have also not read the GAR instructions, which requires notifications of involved WikiProjects, meaning that others (me) will have to go around doing these.
I'm not quite at the level of requesting an enforced leave from GAR, but I think it is worth emphasising just how much of a timesink this editor has been. I would suggest that they not nominate another GAR until they have got an article to GA status themselves. In fact, can we make that a blanket rule? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 20:00, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
Might I suggest GabrielPenn4223, in future that if you would like to start a review of an articles GA status, that you post a topic here first before nominating, so that others might give you pointers (and this wouldn't nominate an article that isn't a GA for review). Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 21:26, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
I've stopped nominating GARs until I start a GAN review. GabrielPenn4223 (talk) 03:15, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
I closed the GARs earlier of these non GAs because I wanted them deleted and they were not GAs. GabrielPenn4223 (talk) 03:33, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
I have no idea on how to notify Wikiprojects. GabrielPenn4223 (talk) 03:34, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
Can we please close the GAR on The Wiggles Pty Ltd? I looked at the process to close, but I'm not sure I get it. Gabriel opened it on the grounds that the lede isn't cited; all of the statements are backed up by the body, and none are controversial. Thanks! (Note, I was the reviewer in 2013.) -- Zanimum (talk) 00:20, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
I thought the first lead sentence was uncited because there were very few sources.
I will stop nominating GARs for a while. GabrielPenn4223 (talk) 03:03, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
We also still need these notifications to occur. None of the articles should be delisted until at least a week after the proper notifications are made. Hog Farm Talk 01:29, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
It looks like a number have been closed already (mostly speedily). Those that remain open are Battle of Antietam (has received input from others), National Register of Historic Places (no input from others yet), M-331 (Michigan highway) (small input from others, although it is probably sensible to at least put it on hold until M-132 (Michigan highway) wraps up), and Ohio State Route 778 (same comment). As the Antietam article is receiving attention, if the road GARs are kept on hold until M-132 wraps up, the only one we need to be aware right now is NRHP.
This does remind me that I was surprised by the close of Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Queen Mary 2/1, which was closed as a supervote rather than addressing the discussion. I would appreciate it if someone uninvolved had a look at that. There are also some drive-by noms, I reverted one but don't currently have the time to handle the drive-by self reviews at Talk:7 World Trade Center (1987–2001)/GA1 and Talk:Edgenuity/GA1. CMD (talk) 05:53, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
Missed Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Great Salt Lake/1 CMD (talk) 08:33, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
I'm letting someone else review it. GabrielPenn4223 (talk) 06:02, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
I set "Asking for a second" opinion. GabrielPenn4223 (talk) 06:04, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
Everyone, can we please stop talking about GAs for now? I will focus on something else and let me take care. thank you, I feel like this discussion should be closed. GabrielPenn4223 (talk) 07:34, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
This is not a debate forum this is a encyclopedia, I am going offline. GabrielPenn4223 (talk) 07:46, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
By creating the review page, you established yourself as the reviewer. It appears the tables are partially filled in too? At any rate, please do not nominate articles you have not been involved in editing.
On a procedural note, I have removed the two drive-by noms mentioned above, an admin is needed to delete Talk:Edgenuity/GA1 and Talk:7 World Trade Center (1987–2001)/GA1. CMD (talk) 08:38, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
I've deleted those. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 08:55, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

GAs (in response to the above)

I will stop creating up GARs until I properly know what "Good Article" is. I've heard feedback from others that I was causing problems, My bad! Sorry guys! GabrielPenn4223 (talk) 03:07, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Nomination of page "Nature"

I've closed the first GA I did on this due to feedback from others, and I am posting this first before nominating again per request, and this is on the 2023 Sweeps list.

Anyone give me pointers for me to clearly examine other than a dead link? GabrielPenn4223 (talk) 03:32, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Hi GabrielPenn, if there only are small issues like one dead link, it is better to try and address them than seek to GAR. The overall goal is article improvement, GAR is just a mechanism to handle articles that have drifted away from the criteria and are not being improved. CMD (talk) 05:33, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
I removed the dead link already. GabrielPenn4223 (talk) 07:09, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Can I open GANs only if I significantly contribute to the article?

I think so, but I don't know. GabrielPenn4223 (talk) 06:31, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Yes, that's absolutely right. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 14:22, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Apology

I am extremely sorry for misusing the "GA" formula. I am going to stop talking about this topic. Articles have to be improved. What I did was wrong. What was I thinking in the first place? I promise I will not make new reassessments and reviews for a while. GabrielPenn4223 (talk) 12:53, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Good article symbol in top right-hand corner of articles

Does the "good article" symbol which appears at the top right of some articles imply that the article is censored in a similar fashion to other articles which have a padlock in the top right-hand corner of them? Or does it not have any bearing on censorship of the article?

There is a certain confusion because the green plus symbol, if I may call it that, is in the same location as the padlock symbol which indicates censorship of the article. 220.245.249.73 (talk) 13:16, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

The good article icon indicates only that an article has passed the WP:GAN process. Similarly, the bronze star icon which some articles have in the same place denotes that they have passed the featured article process. If they are also protected, then you will see the padlock icon as well as the green plus/bronze star: Taylor Swift is an example. The third kind of topicon you see in article space is the WP:SPOKEN topicon, for articles which have been recorded as part of the Spoken Wikipedia project; Chess is an example of an article which has both the spoken wikipedia and semi-protection topicons. There are other topicons which are used only in project- or user-space. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 14:31, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
Some digging with WP:PetScan reveals that there are many articles with all three of quality rating, protection, and spoken wikipedia topicons, for instance Apollo 11, Adolf Hitler, and Jesus. Additionally, some articles have {{coordinates}}, which puts a set of coordinates alongside the topicons; Antarctica has all of these. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 14:43, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
No, "padlocks" are there for the protection of a page. Please see the page protection levels and what they entail here.
The Good Article icon simply means that the page has been deemed by the reviewer to meet the criteria for Good Article status, which you can see here. That also means that when editing you should try and ensure that you try to stick to the criteria as well, as Good Articles can be demoted if they worsen in quality. CommissarDoggoTalk? 14:33, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
There are other top icons like the GA plus sign for other content. Chris Troutman (talk) 14:36, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

Policy on number of sources

I began reviewing Pruemopterus for GA status but found that it relies almost entirely on one source. There is a second source that only covers a few sentences worth of information. I've been looking for alternative sources that could be included, the two I've found really just function as padding rather than adding something substantive. I do not think there is any explicit policy against single source GA, and WP:SPECIES states that recognized taxonomy pages are inherently notable (nor is it WP:GA's place to operate as AfD). I am just looking for clarification to see if this isn't an obscure quick-fail criteria, or if we need to pen some kind of guideline about it. 🏵️Etrius ( Us) 19:50, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

If the subject is definitely notable, I don't think there's any reason a GA can't rely mostly on a single source. I would just be careful to double-check that the article is genuinely comprehensive and neutral, two areas where reliance on a single source could cause an issue. —Ganesha811 (talk) 21:08, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
I'd say it's fine. For obscure taxa which don't have field guides or reference works about them, the original description should suffice for comprehensiveness. We can't expect sources that don't exist. AryKun (talk) 07:10, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
One scholarly source easily beats 3 random newspaper articles, but many editors seem to think otherwise. I do think the 3 plus sources as a soft rule is good to advertise, but I will ardently defend quality single sourced articles. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 02:43, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
Perhaps worth noting in addition that the existence of newspaper articles doesn't necessarily add much more notability than the scholarly source. I wrote Cyrtodactylus santana with 3 sources; two are newspaper articles that do add a bit of information not in the main source, but they are essentially reporting on the scholarly source as much as they are on the species in question and would not have existed without it. (Did not nominate the article for GA though, perhaps based on this discussion I should have.) CMD (talk) 02:49, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

organization by nomination date

I admit that it has been a few years since I was last here to review articles, but I will say that I'm rather disoriented by the lack of organization of nominations by date. I don't recall this being a big problem in the past. I always try to do the older nominations first, but I'm having a hard time figuring out where those are. Any ways in which we can improve this, such as putting a notice to nominators or having a bot correct for improper placement? Thanks. Tea with toast (話) 05:38, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

It was a deliberate change, to sort by a different order that prioritized nominators who give back by reviewing. That said, there are links near the top of the nomination page to User:SDZeroBot/GAN sorting and User:ChristieBot/SortableGANoms where you can sort and resort and get the nominations in the order you like them, either separately by subtopic or all in one big sortable table (respectively). —David Eppstein (talk) 05:44, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

Discussion at Template talk:Good article tools § Template-protected edit request on 25 January 2024

 You are invited to join the discussion at Template talk:Good article tools § Template-protected edit request on 25 January 2024. Sohom (talk) 09:46, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

Backlog drive soon?

Just to ask, should there be another GAN backlog drive soon? Because there's over 500 articles awaiting review. Happy editing, SilverTiger12 (talk) 03:54, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

There definitely should be. Right now, there are nominations waiting for review dating as far back as May 2023. Setting one for January 2024 might be too short-notice, but maybe setting one for February 2024 would be a good idea? Honestly, I think there should be more regularly scheduled backlog drives, even if it's just once or twice a year. --Grnrchst (talk) 11:26, 26 December 2023 (UTC)
I agree there should be one. I'd also agree not January, as it's far too soon and clashes with Wikipedia:New pages patrol/Backlog drives/January_2024. -Kj cheetham (talk) 12:04, 26 December 2023 (UTC)
I've been working my way through the oldest submissions. What I've noticed is a lot of reviews that got started and then got stalled. In one case, it was a single reviewer who started a whole bunch of reviews then walked away. Hopefully we can find some process improvement to prevent that from happening again. Maybe if somebody has completed N reviews, only allow them to have N in process at any one time (with the obvious exception of always allowing somebody with zero completed to start one). RoySmith (talk) 15:21, 29 December 2023 (UTC)
A drive in February sounds like a good idea. Alternatively, March would coincide with the second round of the WikiCup, which would perhaps spur some participation. Not sure holding off the extra month would be worth it, though. --Usernameunique (talk) 07:28, 1 January 2024 (UTC)
What do you think Vaticidalprophet? Previous thread with excellent info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Good_article_nominations/Archive_30#Wikipedia%3AWikiProject_Good_articles%2FGAN_Backlog_Drives%2FAugust_2023_debrief Rjjiii (talk) 08:45, 1 January 2024 (UTC)
Oh, hell yes. I was hoping to get a start this month, but I've been very busy elsewhere. March sounds good. February also sounds good, though I'm not sure if we've ran a drive in a short month before. (Drives tend to be fairly frontloaded, so it might not be a problem.) Vaticidalprophet 09:09, 1 January 2024 (UTC)
I think February is good—it has 29 days this year. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 18:47, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
We're nearing mid-month, and I think I can start organizing drive prep soon. A leap year would be an auspicious time for a Feb drive :) Vaticidalprophet 16:44, 10 January 2024 (UTC)
Is a Feb drive still happening? -Kj cheetham (talk) 21:14, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
@Vaticidalprophet: ping ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 18:30, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
I'm happy to volunteer as a coordinator for this drive if we need another hand - in the past my backlog drive counts have been relatively low, but my interest in a successful drive is high. —Ganesha811 (talk) 00:07, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
I had been meaning to raise this soon. Maybe I'm wrong, but the August one seemed to me to have cleared less than half of the backlog. I think we should do one in February. Bneu2013 (talk) 23:18, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Just wanted to check in on this: is a backlog drive still happening in February? If so, I want to give a couple of day's warning to WP:DYK as GAN drives lead to an increase in nominations there. Thanks! Z1720 (talk) 14:50, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

We need a lead coordinator - so far no word from @Vaticidalprophet, who led the last one. Assuming that they're busy, would you like to step up as lead coordinator? I'm happy to assist, as I mentioned above, but I've never led a drive before so would rather not take on the primary role. —Ganesha811 (talk) 15:06, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
@Buidhe, @Golden, @Hog Farm, @Trainsandotherthings, @Harrias, @Kavyansh.Singh, as previous recent coordinators, do any of you have availability to help coordinate a February GA backlog drive? So far I'm the only volunteer as best I can tell. —Ganesha811 (talk) 15:09, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
@Ganesha811: Sorry, but I do not have the time to coordinate a drive. Z1720 (talk) 15:28, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
Unfortunately not (t · c) buidhe 18:44, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
I will not be able to either. Hog Farm Talk 18:58, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
I am not interested in coordinating a GA backlog drive ever again given my past experiences. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 01:11, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
The frustrations sound rather widely felt. I cannot coordinate but happy to be volunteer. The system where we spot checked newbies and first review of each person at least once seemed like a good system. Coinciding it with WikiCup would help with outreach/participation.
I personally do enjoy reviewing GA and also seeing the backlog reduce to zero, but when the backlog slightly decreases that motivation is outweighed by the stressful atmosphere of reviewing people’s terse/borderline reviews instead of seeking to maximize the quality of content. What other problems do other people see/have with GA backlog drives? ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 02:36, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
Sorry, didn't get to this before -- I want to put my name down again, absolutely. (I probably can't do 90% of the work myself, though :) ) I want to do a very similar structure to the last drive, which evidently worked very well, though it'd be necessary to double-check the numbers on the current oldest nominations to see what age bonus structure is needed (I don't think we should have any 270+ noms this time, let's put it that way). Vaticidalprophet 04:25, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
Great! Count me in as a coordinator to help and conduct checks. —Ganesha811 (talk) 04:49, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

Is a backlog drive planned soon?

A few weeks ago I expressed support above for a backlog drive in February. Is such an event planned anytime soon? I think it is a huge necessity, as the one in August seemed to miss a lot of the older nominations. Bneu2013 (talk) 05:00, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

@Bneu2013 check the earlier discussion #Backlog drive soon? I guess February is unrealistic ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 02:45, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
Bneu2013, the one in August was by far the most successful ever run—340 reviews were begun, including nearly every nomination older than 90 days. If that's "missing a lot of the older nominations" I'd hate to see what you think of the previous ones. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 03:22, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

Have drafted February 2024 drive page in case this is going forward in about 22 hours

Vaticidalprophet, Ganesha811, I have created the draft of a page for the drive, on the assumption that there is still a desire and ability to run the drive for February 2024, at Wikipedia:Good articles/GAN Backlog Drives/February 2024. (Shushugah, I couldn't tell whether you were volunteering as a helper with the checks or as a coordinator, so I haven't specifically included you on the draft page; that's an easy fix if you wish to be a coordinator.) It's based on the August 2023 page; there were only two fewer 90+ day old unreviewed GANs vs. that August drive. As usual, I'm happy to keep the "Progress" section and "List of qualifying old articles" section up to date over the course of the month; the former is going to be trickier since the GAN Report page is being updated at 11:08 UTC rather than the traditional 01:00 UTC. If this drive isn't going forward, we should be clear about that as soon as possible, and either delete the page or rename it to March 2024. We're nearly up to 700 GANs in toto, so it would be helpful if we could do a drive soon. BlueMoonset (talk) 01:53, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

@BlueMoonset I personally would push for March, because of the WikiCup double incentive...and time for people to sign up as participants, so that we have a strong start/momentum. I will gladly volunteer as a helper with the checks. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 02:13, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
I'm happy to go forward for either February or March, no preference. —Ganesha811 (talk) 02:20, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
It's up to Vaticidalprophet at this point, as lead coordinator. I just wanted to be sure that everything was ready to go if this was indeed going to proceed for February, but if March is preferred, that's fine, too. Shushugah, the WikiCup first round is continuing through February 27, so we're going to get WikiCup overlap whether this runs in February or March. It would have been nice to get advance signups, I agree. BlueMoonset (talk) 04:35, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
I think March probably works a bit better -- I should have more time by then (wrapping up some large projects offwiki). Vaticidalprophet 09:10, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
I think it's too late for a February drive; we should postpone for March and have better preparation. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 04:45, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

I have moved the page to March 2024, and updated it to reflect that month. I've also listed it on the Wikipedia:Good articles/GAN Backlog Drives page as a Proposed drive for March 2024. Thank you for all the responses. I hope we're able to mount a drive in March; I'll update the List of qualifying old articles in late February. BlueMoonset (talk) 18:20, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

@BlueMoonset thank you so much for creating the page. Can I check if there should be a clear message that reviews without source checks/verification will not be counted for points? I think that has been the case for the last few backlog drives. Unexpectedlydian♯4talk‽ 21:48, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
Unexpectedlydian, it's up to Vaticidalprophet as lead coordinator, not me, whether special wording should be added specifying source checks/verification as review requirements in the Basic guidelines. While it wasn't specified last time, I do know that it was part of the criteria looked for by the coordinators during the August drive, and many reviews were disqualified for failing to do those checks. BlueMoonset (talk) 02:24, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
There was some lack of communication last drive over how much to AGF about spotchecks; I wouldn't be inclined to disqualify quite as prolifically as happened in the last run of review checks in August. (I think if a review demonstrates clear evidence of engaging with source-text integrity, e.g. referencing things in sources or querying their relevance, there's nothing gained from an explicit "spotcheck list", and that presenting spotchecks as closer to "a list of quotes" than "review suggests the reviewer has engaged with the sources" in nature is a net negative.) I want to take another look at the text boilerplate soon -- it's quite dense and could be trimmed a bit, and there should be a way to clarify the importance of spotchecks in the "reviewer engages seriously with the sources" way for review eligibility without making the wall of text longer. Vaticidalprophet 04:27, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
It was recently added to the GA review instructions itself: An in-depth review must be provided in all other cases [than quickfails]. This must include a spot-check of a sample of the sources in the article to verify that each source supports the text in the article that it covers, and that no copyrighted material has been added to the article from the source. (In my view, spotchecks can be evidenced through an explicit list or through reviewer comments about sourcing.)
It would be worth highlighting this in backlog drives for those volunteers who have not noticed this change. — Bilorv (talk) 23:09, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Proposal: split the "Sports" category into "Sports" (football) and "Sports" (other)

At the moment, the sports section has, with 95, by far the greatest number of nominations, meaning that it is hard to pick out ones you find interesting. Splitting the section into football and non-football sections would make it far more equal, at (right now) 46 and 49 nominations each. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 14:43, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

Which football--American gridiron football or association football? Mackensen (talk) 15:09, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
It looks as though AirshipJungleman's 46 is made up of American gridiron football, association football, and Australian rules football; if we were to make this split presumably the "football" section would encompass all codes (i.e. rugby league and union and gaelic football, along with the various weird UK public school codes would also be included). Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 15:29, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
All football Mackensen. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 20:33, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
Support, the split is sensible. Chiswick Chap (talk) 12:30, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
If relevant reviewers feel this split is helpful then I would support the split into two lv3 sections, I believe this has been discussed before so it's not a one-off length. Even split the two subsections would be among the large ones (only four others currently exceed 40). Practical implementation would require a change to Christiebot, I'm not sure what it is working off. Wikipedia:Good article nominations/Subtopics already does not reflect the split between Sports and Recreation, so that should be updated as well for consistency. CMD (talk) 05:36, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
Mike Christie? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 05:42, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
Presumably "Football" would be a simple and accessible subtopic code, leaving generic "Sports" as is. Up to Mike whether synonyms like "soccer", "American football", etc. would be easily implementable/help. CMD (talk) 05:46, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
I'll take a look, probably in the next day or so. Do y'all feel there is sufficient consensus to go ahead with this from the comments so far? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 06:34, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
We are almost at a week since this proposal, I suspect we can proceed. I assume rolling back would be easy enough in the unforeseen circumstance where it may be necessary. CMD (talk) 15:58, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

These changes happen rarely so I have to refamiliarize myself with what's needed. Right now the following keywords on a nomination put it in the "Sports" category:

  • sports
  • sports and recreation
  • sport
  • sport and recreation

I assume we want to keep these keywords as valid? And these keywords should presumably put the nomination in the "Sports (Other)" rather than "Sports (Football)" subsections? New keywords could be:

  • football
  • association football
  • soccer
  • american football
  • canadian football
  • gridiron football
  • gaelic football
  • australian football
  • australian rules football
  • rugby
  • rugby union
  • rugby league

all of which would put the nomination in the new subsection. That would mean all the existing nominations would stay in "Sports (Other)" until the nomination parameters were changed. Is there a better way to do this?

I recall that {{GA/Subtopic}} will need to be updated. CMD, I know you have a good institutional memory for this sort of thing: is there anything else that will need tweaking? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 17:27, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

I just made some changes but it looks as if all the sports articles are about to be put into "Miscellaneous", so evidently I'm missing something. I will revert in the next hour if I haven't fixed it by then; this is just FYI in case someone wonders why the section is screwed up. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:59, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
I think everything is now working correctly. One article has been successfully placed in the "Sports (football)" subsection; the others all use the "sports" subtopic so they are all in "Sports (other)". I'll go through now and move the other football articles and then the next run should clean them all up. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:06, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
I've done a pass through; if anyone spots anything that should be moved to the Football section please go ahead and update the subtopic on the article's talk page. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:33, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
Thanks Mike, great work as usual and it looks like everything is working. CMD (talk) 09:21, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

Is there a particular reason why we have not gone with the GA subtopics of Football and Other sports, but instead invented different names for GAN? In the past, we have attempted to match our topic and subtopic naming for the two. Admittedly, "Other sports" is less inclusive there than here, since there are additional subdivisions at GA, but "Football" should be one-to-one. BlueMoonset (talk) 03:56, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

No reason; I just hadn't noticed the GA breakdown. I'll make the change this morning. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:47, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
Now done. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:03, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
We might want to include "other sport(s)" as a new keyword Mike Christie. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 13:26, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
As it happens I just added it -- turns out it's necessary to have an entry there that points at itself. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:28, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
Mike Christie, thanks. Can I also suggest that more of the subtopics be included in the listing of what belongs under Football on the GAN page? I would have expected "soccer", since that's what that sport is known by in the U.S. even if the same thing is "football" elsewhere, and perhaps some (most? all?) of the other keywords being used? BlueMoonset (talk) 20:31, 2 February 2024 (UTC)
Could you post a revised version here, copied and edited from what we have, and see if anyone comments? Just to avoid making multiple changes, in case others also have ideas for improvements. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:34, 2 February 2024 (UTC)
"This includes association football (soccer), Australian rules football, Gaelic football, gridiron football (including American football, arena football, and Canadian football), international rules football, rugby league, rugby union, and historical forms of football." ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 21:47, 2 February 2024 (UTC)
I don't know enough about the variations myself; this looks better than anything I might have proposed. BlueMoonset (talk) 22:10, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

New subsections for "Football" categorization

This might have some overlap with the discussion above but I am curious as to whether we could add some sort of "other" subheader under the "Football" section. I just passed Winchester College football and it didn't seem to fit anywhere other than "Sports miscellanea" since none of the existing football sections applied to it, though that didn't seem satisfying since there is a dedicated "Football" section. PCN02WPS (talk | contribs) 17:40, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

You can only kick the ball once unless you kicked it your hardest? What? Neither solution here feels satisfying, but perhaps that reflects the oddball game. CMD (talk) 01:08, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
Yeah, the rules section in that article is almost incomprehensible. Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 08:22, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Older GARs needing comments

Posting here to encourage participation in reassessments from more people than the regulars at the GAR page. These are older discussions where improvement is not ongoing and which could use more participation.

Any comments would be useful. Many thanks, ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 13:14, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Talk:U.S. Route 101/GA1

Could another reviewer take a look at Talk:U.S. Route 101/GA1? A new user has quick-passed the article, but I would look a more comprehensive one to be performed for the sake of transparency. SounderBruce 06:45, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

It seems the reviewer passed the review in their edit summary (its good enough for good article) and added a wrong template to the review page. There was a similar case recently involving a minimal review of Arithmetic, see Wikipedia_talk:Good_article_nominations/Archive_30#Potential_issue_with_review_of_Arithmetic_(again). The conclusion in that case was that the review was invalid because it did not follow the review requirements at WP:GAN/I#R3. That would mean that the article goes back to being a GA candidate. I'll ping @AirshipJungleman29: who also was involved in that discussion. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:28, 3 February 2024 (UTC)
The reviewer's contribution history does not look promising. Given that the previous issues with brand-new users focused on making bad GA reviews were connected to Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Eluike, another look there might be warranted. —David Eppstein (talk) 08:50, 3 February 2024 (UTC)
Worth looking into if anyone is familiar. I've undone the addition to the GA list, and since the GA tag was applied incorrectly all that actually need to be done is to delete or increment. I've dropped a note on the reviewer's talk page. CMD (talk) 09:30, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

No reply from the user despite further edits, can an admin delete Talk:U.S. Route 101/GA1? CMD (talk) 16:27, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Deleted. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 16:33, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Voiding "Grimace Shake" review

Hi, could someone please look at Talk:Grimace Shake/GA2? We want the review voided and the article put back in the queue with its old timestamp. However, my question is whether to delete the GA2 page (undesirable as it removes conversation history from view of non-admins) or to increment the tally to GA3 (undesirable as it would be the second GA review, not the third). — Bilorv (talk) 17:39, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Since a GA fail has no real stigma attached to it (since there's no easy way to see how many nominations an editor has made that failed) I don't think it would hurt to leave it as a fail and increment the nomination to 3. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 17:47, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
Agree that there's nothing particularly undesirable about incrementation. There's no substantial review so I don't think deletion would be harmful, but at the same time if there is a concern about the conversation history then incrementing is fine. CMD (talk) 21:19, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
Okay, I believe I've done that here but let me know if I've made a mistake. — Bilorv (talk) 21:58, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
That should work; in fact since there was no fail step the bot will just treat is as removed, I think. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:29, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Location for GA at Wikipedia:Good articles/Media and drama

Hi, all. I recently passed Avengers assemble scene as a GA, but I am unsure where to list it at Wikipedia:Good articles/Media and drama, as there seem to be no similar GAs. It was nominated as a film GA so I'm inclined to put it somewhere in the film section—the closest I can find is "Film franchises, overview articles and production articles". Does anyone have any suggestions on where to list this? Thanks. Pamzeis (talk) 10:19, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

Of the existing subsections, I agree that "Film franchises, overview articles and production articles" seems like the closest fit. The existing divisions are not set in stone, however—J. R. R. Tolkien is split out from the rest of "Language and literature" to a two dedicated subsections following my suggestion to do so about a year ago—so if you have ideas as to how this could be improved, go right ahead and suggest them. TompaDompa (talk) 10:28, 3 February 2024 (UTC)
In Lang & lit, "Novels" is up to 232 articles now. Perhaps it should be split to 21st century, 20th century, Pre-20th century? Or maybe we'll have enough 19th century to make that subsection worth having also. Chiswick Chap (talk) 16:39, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
Don't suppose there is anything more thematic than arbitrary date cutoffs that might work? CMD (talk) 16:56, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
You could arrange them by genre, but that has its own attendant problems that include endless and pointless arguments, so date cutoffs seems better to me. AryKun (talk) 20:31, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Waluigi

The article has been promoted immediately for such a popular article without minor issues? Not only that, but also this Talk:Five Nights at Freddy's: Help Wanted/GA1. It definitely needs some attention. 2001:4455:3AA:B000:FC6F:73B8:1BD8:E9E2 (talk) 21:55, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Both Talk:Five Nights at Freddy's: Help Wanted/GA1 and Talk:Waluigi/GA1 fail WP:GAN/I#R3, meaning that the reviews are invalid and the articles should go back to being GA candidates. Phlsph7 (talk) 15:18, 6 February 2024 (UTC)
In addition, Begocc opened Talk:Grimace Shake/GA2 on 26 January 2024, which was listed earlier on this page as a problem, and Talk:Tupou VI/GA2 on the same day, which is currently in progress. With three of four reviews having been problematic, it seems clear that they are not ready to be a GAN reviewer at present. Perhaps after they have more experience and, for example, have nominated their own article at GAN and seen what is needed for GA quality and for proper GA review, they can try again, but it would be best if they waited a few months before reviewing here once more. BlueMoonset (talk) 05:28, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
Welp, i guess i tried at least. I would be more than happy for the reviews to be voided and placed back into the queue, and for me to stop reviewing GAN, since i mostly wanted to just try it. Ill come back when im more experienced. :D Begocci (talk) 08:26, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
Begocc, thanks for taking on the feedback and for trying out reviewing. Have you nominated a Good Article yet? Most editors successfully nominated a couple of articles and then began reviewing others' noms. It is probably easier in that order; WP:DYK explicitly advises that order for their reviews. Also, if you decide to review in the future, feel free to post back here with questions or to have an experienced reviewer look over your work. Rjjiii (talk) 04:10, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
I would probably have done that if i could actually write stuff, as, at least for me, improving articles kinda sucks.
Especially when im still in school and most of my edits are made from a tablet they let us use. :D Begocci (talk) 15:07, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
If you are allowed to edit in school and you have any questions about editing from a tablet, almost all of my quality work is done from a Samsung Galaxy S21 phone. Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 15:10, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

I have reverted the approvals of both Talk:Five Nights at Freddy's: Help Wanted/GA1 and Talk:Waluigi/GA1, removed the GA listings at WP:GA, reset the article talk pages, and removed the GA icon from the article itself. The nominations were reset, retaining their original nomination dates, and are now awaiting new reviewers. BlueMoonset (talk) 17:12, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

System to detect invalid GA reviews

Recently, there were several checkbox GA reviews that failed the review requirements at WP:GAN/I#R3. For example, see the discussions at:

What do you think about implementing some kind of assessment system where each review gets a very short assessment by an experienced reviewer? This could take the form of having a table on a new page that is updated by a bot with the GA reviews that are passed. It could be limited to GA reviews by inexperienced editors. The table has a column for experienced reviewers to assess whether the review fulfills the basic requirements. An in-depth assessment would probably take up too much time so it might be better to just have something very basic, like checking whether a source review was done or not. The assessment would not mean that the reviewer agrees with the promotion but only that certain minimal requirements are met.

I'm not 100% sure that this is the way to go so I wanted to hear what others think. Some questions would be

  • Is the problem serious enough to merit this type of response?
  • What are the minimal requirements that should be checked?
  • Is there a more efficient way to address this problem? Phlsph7 (talk) 15:46, 6 February 2024 (UTC)
I don't think we can have it both ways. We say "we don't have enough reviewers" and promote new reviewers, and then when the review isn't up to par we chastise it. For me, the solution is to still promote new reviewers, but maybe have the first one or two greenlit by an experienced editor. Not a timesink, but rather a once over to check the review is suitable. If so, give the user a bar star and tell them to keep at it, if not, let them know. Just prevent the item from being promoted until after that review.
For me, that's hands off for the experienced editor, less chance of the new reviewer being talked about for a bad review, and we don't have articles passed and then reverted later. Think of it like autoconfirmed for GAR. Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 08:36, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
It would be possible for ChristieBot to post a message, here or elsewhere, when a first-time reviewer starts a review, if that would help. Usually problematic reviews will be from a brand-new reviewer. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 09:43, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
What about a bot message for any passed GA with a review that's under X size, directing the person to go back and complete a thorough review? Maybe the bot could post here automatically as well if the review isn't expanded within Y timeframe. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 10:17, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
That could work but some of automatic review templates, like Template:GAList2, put a lot of text on the page. The size should only count the actual text written by the reviewer, not the text from the template. I'm not sure if there is an easy way to tell the difference. Phlsph7 (talk) 10:29, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
I agree with Lee Vilenski that the point should be about guiding new editors rather than chastising them. If there is a way to make it impossible for new reviewers to directly pass or fail articles but instead have a bot post a message somewhere, this could be a viable solution. This would probably need to be mentioned somewhere in the GA instructions to make new editors aware of the process. At the very least, this should happen for the very first review, but could also include the first few reviews, not sure what the best number here is. Wherever it is posted, there should be a way to mark whether a GA review has already been assessed or is still waiting for assessment. Phlsph7 (talk) 10:23, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
That's kinda how I see it working. If they do a full review, the same as you would normally, but it'd be marked as "pending", that would solve a lot of our issues, and stop our new reviewers from feeling as though they are being told off for not getting the idea. If anyone didn't know, my first GA review wasn't fantastic and I didn't do another one for some time after as I was chewed out. I did a lot more after, but I'd imagine most users wouldnt.
Yes, we want first time reviewers to do in depth, good quality reviews, but letting them do a load and then complain about it later (as the thread above does) isn't helpful to the user, and not to us going forward. I understand my suggestion would take some recoding of how it all works, but it would prevent both poor reviews and WP:BITING. Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 10:46, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
What I have done in a few cases recently is to request that a new reviewer add to the review they had carried out, for example by explaining which sources were checked. I think this has been positive in getting a more complete review without creating any administrative hurdles, and hopefully without biting. Is the envisioned proposal similar to that, albeit with pre-passing additions rather than post-passing? If so, presumably there needs to be some check on what makes an editor experienced (lest similar problems emerge), but if it is kept light-touch I can see this helping. CMD (talk) 12:07, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
Yeah, pretty much. If the review is grand, someone checking over to say so is low energy, and a good piece of support to the new reviewer. If not, then there's an opportunity to explain why not. We could talk about what makes a "new reviewer", whether that's just the first review, the first two, or the first five, but anything is good. Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 12:31, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
We're continuing to drift towards more FA-style coordination, but perhaps that is inevitable. I am cautiously in favour of the concept, and noting that is potentially technically complicated would support in the interim Mike's idea a message to new reviewers that perhaps presents a summary of WP:RGA. CMD (talk) 14:06, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
In the interest of transparency, there is no such requirement at FAC to provide a good review. But, as GAN has only one reviewer, we do need to make sure the quality is of at least a moderate level. Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 14:10, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
There's no formal requirement to provide a good review, but promotion is up to the decision of the FA coords, not the reviewer, and if a review does not engage with the FAC criteria the coords can ignore it. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 14:36, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
I can see the "pending review" system helping new reviewers (like me) who dont understand how to do a good review, and it would also prevent more situations like the ones i was in from happening in the first place. :D Begocci (talk) 15:39, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
Anything that adds another status, with tasks or requirements depending on that status, is going to be more effort to implement than something that leaves the current statuses in place (nominated, failed, passed, removed). How about a page called something like Wikipedia:New GA reviewer log that Christiebot posts to? It would simply be a listing of any review opened where the criteria are met -- probably something like "the reviewer has less than X edits and/or has never opened a GA review before". Then anyone who wants to could monitor that page and delete any reviews they had verified were adequate. That would be fairly quick to implement. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:12, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
To me, that sounds like a practical first step. Maybe the pending-idea could be implemented by telling ChristieBot to not do anything to the article and the talk page if the reviewer has less than X reviews/edits and has not yet been cleared. But I don't think that this part is essential and I'm not sure that everyone agrees with the pending-suggestion. Phlsph7 (talk) 17:02, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
Also, in case anyone is unaware of it, ChristieBot does maintain User:ChristieBot/Recent GAN activity, which does give enough information to identify new reviewers. The log page I suggested would be a filtered version of this. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:39, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
Having a filtered version of this sounds like a good solution. I wrote a first draft of the project page, see User:Phlsph7/New GA reviewer log. The bot-added links to the GA reviews would go directly into the section "GA reviews waiting for assessment". Please let me know if there are problems with the current draft or different ideas of how to go about it. Phlsph7 (talk) 10:19, 10 February 2024 (UTC)
It would be easy for ChristieBot to append a subsection with the details of each review that passes the filter. I think we need to see if there are enough editors willing to watchlist such a page, and respond to problematic reviews, to make it worthwhile to implement this. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:28, 10 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Another new and perfunctory-appearing review, with no evidence of source checks: Talk:Chicken/GA1, reviewed by User:DocZach. The nominator (User:Chiswick Chap), has many high-quality articles and I have no reason to doubt the readiness of this one, but it deserves a more thorough review. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:04, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
I've already requested the reviewer do a bit more, but haven't heard back yet. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:13, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
Chiswick Chap, they have added a paragraph at the bottom, maintaining their passage, but I must confess that it doesn't fill me with confidence. BlueMoonset (talk) 17:17, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
Agreed, a couple of eyebrow-raising non sequiturs. CMD (talk) 17:24, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
They have certainly made an additional beginner's effort after we had a chat on their talk page, and have done a spot-check of the sources. I wouldn't call it a brilliant review but they have done their honest best. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:35, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Being more precise about the requirements

The current GA instructions at WP:GAN/I#R3 state that An in-depth review must be provided but give very little information on what that means besides requiring a source check. It might be helpful both to new reviewers and experienced reviewers assessing their reviews to be a little more precise on what "in-depth" means.

One idea would be that, at the absolute minimum, a review should include at least one sentence for each of the six good article criteria. This sentence should not just restate the criterion but explain how the reviewer came to the conclusion that this specific article passes it. For example, when assessing the broadness criterion, the reviewer could list the main topics discussed in the article and mention that these same topics are covered in one or several of the main overview sources.

Having this type of minimal structure would push new reviewers to seriously think about every single criterion and decrease the risk that the article is just waved through because it looks good overall. It would also help experienced reviewers assess whether the new reviewer actually engaged with all the criteria. In most cases, a single sentence is not sufficient and the GA instructions should not imply that. Phlsph7 (talk) 18:50, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure how helpful increasingly prescriptive rules about how one should conduct a GA review are. Regarding this specific proposed rule, I don't think I've ever written or been subjected to a GA review which says anything about criterion five (stability) beyond "no issues with stability" and mostly they don't even bother with that. I can't imagine what else one could possibly say about a stable article on this point.
I'm also not convinced that having a minimal structure does push reviewers to do more than the minimum; I suspect it more makes reviewers think "this is all I need to do". Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 20:56, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
I agree. The default inclusion of the GA checklist when creating new reviews prompted people to wordlessly fill out the checklist and hit pass. Trying to mandate a rote minimum-sentences requirement is going to do the same. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 21:34, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
Also agree, I don't know if we can objectively define what counts as a proper review. Just having experienced editors glance over them to make sure they're proper reviews could work fine though. Generalissima (talk) 22:23, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
Perhaps new GAN reviewers could be paired with experienced reviewers? It could help new reviewers learn about the GAN process instead of having them rushing through their reviews. Otherwise, maybe all GANs can be opened to 2 co-reviewers since we allow co-nominators. That way, reviewers can focus on the criteria they're comfortable with. MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 03:28, 10 February 2024 (UTC)
Forcing new reviewers to seek a co-reviewer might scare some candidates away but I agree that encouraging them to do so is a good idea. Maybe we could add a sentence about this to review instructions. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:37, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Deletion of Invalid GAR

GA community please look straight over to this page, I will ping the GA contributors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/Wikipedia:Good_article_reassessment/The_Wiggles_Pty_Ltd/1 GabrielPenn4223 (talk) 20:12, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

Just like last time you were on this page GabrielPenn4223, I would recommend actually helping to write articles, instead of whatever you've been getting up to since your block expired. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 20:36, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

Finding the original GA nomination for Moss

Hi! Moss was once nominated for GA status, and failed. I'd like to bring Moss up to GA status. Is the original GA nomination + discussion archived somewhere? If so, can anyone help me find it? I need to read everything that was ever written on the topic. Polytrichum commune (talk) 16:01, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Moss#GA review. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 16:34, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
Note that at the time of that review, Moss looked like this: since then it's grown by 2500 words and 73 inline citations. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 16:36, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
But is still significantly undersourced. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 16:44, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
Indeed: step one for bringing the current article to GA status would be to fix the three citation needed tags; step two would be to address the fact that by my count currently 16 further paragraphs do not end in an inline citation, and several do not contain a single inline citation. But even if the 2007 review had said anything beyond "almost completely unsourced" the article today is so different that I do not think it would be of much help to a potential nominator now. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 16:52, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
Thank you both so much, @AirshipJungleman29 and @Caeciliusinhorto-public for the speedy responses! This is great information. I'll add the flaws you found to the article's talkpage, and create a link to this thread. Polytrichum commune (talk) 17:36, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

2nd opinion on NAFO (group)/GA1

Hey everyone, could someone take a look at Talk:NAFO (group)#GA Review? The review (which is for the article NAFO (group)) was recently speedily closed but per the advice of another editor, I think the article is good enough to qualify for a renomination as-is. Feel free to see the linked discussion and thanks in advance for the help! Cheers, Dan the Animator 21:57, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

I had advised Dan to come here. I'm not sure it it would be better to re-nominate or ask for a second opinion. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 02:16, 11 February 2024 (UTC)
There is no prejudice against immediately renominating the article if it is felt that the issues are unimportant/already resolved. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 02:25, 11 February 2024 (UTC)
@AirshipJungleman29: sorry for not getting back sooner but what's your thoughts on the strength/validity of the specific issues raised? I would definitely renominate the article sooner or later but I rather at least get something out of the closed nom before I start a new GAN yk. Thanks for the reply btw! :) Dan the Animator 19:16, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

Transcluding GA reviews onto the article talk page

I recently passed a GA nomination. See Talk:Stuart Memorial, Dunedin/GA1. In the process, a reasonably lengthy set of feedback and responses was recorded. As well as this review content appearing on the GA1 review page, it is also transcluded onto the article talk page. Once the review is complete, it is not clear to me that there is a need for the full content of the review to be in two places. My question is about the policy/practice. I know that Talk pages can be archived, but is it really necessary to retain the review comments on the main article talk page ? I was not able to quickly find any guidance about this point. Marshelec (talk) 08:13, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

Why wouldn't we want the large discussion about the quality of the article/things to improve be on the talk page of an article? Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 09:35, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
My question is: why have the review comments in two places ? The review is preserved on the GA1 talk page, so why duplicate it and clutter up the main article talk page ? Marshelec (talk) 20:31, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
The purpose of a talk page is to discuss the article. Could you please explain your reasoning for describing a large discussion on an article as "clutter[ing] up the main article talk page"? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 20:39, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
The GA1 page is the primary place where the GA review comments are made. What is the benefit of duplicating that content on the article talk page ? Marshelec (talk) 20:53, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
So that people reading the page intended to discuss the article can easily see the discussion on the article. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 21:03, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
What's more, it's not duplicated, it is transcribed. Having a record of a conversation about an article is exactly what should be on a talk page. Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 21:26, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
Hi Marshelec, as you can see from the above responses, it's clearly the cultural norm that the GA review be transcluded on the talk page. I think it's particularly (or perhaps only) helpful for "fail"ed GA reviews, as it can give others who see the talk page a clear to-do list for how to meet the GA criteria. That said, transclusion of the GA review isn't mandatory. If it bothers you at a particular article, you can probably "archive" it without bothering anyone in most cases. Ajpolino (talk) 00:21, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
If it's archived, ideally {{Article history}} would be in place so other editors can see there was a GA review, and click through to it easily. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 00:50, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
At the very least, the {{GA}} or {{FailedGA}} template will be there; both have links to the review; alternatively, as Mike Christie notes, the {{Article history}} template will have superseded GA and/or FailedGA, and again have links to the review. Transclusion is particularly useful while the review is ongoing; after the review is over, there will be a link to the review near the top of the page. BlueMoonset (talk) 04:01, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
Personally, I'e found the transclusion on the talk page a bit strange. It's a relic of the days before dedicated subpages when reviews were conducted on the talk page and nowhere else. FACs are not transcluded on article talk pages without any detriment or confusion. Imzadi 1979 → 07:06, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Chevrolet Volt (first generation)/GA1

Another rushed GA review by an inexperienced editor. I am still very much in support of a 500-edit minimum for reviews. SounderBruce 22:59, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

I am increasingly in agreement with a 500-edit reviewer requirement. I don't think we can consider that a review at all, so I'll mark it for deletion. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 23:10, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
Oh okay. Should I renominate it and wait for an experienced reviewer? (This’ll be my first nom) 750h+ (talk) 23:26, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
It'll be sorted once the original review is deleted. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 23:30, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
OK. 750h+ (talk) 23:31, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
G6'd. And SounderBruce is right - we need some kind of hold mechanism for new users, because it's getting to be a recurring issue. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 23:48, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
@AirshipJungleman29, @Premeditated Chaos, @SounderBruce; Could one of you possibly review the GAN? 750h+ (talk) 03:45, 15 February 2024 (UTC)
yea......sorry........ Arotparaarms (talk) 11:51, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

New section? Weightlifting

Hi, I've just passed a GA for a weightifter. Please could someone create a subheading for weightlifting, or let me know how to categorise the article? Thanks. BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 17:23, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

I would put it under Sports and recreation -> Other sports -> Sports miscellanea (bottom section of the page). ♠PMC♠ (talk) 19:37, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
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