Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Joe Biden/1

Joe Biden

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

Result: delisted per § Reassessment – wbm1058 (talk) 20:53, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

One of my main focuses here is the reassessment process, and I am the main contributor in this area. My attention was drawn to this article following a post on the Good Article Reassessment talk page. I am not happy with how that individual reassessment process was conducted and feel that it needs to be reexamined through a community one. My main concerns are.

• That it should have gone through the community reassessment process in the first place. Articles where the decision of the nominator is likely to be controversial should be brought to the community for discussion. This is particular true for controversial or partisan topics with a sudden surge of interest.
• Stability was brought up as one of the main reasons for delisting. My feelings on this criteria are that it is important for reviewing an article nominated for Good Article status as it gives the reviewer a stable version to review. When delisting however the opposite applies. A lot of Good Articles undergo bouts of edit warring and other forms of content dispute. That doesn't mean they suddenly are no longer good articles. Generally we wait for the dispute to end and then assess the article. In fact one little pet peeve of mine here is when the Good Article process is used as a tool during a content dispute. Even if we take the stability criteria as read, at the time of reassessment the article was fully protected. You can not get more stable than that on Wikipedia.
• There was not an adequate explanation of how the article fails the criteria. Neutrality was brought up, but it was never explained how the article failed the neutrality requirement. This was despite various other editors asking. The purpose of a reassessment is to give interested editors the chance to fix problems with the article. To do that they need to know what the problems are.

I don't know, or really care, if this article is kept or delisted. What I do care about is that it is given a chance. I do not feel that was the case in the recently conducted reassessment. I know there was a lot of delist !votes there, but this is not decided by a show of hands. What is needed is a break down of the failings which allows any interested editors the chance to resolve them. Also since this is likely to attract editors not that familiar with Good Articles it probably bears mentioning that the requirements are not as strict as many think (see Wikipedia:What the Good article criteria are not). AIRcorn (talk) 23:22, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Pinging commentators at Talk:Joe Biden/GA3 @Mz7, CaptainEek, Coffeeandcrumbs, MelbourneStar, MONGO, ConstantPlancks, Vfrickey, Vanamonde93, UserDude, and PackMecEng: Sorry if I missed anyone. AIRcorn (talk) 23:35, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

• I do not disagree with the claim that the initiator of the GA reassessment should have used the community process as opposed to the individual one, given the contentiousness of the article and the probability of a controversial outcome. With that being said, the article does fail the stability criterion of the good article criteria. This criterion states that the article should not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.
  Joe Biden is an active politician and a presumptive nominee for perhaps the most contentious political contest in the United States—as more information about his candidacy becomes known, so too must the article change, and since more information is coming out day-by-day, so too is his article changing day-by-day, with more than 50 edits in the last week alone. New content disputes are being contended every day on the article's talk page, many of which involve neutrality and quality of sources, which are also central aspects of a good article. I would reject the argument that because the article was fully protected at the time of reassessment, the article "technically" met the stability criterion—the article so poorly failed to meet the stability criterion that an administrator had to forcibly cause it to do so.
  I agree that if the content dispute was just a one-off thing that resolved itself in a month or so, there is no need to start a good article reassessment, and I sympathize with the complaint about good article reassessments being used as tools during content disputes. However, when the content of an article is subject to dispute after dispute, lasting several months, I think that should raise doubt as to whether the article is truly stable. We do not necessarily need to wait until the article is stable before reassessing whether it is in fact stable. Respectfully, Mz7 (talk) 00:02, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

I should note here that I am open to persuasion. Perhaps I am being a little jaded after trudging through all the recent contentiousness on the talk page when I closed the RfC. I figure the content of this article is changing on a day-to-day basis, and probably will until after the election is over. With that being said, if it is just a one-off dispute (i.e. the Tara Reade allegations) and there isn't anything else pending, then perhaps I am wrong. Mz7 (talk) 00:19, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Historical perspective: Barack Obama was FA through both his 2008 and 2012 presidential elections and throughout his presidency; John McCain was GA and then FA throughout his presidential campaign in 2008; Mitt Romney was GA and then FA throughout his presidential campaign in 2012; and Hillary Rodham Clinton was GA throughout her presidential campaign in 2008 and then FA throughout her presidential campaign in 2016. The same kinds of things that you have seen, and will see, with the Biden article this year – edit-warring, RfCs, claims of NPOV violations, momentary lacks of stability – are the same kinds of things that all these articles saw back then. But it did not prevent those articles from gaining and keeping their reviewed status, nor should it automatically cause this article to lose its reviewed status. This GAR should be about specific, detailed, concrete issues identified with this article – this fact here is wrong; that source there is weak; the prose in such-and-such section has inappropriate tone; this important topic has insufficient coverage; that not-so-important topic has too much coverage; etc. – and whether they can be remedied. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:36, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

The article either meets GA or it does not. Just because other articles did not get a reassessment has no bearing on this one. Right now because of the drastic changes, the RFCs and heavy discussions on controversial subjects, and rapid large changes to the article it fails stability. Full stop. Perhaps down the road it can be re-run though GA and might even pass. But as it stands there are stability issues and maintenance tags that require a lot of work to address. PackMecEng (talk) 03:34, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

• Arguments that claim noncompliance with WP:Article length, WP:NPOV, presence of maintenance tags, edit warring, and instability resulting in full PP and DS with 1RR restrictions should not be the criteria for delisting a GA is inadvertently making those failures the criteria for maintaining an article riddled with problems as a GA, and that makes a mockery of the entire GAR process. I see it as a slap in the face ^(hyperbole) to those editors who have worked hard over the years to promote, review and/or maintain GA articles to assure our readers the article actually does meet the criteria for GA. I hope the community will agree as others already have in the original GAR or we risk losing the dignity and significance of having on any article. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 11:05, 23 April 2020 (UTC) ^{Adding that the accusation by the OP is fallacious in regards to my motives for delisting as being partisan or anything but good faith, or that I, in any way, attempted to politicize the GAR process. The same could be said of the effort by those who are trying to pretentiously maintain its GA status, and a much stronger argument when the article clearly fails to meet GA criteria, so please, let's not politicize GAR - I would/have felt the same for any article in any topic area and my actions had nothing to do with partisanship, as my non-partisan view is further evidenced here. 11:32, 23 April 2020 (UTC)}
• Oppose delist. Completely concur with AIRcorn's assessment of why we're here again, and thank them for opening this discussion. I'd like to point out: at the time of this GAR, just like the previous GAR a week ago: no edit warring, no article protection, no article disputes (some will class an RfC as a dispute; 1. collaborative encyclopedia, 2. BLP matters ← good to get community input on both of those). Likewise, at the time of this GAR's opening no specific neutrality concerns have been raised — oddly enough, just like the GAR preceding this one. As such, I don't believe the article should be delisted. I am happy to be convinced otherwise, as long as editors can provide specific examples. Also, for the previous nominator to speak of a "slap to the face" and making a mockery of the GAR process... I would urge them to keep a look out for a WP:BOOMERANG. The only reason we are here is because they did not adequately explain the reasons as to why the article should be delisted in the first place — despite others specifically asking them to, might I add. —MelbourneStar☆^talk 15:04, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

• 29 April: editors endorsing a delist of this article have failed to provide examples of any of the issues they've discussed. Neutrality? no firm examples whatsoever. Edit warring? none post the PP. PP? temporary, to assist an RfC on a BLP matter. DS/1RR restrictions? WP:ARBAPDS, look at FA Hillary Clinton. It's rather disingenuous for editors to suggest a problem, yet fail to pin–point where exactly that problem is, leaving it unfixable. —MelbourneStar☆^talk 04:53, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

• I'm not a GAR regular and I've been adminning in the topic area, so I'm not going to take a position on delisting. But I do want to share some perspective into what I suspect might be going on.
  I believe Talk:Joe_Biden#RfC:_Should_this_article_include_Tara_Reade's_criminal_complaint_against_Joe_Biden? and the coincident page protection were deeply frustrating to many users. We've seen that frustration play out in several forums already. The issue was complicated because at the time the RfC started, many mainstream news outlets had not yet picked up the story, making it a questionable BLP issue. I suspect that many of the people trying to include the allegation in the article felt that their views were being actively censored by other editors and the admins who protected the article. (I believe this was true of Atsme too, who was liberally using big words like "stonewalling", "whitewashing" and "censorship" in the related talk page discussions.) I don't want to invalidate the frustration people probably feel, but I do wonder if strong feelings related to the Tara Reade thing might be coloring people's view of the rest of the article. Afterall, if there's this big group of editors and admins stonewalling coverage of the Reade allegation then certainly the rest of the article must suffer from that bias.
  In any case, I think it would be unfortunate if the GA process became politicized. GA shouldn't be a bone that partisans can fight over, but something that encourages and facilitates article improvement. For that reason I would encourage User:Atsme to follow the instructions at the top of Wikipedia:Good article reassessment by pointing out specific actionable problems and tagging the relevant sections, paragraphs, or sentences where appropriate, instead of simply demoting the article to a "C" and moving on. And I would encourage others who might weigh in here to take the time to read the article top-to-bottom and jot down a list of problems that need fixing. Whether the article gets a or not is unimportant. What matters is that the process results in actual article improvement. ~Awilley (talk) 22:02, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

• @Awilley: Perhaps you should read all the issues people have raised here and at the previous discussion. They have been laid out several times by several people in several ways. Please stop trying to color this as a partisan issue when nothing supports that misguided view. Also stop personalizing comments about editors, it is less than helpful. PackMecEng (talk) 22:19, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

• Only here as I was pinged. I respect that many GAC reviews are diligent and attempt to provide a good review, but question why one person can elevate such an article pretty much unilaterally but one person cannot delist it when "keep" arguments are weak (how an article can expand 4 fold and be expected to meet the earlier review a decade ago is beyond me) I am however well versed in Peer review and the FAC process with more than a dozen articles in which I was the primary editor and another 30 in which I was secondary that I do not even list on my userpage. This article FAILS GA due to the lack of stability. I think Atsme has adequately explained this previously at the GAR and since she is someone like others with background in GAC, FAC, etc. its not like they are some clueless noob about it. Comments about how the Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton (I was a participant in that FAC) "survived" being successfully challenged for their ranking while they were in the limelight are fair, but that could also mean that we had less diligence then than we do now. I find @Awilley:'s assumptions of bad faith regarding Atsme's efforts to also be troubling. Awilley seems to be saying that Atsme did not get her way so she decided to extract revenge...that is a pretty powerful accusation. Here is my recommendation: Allow the GAR to stand as "delisted" and in a month or two after gathering comments, place it again at GAC and see if anyone wishes to reexamine it and promote it back. GAR is not the same thing as FARC, where an article is reexamined by numerous folks and time is allowed for appropriate changes to perhaps keep it listed as FA. The instability, edit warring, good faith claims that the article lacks neutrality of this GA is more than enough reason since it was a GA, to demote it. Everyone should carefully read once again the criteria of a Good Article here.--MONGO (talk) 23:37, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Historical perspective II. Here is an example of a GAR being done for an article about a candidate in a presidential race, in this case Martin O'Malley during the early stages of the 2016 presidential campaign – Talk:Martin O'Malley/GA2. (It's one I remember because I'm the one who did it.) The GAR does not rely on general claims of edit-warring or instability or NPOV or article growth over time. Instead it lists a number of very specific faults, omissions, and other issues with the article. When there were no responses after a couple of weeks, the GA was removed. Had somebody done work to remedy the listed problems, the GA could have been retained. This is the approach that makes sense to me. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:35, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Further clarity for the reasons given to delist per GAR procedure: Also see Talk:Joe Biden/GA3 for the initial delist discussion.

1. The article is unstable - immediate fail. The article is currently under PP, DS with a 1RR restriction which is a clear indication that it is a locus of chaos now, has been for a while, and will continue to be for some time to come. When instability is caused by vandalism, we do not demote GA/FA promoted articles but the same does not apply to the instability this article suffers as the result of conflicting views and challenged material. The topic area has -0- influence because the same behavior occurs in other topic areas, and at times where it is least expected...such as a dog or fish article.

   • Response: "The article is currently under PP, DS with a 1RR restriction" — the article falls under the scope of WP:ARBAPDS. That includes FA article Hillary Clinton — which has the same restrictions. —MelbourneStar☆^talk 03:35, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

2. This article is plagued by edit warring - immediate fail. The argument that edit warring is expected in controversial articles and should not affect current GA status is an invalid argument to not delist as is the argument that there hasn't been any edit warring in a while, and the reason follows: this article has PP, DS, and 1RR restrictions that are not conducive to WP's open platform which is lauded for it's design that encourages article improvement and neutrality.

   • Response: Please provide recent examples of this article being "plagued by edit warring". I would be curious to see if they are in relation to the BLP matters which resulted in full-PP. —MelbourneStar☆^talk 03:35, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

3. The article has neutrality issues - immediate fail. See Talk:Joe Biden/GAR3 - neutrality speaks to POV conflicts that raise questions about content and compliance with WP's core content policies. Until a consensus is reached that resolves the neutrality issues, the article unequivocally fails GA criteria and should be delisted.

   • Response: Please provide examples. —MelbourneStar☆^talk 03:35, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

   • It took some time for the cautious Obama and the blunt, rambling Biden to work out ways of dealing with each other.[204] This is placed right after a maintenance tag. Username⁶⁸⁹² 03:37, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

   • Hardly POV, if anything awkwardly written like a story as the maintenance tag describes. Would need to be rewritten, though. Can you please provide a list of NPOV examples? because if there are blatant NPOV breaches, we all need to be made aware of them so they can be fixed. I would further be happy to delist if there's plenty of NPOV issues -- as implied within both this and the previous GAR. —MelbourneStar☆^talk 03:45, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

4. The article is not well-written per GA Criteria 1, as it contains too much detail, trivia, and promotion; e.g., things like his early life college football, and/or noncompliance with MOS:LEAD which states: The lead should stand on its own as a concise overview of the article's topic. It should identify the topic, establish context, explain why the topic is notable, and summarize the most important points, including any prominent controversies. Also, the article is currently 88 kB (14495 words) vs the 2008 article that was promoted to GA with 31 kB (5122 words). In its current state, the article is unwieldy and should be split per WP:Article length.

   • Would splitting his Senate career and/or his vice-presidency into seperate articles be a good idea? Username⁶⁸⁹² 14:15, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

5. The article still has maintenance tags and needs more but maintenance tags tend to be removed when instability is an issue and 1RR prevents removed tags from being restored. PP and DS w/1RR are deterrents that have a chilling effect and results in disincentivizing editors from contributing.

   • Response: I don't see why you wouldn't be able to tag where necessary if it's needed. I certainly wouldn't remove a tag (I'd be curious to see who would, especially if it's needed). Further, in the context of a GAR: we need to know where things need to be fixed. —MelbourneStar☆^talk 03:35, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

• Hopefully the above list will provide the clarity needed. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 14:00, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

I would say that the above did provide clarity, though perhaps not in the way Atsme intended. Much as I dislike bolding in this manner—it's effectively shouting—I think it's important to point out a basic fact of GAR that is being overlooked: there is no such thing as an immediate fail at GAR. There just isn't. At GAN, there is (the WP:GAFAIL, cited by many people, though in context it's clear the "immediate" part only applies to new GA nominations when article issues are so severe that there is no point in embarking on a full review), but as is evident throughout the description of how GAR works at WP:GAR, the goal of a GAR is to attempt to deal with the article's shortcomings in terms of the GA criteria: Remember, the aim is not to delist the article, but to fix it.

GAR is a deliberative process, and reading the individual GAR (Talk:Joe Biden/GA3), it's clear that the guidelines were not followed. There was no attempt to note any issues with the GA criteria aside from instability, and requests that this be done were ignored. The end result seems to have been decided from the moment it was opened: there had been edit warring, therefore GA status had to be removed, regardless of what anyone said. Never mind that the edit warring had subsided, according to more than one editor. It is a weakness of the individual GAR—as indeed with individual GAN reviews—that the opening editor has the final say, because sometimes the reassessor or reviewer gets it wrong, and that's why the community GAR is available, so that the community at large can have its say.

Going over the five points above:

1. Is the article unstable today? Right now? Measures such as being under PP, DS with a 1RR restriction are imposed to bring stability to an article that has suffered edit warring and other problems. If they have succeeded in bringing a reasonable degree of stability to the article, then the GA criteria are met.
2. Similarly, if the editing restrictions have put the brakes on edit warring (or it has subsided on its own), then again the GA criteria are met.
3. I have yet to see a specific example of neutrality issues in any of these reassessments. For this to be raised, examples of passages and/or biased sections need to be specified. Of course, since GARs are meant to bring articles back to GA level if possible, those passages and biases can be fixed in the course of this review.
4. GA criteria 1 issues: if there are sections that are problematic, again, raise them here, and if they cannot be corrected, then the delisting can stand. But they must be raised and given an opportunity for correction. The invocation of WP:Article length here, however, is not relevant, as it is not a part of the GA criteria. It may be good advice for future article development; indeed, I notice there's a split discussion currently under way. (GA status, if any, stays with the parent article.) If there are concerns regarding criterion 3b (it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style)), those should be enumerated so they can be addressed.
5. Maintenance tags on the article should be addressed in the course of a reassessment, and I hope someone will do so now that it's been highlighted. (I see one "citation needed" template, and the second half of the "First term" section's "story" template, which also has "clarification needed" and "according to whom" templates). Again, this is part of fixing the article, a clear goal of GAR.

• I have fixed the "citation needed", "clarification needed", and "according to whom" in-line tags. I used Ballotpedia references for the "citation needed" tag and reworded the content tagged with "clarification needed" and "according to whom" based on two NY Times articles. See Special:Diff/953102135; Special:Diff/953282948. userdude 00:17, 27 April 2020 (UTC), diffs added 00:23, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

My hope is that this community GAR can proceed per the guidelines at WP:GAR, particularly that the article be fully assessed against the GA criteria in terms of where it falls short today, and that those who are interested in doing so work at editing the article so that it no longer falls short of the criteria in those areas.

If the article does come to meet the criteria in a reasonable timeframe, then I trust that the consensus will reflect that fact and the article will qualify for listing. If it doesn't meet the criteria at that point, then consensus will reflect that. Either way, the reassessment can at that point be closed, and the result reflected on the article's talk page. BlueMoonset (talk) 15:43, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

• I disapprove of any attempts to cheat the system. We have proceeded per the guidelines; therefore, attempts to call an unstable article stable by ignoring challenged neutrality and multiple issues that require PP and 1RR restrictions to get it to that point make a mockery of the GA process and a travesty, indeed. Resolve the issues first, get the article stable without PP or DS, and renominate it. Imposing false stability on an unstable, challenged article is not how the GA process works. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 17:18, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

• I honestly don't know where to begin in responding to this, because phrases like cheat the system, make a mockery of the GA process, and even Imposing false stability on an unstable, challenged article is not how the GA process works don't reflect how the GAN and GAR processes do work. Even now, the challenged neutrality issues have not been identified with any specifics—flouting the very process supposedly being cheated. I just hope that when an independent closer appears for this page, they will look at the actions and arguments and actual GAR guidelines and GA criteria, and if the article meets the criteria on that date, close this GAR as relisted. BlueMoonset (talk) 19:23, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

• Thanks for the responses. I would just like to make some comments regarding a few points raised.
  • Mz7. If this was not already judged a good article and someone nominated it during a period of high activity I would mostly agree with you. It is bloody near impossible to review an article undergoing mass changes. In this case it would be prudent for the nominator to let the dust settle before proposing it for assessment. The same should really apply here. We should be judging the article under all the dust, not just looking at the current storm. A somewhat relevant discussion can be found at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 153#RfC: Proposal: make subjects actively in the news ineligible for GANs and FACs. It was withdrawn, but the consensus was clearly opposing the proposal.
  • Awilley. I agree with you. The sole purpose of this process is to improve an article. If that is not possible or no one is willing to then we delist it. Whether the article is marked as being "Good" or not is not really important. It does serve some utility as providing a standard that other similar articles can use as a template, but beyond that it is really just peer review lite. Saying that, someone has devoted a lot of time get this article up to a certain standard and we owe them or any other interested editors the chance to resolve any concerns.
  • Mongo. One person can delist it, as Atsme has already done. The community process here serves as a safety net of sorts. If someone believes an article they nominated has been unfairly failed they can bring it here so it can be reassessed by the community. Same if someone believes an article was inappropriately passed or in this case delisted. You are wrong when you say that GAR is not the same thing as FARC, where an article is reexamined by numerous folks and time is allowed for appropriate changes to perhaps keep it listed as FA.. As it says at the top of the reassessment page Remember, the aim is not to delist the article, but to fix it..
  • Atsme. You are still just reiterating the criteria with out explaining how it fails them. If it is not neutral you need to show what parts are not neutral and use sources to show how they are not neutral. If a RFC has been closed giving consensus to certain content or wording then that is considered neutral as far as GAs are concerned. This is not an end run around community consensus. Right now what we have is the equivalent of the "I don't like it" !votes at a deletion discussion. Also listen to BlueMoonset. They know more about the Good Article process than probably anyone else.

We don't need to relitigate the process. All we need is for somoene who thinks this doesn't meet th criteria to provide clear examples of how it doesn't. AIRcorn (talk) 00:04, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Oh come on. Just look at the talk page. Years ago when Biden was not running for President the article was stable enough that GA wasn't an issue. Now, there are edits all the time and they are not just gnome like edits. There are edits that involve many discussions on the talk page, many edits that have some edit wars, or RFC's, etc. The article itself is always evolving and what we have today is going to be considerable different than what may be there next week. The GA process is not for articles that are rapidly evolving. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 01:01, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

It already passed the GA process though. Sure I wouldn't recommend nominating an article that is undergoing rapid changes, but by the same token we don't delist articles because they suddenly become heavily edited. AIRcorn (talk) 08:47, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

The GA that passed 12 years ago is not the same article that was delisted - see the 5 reasons given for delisting. Just curious...Aircorn, what reasons do you believe would be valid reasons to delist a GA because it appears you are arguing in opposition to the reasons stated in GAR? A few have said that we should leave it a GA, fix the issues and improve the article but simple logic tells us articles that need fixing have problems which is the reason it was delisted in the first place, so the keep arguments contradict themselves. Fix the issues that caused the delisting, hopefully to the point the article has improved and will pass GA criteria. Until then, it is not a GA. The arguments to delist provided at GA3 were solid ones, and now similar arguments have been echoed here, some by new editors who support the delisting. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 11:47, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

BlueMoonset has already addressed your five points and I agree with what they say. The only part of the criteria I dispute as being relevant is the instability one, which has been convered quite extensively here. Every other one is fair game. I don't know how else to explain it, but we do not do immediate delists. We give editors a chance to fix the issues and to do that we need to explain how it fails. If you or other editors say it is not neutral and another editor says it is then there needs to be an explanaiton of how it is not neutral. This is not happening, just vague allusions to the talk page and protection levels. AIRcorn (talk) 23:57, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

• Comment This has reached the point of diminishing returns. There are two big problems with GAR. One is too little participation and the other is too much participation, particularly from editors who are unfamiliar with the process and not willing to listen to editors who are. This is definitely the later and it is problematic because it can drown out the more GA knowledgeable editors. I left a note at WT:GA when I opened this so hopefully some more of the regulars venture over when this settles down some and we can get some actual reassessment instead of our current retreading. This was opened because I was unhappy with how the individual delisting went. Therefore this should be considered a continuation of that reassessment, with the status quo being that it is a "Good Article". If no one presents any clear and actionable reasons on how this fails the criteria (the ongoing debate on instability notwithstanding) then it should be returned to the status quo. AIRcorn (talk) 01:08, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

@Aircorn: re: I left a note at WT:GA when I opened this – you opened this at 23:22, 22 April 2020; the last edit at Wikipedia talk:Good articles was on April 14 (a week earlier). The only note I'm finding is at Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations#Joe Biden: "make sure the comments align with the GA criteria. it also begs a deeper question on how the stability criteria applies to delisting articles that we should probably address a bit more formally at some point." It's hard for me to see how we can avoid addressing the issue now, as this strikes me as the crux of the matter. Do you mean that you want to make sure the comments align with the GA criteria, or the GA review criteria? At Wikipedia:Good article criteria#Criteria I see six good article criteria, including "it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute", but Wikipedia:Good article reassessment says, paraphrasing, "don't use this process if you see any ongoing content dispute or edit war". Despite this advice not to use this process, this process has been used twice (both individual and community) for the Biden article where there have been recent content disputes. If the GA criteria, including the "immediate failure" criteria, does not apply to GA reviews, then what are the reassessment criteria? WP:GAR doesn't clearly say what the GAR criteria are, and how they differ from the GA criteria. – wbm1058 (talk) 14:29, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Apologies, I meant the Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations#Joe Biden post. Both talk pages have similar functions (there was a propsoal to merge them at somepoint), but WT:GAN is much more frequented than WT:GA so is a better place to post if you are looking for more eyes. As far as I am concerned the stability issue is a bit of a red herring. The instructions here clearly say not to bring reassessments here during an edit war and that supercedes what other instructions on other pages say. This is backed up by Wikipedia talk:Good article reassessment/archive4#RfC: Reassessment of an "Unstable" Article on the talk page. Sure it is old, but the participants are well regarded good article contributors. Anyway old consensus still stands unitl a newer consensus is obtained, no matter how old it is. So in my opinion the instability of the article (which is disputed by some anyway) is not a reason to delist this article. It is up to those who think it should be to obtain a new consensus. Nuetrality concerns could be a reason to delist, along with referencing, prose and broadness.

As to why I brought it here, it was because I had no choice. An editor used an individual reassessment to delist this and I disagreed with how that was conducted. This is the only real way to make sure the correct decision is made as it attracts editors who are not just interested in the article, but the Good Article process as well. This will be closed by an independant editor who will either judge that the case for delisting is sound and uphold the previous delist, or that it wasn't and restore the Good Article status. I have no stake in this article so don't care whether it is a Good Article or not. What I care about is that correct process is followed and that this process is not used as a pawn to further ones own political agendas. To my mind no convincing reason has been given yet.

Moving beyond this reassessment I think some clarifiacation is needed to clear up any future misunderstandings or to change the consensus here to state that stability is a reason to delist. I close 90% of these reassessemnts and put no weight into instability arguements so if it is seen as being a good reason to delist then I would like to know that. I will start a clarification one if no one else does, but am not keen to do so while there is so much heat on this article. The last thing we need is editors with no interest in Good Articles in general making calls that could affect multiple articles based on a single relatively uncommon incidence (the reason we have such an old consensus is probably because this has not really come up that often). AIRcorn (talk) 01:25, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

The viability of your argument that instability is not a reason to delist apparently hinges on the assessment of the consensus of this RfC which was opened after a content dispute on "Poker Face" (Lady Gaga song). There is a footnote on criterion 5: "Reverted vandalism, proposals to split or merge content, good faith improvements to the page (such as copy editing), and changes based on reviewers' suggestions do not apply to the "stable" criterion. Nominations for articles that are unstable because of disruptive editing may be failed or placed on hold." In the specific case of the Lady Gaga song it was argued that edit warring was "being done under a silly pretext", but the assumption in the RfC was to take it as a good-faith disagreement rather than disruptive editing. The RfC was closed at 18:23, 18 June 2009, about a week after the last comment there, without a formal assessment of consensus, but while it was still open Geometry guy added this to the reassessment guidelines on 10 June 2009 (with edit summary "Add clause per RFC at WT:GAR)":

• Requesting reassessment during a content dispute or edit war is usually inappropriate: reviewers are rarely content experts, nor can they reassess a moving target. Wait until the article stabilizes and then consider reassessment; if significant instability persists for more than a couple of weeks, then reassessment on the grounds of instability may be considered.

The length of time to wait before considering reassessment on the grounds of instability wasn't discussed in that RfC, but I see several contemporary comments supporting "a couple of weeks":

• I guess I'll give the article a total of two weeks for the problems to be addressed and delist if they aren't. Thanks for the help guys. DiverseMentality 21:43, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
• Currently there's the backlog template on this page, despite there only being seven articles here right now. Do you think we can just remove it? Noble Story (talk • contributions) 00:54, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

  It automatically lists reassessments more than 2 weeks old, and automatically removes itself when there are none. Geometry guy 08:11, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

• Community GARs are only deliberately kept open for about 2 weeks in most cases. The fact that many remain open for 2 months or more has nothing to do with some idea that good editing happens in the second month. Instead it reflects the fact that closing GARs is a difficult responsibility which takes time to do properly - and editors with the inclination and expertise to do so are few. An article should be listed as a GA if it meets the GA criteria and not listed if it does not. Geometry guy 23:17, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

So wait two weeks, if the content dispute doesn't resolve in that time, put them on notice for another two weeks, and if after four weeks they are still disputing some content then delist it.

Thanks to BlueMoonset for pointing out this 3 March 2016 edit which they characterized as "overreach". I would use a stronger word. At this time the text "If significant instability persists for more than a couple of weeks, then reassessment on the grounds of instability may be considered." had been in the article guideline for 6 years, 8 months. Prhartcom's edit summary Major copy edit. Tried to bring consistency to the instructions for both types of reassessment. Did not change any guidelines, only improved formatting and clarity in the wording of the existing guidelines. is not truthful. Removal of the longstanding advice that after waiting two weeks, reassessment on the grounds of instability could be considered, was an (apparently bold and undiscussed) change in this guideline that put it in conflict with the "GA six". This change should have been, and still should be, reverted. – wbm1058 (talk) 16:21, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Oh, wait. The lead paragraph at WP:GAR states The outcome of a reassessment should only depend on whether the article being reassessed meets the good article criteria or not. That pretty unambiguously says that there are no separate reassessment criteria. – wbm1058 (talk) 19:57, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

• At the risk of sounding like a broken record, assessments of neutrality need to point to specific content in the source material that is inadequately represented in the article (or misrepresented). I do not see sufficient specificity in the GAR. This is not to say legitimate concerns with this article don't exist, but they have not been demonstrated clearly enough. As with Awilley, I'm not going to take a position here (the GAR was within-process, in any case; this discussion, as far as I can see, cannot overturn it; that would need a new GA review), but "biased, delist" isn't a useful thing to say at any point, because that is turning this process into a battleground, as it doesn't allow for improvement of the article. Vanamonde (Talk) 14:43, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

  struck, per below. Vanamonde (Talk) 01:08, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for your insight, Vanamonde93, but I actually did explain the non-neutral issues in various places during the discussion, most recently in the formal close as follows (my bold underline): MOS:LEAD states that the article should be well-written, and summarize the most important points, including any prominent controversies. The lead fails to include any prominent controversies, and there are several, including allegations of inappropriate touching and sexual assault; however, as evidenced on the article's TP there are ongoing content disputes. The article also fails neutrality in that it does not represent viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each. I further elaborated by providing examples of material that was not presented in a dispassionate tone (the tragedies) and that were UNDUE as over-emphasized trivia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Atsme (talk • contribs) 16:46, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Reply:

• If the "prominent controversy" you are referring to is Joe Biden sexual assault allegation I think including it in the lead would be undue recentism — dozens of controversies will likely arise during the course of a US presidential election, they do not all belong in the lede. Regardless of what I think, this is a content dispute that ought to be resolved by consensus, not you unilaterally deciding content should be included and thus the article is not worthy of GA status for not including it.
• I disagree with your claim that "the tragedies" are UNDUE and over-emphasized. With regard to UNDUE, this article is about Joe Biden and numerous reliable sources support the notion that "the tragedies" had a significant impact on his life. With regard to over-emphasis: the death of Neilia and Naomi is covered in one 135-word paragraph; the death of Beau is covered in one 85-word paragraph; Biden's brain surgeries are covered in four paragraphs, 253 words total (I agree that the fourth paragraph is trivia and I will boldly remove it after posting this comment—bringing this section down to three paragraphs, 216 words). These are all events that significantly impacted Biden's life; I fail to see how this level of coverage is UNDUE or over-emphasizing.
• If there is content written in a "dispassionate tone" please tag it or even just point it out on this page. If you already elaborated by providing examples of material that was not presented in a dispassionate tone, I kindly request that you direct me to where you provided such examples. I have tried to stay up-to-date on this discussion but I missed your examples.

userdude 17:54, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

@Vanamonde93: One function of community GARs is to reevvalute fails at GAN. We have never had to formally put it in writing that this also applies to delists at individual GARs as it has never really come up before, but the principle is the same. The Good Article process is deliberately simple by allowing individual editors to pass and delist articlew with relative felxibilty. However there needs to be a place to reavaluate contentious closes. This is the only place that can happen (I guess it could be done at the Good Article talk page if it is a blatent case of sockpuppeting or other obvious tom foolery). Bias may play a part in it (Atsme doing an individual reassessment shows an incredible lack judgement if nothing else), but the main reason I brought it here was because it was a bad close. There was no effort to give the article a chance to be saved, which is the fundamental principle of GAR and was pointed out several times. This was also in spite of multiple editors being willing to work on the article. Here was a chance for editors beleiving it should be delisted, or even better some impartial editors, to provide an actual proper reassessment. Instead it is turned into a rehash of editors saying delist because criteria and others saying explain how. The only good thing to come out of this is that it has highlighted that certain processes here need to be clarified and updated. Nothing like political wikilaywering to find the weak points in instructions. Anyway some poor bastard is going to have to read all this and come to a conclusion. My position is that if there is no consensus the default should be to keep it listed as that was the status quo before the reassessments started. AIRcorn (talk) 19:08, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

It's time for you to WP:DROPTHESTICK, Aircorn. You made my reassessment controversial when it should not have been and it was based on your fallacious allegations of it being political. Was my denial of the Trump GA nom also political? The problems with the article are blindingly obvious, and your insistence in keeping a 12-year-old promoted GA that has increased in size 4x, if not more, is now raising concern over your ability to reassess. If you think the guidelines need to be changed, then go in that direction instead of discrediting me. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 20:44, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Aircorn, Vanamonde, it has been my impression that the community reassessment was always available (as was a new GAN) if an individual GAR was felt to be controversial or problematic. (Ditto for a GAN review with similar issues.) If such was not the case, the following would not currently be given as the standard {{Article history}} introductory text at Talk:Joe Biden: Joe Biden was one of the Social sciences and society good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake. This is a perfectly valid community reassessment of an earlier individual reassessment. BlueMoonset (talk) 01:00, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

@BlueMoonset: Thanks for the clarification (and you too, Aircorn). I've struck the relevant part of my statement above. I am going to still refrain from taking a position on whether this articles meets the GAC or not, but I will state again for the record that the original GAR did not provide detailed enough analysis (with reference to source material) as to why this fails NPOV at the moment. Vanamonde (Talk) 01:08, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Are stability-based GARs appropriate?

I was reading through the WP:GAR page, and came across the following in both the Individual and Community "When to use this process" sections: You don't see any ongoing content dispute or edit war. If it's true that GARs should only be used when there aren't ongoing disputes/wars, why are we even here, and how was the original reassessment allowed to proceed at all?

It turns out that the basic idea comes down from a May/June 2009 RfC on the subject of stability reassessments. The discussion can be seen at Wikipedia talk:Good article reassessment/archive4#RfC: Reassessment of an "Unstable" Article. Consensus that something should be added to the GAR guidelines on their advisability resulted in this addition to the Community section (the feeling I get from the RfC is that individual assessments weren't appropriate, but it wasn't discussed enough for consensus): Requesting reassessment during a content dispute or edit war is usually inappropriate: reviewers are rarely content experts, nor can they reassess a moving target. Wait until the article stabilizes and then consider reassessment; if significant instability persists for more than a couple of weeks, then reassessment on the grounds of instability may be considered. The reviewers are rarely content experts, nor can they reassess a moving target phrase was removed by Aircorn in October 2012, and the current wording and expansion to all reassessments dates from March 2016. These last edits strike me as overreach, but it's interesting how many GAR nominators ignore this and many other portions of the GAR guidelines.

To answer my own question, and absent a new consensus, I'd say generally not, and delisting for stability reasons is a controversial enough practice that it should be only done as a community reassessment. Otherwise, you have editors who, as in this case, have decided the article needs to be delisted immediately, and GAR is the tailor-made process to do so. BlueMoonset (talk) 19:23, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

I am not a regular here, and Iam only going to comment on one issue: an unstable article , should not be listed as a GA. I do not see why it should be controversial.It implies a disagreement over appropriate content, and an article with such disagreement is not a GA until agreement is reached. I do not know the background of the 2009 RfC in issue, but it seems to have reached no conclusion at all. (I'm rather skeptical on the appropriateness of deciding things by 10 yr old RfCs in general) . DGG ( talk ) 19:53, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

This is probably a discussion for the talk page as it covers more than just this article. This case does highlight the issue though. From practical purposes I have closed the vast majority of community reassessments and I don't recall once delisting one for stability. In most cases they are brought here by an editor failing to get their version approved, edit warring and then claiming it can't be "Good" because of the so called edit war. We have various means to deal with content disputes and this place should not be one of them. If we take the stability criteria as including heavily edited articles or ones where content is disputed most Good Articles on current BLPs (sports personalities, politicians, etc) controversial topics (take your pick of any fringe topic) or even popular interest topics like (various sciences, countries etc) would fail it at some point. In fact even some pretty mundane articles go through periods of contentious editing. Also the aim of a reassessment is to fix an article and we fix unstablity by dealing with the root cause, either through an RFC, protection or if necessary blocks. Delisting it does not fix those issues. And then if the article stabilises do we have to have another reassessment to promote it again because it is now stable. AIRcorn (talk) 23:14, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

If stability was not an issue, it would not be one of our 6 criteria. I agree that GAR is not the place to deal with content issues, and yes, that discussion belongs on the article TP so that editors can fix the problems. When reviewing a GA, we do not edit the article, and when reassessing to delist a GA we do not edit the article, so why even bring it up? All cases are different so there is no concrete rule that applies here. We are talking about an article that was initially promoted 12 years ago when it was a fraction of the size it is now. Hopefully the process has evolved since then, and so have our standards. It is not a good article, it is not well-written, it is unwieldy in its trivia and hard to read, it is overly promotional, has neutrality issues, and more. Instability is a symptom of other issues - I refer back to the list of reasons in the highlighted section above. There are 5 reasons listed - all valid and easily spotted by an experienced reviewer/editor. In the first GA3 delist, an editor pointed out the need for a sourcing review because of neutrality concerns, and I agree. I recently attempted to recruit 2 admins to help me address Awilley's comments above because the goal is to improve the article so it will once again pass a GA review. I think BD2412 summed it up correctly in his succinct response when he politely turned down my invitation. I agree with him. It doesn't take much to see why the article was delisted, and why leaving it as a GA is a terrible reflection on the process. In the state it is in today, it is certainly not what we want representing WP's GAs. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 01:15, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Aircorn, the thing is that Atsme listed five reasons and the article RIGHT NOWis failing for those five reasons. There is just too much back and forth, and content disputing going on. The article is not neutral, the article is not stable. It just isn't a GOOD ARTICLE. It's just as simple as that. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 05:13, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Five reasons without context and some even without examples, is not five reasons at all. —MelbourneStar☆^talk 05:19, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

If you visit the talk page, you can see all the examples you need. It is clear as day that the article is not a GA candidate. What was in 2009 is not the same article. I don't get the urgency of keeping it. Delist, wait a few months and relist once everything settles. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 05:27, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

I could literally say the same thing about not understanding the urgency to delist, considering the onus is actually on those that brought this 'GAR to delist' on in the first place. Secondly, "visit the talk page, you can see all the examples" is clearly unhelpful. This is a GAR, the examples are supposed to be brought up here and discussed (especially when asked). —MelbourneStar☆^talk 05:30, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

It just makes it sound more and more like this process is being used to settle a talk page dispute. AIRcorn (talk) 23:19, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

I would encourage a wider discussion on this point at WT:GA. To the extent that this section is a question of policy, I agree with the 2009 consensus. We discourage edit wars because it harms the collaborative spirit by inflaming tensions between editors. Similarly, turning the GAR process into a venue for editors in a content dispute to complain about how the article is on The Wrong Version is not a good idea since it will most likely inflame tensions without leading to actual improvements. As an example, what meaningful improvement has come from this discussion, and how has this discussion fostered a spirit of collaboration among editors of the article? As with the 2009 discussion, I think the best procedure is to not have a GAR until after a content dispute is resolved, and if the consensus version does not comply with the GA standards, using GAR to figure out what improvements ought to be made at that point. The alternative—delisting any article in the middle of a content dispute or update—places bureaucratic nitpickery over maintaining an encyclopedia and risks editors using the GAR process to make an end run around our normal consensus building processes. — Wug·a·po·des​ 21:14, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

One exception might be if the article clearly fails the criteria before the edit war occurred. I don't think a content dispute should be a reason to have a GAR, but by the same token it should not be a reason not to have one if there were already serious flaws with the article. Although thinking about it as I type this it could be gamed quite easily so maybe better just to not have GARs during content disputes period. There is really no rush to delist articles, some sit here for months anyway before they are closed let alone the hundreds that have unresolved tags. Agree that this needs to be decided at a talk page not during a specific reassessment. AIRcorn (talk) 23:27, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

I totally disagree. We don't keep GAs for the same reason we fail them. When I delisted that article, there was not an ongoing content dispute or edit war - the RfC resolved that dispute (on the side I supported actually), and the edit warring had stopped. We don't keep GAs because of edit warring and instability. The article fails on 5 counts right out of the box. Instability is one of them, noncompliance with NPOV is another, MOS failings, yet another. I was not involved in any of the edit warring, I couldn't care less about what's going on at that article except for the fact that it clearly does not deserve GA status, and that is where my focus is and always has been. Nowhere in our GA guideline does it say you can simply overturn a delist - there needs to be more respect shown for that process. The article has already been through an initial GA3 and delisting was supported as it has been supported here. The only option that aligns with our GAR guideline is to renominate the article after the issues have been resolved and allow it to properly go through a complete GA review because of its expansion and the fact that it is not even close to the same article that was passed 12 years ago. It is going to need an experienced reviewer, and my top choices would be CaroleHenson or The Rambling Man, if they would oblige. It will not be an easy undertaking because of its unwieldy size, promotional nature and NPOV issues. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 21:30, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

With due respect, several users have raised issues with your closure of GA3 (including that it should not have been raised as an individual review to begin with)—but you have not responded to this concern, nor have you responded to the requests for examples of NPOV violations. You continue to assert NPOV and MOS violations without providing examples. Please do not try to move the goalposts of this discussion into needing a new GA review when it was clearly raised as a continuation of the GA3. userdude 22:55, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Experienced GA reviewers have already provided the information, and if you can't see where the problems are after multiple veteran editors have pointed them out, including an Arb, there is nothing more I need to say here except Happy Editing! ^Atsme _Talk 📧 23:29, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

UserDude I'd argue Atsme's conduct as it relates to this article's GA smacks of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT; when pressed on specifics, the editor has repeatedly chosen to either not respond or respond without diffs/examples. If you're going to open a GAR, delist an article, be prepared to actually answer questions and back up your rationale. —MelbourneStar☆^talk 04:53, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Appeal to authority much. Being an arb doesn't automatically give you specialised knowledge into the GA process. If we are going by experienced reviewers look at this page here User:GA bot/Stats. I have five times the number of reviews as all the editors advocating delist here combined and I have still yet to see anyone provide a set of actionable reasons why this fails. If you still need more evidence of experience then look through the closed reassessments (221 vs 5) The only other person here who could be classed as a regular is BlueMoonset who has commented on 73. These claims of experienced GA reviewers are as specious as the evidence you are providing here on how this fails the criteria. Please look at how other reassessments are conducted as you clearly do not understand the process. AIRcorn (talk) 07:32, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Re Atsme (edit conflict) But that's my whole point about placing bureaucratic nitpickery over maintaining an encyclopedia. Yes the rules might say to do X, but depending on the context, doing X may actually cause more harm than good. We're here to build an encyclopedia, not play cop over a green circle, which is why I and others have been stressing the point that GARs are collaborations to improve articles rather than a place to resolve a content dispute. So yes, you've brought up other points besides stability, but the title of this section is "Are stability-based GARs appropriate?" and so Aircorn and I are discussing that specific question; should criterion 5 apply to reassessments? I think no. GARs during and in response to content disputes are an c2:AntiPattern like edit warring. The process turns into a WP:BATTLEGROUND to gain leverage in the content dispute, and the superordinate goal of improving the article and encyclopedia take a back seat to winning an argument. The encyclopedia isn't better off because an article has or does not have a green circle in the top corner, it is better off when people work through issues and collaborate to build stuff.

With that said, I want to address your argument more directly, because I think it further exemplifies why GARs during content disputes go badly. In your opening and closing comments at Talk:Joe Biden/GA3 you cite edit warring as reasons to delist the article. In your 21:41, 16 April 2020 comment on that page, you say there is edit warring and controversy surrounding it. If it ever settles down, it can be renominated., and on this page, your second reason for delisting the article is, in bold, This article is plagued by edit warring. Your argument in this thread is that When I delisted that article, there was not an ongoing content dispute or edit war, but it seems like that is directly contradicted by your previous comment here and elsewhere. Not only are these arguments internally inconsistent, they provide no direction for how to improve an article. We have tools to resolve stability concerns, but when we use those tools that is also brought up as a reason to delist the article (argument 1: The article is currently under PP, DS with a 1RR restriction which is a clear indication that it is a locus of chaos). Stability concerns are set up like a catch-22; if the article is unstable, delist it, if administrators try to stabilize an article, that's evidence of instability and we should delist it. How is the GAR process supposed to work when the discussion is structured to force a particular outcome? I don't really care whether Joe Biden, or any article, has a green circle; I do care that the GAR process is used to build an encyclopedia and that our policies and standards reflect that goal. — Wug·a·po·des​ 07:46, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Please...sorry, but no. To begin, I find your comment "not play cop over a green circle" disrespectful to the process. In my eyes it is not just a "green circle". I will not indulge further in this unwarranted trial because it appears too much like wikilawyering. Apply the arguments you presented to me to yourselves because it works both ways with one exception - I hold that green circle and what it stands for in high regard, so please proceed with your suggestions to fix and improve the article which is the whole purpose in reassessing and renominating. But please, don't attempt to improve the article here - do it at the article TP where such discussion belongs. It is good to know that your focus is on fixing the problems and stabilizing it, and that the delisting and removal of the "green circle" is not where the focus should be. I feel that I have done my job here as a GA/FA reviewer/promoter in upholding the integrity of the process. Happy editing. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 16:05, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

I would encourage you to read User:Wugapodes/Good article status is no big deal to understand why I don't care about whether I'm disrespecting a process that has no feelings, and why I do care that GARs are more than an up-or-down vote. I've reviewed over 50 good articles nomination, written 5, and improved two of those to FA status, so I think my opinions on the process developed over the years are more than simply wikilawyering. If you would like to see the article improved, we get to the question of how to improve it? If you are such a stickler for The Process, why are you ignoring the GAR guidelines which state Remember, the aim is not to delist the article, but to fix it by saying don't attempt to improve the article here? People have asked you for specifics; you provided a list of points; other editors responded to those points; in 5 days you haven't responded to any of those comments. Your only comments since then have been to argue with people who question whether this is a good use of our time or within the spirit of the process. You're free to not participate in the community reassessment, but as the one who undertook the individual reassessment, you are not immune from having your decision and reasoning scrutinized. — Wug·a·po·des​ 20:33, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

You might want to read this article to get an idea of how things are being viewed by media. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 16:10, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

• I think this conversation isn't going anywhere fast on this page. Might I suggest that this be recapitulated in a neutral way on the GA talk page? It will get more people in the discussion and from a wider audience. Having this discussion only in the context of Joe Biden seems to be cause for discontent. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 17:47, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
• Find it preposterous that an article that has grown 3-4 fold since it was unilaterally promoted to GA like forever ago and has had a history of recent edit warring issues, suffers recentism issues, has POV issues, has NPOV issues (all evidenced by sometimes heated discussions at the article talkpage), has maintenance tag issues as clearly mentioned repeatedly and ignored by filibustering demands to provide specifics that are not even necessary since these issues alone fail this for GAC outright. If this article was presented to me for review I would immediately fail it. As I mentioned previously but apparently no one is reading...until this article is stable it should not be a GA but once it IS stable, then perhaps renominate it for GAC and see if someone passes it. I sure wouldn't in this current state, but I won't review it. I am amazed that the very criteria that would be an immediate fail at GAC are being simply ignored. These criteria are posted at the top of the GAC criteria page...if you're going to ignore that criteria then put that page up for Mfd.--MONGO (talk) 21:20, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

+1. You basically hit the nail on the head for the issues here or lack there of. PackMecEng (talk) 01:35, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

This highlights the problem I mention in my comment. You have never conducted a GA review in your 15 years editing here, yet state with absolute certainty that you would immediately fail this one. AIRcorn (talk) 01:08, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Yes! Based on the posted criteria. Maybe my 30 FA level article contributions of which I was the primary on more than a dozen? Maybe based on my experience doing peer reviews and FAC reviews? I recognize GA and FA are vastly different but one can read the criteria, so since you seem to want to ignore that criteria then may as well throw it to Mfd.--MONGO (talk) 10:51, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

I am only ignoring the stability one for reasons I have elaborated on about half a dozen pages now. The rest are fair game. The thing is we don't just say it fails a criteria we explain how it does. I don't doubt your FA credentials, but like you say this is a vastly different beast. I wouldn't show up at FA and insist I knew how it should operate if that flew in the face of how experienced editors there say it operates. AIRcorn (talk) 01:37, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Not to be rude but you are welcome to try and change the criteria. You do not get to ignore it though. PackMecEng (talk) 02:49, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

"You do not get to ignore it though" said with such confidence! I must say that is quite funny considering how those arguing to delist have "ignored" simple questions asking for specifics. Like examples of the supposed NPOV breaches. —MelbourneStar☆^talk 04:37, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

The consensus as described at the start of this section is not to delist based on instability. It applies if we are nominating an article for GA, but doesn't if we are delisting one. AIRcorn (talk) 05:19, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

I think we are seeing different consensus, because I am seeing consensus to follow policy. Which would delist based on instability. Specifically per WP:GAR, The outcome of a reassessment should only depend on whether the article being reassessed meets the good article criteria or not. PackMecEng (talk) 14:33, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

No, you don't get to close this one anymore than I could close the GA3 and not be challenged. You are involved as the OP. A third party closer completely independent of GA needs to close this discussion. Some good closers who have been acknowledged as good closers would be SilkTork, Emir of Wikipedia, GRuban and the like - impartial, experienced and nonpolitical. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 15:36, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

On second thought, I agree with Vanamonde's statement above: "...(the GAR was within-process, in any case; this discussion, as far as I can see, cannot overturn it; that would need a new GA review),.... I hope participation in this GAR has incentivized editors to participate in (a) improving the GAR process and (b) helping to fix the problems at the delisted article to make it worthy of GA status. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 17:10, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Strictly within the language of WP:GAR Vanamonde93's statement seems to be correct. As far as I can tell, GAN is the only GAR review process. Also strictly within the language of WP:GAR, I could open thousands of GARs en masse, assert neutrality violations, not respond to requests for specifics, and unilaterally decide that consensus is heavily in favor of delisting. I assert this is equivalent to Atsme's GA3, thus the delist result of GA3 should not be considered final and this community GAR should be seen as a continuation of GA3. userdude 17:54, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

GA3 formal close

As a formality - upon the thoughtful suggestion of Vanamonde93 yesterday, I concluded the independent reassessment Talk:Joe Biden/GA3 by providing a more formal close. It appears a few editors were confused or lacked a clear understanding of the reason behind the independent reassessment; therefore, the formal close brings further clarity without anyone having to spend a great deal of time actually reading the more detailed explanations in the lengthy discussions. I am dismayed by some of the allegations in the GAR and in this community reassessment that were used as part of the basis for challenging the first GAR, such as political motivation and a bit of back and forth regarding a lack of experience with the GA process by some of the participants. Of the 6 editors who have supported the delist (MONGO, Mz7, CaptainEek, DGG, PackMecEng, and myself), all but PME are experienced reviewers in either the GA or FA process and/or as qualified reviewers per WP:GOOD, including a few with experience in the reassessment process, so I'm not quite sure what the OP is referring to when he calls out inexperience. Furthermore, the allegation that the delist action was politically motivated is absurd, the absurdity of which is evidenced in some of the oppose statements, not to mention that the primary purpose of a reassessment is to improve an article. I see no correlation with politics unless there is a motive to use GA status as a means of assuring readers that everything in the article is factually accurate and represents a NPOV which is what an article's stability represents and why we attach a GA symbol. Granted, the AP topic area can be rather toxic which helps explain why so few editors want to spend any time there, and why I don't edit those articles. My main focus on WP has always been to promote/review and participate in article improvement and to help build the encyclopedia by attending WikiConferences, and becoming a member of several WikiProjects, including the Lead Improvement Team. I am also a qualified reviewer at NPP/AfC, and have 17 GAs and 8 FAs to my credit as either a nom or reviewer. The one editor of the 6 who supported delisting qualifies as a GA reviewer but I am not aware if their qualifications have yet been put to use, except for this reassessment. Happy editing. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 15:29, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

You brought experience into this when you said Experienced GA reviewers have already provided the information. I was pointing out the relative experiences of the reviewers as it seemed to be being used as a reason to delist the article without actually providing any substance. The lack of experience is not really the issue anyway, it is the lack of listening to editors with the experience. You have been involved in three community reassessments including this one. In the other two you display the same battleground behaviour you are displaying here. When editors that have been involved in many times more try and explain how Good Article reassessments should be conducted it is generally a good idea to listen to them instead of doubling down that you are right. Myself and BlueMoonset are probably the two most active editors here and we have both tried to explain how things work. Vandemonde and Wugapodes (each with over 50 reviews to their name) have also questioned the way the process was used to conduct your reassessment. By contrast the six you mention as being experienced reviewers have 0,8,3,0,0, and 10 reviews to there names respectively (as recorded by User:GA bot/Stats, which while not perfect is the best we have at keeping track of such things). Their input is more than welcome and can be valuable, but lets keep it in context. AIRcorn (talk) 00:25, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

@Aircorn:, I just came across this. You say you have much experience with GA, is it normal for an editor who initiates a review saying this fails GA is also the same editor to perform an Independent close of the review? I'm quite shocked. starship.paint (talk) 06:05, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

• @Starship.paint: Sorry been away for a bit. If you are talking about Talk:Joe Biden/GA3, then that is how it is supposed to work. There are individual reassessments and community ones. That was an individual one so it is expected for the initiated to close it. This one here however is a community one so it will need an independent closer. AIRcorn (talk) 07:17, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Closing this discussion

@Aircorn and Atsme: It's been 3 weeks since the last comment here. Should this discussion be closed? Username⁶⁸⁹² 20:14, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

Nothing has changed - the same issues that resulted in the original GAR3 delist still exist with more occurring. The article fails WP:GAR: The outcome of a reassessment should only depend on whether the article being reassessed meets the good article criteria or not. In a nutshell, it does not meet GA criteria. The article continues to be unstable, it is constantly changing, there are serious issues involving NPOV that are not being addressed, particularly in the lead as well as several issues in the body. See my most recent comment regarding those issues wherein I basically point to NPOV, (DUE & BALANCE). Read Talk:Joe Biden - read the lead of the article. There is nothing in the lead about any controversy, as if none exists, including his inappropriate behavior which dates back to his Senate days - nothing about the sexual abuse allegation per WP:LEAD which also refers back to NPOV & DUE. There is nothing about the Ukrainian investigation, despite coverage by WaPo, AP, etc. There is an attempt to keep his racist comment out of the article despite WP:PUBLICFIGURE: ...which means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic. The article still has maintenance banners and would have more if they were not being reverted. Read the GAR3 discussion, and reassessment of the reassessment which resulted in no improvement of the article because, quite simply, it is unstable and because of PP, DS, and various edit restrictions it is unlikely to be stable, much less comply with NPOV. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 11:57, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

The best way is to request a close either at the WT:GAN page or the Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Requests for closure. There are still a few open reassessments above this so if someone wants to close those it will bump this one further up the queue. AIRcorn (talk) 07:21, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

There are currently no fewer than three Biden-related requests for closure at the administrators' noticeboard (permanent link). One of these was just recently closed, while the other two have been archived without a formal closure. I believe that occasionally RfCs are formally closed after they have been moved to archives.

Talk:Joe Biden sexual assault allegation#RfC: "... alleged that Biden ..."

(Initiated 1667 days ago on 25 April 2020) Formal close needed. Thanks. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 19:09, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

•  Done.—S Marshall T/C 15:29, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Talk:Joe Biden sexual assault allegation/Archive 11#RfC: Should a separate section be included that lists people who have been told by Reade of her allegation, under a heading 'Corroborating statements', 'Witness statements', or similar?

(Initiated 1660 days ago on 1 May 2020) Non-involved admin close requested; controversial topic. Archived RfC. petrarchan47คุก 23:11, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Talk:Joe Biden sexual assault allegation/Archive 10#RfC: Should we use the word "corroborate" to describe accounts that align with parts of the allegation?

(Initiated 1653 days ago on 8 May 2020)

Non-involved admin close requested; controversial topic. Archived RfC. petrarchan47คุก 23:11, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

These requests for closure certainly lend credence to the assertions that the article has not been stable for an extended period of time. wbm1058 (talk) 11:14, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

It's easy to miss that the three discussions I boxed above are about the content of the sub-article Joe Biden sexual assault allegation, and thus are not directly applicable to the GAR of this article, the main bio. However, the discussion linked below,

Talk:Joe Biden#RFC: "Allegations of inappropriate physical contact" header, is applicable, and has not been closed yet. – wbm1058 (talk) 16:12, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

There is also another open RfC "Allegations of inappropriate physical contact" header which was started 22 May 2020. – wbm1058 (talk) 16:22, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

I have read through this discussion and have formulated a rough closure in my head. I'm working on getting the close keyboarded and expect to post my close later today. This will be my first-ever close of a Good article (re-)assessment. Normally I would defer to a more experienced closer for such a high-profile case as this, but I see that the most active GAR participants are involved in the discussion and this project doesn't have that many active administrators closing discussions – hence I am stepping up. I have posted three comments to this discussion, but this can be closed by any uninvolved registered user. (Significant contributors to the article are "involved", as are reassessment nominators; editors are not usually considered to be "involved" unless they have contributed significantly to GA disagreements about the article prior to the community reassessment.) I did not contribute to Talk:Joe Biden/GA3 except in the post-close comments. More than four weeks have passed since the reassessment was opened on 22 April 2020‎.

19 editors have contributed to this discussion 12 of 19 also participated in the individual reasssessmet

16 editors contributed to the individual reassessment 12 of 16 also contributed to the community reassessment

23 editiors contributed to one or both of these discussions. Consensus is determined by weight of argument rather than counting votes, but given that, to ensure that I've accounted for everyone's arguments, my rough count is:

* Keep (2): Coffeeandcrumbs, MelbourneStar

* Delist (9): Atsme, CaptainEek, ConstantPlancks, DGG, MONGO, Mz7, PackMecEng, Sir Joseph, Vfrickey

* Neutral or unclear (10): Aircorn, Awilley, BlueMoonset, Starship.paint, UserDude, Username6892, Vanamonde93, Wasted Time R, Wbm1058, Wugapodes

* Technical edits only (2): MrX, SNUGGUMS

The line between neutral and keep is a bit fuzzy. I have the sense that several "neutral" editors would like to find a way to keep, but generally these editors are more concerned with process than the outcome. The "delist" voters have more conviction. – wbm1058 (talk) 15:22, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

 Doing... wbm1058 (talk) 11:14, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

First things to look for: "Before conducting an extensive review, and after ensuring you are viewing an unvandalized version, check that the article does not have cleanup banners that are obviously still valid, including {{cleanup}}, {{POV}}, {{unreferenced}} or large numbers of {{citation needed}}, {{clarify}}, or similar inline tags." Given this, after two (individual and community) reviews, I was surprised to find some of these unaddressed issues:

• remove from Category:Pages with reference errors by restoring references that were removed by the edit 04:36, 6 June 2020
• Remove {{better source}} tag which was added without explanation at 12:55, 2 May 2019 by Tobby72. How can you improve on a primary source which is a video of the man speaking himself? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1j0FS0Z6ho
• clarify statement about net worth

Remaining are a few dated statement categorizations, as old as "Articles containing potentially dated statements from September 2015". I'll assume it isn't expected to try to update these for GA status to be maintained. – wbm1058 (talk) 18:25, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Reassessment

Good article reassessment (GAR) is a process primarily used to determine whether an article that is listed as good article (GA) still merits its good article status according to the good article criteria. Most GARs don't include this ({{subst:GATable}}), but, as a first-time reviewer/closer I thought it would be a useful exercise:

Rate	Attribute	Review Comment
1. Well-written:
	1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct.	I've just finished reading the article and have clarified the prose and corrected grammar in a few places. Apparently this was not done by earlier reviewers in this community review. wbm1058 (talk) 18:01, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
	1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.	The lead section was reviewed for compliance in this discussion. As a general rule of thumb, a lead section should contain no more than four well-composed paragraphs; the lead now has five, so it's pushing the length limits, but not yet so far as to cause a fail here (this issue wasn't raised in the discussion). While assertions were made about trivia in the body, I didn't see any suggestions for removal of specific text from the lead. The lead should summarize any prominent controversies. wbm1058 (talk) 15:10, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
2. Verifiable with no original research:
	2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline.	The article appears to be well referenced. I have not done a thorough review for this. wbm1058 (talk) 21:06, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
	2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose).	The sources appear to be reliable. I have not done a thorough review for this. wbm1058 (talk) 21:06, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
	2c. it contains no original research.	No evidence of OR has been presented. I have not done a thorough review for this. wbm1058 (talk) 21:06, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
	2d. it contains no copyright violations or plagiarism.	No evidence has been presented. I have not done a thorough review for this. wbm1058 (talk) 21:06, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
3. Broad in its coverage:
	3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic.	The Wikipedia:Out of scope essay says "Use the most general scope for each article you can. Since Wikipedia is a general encyclopedia, it's supposed to summarise essentially all knowledge. Hence accidental or deliberate choice of a limited scope for an article can make notable information disappear from the encyclopedia entirely, or make it highly inaccessible.", which appears to discourage exclusion of "trivia", which seems counter to the advice of the next requirement (3b) to not go into unnecessary detail. wbm1058 (talk) 22:24, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
	3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).	Hey! "focused on the topic" links to Wikipedia:Article size – and Wikipedia:Summary style is all about splitting to subtopics. So, not so fast about that stuff being out-of-scope for GA reviews. A split was proposed on 24 April 2020 which quickly gained consensus in support. Vice presidency of Joe Biden was created on 30 April 2020‎ and United States Senate career of Joe Biden was created on 1 May 2020‎, but as discussed on 18 May this work has yet to be finished. In contrast with the longish lead of this article (1b above) the leads of Vice presidency of Joe Biden and United States Senate career of Joe Biden are each just one short paragraph, making it difficult to summarize those sections here. This article cannot be recertified as a Good Article until after this work is done. wbm1058 (talk) 17:00, 27 June 2020 (UTC)
	4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.	This is such a subjective criterion that I feel that it can only be determined by consensus in a community discussion. What I mostly see in this discussion is an assertion that the article is not neutral responded to by mostly unanswered requests for specifics, and some acknowledgement(s) of "good faith claims that the article lacks neutrality". This criterion feels somewhat redundant to me. I think an article that passes all other criteria, particularly stability, is unlikely to fail on just this one. In any event the discussion hasn't sufficiently specifically addressed this criterion for me to make a call. wbm1058 (talk) 22:50, 27 June 2020 (UTC)
	5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.	As indicated above 9 !voters were leaning to delist based on instability. This was a borderline "no consensus" discussion, but regardless the outcome is the same. See additional comments below.
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
	6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content.	All 39 images in the article are tagged; most as public domain or creative commons. wbm1058 (talk) 21:58, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
	6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.	All 39 images in the article are relevant and captioned. wbm1058 (talk) 21:58, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
	7. Overall assessment.

Neutrality and stability

Items 4 and 5 are the "elephant in the room" around which this GAR revolves. I view these criteria as very much connected because the crux of the stability issues revolve around disputes over neutrality. Indeed § Are stability-based GARs appropriate? discusses this.

I noticed a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations, "List of Wikipedians by number of Good articles?" and volunteered to work on producing such a list (after I finish closing this). I think such a list for the "content creators" would nicely balance out the "gnomes list". Based on the algorithm for producing that list, I see that Wasted Time R would get credit for this GA. Indeed this seems to be a good measure based on the XTools report which gives them a significant margin over other editors in authorship, number of edits, and added text.

A point of contention in this GAR is whether an article can be delisted based on the Immediate failures criteria. It was asserted that "there is no such thing as an immediate fail at GAR" and the "immediate" part only applies to new GA nominations. But GAR determines whether an article that is listed as good article still merits its GA status according to the good article criteria. There are no separate "review criteria", so I find that the "immediate" part does apply. However, the Wikipedia:Good article reassessment "When to use this process" guideline says "Use the individual reassessment process if You don't see any ongoing content dispute or edit war and "Requesting (community) reassessment during a content dispute or edit war is usually inappropriate, wait until the article stabilizes and then consider reassessment. If significant instability persists for more than a couple of weeks, then reassessment on the grounds of instability may be considered." So, following the guideline, a GAR may only fail based on the "immediate" part after waiting at least two weeks to confirm persistent instability and obtaining a very clear consensus for an immediate fail from at least five editors in a community discussion. In fairness to Atsme, until I made this uncontested reversion, the guidelines were contradictory on stability-based reviews, so I can't fault her for starting an individual GAR. Editors are advised that in the future stability-based reassessments should only be done by the community process. This is to ensure fairness to editors like Wasted Time R who've put in a lot of work to get the article up to the GA standard. In any event, this review has gone on long enough that it is way past being able to be called an "immediate" review. - wbm1058 (talk) 21:48, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks Wbm1058 for noticing my past role, it is appreciated. But during 2015–16 I retired from working on this and other current political articles, so regardless of how much work I put into it in the past, I have accepted having no part in what happens to it going forward. I will say, as I mentioned previously in these GAR discussions, that I don't see stability per se as a barrier to GA/FA, since between 2008 and 2016 five of the six major party presidential candidate articles were FA at the time of the November elections (and some had been GA before that) and all of those may have looked on the surface like they had stability issues. But in reality the vast bulk of each article changed little from day to day and the value each article presented to the reader remained consistently high. That can be done here as well. Anyway, good luck with doing the rest of this close, you have taken on a pretty thankless task ... Wasted Time R (talk) 00:05, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

Precedents. Criterion 5 is open to interpretation: "it does not change significantly from day to day". The footnote to that provides some clarification: "Reverted vandalism, proposals to split or merge content, good faith improvements to the page (such as copy editing), and changes based on reviewers' suggestions do not apply to the "stable" criterion. Nominations for articles that are unstable because of disruptive editing may be failed or placed on hold." The key word open to interpretation is "significant". This word may be ambiguous in some situations. "Having a noticeable or major effect." "Reasonably large in number or amount." An article "undergoing rapid expansion or being rewritten" is undergoing significant change, but what about the addition of a single sentence to an already lengthy article? If that single sentence mentions allegations of sexual misconduct not previously mentioned in the article, that single sentence arguably has a noticeable or major effect. Edit-warring over the addition of that sentence may reasonably be interpreted as evidence that the addition had a noticeable effect; if it didn't, in my view an edit war is much less likely to develop.

I have heard the appeals to precedents. Wikipedia doesn't have any policies or guidelines on this. Although precedents are not required to be followed, I am sympathetic with the Wikipedia:Precedents essay. With that in mind, I searched the archives and found a nearly 14-year old discussion titled "Dealing with Bad Faith objections on controversial topics". While the debate that led to this was over religion, it seems relevant given the separation of church and state, but can religion and politics really be separated?

The dispute was over the Creation-evolution controversy article, which has since moved to Rejection of evolution by religious groups. The article was delisted per this GAR as explained by the reviewer HERE and on the revewer's talk. The {{Article history}} on Talk:Rejection of evolution by religious groups shows that the article was listed on January 22, 2006, delisted on October 4, 2006, and apparently no attempts have been made to relist it after that.

I noticed that Result: 6 delist to 4 keep, no consensus was added by another editor (not the reviewer) when they archived the discussion. I'm not sure whether the reviewer counted votes, but this edit demonstrates the view that no consensus in a GAR results in delisting rather than maintaining the status quo, which is counter to the view expressed by some in this GAR. I think that's right; Good Article Reviews simply confirm that an article still passes the criteria. If a first time assessment would fail criterion 5 if there was no consensus, then I don't see how a reassessment should have a different outcome with no consensus. I haven't seen anything in the instructions supporting that view.

I'll make a quick search now for more, confirming precedents. – wbm1058 (talk) 16:56, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

I just confirmed that the stability criterion hasn't substantially changed since March 2006 so the above precedent still seems relevant.

Another point of contention in the discussion revolves around the Wikipedia:Stable version supplement to the page protection policy. An argument was made that you can not get more stable than a fully protected article, which was rejected by another participant with the rationale that if an article so poorly failed to meet the stability criterion that an administrator had to forcibly cause it to be stable, then it isn't truly stable. I concur with this latter view. If one should wait at least two weeks to confirm an article's instability, arguably most high-profile articles will always pass the criterion because administrators will not allow instability to persist for that long before protecting the article. It makes no sense to have a criterion that can never fail. The rationale for protection should be examined. If it's protected due to vandalism, then it's still stable for GAR purposes. But if it's protected due to edit warring, then it's not. Per Wikipedia:Stable version § Inappropriate usage it is inappropriate usage to invoke this argument to avoid a delisting for instability. An open request for comment over a proposed "significant" change in content, i.e. a change that will have a "noticeable or major effect" on the article, should be viewed as a sign of instability for as long as the RfC remains open.

I realize this is problematic for articles of this type. A possible solution might be to introduce the concept of a "last good version" or a new indicator showing that the good article "may be outdated and is currently undergoing review of possible content changes". wbm1058 (talk) 20:32, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════

I suppose the sections below may be considered as equivalent to the workshop page of an Arbitration Committee case. LOL wbm1058 (talk) 15:10, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Summary-style split

For 3b, I'd like to point out that I did propose a split which ended up happening, but discussion about the prose to keep in the article went nowhere. It's been brought up again, but that discussion also went nowhere. As much as I want to help, I realize that I have almost no splitting/summarizing experience and I'm terrible at summarizing things. Username⁶⁸⁹² 02:41, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Lead section

• 1b fails - it is a campaign speech with all controversy omitted and reads like a whitewashed presentation by a candidate during an election year. Remove some of the cruft and candidate marketing from the lead, add the most notable controversies per MOS, otherwise it clearly fails 1b. MOSLEAD states (my bold underline): The lead should stand on its own as a concise overview of the article's topic. It should identify the topic, establish context, explain why the topic is notable, and summarize the most important points, including any prominent controversies. I will also note that tags regarding NPOV were wrongfully removed from this article, and I was not going to get into an edit war over it. It is not a neutral article for the reasons I have already mentioned, and it is highly protected - again another fail. Also, the independent reassessment involved community input so I don't see any difference between the independent community reassessment and the community reassessment except for a difference in the two editors who called for comments. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 13:31, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

I am not seeing much support for failing 1b from the !voters. Most of the "delist" sentiment I see is based on failing 5, and perhaps 4. Let's address your two relevant points separately. wbm1058 (talk) 15:10, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Length

The lead now has five paragraphs; the manual of style suggests reducing this to four. What would you remove? Feel free to either strike through words to omit using <s>...</s> tags or rewrite it below. wbm1058 (talk) 15:10, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

---

Username6892's opinion for removals, Removals Username6892 is less sure about, Username6892's opinion for additions

Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. (/ˌrɒbɪˈnɛt ˈbaɪdən/; born November 20, 1942) is an American politician who served as the 47th vice president of the United States from 2009 to 2017 and represented Delaware in the U.S. Senate from 1973 to 2009. A member of the Democratic Party, Biden is the presumptive Democratic nominee for president of the United States in the 2020 election. This is Biden’s third run for president after he unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination in 1988 and 2008.

Biden was raised in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and New Castle County, Delaware. He studied at the University of Delaware before receiving his law degree from Syracuse University. He became a lawyer in 1969 and was elected to the New Castle County Council in 1970. He was elected to the U.S. Senate from Delaware in 1972 when he became the sixth-youngest senator in American history. Biden was reelected six times and was the fourth-most senior senator when he resigned to assume the vice presidency in 2009.

As a senator, Biden was a longtime member and eventually chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. He opposed the Gulf War in 1991 but advocated for U.S. and NATO intervention in the Bosnian War in 1994 and 1995, expanding NATO in the 1990s, and the 1999 bombing of Serbia during the Kosovo War. He argued and voted for the resolution authorizing the Iraq War in 2002 but opposed the surge of U.S. troops in 2007. He has also served as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, dealing with issues related to drug policy, crime prevention, and civil liberties, as well as the contentious U.S. Supreme Court nominations of Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas. Biden led the efforts to pass the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act and the Violence Against Women Act.

In 2008, Biden was the running mate of Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama. As vice president, he oversaw infrastructure spending to counteract the Great Recession and helped formulate U.S. policy toward Iraq through the withdrawal of U.S. troops in 2011. His negotiations with congressional Republicans helped the Obama administration pass legislation including the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010, which resolved a taxation deadlock; the Budget Control Act of 2011, which resolved that year's debt ceiling crisis; and the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, which addressed the impending fiscal cliff. In the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, Biden led the Gun Violence Task Force, created to address the causes of gun violence in the United States. Obama and Biden were reelected in 2012.

In October 2015, after months of speculation, Biden announced he would not seek the presidency in the 2016 election. In January 2017, Obama awarded Biden the Presidential Medal of Freedom with distinction. After completing his second term as vice president, Biden joined the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania, where he was named the Benjamin Franklin Professor of Presidential Practice. He announced his 2020 candidacy for president on April 25, 2019, joining a large field of Democratic candidates pursuing the party nomination. Throughout 2019, he was widely regarded as the party's frontrunner. After briefly falling behind Bernie Sanders after poor showings in the first three state contests, Biden won the South Carolina primary decisively, and, several center-left moderate candidates dropped out of the race and endorsed him before Super Tuesday. Biden went on to win 18 of the next 26 contests. With the suspension of Sanders's campaign on April 8, 2020, Biden became the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee for the presidential election. On June 9, 2020, Biden met the 1,991-delegate threshold needed in order to secure the party's nomination.

References

References

References

Prominent controversies

What specific controversies should be mentioned in the lead? These should be controversies that are already covered in the article body.

There is no consensus for including a specific statement in the lead of Joe Biden sexual assault allegation. If attempts to add controversies to the lead of this article have been reverted, a similar discussion should be initiated to get a consensus to include them. wbm1058 (talk) 15:10, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

• Response to Wbm1058 and (1b) regarding controversies:

1. the Tara Reade RfC close states: this RfC is about how much detail about that allegation to give in the lead. A consensus has not been reached as to how much so the dispute is ongoing. Regardless, that is not the only controversy as the following will evidence:
2. Politico and other RS have published Biden's controversial ‘you ain’t black’ comment, which belongs in the lead per MOS;
3. the Vox article about Joe Biden’s controversial comments about segregationists and wealthy donors, explained;
4. the NYTimes article, Biden’s ‘Breakfast Club’ Controversy Shows What His Rivals Already Knew;
5. Time article,

Top 10 Joe Biden Gaffes - Throughout his decades of public service, the former Senator and current Vice President has earned a reputation for often saying the wrong thing at the wrong time;

• And there are many more. Not even one notable controversy is mentioned in the lead, few are in the body text, and there should be several. Sorry, but it FAILS NPOV on many counts. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 14:39, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

I agree, but the word "gaffes" makes it sound pro-Trump. Other editors may or may not think so, but that's just what I think. Thanks, Thanoscar21_{talk, contribs} 01:10, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Even Bushisms, with their own article, didn't make it to George W. Bush's lead. I don't think Biden's gaffes are more significant. starship.paint (talk) 15:36, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

• @Atsme:, a very recent RfC discussion (which you participated in) resulted in consensus not to have "you ain't black" in the body. You are free to start a another RfC for a new consensus, but to plainly assert that it belongs in the lead is simply ignoring the current consensus. starship.paint (talk) 15:36, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

  @Starship.paint: Just for clarification that is not a RFC. That was a discussion that was open about a week and a half. PackMecEng (talk) 15:40, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

  @PackMecEng: - you're absolutely right. I apologize for my error. Thank you for the correction, I have edited my post accordingly. starship.paint (talk) 15:42, 4 July 2020 (UTC)