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WP:Good article criteria

The RFC at WP:GACR was closed and the wording of the quickfail criteria has changed. Now the only reason to quickfail an article is due to excessive tags. More emphasis has been placed on failing articles without holding if they are a long way off meeting any of the six regular criteria. The ability to fail an article that has copyright violations still exists, but has been reworded as it is not something that is always going to be picked up on before reviewing started. AIRcorn (talk) 03:10, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Very good. Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 03:57, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Bradley Wiggins review stalled after blocked reviewer

The article for Bradley Wiggins was being reviewed by User:GAtechnical, but this user is now blocked and did not finish their review. The nominator, User:BaldBoris requested at the WikiProject Cycling if somebody could take over the review, but nobody stepped in. On first sight, it looks like GAtechnical was serious in the review, so it probably won't take long to finish it. Is somebody willing to help? --EdgeNavidad (Talk · Contribs) 18:24, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Went and closed/passed it after reading over the review, as the review tackles everything. Wizardman 21:31, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Clear out VG articles?

Although most of the video game nomination backlog has been cleared out, there are still articles that are awaiting review since October 2012. In a recent discussion, Judgesurreal777 was concerned about the backlog and we should remove the GA nominations. If so, would anyone be willing to clear out the backlog? Thanks, Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 04:17, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

You're free to pick up a couple and review them. Wizardman 15:37, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
I think he meant simply removing the nominations without reviewing them, considering Niemti's past nominations.--FutureTrillionaire (talk) 15:49, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
Speaking of whom, Niemti is protesting against my quick fail of what was one of the oldest GA nominations. Can someone look into this? --FutureTrillionaire (talk) 15:46, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
Now that Niemti has been blocked for two weeks, I think we should take the golden opportunity to clear out the GAs. Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 03:58, 19 March 2013 (UTC)
If no one objects, I'm going to boldly remove Niemti's outstanding noms later on today. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 16:43, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
Please do. I'm tired of everyone always complaining/debating about it. Sergecross73 msg me 19:47, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
I have absolutely no objections to removing Niemti's nominations either. I hate to see more people (especially me) complaining or debating about the GANs if he returns and creates a backlog of GAs again. Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 23:07, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
Full support, clear the decks. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 02:08, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
Strongly support as well. If David forgets then I'll remove the four remaining tomorrow night. Wizardman 03:30, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Heads up, everyone: Fladrif has proposed a topic ban on GAs and video games, as well as a site ban, on Niemti at at his RFC. Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 00:55, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Also, a ban proposal has been made at WP:AN#‎RfC proposal for community sanctions against Niemti. Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 01:45, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Blogs at 2012 Formula One season

I tried asking at the RSN, but it was archived without comment. I am reviewing this article's Good Article nomination, and at first glance seems to be in good shape (albeit HUGE), but there are many references to blogs, including Wordpress blogs. The issue is that while such blogs are "largely not acceptable" per WP:SPS, the bloggers seem to be well regarded individuals in their field. The nominating editor makes a case for them at the GA review page, but as I have no expertise with the F1 community, I cannot properly decide if these are acceptable despite the guidelines, or if they are to be considered invalid, and thus result in a fail of the nomination. F1 Fanatic (Keith Collantine) is the most important one as it is used quite heavily, but jamesallenonf1 (James Allen, with a professionally built website), joesaward.wordpress.com (Joe Saward), adamcooperf1.com (Adam Cooper) and scarbsf1.com (Craig Scarborough) are also at issue. I am really quite unable to decide if the sources should be given leeway or not. Resolute 01:39, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

They may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications. I don't know enough about these authors, but if your nominator can point to other published works by these authors in a motor racing forum you are willing to accept as reliable then they are probably alright. I would not accept them for anything that may be deemed even slightly controversial however. My personal feeling is that if the claim is important enough to include in an article here there should be information covering it in reliable sources, not just blogs. If a large part of the article is using these sources (note I haven't looked at the article in question) I would question its focus. AIRcorn (talk) 21:34, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Language and "main aspects"

A question that's come up for me in several GA reviews: does the "main aspects" criterion (3a) assess coverage, or presumed coverage, in other languages as well? Or is it sufficient that the article cover the "main aspects" according to English-language reporting and scholarship? I don't have any good answer for this myself, so I thought I'd ask for more general opinions.

Context: I've been writing several articles on Panamanian presidents lately. Since Panama only has a population of 4 million, the English-language coverage tends to be spotty: a patchwork of articles on major actions and scandals of their presidencies, mostly Canal-focused, with little coverage of their lives before or after the presidency. Presumably more thorough Spanish-language coverage exists, and I've attempted some searches of Panamanian newspapers, but my slowness with Google Translate makes it difficult to find.

The current article in question is Ernesto Perez Balladares. I've asked for help from a Spanish speaker to round it out, which might obviate the issue in this case, but I was curious about the broader point for my own reviewing. Thanks everybody! -- Khazar2 (talk) 02:34, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

I have been thinking about this for some time now and don't really have a good answer either. The best I can think of is "it depends". For an article on a non-English entity that is missing important information that should be found in reliable foreign language sources then I think there is a strong case for failing it due to broadness. To use a simple example, say a foreign film is nominated with no discussion on reception. There might not be any English language reviews, but there should be a few reviews in the language it is filmed in. I don't think the excuse of having no English reviews is a reason not to have any reviews. However, the lack of non-English sources should not be a reason in itself to fail such an article. If the reviewer can't think what parts are missing, then the main aspects are likely covered. There are probably cases in between, where a reviewer just thinks there should be more coverage on a certain area even though a little bit is already mentioned. These would have to be judged by the reviewer and nominators on a case-by-case basis.AIRcorn (talk) 01:43, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
Thanks, that makes sense. -- Khazar2 (talk) 15:43, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Oldids not being added to articles

The Category:Good articles without an oldid backlog is now up to 71 articles. If you people can't do the review properly by not adding this crucial information to allow tracking, then you shouldn't be reviewing GAs to begin with. WTF? (talk) 13:39, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Well, I guess I'm one of "you people" here. I've always passed GAs according to the instructions atop WP:GAN:
If you feel the article meets the Good article criteria:
Replace {{GA nominee}} on the article's talk page with {{GA|15:09, 30 March 2013 (UTC)|topic=|page=}}.[1] The "page=" parameter should be a number only - no letters. Please include "GA" in your edit summary.
List the article on Wikipedia:Good articles under the appropriate section.[2] Encourage the successful nominator(s) to review an article themselves.
Perhaps a more productive suggestion would be to correct the instructions, rather than suggesting that a large number of people quit reviewing. -- Khazar2 (talk) 15:09, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
Nothing wrong with the instructions, a bot is supposed to do the oldid when it updates the article history[1]. It seems that the bot has been offline for two months now. As can be seen from that thread Maralia (talk · contribs) is working on a new one and doing some manually at the moment. So you can still keep on reviewing articles Khazar. Although we should probably help Maralia keep up manually until it is online. AIRcorn (talk) 18:00, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
Whew! =) -- Khazar2 (talk) 18:18, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
It says right at the top of Category:Good articles without an oldid that User:Legobot has a task to add oldids to articles in the category. A little research shows that task hasn't run since 17 March. I left a note for the bot operator. Maralia (talk) 03:53, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
Seems to be working now.--SabreBD (talk) 11:25, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Reviewing my fictional character review (Saitō Hajime (Rurouni Kenshin))

Hi, could someone check if my review is valid at Talk:Saitō Hajime (Rurouni Kenshin)/GA2? It's my first time reviewing a character article and I believe the article is currently a mess. DragonZero (Talk · Contribs) 04:14, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Back log in songs?

There seems to be a backlog on some nominations e.g. Trouble (Leona Lewis song) is over three months old! — Lil_℧niquℇ №1 [talk] 17:23, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Because people don't want to review articles which enables others to get more points. Exactly the same happened last year. That is the mentality of a lot of people. For nearly every song I've nominated this year, I've reviewed another. Other people should do the same.  — AARON • TALK 17:40, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
If you mean WikiCup points, articles from December aren't eligible for the 2013 WikiCup. What points scheme is involved here? BlueMoonset (talk) 21:07, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
I havent put myself forward to be part of the wikicup this year, and as BlueMoonset pointed out Dec nominations aren't eligible. Also in previous years there were issues with wikicup nominations resulting in editors doing a "you pass my article, I'll review and pass yours" in points exchanges that led to some shoddy GA articles. — Lil_℧niquℇ №1 [talk] 00:31, 29 March 2013 (UTC)
That's a worry. Can you provide links to these? AIRcorn (talk) 12:30, 29 March 2013 (UTC)
I would also be interested in seeing these. I'm not sure it's fair to blame the WikiCup for shoddy reviews and backlogs; both of these have been a problem with pop music articles for a long, long time; WikiCup or no WikiCup. J Milburn (talk) 12:43, 29 March 2013 (UTC)
I don't think the wikicup alone is to blame but I would suggest that its contributed to a culture of "I won't review XYZ article but ABC user hasn't reviewed an article and got me wikicup points". There were some issues raised here @ Wikiproject Beyoncé Knowles where I previously brought up comments by others and there was found to be inconsistencies in the quality of articles. Comments by Aaron just show that editors are priortising GA review based on whether they will get a review back in return. I do not for one second claim that all editors are being unfair but I worry about the effects that the wikicup has on editors simply churning out articles for the sake of a earning a "wikicup title". — Lil_℧niquℇ №1 [talk] 13:57, 29 March 2013 (UTC)
I know it's only for this years articles, but most have been nominated this year. People don't want others to get more points than them. It's a repeat of last year. Because I nominate quite a lot, I make sure I review someone else's to try and reduce the backlog. And yeah people have been asking others for reviews in exchange to have their own reviewed.  — AARON • TALK 14:19, 29 March 2013 (UTC)
If you could provide diffs I'm sure everyone would appreciate it. It's a real concern if this is happening. - Shudde talk 00:38, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
I remember thinking this could be a concern with wikicup reviews, but the few I checked were as good as, and in some cases better, than the average review here. Most editors taking part are established and dedicated editors and have been nominating and reviewing GA's for a while. As to song articles there was a concern brought up a while ago about tit-for-tat reviewing. I thought it was more a case of editors sharing similar interests than anything sinister. The same thing happens with hurricanes, roads, video games and many other specialist topic areas without much concern. Anyway if editors are refusing to review wikicup participants articles because they don't want other editors to receive points then that is more a wikicup problem than a Good article one (we don't, and shouldn't, draw a distinction between wikicup GAs and non-wikicup ones). However, if sub par reviews are being conducted to earn points then that is an issue that concerns Good articles. BTW waiting three months for a review is not uncommon anymore. AIRcorn (talk) 02:11, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
I'm more concerned about a conflict of interest causing reviewers to pass an article that may not meet the GA criteria. Not so much about the time it takes for an article to be reviewed. I'm certainly not accusing anyone of anything, but am worried by Lil-unique1's comment that "some issues raised @ Wikiproject Beyoncé Knowles where I previously brought up comments by others and there was found to be inconsistencies in the quality of articles". Anyway that is why I asked for diff's. Proof of problems (or potential ones) are important. It would be easy to add a comment on any relevant Project's talk page just saying there are concerns about this without pointing fingers or causing drama. - Shudde talk 03:10, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
  • You guys could always ask Khazar to take a look. He's reviewing a lot, even though unfortunately he's working on the wrong end of the backlog. Wizardman 02:24, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
  • It's not really my area of interest/expertise (or rather, the music that is my area of interest rarely gets nominated), but I guess I can take a few extra to help this area catch up. As for the backlog, I do apologize that I've been focusing on newer stuff the last few weeks. But I've also cleared 50-70 backlogged articles since January, which is a number I'll put up against anybody. -- Khazar2 (talk) 03:24, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
  • Wow. I didn't notice how long the backlog for songs is. I'll pick up a few articles to review. I've sort of been focused on my own thing as of late and haven't reviewed much. I don't think it's necessarily about the other people getting points thing, it could just be people are too preoccupied in working on their own articles that they don't pay attention to others.  — Statυs (talk, contribs) 02:45, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
    i'm obviously not going to provide diffs and put them here! Lol.  — AARON • TALK 10:34, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
    Why not? J Milburn (talk) 17:46, 31 March 2013 (UTC)
    Because I'm not snitching people so openly.  — AARON • TALK 11:53, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
    I think this proves that there is some element of favouritism going on regarding preference of articles being reviewed thanks to the wikicup. I suspect some users use email as means of hiding any kind of collusion as with the project Beyoncé thing and previous years a clique of users were accused of creating a "You review mine, i'll review yours" culture — Lil_℧niquℇ №1 [talk] 16:56, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

If there is a backlog of song articles, that means that reviewers are not interested in reviewing so many song articles and more articles should be written about other topics, to help counter systemic bias. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.234.1.57 (talk) 05:34, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

My nomination Tracy Thorne-Begland has been under review for a little over a month now; three weeks of that have been a hold for having a dead link in it. (The dead link is not a bare URL and sources non-controversial information.) The reviewer posted several times to me that they never pass an article with a dead link in it, which has left us at an impasse. After a few weeks, I asked that they simply fail it so I could renominate and get a second opinion. The reviewer posted to my talk page that they were withdrawing from the review, but refused my request to close it.

Since this appears to be the only point at issue, would anyone be willing to take a quick look at the dead link in question and pass/fail the review? Or would it be best to fail my own review and renominate? It might be best that this review simply start from scratch; this one was a bit of a trainwreck. Sorry for the dramaz, thanks for the help. -- Khazar2 (talk) 18:37, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

I could look at it, but that is likely to be 24 hours, give or take, from now. However, I'm likely to read the article from the first section to the end, and then the Lead. I don't pass or fail on the basis of just commenting on one citation. Pyrotec (talk) 19:04, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
It's one of three citations supporting this sentence: "Tracy W. Thorne was born c. 1967 and grew up in a well-off family in West Palm Beach, Florida." Why not break the deadlock by getting rid of the dead link? Is there something the other two citations don't cover? Malleus Fatuorum 19:17, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
No, there is not. Hekerui (talk) 19:34, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
Get rid of it then. Problem solved. Malleus Fatuorum 19:37, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict)x2: Pyrotec: that'd be great if you get a chance. If not, no worries.
MF: There aren't many sources out there on TTB, and I hate to delete one just because of a reviewer's personal preference; I also wanted to leave it as a back-up since this sentence has proved such a point of contention for the review (a "belt-and-suspenders" approach). The information is adequately sourced from other places, though. I'll remove now. -- Khazar2 (talk) 19:45, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
By the way, Malleus, good to see you back! -- Khazar2 (talk) 20:09, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
As Malleus suggests, the simple solutions are often the best, but failing that, why not just source to an old copy via the Wayback machine. That's a key reason why we put access dates on cites. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 20:18, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
It doesn't seem to have been archived by the Wayback machine,[2], but two citations ought to be enough for anyone for simple birth details like these. The best way to handle this kind of thing would be to cite the actual hardcopy newspaper (assuming it was actually printed in the newspaper as opposed to just being a web article), which you can perhaps still do, and just remove the url. Malleus Fatuorum 20:35, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
I tried that, too; unfortunately, the reviewer stated that they wouldn't allow it remain in the article without a page number from the hard copy, to which I don't have access. But as you say, the other citations should be fine for now. -- Khazar2 (talk) 20:52, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
Sounds like your reviewer needs to be reminded of the GA criteria, and not review articles against his or her own personal preferences. Malleus Fatuorum 21:47, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
You failed to read the review in question, or else you would have noticed that I gave the same advice you gave, before you did, up until I learned that the citation was not actually used for the birth year (or anything). You can of course go through the review page and tell me in detail what I did wrong, that would be better than a cheap shot. Do you agree? Hekerui (talk) 22:16, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
Do I agree about what? That you fail to understand or apply the GA criteria in your reviews? Sure, I'll agree to that if it'll make you happy. Malleus Fatuorum 22:23, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

If it's any use, what I assume is the same article can be accessed through Nexis. The citation is: Cerabino, Frank (4 October 2006). "Foley's sexual orientation a not-so-secret secret". Cox News Service. This can be confirmed by anyone with access to the database, and could easily be cited to it, by adding something like "Accessed via Nexis on 3 April 2013" to the end. If you like, I can provide you with the text about the article subject- it does confirm that Thorne-Begland "grew up in West Palm Beach", at least. J Milburn (talk) 22:32, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, that is already sufficiently sourced with the philly.com source. I only objected to the citation leading to a 404 while it was not checked against a printed version to source (what I mistakenly assumed was) the birth year. Now the birth year was approximated from both listed articles where his age is given. Misunderstanding then let to this complaint here. Someone else please finish going over the article, but you can see in the review that at least what I remarked has already been addressed. Thank you Hekerui (talk) 22:50, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
Thanks, J Milburn. I will re-add this to the article as a backup; I should have thought to request a Nexis search for this the first place.
As for the dead link issue itself, it seems worth restating that WP:GAC, WP:GACN, and WP:LINKROT all explicitly state that a dead link that's not a bare URL is still considered verifiable and therefore does not need to be checked against a print source. (You can see extensive discussion about that here, too, for example.) I'm still not sure why this issue came up at all, but I'm glad we're on the other side of it now. -- Khazar2 (talk) 23:02, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
The salient point here is that information must be verifiable, not that mandatory verification must occur before passing a GA. Provided a news article is correctly formatted to show the publication name and date, it can be manually checked in archives if required and hence is verifiable. The URL just makes it super easy. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 08:34, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
Exactly. Malleus Fatuorum 09:17, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
Just to follow up, since the reviewer has declined to offer final judgement and withdrawn from the review, I'm failing the article myself and renominating. If there are any objections, just let me know. Thanks to everybody who took the time to comment here and at the review. -- Khazar2 (talk) 01:14, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Talk:Omak School District/GA1

I'm not certain this quick-fail meets the criteria, as there were only some prose issues and the sources are actually fine. The same reliable sources can be used repeatedly. I can understand the prose issues, but I believe the review should not have been quick-failed. TBrandley 13:49, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

This user is creating a batch of new reasons for failing articles. Some are quite amusing. For example, they do not like offline sources. But they are throwing away hard work.Rain the 1 14:48, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
Looks, at first glance, to be a very poor fail. I recommend renominating, although I have notified PrairieKid so that an explanation may be offered. J Milburn (talk) 22:01, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
For the umpteenth time, I am not in any way opposed to offline resources, and it is starting to bug me that, rather than respond to my valid reasoning, you instead choose to practically ignore everything I have said, Raintheone.
As to Omak School District, the Omak School District page- the prose to me really was at a very poor level. Another user has done a complete rewrite to the article, which is likely the version you all have looked at. If you would look at the version here, you will see what I had in front of me. Even as it stands now, the article is not near the quality it needs to be for a GA, in my opinion. I felt it would need (and it looks like it still will likely need) a very detailed rewrite. The refs are not perfect, but, at that point, I would have allowed for a wait period to fix the issues. The prose simply was not near there. Not every article can be a good article, and while I thought there was a lot of information considering the subject, I just did not think it was up to par. You may, as always, seek a reassessment, and I have already agreed to stop reviewing GAs until I have more experience here on Wikipedia. Thank you. PrairieKid (talk) 23:49, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
Based on the linked version I would say a fail on prose is a fair call. The image fail rational is wrong though (images are not a requirement) and I would need to examine closer for the 2b one. Overall I think the prose was poor enough to justify failing the article without holding it. AIRcorn (talk) 12:26, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Soliciting Reviewers for WP Course Projects (updated 04/22/13)

Groups of students in a class on Wikipedia this semester have been hard at work on articles they're trying to get to GA status before the end of the semester. All of them have been nominated and four of the six have received at least a partial review with some useful feedback. I'm hoping to get the other two reviewed by the beginning of next week (~4/16) to allow time to fix and resubmit in case of failure. I'll link all six below and update it periodically in the hope there are reviewers sympathetic to this kind of time sensitivity. (There is a Plan B to account for the uncertain nature of this process, in which I apply the GA criteria as a grading rubric, but it's not ideal for a number of reasons).

  • James B. Hunt Jr. Library - unreviewed, but this is less pressing than the others (it was a lower stakes whole-class project completed prior to taking on the larger assignment articles represented below)
  • Goathouse Refuge - unreviewed, but see new section below about an ongoing complication with this article
  • Driverless tractor - article was placed on hold on 4/7 for grammatical errors. Students have copyedited the page and made several other improvements in the time since, but are having trouble as of 4/22 securing re-evaluation. Unsure if they should renominate or continue to wait for the reviewer. (To be fair to the reviewer, the bulk of the revisions were only made in the past week).
  • Genevieve Lhermitte - under productive review currently
  • Great New York City Fire of 1845 - working on changes based on Fail feedback now a GA!
  • Polled Dorset - working on changes based on Fail feedback now a GA!

Thanks. ...If there is a more appropriate place to post this, just let me know. --RM395 (talk) 23:44, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Are you planning to renominate the two failed ones? AIRcorn (talk) 12:27, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
Absolutely. I'm hoping everybody will be done with their revisions in the next few days, at which point the groups will work with their reviewer where possible and renominate.
As of today, we have one successfully listed as GA and we're still looking for volunteers to review Goathouse Refuge and, though slightly less pressing, James B. Hunt Jr. Library.
Thanks! --RM395 (talk) 13:43, 12 April 2013 (UTC)
April 22, 2013 update, reflected in the list above: Two of the articles have achieved GA status. A third seems to be very close. Driverless tractor was placed on hold on 4/7 and has made several revisions since then. I'm inclined to recommend they renominate, but will wait another day or two in the hopes the group can get in touch with the original reviewer. Goathouse Refuge is in a peculiar state I could use some help with (see below). --RM395 (talk) 00:52, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Incorrect fail

This edit suggests that Joseph P. Kennedy III failed when it passed. What is wrong with GA bot? I will as Chris G (talk · contribs) to comment here.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 18:15, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

The bot got confused because there was both a {{FailedGA}} and a {{GA}} template on the page. I've updated it so that it will now ignore the FailedGA if this happens again. Sorry about that. --Chris 02:50, 13 April 2013 (UTC)
Thanks.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 23:09, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Question

What does it mean to see (Reviews: 80) next to the start review link in the list. Surely the article was not reviewed 79 previous times. BollyJeff | talk 14:59, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

It means that that person has reviewed that many articles. To use me as an example, it would say, Darrman1, Reviews: 1, because I reviewed one article. Darrman1 (talk) 15:05, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

So it is how many reviews that this article's nominator has conducted on other peoples articles? BollyJeff | talk 15:36, 15 April 2013 (UTC)
Correct. —Bruce1eetalk 15:40, 15 April 2013 (UTC)
To be more precise it's a count of how many reviews that reviewer or nominator (since both editors may have a review count against their username) has opened on other people's nominations. Some or all of those reviews may have been completed, but its not a count of completed reviews. Pyrotec (talk) 15:58, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

A followup question: Is there an easy way to find out what those opened nominations were? BollyJeff | talk 12:22, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

I have no idea what I'm doing

I've been looking all over the place for something that describes how to pass an article, but this is the closest thing I could get, which does not mention any of the specifics. I assume that some part of this is automated. What do I need to do in order to formally pass an article? Impalement is the article I'm working on. PraetorianFury (talk) 17:14, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Once it's passed the criteria, you switch the template on the article's talk page--details at the subpage Wikipedia:Good article nominations/Instructions. Thanks for reviewing! -- Khazar2 (talk) 18:07, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
That helps. Gonna add it to the reviewing good articles article so there is a direct line from the nominated article's talk page to the instructions on how to review... PraetorianFury (talk) 18:31, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Well-intentioned but illegitimate GA review

(This is more or less an extension of the #Soliciting Reviewers for WP Course Projects (updated 04/22/13) section above, but an unusual issue that could use immediate attention).

The Goathouse Refuge article was created and nominated for GA as part of a class assignment. One of the editors came to me today to inform me that he/she had mentioned to someone offline that their article was the only one in the class which had not been formally reviewed yet. It would seem the sympathetic recipient of this information, unfamiliar with Wikipedia let alone the GAN process, later signed up and started the review process. Before the student could request otherwise, the would-be reviewer passed it and it is now a GA.

I'm hoping for advice on the proper course of action here. I'm assuming we should just delete the GA1 subpage, remove the GA template, and renominate? Please don't hold this against the editors, who notified me and tried to intervene as soon as they discovered what was happening.

As this is a time sensitive course assignment and these students had already been on the list for quite a while, I'm hoping we can do this in a way that doesn't place them at the bottom of the queue again?

Apologies for the mishap. --RM395 (talk) 00:50, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

I removed the GA template as an obvious first step. Will wait for advice on the best course of action from here. --RM395 (talk) 00:54, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
There is no restriction on who can review an article, as long as they are not major contributors and they sign in, and there is also nothing wrong with passing an article without making any suggestions for improvement if the article already meets the criteria. I will have a look and see if it meets the criteria and if it does I would say just to let the pass stand. If it doesn't we can work together to fix it or delist it. AIRcorn (talk) 01:20, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
I just came across this article as I was doing my ArticleHistory work, and was debating whether to raise the issue of what looked like a questionable review. Glad to see someone is already looking into it. Maralia (talk) 01:53, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
I saw this too and also have problems with it. Zad68 02:21, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Talk:No worries/GA2 request for community reassessment

I request that this be a community reassessment and not an individual reassessment:

  1. The nominator failed to consult the instructions and neglected to notify me, the original GA contributor who brought the page to GA.
  2. The nominator failed to cite any secondary sources to back up any of his assertions.
  3. The article hadn't principally changed or been degraded in quality in any way since its initial GA promotion.
  4. The article already did indeed have a worldview perspective, bringing together information from numerous secondary sources.
  5. The article already did include discussion of usage in multiple locations, including a total of five (5) countries.
  • Can this GA Review please take the form of a community reassessment and not an individual assessment, or at least not from a contributor with a vested interest to delist the article page who did not do due diligence first???

Thank you for your time, — Cirt (talk) 17:35, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Culture, society and psychology subtopic

The instructions page and the top of the nominations page have "Culture, society and psychology" as a possible subtopic. However, this section does not exist, and the nomination template does not accept it. There is however, a "Culture, sociology and psychology" section. Can someone please fix this.

Also, I am now not at all sure that I chosen the correct section for my article, which is about a custom. This would certainly come under society but not sure that sociology would be right. SpinningSpark 11:19, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

IP review of Talk:Pygmy marmoset/GA2

An IP has started the review page for the pygmy marmoset, it looks like an editing test and the user wasn't really sure what they were doing. Anyway the article now looks like it's currently being reviewed and will dissuade a registered user from picking it up. Could someone delete the page please? Cheers, Jack (talk) 11:28, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Done SpinningSpark 12:13, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
Thanks! Jack (talk) 15:05, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Template GAR result

{{GAR/result}} seems to be broken. It leaves a message saying it needs substituting even when it is substituted. Is it still in use? The reassesment I just closed did not have a {{GAR/current}} which is what the instructions say GAR/result should replace when closing. SpinningSpark 12:18, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Assuming you mean Talk:No worries/GA2 it is probably because you were closing an individual reassessment whereas that template is used on community ones. AIRcorn (talk) 04:42, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Talk:Sandra Fluke/GA1

For the record, could an experienced reviewer comment on this January review? It's May 2, and I only just noticed this.

  1. GregJackP participated in the August 22, 2012, deletion review of Sandra Fluke where he voted to uphold its deletion. However, the closing admin chose to restore the article instead, and the article was re-created.
  2. On 4 January 2013, Casprings nominated Sandra Fluke for GA.[3]
  3. On 9 January, GregJackP quick failed the nomination due to what he perceived as stability issues.[4]

Looking at GregJackP's claims, I question his supporting rationale. He writes:

Article is not stable, it has, in the past year been deleted, recreated, nominated for deletion (procedural speedy keep), redirected, and recreated. Content disputes on the talk page have been fairly continuous, with the last ending just over 1-1/2 months ago (attorney or not), and numerous others ending just over 3 months ago. BLP content issues according to the page history have been continuous, with the last BLP removal occurring this week. The article page history also shows constant content disputes and IP vandalism.

This is a strange rationale for a quick fail. The page history shows that the article was stable at the time of the quick fail.[5] Further, GregJackP's use of the word "stable" appears to be at odds with how we apply the criteria. Additionally, the talk page was dead when the review took place, and there was no active content dispute in progress on talk or in the article. Finally, considerations of "IP vandalism" do not come into play at all here.

To conclude, it looks like GregJackP quick failed this article because he personally believed it should not exist, not because it met the criteria for a quick fail. This appears to be a bad faith review, and I ask at this time that any other reviews GregJackP has participated in be reviewed for accuracy. Thanks. Viriditas (talk) 22:33, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

It's probably a moot point now, especially as GregJackP is retired, but I agree that someone who'd voted on an article's deletion is an involved party and shouldn't have been its GA reviewer. If you're thinking of renominating, I say go for it. However it was in January, it's clearly stable now. -- Khazar2 (talk) 23:04, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for looking at it. GregJackP has retired several times, and he's a pretty good editor, so either he's not familiar with how GAN works or there was personal bias involved. I would like to know why we don't have a system in place that let's us look at all of the GA reviews by a single editor. I'm getting very tired and frustrated of requesting this feature over and over again. Who do I need to contact to get this done? Viriditas (talk) 02:12, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
That's a good question. The best, if cumbersome way, I can think of for now would be to go to the User's contributions, set it to recognize only article talk space, and then use your browser's search to look for GA1, GA2, etc. GregJackP's recent reviews appear to be:
Thank you. You are very helpful. Viriditas (talk) 03:29, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Talk:Donghak Peasant Revolution

Why is this article not on the nominees list, when it's been nominated since April 16?--Seonookim (What I've done so far) (I'm busy here) (Tell me your requests) 07:00, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Could be because the template was within another template. I've changed that. If the bot doesn't pick it up, try removing the template and then adding it back. J Milburn (talk) 10:48, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Talk:New York State Route 167/GA1

The review of Talk:New York State Route 167/GA1 has stalled and I do not feel I am able to reach a consensus with the nominator and complete the review. I request that another reviewer takes this one over. Thanks, SpinningSpark 22:23, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Is the GA bot ignoring me?

Ever since my review of Saitō Hajime (Rurouni Kenshin), the GA bot has neglected to add that review to my review count. When I started to review Itachi Uchiha, the GA bot hasn't edited on that article once and my review count is still at four. The GA bot is pretty active though, and Carolina Panthers' review ended later than mine yet the bot was able to tag it. Did I make a mistake somewhere? DragonZero (Talk · Contribs) 23:11, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

I had the same issue when I reviewed The Road Not Taken. I never found out exactly why my review wasn't counted but my guess was that when the bot was updating the GA nominations page, my pass of the article was marked as "Maintenance" in the edit summary, instead of being marked as "Passed The Road Not Taken". I don't know if the bot's edit summary makes a difference in a user's review count, but this was the only explanation I could come up with. //Gbern3 (talk) 17:55, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply. I'll try reviewing another article to see if the GA bot will react. Its been two reviews since the bot did anything for me. DragonZero (Talk · Contribs) 02:41, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Reviewed Vincent Valentine. Bot didn't transclude review, update my count, or put up the GA icon. DragonZero (Talk · Contribs) 09:33, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

There are two points to cover here. Firstly, the GA bot count does not appear to be based on completed reviews, its based on the number of review pages (/GAx) created. So if I were to create a review page, e.g. Talk:Foo/GA1, my count would either be set to one or would be increased by one. Passing or failing a nomination does not effect the review count. Secondly, I've also had those problems with "passes" quite a few times and I think I've discovered the reason. The instructions on how to pass a article are quite specific: an article under review has a GA "string", say such as "''{{GA nominee|19:19, 26 April 2013 (UTC)|nominator=[[User:Rufous-crowned Sparrow|Rufous-crowned Sparrow]] ([[User talk:Rufous-crowned Sparrow|talk]])|page=1|subtopic=Biology and medicine|status=onreview|note=}}''", note the Page No. comes before the Subtopic. However, to pass an article, the GA "string" has to be partially reversed to {{GA|~~~~~|topic=|page=}} . It seems that if the article is "passed" by setting {{GA|~~~~~|page=|topic=}} the GA bot ignores it as a "pass" and just does the "maintenance mode" operation described above. Pyrotec (talk) 16:23, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
Oh, but I did create the review pages and I ordered the GA pass like the first example. DragonZero (Talk · Contribs) 22:32, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
Same here. I reversed the string to pass it and I also created the /GA1 page, so if the count is based on page creation then my count should have gone up. //Gbern3 (talk) 08:47, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

What happens if I try to edit User:GA bot/Stats? I should be at 7 or 8 now. DragonZero (Talk · Contribs) 02:34, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

I did that once, since GA Bot also ignores me, then had everything end up double counted when the bot later went back and added everything up. Resolute 03:15, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
Yes, you should be able to update it manually. How long ago did that happen? I did a manual run through awhile ago to try and correct some of the counts, so that might have been what caused it. --Chris 11:25, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
Good to know there is a workaround. I just manually updated it to fix both my and DragonZero's count. //Gbern3 (talk) 19:30, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

The problem here is that you are changing the status to onhold before GA bot has a chance to do anything. GA bot only updates your count if it also changes the status from new to onreview. Once the status is onhold or onreview GA bot doesn't update your count, so that it doesn't update twice for the same review. So if you wait for GA bot to change the status to onreview, it should update the review count. Sorry, it's a known bug, but it requires quite a bit of restructuring to fix and I simply haven't had the time to do that yet. --Chris 11:25, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Oh Thanks! I always thought I had to change the status myself after creating the review page. DragonZero (Talk · Contribs) 05:48, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

I can't find link to page where reviews are going on. I mean, not only for the article nominated by me but for any article appearing on nomination page. It just says 'start review' and take me to blank page. I am completely unaware of GA procedure. neo (talk) 19:34, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

The page is blank until a reviewer starts work on the article; this can take anywhere from a few days to a few months. -- Khazar2 (talk) 20:10, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
I hope review of Palak Muchhal starts in a week. I may not be on net or much active after 31 May for 3-4 months. Thanks! neo (talk) 08:41, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
If you won't be here between that time, go to the articles talk page, and edit the "|note=" parameter in the GA nomination template and say that you (as the nominator) may not be able to respond to a review for a certain amount of time. Also, you should contact another editor that may be willing to address any issues if a review is initiated during the time that you will be away.--Dom497 (talk) 13:44, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
I will do it when I am sure about my absence. And I hope that review starts soon. This is my first GA nomination. Hope to learn from mistakes (if any) in article. Thanks. neo (talk) 14:07, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

A Deleted Nomination

One of my students created an article, Haynes Academy, nominated it for GA on April 8, then, after waiting for a couple weeks a would-be reviewer simply deleted the nomination on the talk page without creating /GA1, without further information on the talk page, and without leaving the nominator/contributor a message on his/her user page. This strikes me as counter-productive newbie-biting and can't imagine it fits in with GAN procedure. ...But I'm not sure. I plan to talk to the editor directly, but do not feel experienced enough with the review processes to know that this is entirely irregular, so I'm checking here first.

For context, I'm teaching a class in which students create articles and work to bring them up to GA status. In addition to the course project, students were offered extra credit for creating another article on their own time according to the same standards. Unlike the primary assignments, I did not keep tabs on or spend time in class on individuals' extra credit and, as it turns out, didn't even know about some of them until the last days of the semester. It's too late now to resolve this. It would seem the student gave up upon removal of the GAN without feedback on what to do next. --RM395 (talk) 17:55, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Just to be clear, I'm not inquiring as to why it doesn't meet the criteria. I don't doubt there are many issues, but it would've been nice to have at least a quickfail explanation to go by.--RM395 (talk) 17:56, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
I agree that this seems both against policy and counterproductive. Quickfails should have at least a few sentences of explanation, and should be archived on a GA subpage for future reference. Let me ping the editor in question for comment. -- Khazar2 (talk) 17:58, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
Yes, User:Grammarxxx should have informed nominator why article fails GAN. It is blunt to simply remove GAN from talk page. neo (talk) 18:16, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
The reasoning behind my nomination removal was that, like another article the user nominated, had many of the same issues. Instead of initiating the review and quickfailing it I was hopeful the user would just look at the review of the other article and learn from it. I didn't think it would be such an issue, as it's been done to me before. Grammarxxx (What'd I do this time?) 18:39, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
I've reinstated the nomination. Hopefully someone can provide an actual review with pointers of where the article needs to be improved. As far as I can see, problems with the article should not be dealt with like this- only procedural issues (such as a withdrawn nomination, withdrawing a bad faith nomination or a regular contributor reverting an over-enthusiastic drive-by nomination) would justify removing the nomination outright. J Milburn (talk) 18:41, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict)Sorry to hear it's been done to you, Grammarxxx--it's definitely not standard practice, and you should feel free to renominate the article in question so that it can get an actual review (even if a quickfail). You can see instructions for how to fail an article at WP:GAN/I. I'd recommend that even if an article has identical problems to those you pointed out in another review, you should still either note what those problems were or link to the other review, so that other editors interested in the article in the future will have a record that the article was nominated before and your suggestions for it; otherwise, it's hard for other editors to keep track of what's happening. Thanks for reviewing. -- Khazar2 (talk) 18:47, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Stalled review

After my GAN for Confusion (album) was picked up on May 1 by Idiotchalk, the reviewer said at the review page that they would do it over the next two days. I left a message at their talk page on May 16 asking about the delay. Should I ask renominate the article? Dan56 (talk) 22:26, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Review shopping

At Talk:Maria Sharapova/GA5, I failed the article largely for extensive violation of WP:IC. The nominator contests whether that page is sufficient violation of WP:WIAGA for failure, noting that a general reference at the bottom of the article is a citation for every paragraph. I reminded him that IC begins by saying " Many Wikipedia articles contain inline citations: they are required for Featured Articles, Good Articles, and A-Class Articles." I offered a WP:GAR discussion. Instead the nominator promptly renominated the article without fixing the problem.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 23:36, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Well, if the primary rationale for the fail was " At a minimum, each paragraph needs a citation and each fact should be cited", I support the renomination. The GA criteria are quite explicit that only some statements need inline citations, while WP:IC is not a GA criteria. This is listed as a common mistake at WP:GACN, the explanatory essay linked from the GA criteria. Is it possible to offer a criteria-based rationale for your failing this one? That might help clear up the situation. -- Khazar2 (talk) 00:47, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
Yes 2(b) refers to "direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged". At GAC, the operating procedure is that statistical results need to be cited. I don't know that they are likely to be challenged in the sense of being contentious, but they are something that the reader may want to WP:V. Half of what I write is sports and I could probably omit the need for half of my citations if I copped out with a general reference career statistics page. The standard since the beginning of this decade if not earlier has been to use WP:ICs for statistical results. Returning to general references is a step back about five years in the evolution of GA. Why would we suddenly want to allow general references for large swaths of uncited text?--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 10:55, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
I agree that any statistic needs an inline citation, of course; I just didn't realize that every paragraph here contained one. That makes sense, then. -- Khazar2 (talk) 11:49, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
I'd be more sympathetic with the nominator if he didn't have a long history of doing review shopping, immediately re-nomming if he doesn't get his way. Wizardman 00:49, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
It looks like Wizardman already closed GA6, and the article doesn't appear to be in very stable form at the moment anyway. It's probably best that the talk page discussion run its course first and then we could see where we're at. -- Khazar2 (talk) 17:27, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
User:LauraHale has tagged the page with {{sources}}. It seems he is finally adding some ICs.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 22:29, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

GA review by brand new editor?

I'm not very familiar with the GA review process but what has happened today with University of British Columbia seems a bit off to me. Can someone more familiar with this process please take a look? Thanks! ElKevbo (talk) 21:23, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, probably not a good idea for a user to review for their first-ever edit. -- Khazar2 (talk) 22:21, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Irish articles

Has the GA process stalled or is no one interested in reviewing the Irish nominations? There are 6 of them and 4 are languishing there since April. Any takers? ww2censor (talk) 12:17, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Unfortunately, there's usually a backlog, as you can see from the nominations page. This is especially true for sports articles, which have many nominators and few reviewers. Your help would certainly be welcome if you're interested in reviewing one or more of these! Cheers, -- Khazar2 (talk) 12:23, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
Indeed I see the backlog is quite long. While I have been involved in a few FAs and FARs, I have no GA experience, however some guidance and possibly mentoring might get me going if you are another GA reviewer has a bit of time. ww2censor (talk) 12:41, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
I'd be very happy to help if you like. If you've been involved in FAs, GAs should be no problem by comparison--if anything, the challenge might be not to be too hard on them. The essay What the Good Article Criteria are Not gave me a good starting point for what to look for and what to not worry about in a review, but the criteria are mostly self-explanatory. If you do choose to start a review, feel free to ping me if you'd like a second pair of eyes. Cheers, -- Khazar2 (talk) 12:53, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Moving a nom between categories

Hi all! I trust that Geographical name changes in Turkey GAN somehow landed in a wrong category - Warfare, while it appears to belong to Geography. Should it be moved and how exactly? In addition, there seems to have been recorded an incorrect date of nomination, but I'm quite unsure if that warrants any concern.--Tomobe03 (talk) 12:22, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

Changing the template on the article's talk page will result in it being moved to the correct category, I think; I'm pretty sure I just fixed an article this way yesterday. Perhaps the date can manually be fixed the same way? -- Khazar2 (talk) 12:24, 8 June 2013 (UTC)
Yup, I had nominated Palak Muchhal in misc cat. One editor changed it to 'music' by editing talkpage template. Hope that this helps. neo (talk) 12:33, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

Rubber stamp reviews

I've had my first GA approved today, but to be honest I'm not happy. When I nominated my first article for GAN, I wanted to test it out and see how far away I (or in this case, the article) was from the GA-standard. I've read some GA-reviews, and they always have some positive feedback that the nominator can learn from to the next time. In the case of my article, which I don't believe is a GA though not far from it, I've gotten a rubber stamp review (that can be read here) without any issues to adress and no indication that the good article criteria has been met. I agree that reviews like this is ok when reviewing articles from more prolific editors, like my countryman Arsenikk, but the reviewer in question does this in most of his reviews, and one of the articles that was reviewed by this user had a GAR opened the next day (Talk:FK Partizan/GA2). I believe someone needs to tell this guy how to review GA's - given that the user is reviewing one article per day s/he might be a great asset for this project when s/he learns to do it right, but I believe it should be done by someone with more experienced from reviewing and nominating GA's then myself. Mentoz86 (talk) 20:30, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

I think we both know that article doesn't meet the GA criteria, but as there's nobody in charge nobody can do anything. Added to which, WP:GAR seems to be dead. Eric Corbett 23:23, 10 June 2013 (UTC)
Hi Mentoz, sorry you didn't have the experience you were looking for in your first review; I hope it won't sour you on the GA project generally. I'll take a look at your article in more detail tomorrow if you like, and give a second opinion on whether it meets the GA criteria and where it might be improved.
As it happens, I just came off a QatarStarsLeague review myself at Nelson Mandela. I was grateful for the suggestions and the effort to review, but I admit I was surprised that the review focused largely on linking issues, which aren't really part of the GA criteria. Checks for other criteria weren't explicitly discussed. If this is a running issue in other reviews, perhaps QSL might make it a point to fill one of the templates in future reviews and explicitly confirm that the individual criteria have been checked. -- Khazar2 (talk) 01:25, 11 June 2013 (UTC)
It's sometimes helpful to ask reviewers with "unique" ideas of what's important to read WP:GACN. Speaking of which, someone should check to see whether under- and overlinking is mentioned. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:18, 11 June 2013 (UTC)
I'd love that Khazar. In the long term, I want to be writing and reviewing GA's (and the planned recruitment center might be something for me), I just feel that I need more experience from writing articles before I start with that task. And I would learn more from having a GA-nom or two failed with a well-described list of what could be improved, than having my first GAnom rubber stamped. Mentoz86 (talk) 08:42, 11 June 2013 (UTC)
To be honest, I have no interest in sports articles, but I have reviewed quite a lot of Arsenikk's GAN nominations (23 I believe in the last five years, a few of which included Olympic sites) also a few nominations by Eisfbnore and by Filippusson. You appear (according to your talk page) to be interested in football as a topic and I'm willing to review one, but as I say I'm not interested in that topic so I never ever look at the Sports and recreation nominations section, so if you want one reviewed you need to tell me. Pyrotec (talk) 19:29, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Same shortcut for two sections

I just noticed WP:GAN#GEO is listed as a shortcut for WP:GAN#Geography and WP:GAN#Earth_sciences. I think this is a mistake. Michael73072 (talk) 03:18, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Renomination with problems remaining

I reviewed Lovebird (song) last month and eventually failed it, due to a variety of concerns (apparent self-contradiction, poor writing, irrelevant information) remaining unresolved after several read-throughs, and new issues arising as the article was further edited. The nominator, Calvin999, was not happy about this closure, but it was endorsed by another editor, Ohconfucious, who identified further problems with the article. It seems that Calvin has simply waited a few weeks and renominated, but without once editing the article again. Needless to say, the identified problems remain. Part of me is saying that I should just quickfail the article, but that seems a little confrontational. What is to be done here? J Milburn (talk) 16:31, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

I don't see your problems as problems. I explained things to you, you didn't understand. I made changes, you still didn't understand. I further explained things, and even then you didn't understand. That's not my fault. If I wish to renominate, then I can. I still did all the other points you raised, whether I agreed or not. Let someone else review it instead.  — AARON • TALK 16:39, 11 June 2013 (UTC)
Two clear problems, just as a for instance: Firstly, the article retains poor writing. For example: "The lyrics of "Lovebird" focus on how Lewis informs her lover that enough time has passed since their relationship ended for her to have developed as a person." The lyrics don't focus on the method she uses to inform, which is what this sentence says. (This also illustrates that you are wrong when you claim you "still did all the other points [I] raised, whether [you] agreed or not." Are you really going to claim that this line doesn't need to be fixed?) Second, the article contains strange ambiguities: "In the United Kingdom, "Lovebird" was not released as a digital download single, but was released with an "impact date" of 9 December 2012." BUT "As of December 2012, "Lovebird" is Lewis' lowest selling single, and her first to not chart in the UK". Was it released as a single, or wasn't it? You assured me on the talk page both that "it was released as the second single" AND that it "wasn't given a single release". Your explanation, and the article, are completely unclear, no matter how much you asure me that you "explained things". If you're going to ignore these problems, or just claim that they don't exist, there's absolutely no point asking for a review. This kind of thing is what a review is for. It's really no wonder that you struggle to find reviewers when this is your response to criticism. If you just want a reviewer to give the articles you nominate a tick, then I don't think you're looking for GAC. J Milburn (talk) 23:19, 11 June 2013 (UTC)
I explained several times, but for some reason, you just don't get it. Yes it was released as the second single, but as an 'Impact day' release, meaning radio and promotion (live performances and music video). 'Impact day' means limited promotion. There was no specific single page like this for example where you could download the song as an individual, it had to be downloaded from the album if one wanted to download it. I've explained this several times, I don't know how else to explain it. But you took your lack of understanding for it as my fault, which it isn't. "Stay (Rihanna song)" also got 'Impact day' release in the UK. You're getting yourself mixed up and confused by it. It is clear in the article, you just don't get it. This is my response to "criticism" when I know I'm right. And no, I don't expect to just get a "tick". I put a lot of hard work, time and energy into Wikipedia and I don't expect you to give me snarky comments like that. GAC is for helping an article become a GA, not for failing it because you don't understand something.  — AARON • TALK 23:32, 11 June 2013 (UTC)
In Aaron's defense I'll say two things... this was a co-nom with myself but Aaron but I've remained silent because I disagreed with some of the changes that Aaron made to the article. As for the impact date thing... this is a UK-type of release whereby the label promote a song as a single i.e. it gets a single cover, a music video etc but it doesn't get a separate digital download listing. This is sometimes done in the UK e.g. Rihanna's "What's My Name?" and Nicole Scherzinger's "Wet", where these tracks could be bought as a track from the album but it isn't listed in Amazon or iTunes as a separate single. I am, as the original co-nominator and main author of the article, happy to give it a copy edit to try and correct the issues if I am permitted (since I did write the bulk of the original article). I didn't apply for the wikicup exactly for the fear of situations like this happening. — Lil_℧niquℇ №1 [talk] 23:37, 11 June 2013 (UTC)
I wouldn't really say you are the main author or that you wrote the main bulk. Contributions list and the revision history shows that I am, really. Not that I'm wanting to get in a brawl over it or anything. Just surprised me that you said that.  — AARON • TALK 23:43, 11 June 2013 (UTC)
Well I'm not anymore after you nominated the article for GA (and made changes some necessary, some more personal preference). It was only after we had that discussion, where I explained I was p*ssed off for you nominating the article even though you knew I'd been working on "Trouble" and Glassheart with that very same intention that you added me as a co-nominator. I had written more of the original article before you decided to work on it and nominate it for GA. — Lil_℧niquℇ №1 [talk] 23:58, 11 June 2013 (UTC)
Anyway the above is irrelevant. I'm happy to take a look... surely a second pair of eyes could pick up things that the first hadn't noticed? — Lil_℧niquℇ №1 [talk] 00:04, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict) You also said that you can't stop others from nominating. You massively hinted at being a co-nominator because you said you had planned on working it as "Trouble" has now passed (at the time). I asked if you if you wanted to co-nom because of your hint, and you asked if that was okay, to which I said yes because you had also been making contributions. I think you're forgetting that I created it and expanded it from the redirect I placed on it, and added each section, which you in turn co-copyedited. At no point did you start off saying you was pissed off on my talk. I always had the intention of working on it. I had no involvement with "Trouble" (even though I wanted to), as I saw you had been working on it, so I left you to it. It's not really about how many edits are made, it's about the quality of what is added. But you saying you wrote the bulk as the main author just isn't true. That is what rattled my cage. And yes, a second pair of eyes would be useful considering they were absent from the actual review.  — AARON • TALK 00:11, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
I did have exams and was on a partial break at the time of nomination but none of that was taken into account. You seem to forget I massively disagreed with some of the sectionalization hence I stayed out of the review because I felt it wouldn't pass with the changes you'd made but every time I changed stuff you seemed unhappy. With the review going badly us two arguing over the article wouldn't have helped. If it was about quality I guess it might still need improving since to editors seemed to agree that it didn't deserve to pass. Are you honestly saying you'd have accepted changes if I had made them? — Lil_℧niquℇ №1 [talk] 00:20, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
I had my final term of university as well, not that I publicised it. Yeah we did have problems about sections, but at the same time that is how I've always set out sections depending on section content size, and out of 61 passed nominations, only one or two editors that I can recall suggested changing things slightly It's what I'm used to doing. You haven't mentioned that I did in fact change some of it back to how you suggested. Of course I would have accepted the changes you made proposed on the review, you're a co-nominator. Arguing about this isn't going to help, I just don't like it when people stretch the truth about things. Let's move on from this airing of feelings work toward resolving and improving the article, and the original situation proposed here.  — AARON • TALK 00:25, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
Credit where credit is due, I didnt edit the article as much as I thought I had. You can be quiet confrontational at times, 61 GAs is an achievement but it doesn't mean that you're always right and there are multiple correct ways of doing things. Anyways you're right ... no point arguing. Like I said, since we disagreed on some of the article it seemed pointless to get involved and make the review any more complicated than it already was. I'm happy to take a look again tomorrow (its 1.30am in the UK) and give it a go over to see if Milburn is happy with it. — Lil_℧niquℇ №1 [talk] 00:32, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
I was only being confrontational, as you put it, because I knew I was right, as you just said. I suppose it is an achievement in other people's eyes, but no I'm not always right and there are several ways of doing things, I'm just regimented in doing things perhaps one or two of the several more correct ways. Yeah I am in the UK too.  — AARON • TALK 00:37, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

You two are not improving the article with your squabbling. J Milburn correctly identified that problems (note plural) remain and he asked "What is to be done here?". Try answering that instead of bickering.. Moriori (talk) 01:00, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

  • Shouldn't the nomination have been taken to Wikipedia:Good article reassessment rather than simply renominated without any significant changes? A renom immediately after a good-faith thorough review seems problematic to me—it could be seen as review shopping. The GAR page states that a reassessment request is appropriate when "you disagree with a fail at Wikipedia:Good article nominations.", and goes on to say that renomination is acceptable for "an article which has not had a proper review". Regardless of whether or not Calvin999 (talk · contribs) was satisfied with the pass/fail decision J Milburn (talk · contribs) made following review; it seems pretty clear that the review was "proper", and therefore reassessment rather than renomination is the best course of action. In fact, I think it's the only course of action. The article should be withdrawn and instead taken to WP:GAR; this will allow a community review, and for more than one non-involved editor to express an opinion. This will resolve the matter properly, and give the community some confidence regarding whether the article satisfies the criteria or not. - Shudde talk 09:27, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
  • I think any reviewer worth his or her salt will first audit the previous nomination and come to their own conclusion as to why it failed. But please indulge my using a child-rearing analogy here. It seems that one parent, without the other's knowledge or accord, was hoping to put the baby up for beauty pageant so onlookers would say what a beautify child they had. Unfortunately, the parent got upset when receiving an honest appraisal they weren't expecting, and has immediately entered the baby in another pageant. But now the strains in the relationship between the parents is in the spotlight, as is the fact that the offspring's problems are a manifestation of the couple's difficulties. -- Ohc ¡digame!¿que pasa? 14:59, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

GAR started and tackled but no further feedback from reviewer for nearly two months

On 14 April 2013 Heptachord initiated a GAR at Talk:Thirsty Merc/GA1 and raised some legitimate concerns – curiously the account had been established that same day and according to contribs, besides the User's own account, no other edits have occurred and the last edit was the very next day. Since that time I tackled the article, in good faith, and made edits to improve the article: it certainly needed some work. On 20 April I had finished my improvements and voted for the article to be kept at GA. There has been no response from Heptachord on the status of the GAR despite a request for the same on 16 May. It is now almost two months since the initial GAR but no further progress has occurred. Is it possible to have the article's GA kept without feedback from the initial reviewer?shaidar cuebiyar (talk) 02:09, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

I'd say that if the GAR has been abandoned, it can be closed, especially as the specific issues raised appear to have been addressed. If no one else objects, I'll do this in the next day or two. -- Khazar2 (talk) 13:32, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Closes needed at WP:GAR

Several community reassessments at WP:GAR seem to me ready for closing: Pauline Kael, Margaret Thatcher, Rickrolling, 7 Khoon Maaf, and Huma Qureshi (actress). All appear to have a clear consensus and have been dormant for some weeks/months. Would anyone here do the honors? (Any uninvolved, registered user can do so.) Alternatively, if further comment is required, perhaps some editors here would join in? These reassessments seem to be really languishing. -- Khazar2 (talk) 15:10, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Thatcher done. BencherliteTalk 15:32, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
Thanks! If anybody else wants to look at the others to either comment or close, your help would be much appreciated. -- Khazar2 (talk) 19:51, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Review problem

Could someone delete Talk:Britain's Got Talent (series 7)/GA1, it seems that the nominator has managed to create the review page. Miyagawa (talk) 17:55, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

Done. BencherliteTalk 21:00, 10 June 2013 (UTC)
Thanks! Miyagawa (talk) 18:03, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Passed GAN

Hello, an article I wrote, Aston Martin DB9 passed GAN today. However, I have concerns that the review was not thorough, nor were changes made during the review particularly helpful. Finally, the article is not showing up on the WP:GA page. Can I request a re-review? Superflat Monogram 18:41, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

The review can be accessed directly from the review wikilink in the GA box on the talkpage (the link is Talk:Aston Martin DB9/GA1). OK, I've opened a new review, it would be polite if you would inform the original reviewer. That reviewer seems to be on their fifth review, and looking at their talkpage the others seem to have been well received. Pyrotec (talk) 19:16, 13 June 2013 (UTC)
Much appreciated. I will let them know. Superflat Monogram 19:28, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Going off the above, it seems like there's been a fairly large uptick of shoddy reviews lately. Good thing that the review school's opening up soon, it's getting difficult. Also... that reviewer did a buttload of reviews, all of which suck. The rest need to be addressed fast. Wizardman 19:37, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

One real problem seems to be the section Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations#Rubber stamp reviews, above. Looking at that reviewer, he's currently now at 272 reviews ([6]) and going back to 1 June ([7]) he was at 64 reviews. I don't believe that anyone can do 210 (-ish) reviews in 10 days or so; and we don't have the resources to send 200-odd reviews back to GAR. Could we consider overturning 200 reviews and putting them back into GAN, at their original timestamps? Pyrotec (talk) 19:57, 13 June 2013 (UTC)
I think the 272 reviews number is some kind of bot error; if QSL had really done 210 reviews this week, half the queue would have disappeared. -- Khazar2 (talk) 20:45, 13 June 2013 (UTC)
You could well be right. These are the figures from GA_Bot/Stats: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th June - 64 reviews ; 5th June - 66 reviews; 6th June - 189 reviews ; 7th June - 268 reviews; 8th June - 269 reviews; 9th June - 270 reviews; 10th June - 272 reviews. They are taken from the first reading of the day at [8]. The diff for 5th to 6th June is [9]. This is the log from 06:00 on 5th June to current time [10] for GA nominations, it seems to have gone crazy with certain nominations / reviews. Elsewhere it was suggested that he was doing one review per day, so perhaps he started the month at 64 reviews and perhaps has done another dozen or so (perhaps twice that). If that is correct, it's more manageable. Pyrotec (talk) 21:27, 13 June 2013 (UTC)
I do remember GA Bot re-reporting QSL's reviews every ten minutes one day last week, so that's probably what created the strange inflation. A look at her/his contributions seems to show ten or so reviews over that time.
As for re-reviewing them, I re-did one above, and will be happy to chime in at GAR, if anyone sees another that needs reconsideration. -- Khazar2 (talk) 00:45, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Article history again

This came up a while ago, but new GAs no longer have an article history automatically included by a bot. Maralia (talk · contribs) was sorting this for a while, but I don't think anyone can keep up on their own. Is there a list anywhere of good articles without an article history, and is there anyone who can push along the task of getting a bot to do all this? Some articles are starting to look a little untidy. Sarastro1 (talk) 09:53, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Levitsky Vs Marshal

As per consensus over on the reassessment page, I delisted the article as 3 months had passed with no improvement or reply. Hope there are no objections. I think I may have screwed up the delistment though, so if something went wrong, i'm letting you guys know :P. Thanks! ★★RetroLord★★ 11:22, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! I think the procedure is to update, rather than delete, the article history [11] (which took me three tries to do right myself) and to also delist it at the GA list page [12]. But broadly speaking your close looks good to me. -- Khazar2 (talk) 13:33, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
Just want to say, as copyeditor who helped improve the article's readability, that I agree with the delisting. Although the game and associated notes provide some nice light entertainment for readers, the subject is "significance-lite" in compare to other deserving game articles having deeper content, better writing, and don't currently sport Good status (e.g. Game of the Century, Immortal Game, etc.). This article never warranted any attention beyond "below average" and rang of hollow effort to make a quick claim re content creation, as several points of the reassessment show. Ok, Ihardlythinkso (talk) 14:47, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Phineas Gage

I am just leaving a note her to say that I am leaving the review of Phineas Gage on hold, and will keep it there for awhile until the article activity dies down. Currently a lot of new contributors are arriving with their own ideas about how the article is supposed to be, and there is a rather uncomfortable environment on the talkpage. One probem is that the article was nominated without involvement of the main contributor (an expert editor) who is not enjoying the experience of an unsolicited and in my opinion needlessly hostile peer review. The article however is of very high quality and deserves to pass when it reaches a stable state. So please don't hurry me with the review, even if it takes some weeks for it to become stable.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 17:02, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

As I feel I may be one of those being tarred with this brush of "unsolicited and ... needlessly hostile peer review" there are two things I'd like to point out:
  • I am the fourth or fifth highest contributor to this article.
  • I was asked by the main contributor for my input into the review, I didn't just happen along.[13]
Eric Corbett 17:31, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
It is not a tarring to call it unsolicited but a simple fact since the main contributor did not nominate it and was pulled into the review without making that choice him/herself. Of course this is how Wikipedia works, and that is not a problem, but it does not necessarily make for a very comfortable review experience for the article writer. I didn't know that s/he had asked you to participate that of course is good, and alleviates some of my worry that s/he has a less happy experience than they deserve. Several other editors however have not been so requested and have been a lot more hostile than you. You are among the main contributors in fact a shared second place according to wikichecker - but with 17 edits to the article there is still quite a way up to the main contributor with 242 edits. User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 17:38, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
I actually have 28 contributions if you include my previous user name; still a lot less than 242 admittedly, but enough to make me the fourth-highest contributor. Eric Corbett 17:52, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
It is interesting that the proposer for WP:GA was a newbie - See here. It is interesting to note that the same editor proposed merging three articles relating to metrication into one (See his/her contribution list). It is interesting to note that I have been harassed by a number of sock-puppets of the banned User:DeFacto on the matter of metrication and that some of these sockpuppets have been using clever disguises to hide their sock-master. At this stage I have insufficient evidence to accuse User:CurlyLoop of being a sockpuppet, but given the above, I cannot rule it out. It is possible therefore that proposing this article as a candidate for WP:GA was done to bait me, but I cannot prove this one way or the other. Martinvl (talk) 18:00, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict) If, as you (Maunus) say, you weren't talking about Eric, I take it 'The FA brigade of selfrighteous MOS-sticklers and "brilliant prose" nitpickers' was a direct attack on User:John, as he was the only other person making substantive comments to the talkpage? @Martinvl, while there's not enough of a history to say for certain without running a CU, that looks more like User:Lucy-marie to me—she always had a thing for metrication. – iridescent 18:09, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
I was talking about eRIC AND jOHN.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 22:28, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for reminding me about Lucy-marie. Martinvl (talk) 20:20, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
Do remember that Lucie-marie could barely write a sentence without making a typographical error. These current potential candidates seem to be more clued up. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:45, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
A brigade of one is hardly much of a brigade. And although GAs don't have to conform to the MoS I can't think of any good reason why they shouldn't. Eric Corbett 18:31, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
I am deeply proud to be an "MOS-stickler and brilliant prose nitpicker"; why would anyone be against using consistent formatting and well-written English? But I am not a brigade, there is only one of me. --John (talk) 19:20, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Come on, people. We need this kind of bickering like a hole in the head. Newyorkbrad (talk) 20:59, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Try telling Maunus that, not "people". Eric Corbett 21:17, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
Yes, I don't see people bickering here, I see one user making what is presumably intended as a personal attack on (presumably) me for trying to uphold standards during a GA review. I wear that description as a badge of pride though. --John (talk) 21:31, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Pending changes on GA reviews obliterating reviewers' comments?

I added some comments to a GA review that I neither submitted nor am reviewing. After submitting my comments (which were replies to the reviewer), the reviewer's comments and my own were replaced with Pending (in bold). Npw the nominator will not be able to respond to the reviewer's questions, let alone my own comments. Is this supposed to happen? Where was this announced? Curly Turkey (gobble) 23:09, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

The GA table template is fussy--you can't do much linking or wikitext inside it. When it gets confused, it seems to write "pending". (I've had this happen before.) Is it possible your signature was garbling it? You might be better off responding below the table. -- Khazar2 (talk) 02:03, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
It appears that signature was the problem. The reviewer fixed it for me. It's certainly unexpected! Curly Turkey (gobble) 21:13, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Is it possible to manually undo a fail?

Is there a way of undoing a fail once the GA bot has updated the nominations page? I have been requested to undo my fail of Phineas Gage, and I would like to oblige. The article is definitely GA material, but I failed for stability concerns due to conflicts during copyediting. User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 01:58, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Not sure. It might be easiest for them to just renominate, and you to take it on as GA2 to put it on hold, pass, or whatever you intend. -- Khazar2 (talk) 02:01, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
The article was failed. Renominate it. Eric Corbett 02:03, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
It would be better if it was renominated and the next review carried out by a different reviewer. I make the recommendation for two reasons: (i) the reviewer marked it down as a fail on "stability" and now seems to have been "lent on" and is asking here if it's possible to reverse that decision and "pass" it. (ii) There are now two sections here concerning this nomination / review and looking at the Phineas Gage subsection above, the reviewer appears to be acting as the spokesman for "the editor with the most contributions to the article" (who was not the nominator), so unfortunately Maunus might not be regarded as an impartial reviewer the second time round. I happen to agree that the article has the look of a GA, so I'm willing to review it, but it would be third in a queue of three reviews. That will not be a "rubber stamp" review which is what I suspect the "the editor with the most contributions to the article" seems to be trying to achieve here. Pyrotec (talk) 09:12, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
Great way to open with an assumption of bad faith already before starting the review.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 10:44, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
I recommended Ian Gillan be quickfailed mid GA review when a new (now blocked) editor turned up and made large scale changes to it. We waited a week and then started the GA review again - and it worked. Manus, I think we all get that you're upset with Eric's changes to the article, or possibly just with him generally because he used grown-up language at you once, both from your conversations here, on his talk page, and on ANI. Pyrotec is a very experienced GA reviewer in my opinion, so if he wants to do it, let him do it. Then go and edit something else far away from Eric's sphere of influence. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 10:55, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
I don't have a problem with Eric's changes to the article and I had no personal animosity towards him before this review. I think another solution has been found - namely that the same nominator as before renominates it and the main contributors reviews it. That would be a reasonable outcome to this nonsense. I will stay very far away from GA in the future, just as I have from FAC since I realized that for most of those engaged there it was not about collaboration or article improvement but about humiliating content writers.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 11:46, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
That would be a dreadful idea. The essence of a GA review is that the reviewer has not contributed significantly to the article. Pyrotec is one of our best reviewers, and I would take him up on his offer. Eric Corbett 12:50, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
I am not in a position to take or reject any offers from anyone. I am no longer involved in the review or nomination, and I suggest very strongly that you also stay out of it Eric.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 13:16, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
I have absolutely no intention of staying out of it, but I'm glad to see that you will. Eric Corbett 14:02, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
Yeah, fuck you too.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 14:14, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict)I may be misunderstanding what you're saying here, Maunus, but the GA reviewer should be an uninvolved party, not the main contributor. It'd be better if Pyrotec or someone took it on. And I agree with Ritchie that a brief break to let things settle down could be a reasonable approach here. -- Khazar2 (talk) 12:58, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
You are probably right that it is not the best solution review-vise, but as I say I am no longer involved with the article or its review.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 13:16, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
It's not just a question of the best solution, unfortunately, it's flat-out policy: articles can be "reviewed by any registered user who has not contributed significantly to the article and is not the nominator." Who's the main contributor who's planning to conduct her/his own review? I'd like to warn them, to avoid a second review needing to be overturned and the situation escalating further. -- Khazar2 (talk) 13:19, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
I don't know if they are planning to do the review, I was basing that on the closer's comment at ANI and on inspection I can't see where they got the idea from.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 13:20, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
Ok, thanks. -- Khazar2 (talk) 13:30, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
I see the closer was in fact Ritchie333. I wonder why he suggested that then? Maybe he didn't know that EEng was the main contributor.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 13:34, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
I misparsed EEng has said that he would like the review to continue. I read the article on Gage some time back, and read it again last night. Interesting article, interesting pictures. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 13:55, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
  • I have requested that Eric Corbett be topic banned from participation in the future review of Phineas Gage. He is obviously not uninvolved or dispassionate about the article and is in a personal dispute with the main contributor. He should not be involved in reviewing it.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 14:22, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
    Seems you can't even get the basics right Maunus. This is what you've actually requested: ""I would like to request that User:Eric Corbett be topic banned from the article Phineas Gage". Eric Corbett 14:33, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
Well, I don't really give a fuck what the sanction looks like as long as you don't get do more damage to that review process. User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 14:37, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
Let me step in between you two here. I realize tempers are high, but this is being discussed at AN/I now, so there's no need to fight it out on this page further. The topic of this thread--Is it possible to manually undo a fail?--has clearly been resolved. -- Khazar2 (talk) 14:42, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
Sorry, Maunus what I appeared to be trying to say above seems to different to what you have read. I was not suggesting bad faith on your part. You have failed the article on stability but have stated that otherwise you regard it as GA-material. I don't regard the last review as a rubber-stamp job. The article's revision page [14] shows edit warring on 19th June 2003 and that gives valid grounds for failing the nomination. I'm trying to say that if you had just changed your mind and passed the article as a result of correspondence with EEng then that might be regarded as a rubber stamp job. Unfortunately, the edit war was between you, the reviewer, and Eric. It also clear that there is conflict between you and the third contributor by number of edits (Eric / Malleus). I don't see how you could do an unbiased second review in those circumstances. Pyrotec (talk) 15:22, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
I have no intention of doing a second review. Or any review at all in the foreseeable future. But for the same reason Malleus should not be involved in any future review of this article, that would be against all reason and fairness.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 15:28, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
Well, it seems resolved at AN/I that no one's getting topic-banned at this point, and there's a big distinction between being the official GA reviewer and voicing concerns on the review page. Both of you are still welcome and encouraged to do the latter (though I'd suggest for Pyrotec's sake that it be in briefer and more content-focused form than today's brawl). The new reviewer, presumably Pyrotec, can then take those extra opinions into account in the review or ignore them as she/he sees fit.
And Pyrotec, thanks for yet again volunteering to take on a contentious review--much appreciated. -- Khazar2 (talk) 15:44, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
So it is OK if I startout by saying that if Pyrotec doesn't follow my ideas for how the article should be before passing it that I will take it to GAR immediately?User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 15:54, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
Yep, if you or Eric disagree with Pyrotec about whether the article meets the GA criteria, you are welcome to appeal to GAR--it's why GAR exists. -- Khazar2 (talk) 16:04, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
In reality though, and from my own experience, I'd say it's highly unlikely that I'd disagree with Pyrotec's assessment of the article. Eric Corbett 16:16, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
(ec) Eric / Malleus, is unlikely to review that nomination, he knows the GAN process sufficiently well to appreciate the conflict of interest that would arise. However, he does have a very good working knowledge of English grammar (better than mine), so if it that article is nominated and I review it he can make comments on the review page (as can any editor) and I would ignore them and / or take them into account at my discretion. I'm sorry that you are not intending to any more reviews. Reviewing can be a stress-full process when things go wrong, but problems of this sort (in my experience) are quite rare, and these things should not been taken personally. I've done over 500 reviews (GAN and GAR) and about three of my decisions (passes) have overturned, probably rightly so, and a few more were found to have serious copyright violations, but for the first few hundred review I was quite worried about getting one wrong. Pyrotec (talk) 16:28, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
Re: "So it is OK if I startout by saying that if Pyrotec doesn't follow my ideas for how the article should be before passing it that I will take it to GAR immediately?" Its a bit of an "empty threat". Anyone can make such a statement, but if the review has been carried out in accordance with WP:WIAGA its not very likely to be overturned at GAR. Some people fail nominations because they have red-letter links (such as zzzzz or gggg), that is clearly not a requirement of GAN; they also fail them for not complying with what they think is a GA. As I stated above, slightly lees than 1% of my GAN reviews have been overturned at GAR. I do sometimes disagree with Eric, he has that irritating (to the reviewer) habit of usually being right. Pyrotec (talk) 16:28, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
Well it looks as if I must simply accept that my viewpoint about what GA should be like is in the minority and get on with my life. That does strngethen my reluctance to participate in the GA process again, and I do hope no-one ever drive by nominates any of my work. [cue mature comment from Eric, probably something along the lines of "at least its good news that your crappy article writing and sad loser face won't be seen around here"]User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 16:41, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
On the contrary, I think it's a shame that such a minor disagreement has led us to this. Eric Corbett 16:55, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
I can absolutely copper-bottom guarantee that I will not be undertaking any review of this article. Eric Corbett 16:49, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Refs

Are nominations required to use {{cite web/book/news}} or the use of <ref> is fine?--Dom497 (talk) 19:07, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

Nominations are not required to use any particular citation style. Eric Corbett 19:21, 23 June 2013 (UTC)
Thanks!--Dom497 (talk) 12:07, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Delist request

Hi everyone,

Could someone please delist Pauline Kael. There is a reassessment discussion over at WP:GAR, with a consensus to delist. As I consider myself WP:INVOLVED, could someone please attend to this? Many thanks, ★★RetroLord★★ 19:35, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Done. Adabow (talk) 22:22, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Fashion (film)

I did my first Good Article review for Fashion (film) which I submitted for re-review. An editor, who called my review unconstructive, removed my template for re-review without an edit summary and marked it as a minor edit. Now the nominator keeps on reverting my request for re-review and keeps on telling me on my talk page to keep it as a review. The nominator and an editor that has nothing to do with the review have no authority to do this. SL93 (talk) 03:39, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

What was reverted was your re-nomination at GAN, you didn't request a reassessment. Eric Corbett 03:43, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
That was not why it was removed though. The nominator is getting pissy because I want it re-assessed and is reverting me. The nominator has no clue what the right template is either. SL93 (talk) 03:44, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
Look, it's really quite simple. If you, the nominator, or anyone else wants to have the article reassessed than WP:GAR is the way to go. It makes no sense at all to nominate a current GA at GAN. Eric Corbett 03:48, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
That isn't the issue. The nominator is not reverting me because of the wrong template, but reverting me because he knows that I want a re-assessment. SL93 (talk) 03:49, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
I added the correct template and was reverted again. SL93 (talk) 03:50, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
  • The GAR template is sticking, but with a heavy heart I've had to block both parties for 3RR violations (I count 5Rs each). I may do the reassessment myself later, if I can finish my school assignments. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 04:00, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
    I'd forgotten, if I ever knew, that you were an admin Crisco. Which is a kind of compliment believe it or not. Eric Corbett 04:04, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
    LOL, considering your history with certain admins (particularly those who don't write articles anymore) I understand quite well how that could be a compliment. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 04:13, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

New(ish) articles going to GA

I see 1988–94 British broadcasting voice restrictions, an article less than a fortnight old, is up for a GA review. While looking at the article doesn't immediately suggest any reason why it shouldn't pass GA (the major points seem to be addressed and the sources all look reliable), I'm concerned that the subject matter, relating to The Troubles, is a magnet for edit warring and disruption. I fear that as it stands, while it can pass section 5 (Stability) of the GA criteria now, it's only a matter of time before somebody comes along and POV pushes on it, thus potentially dragging it into GAR. Or should I leave my tinfoil hat at the side of this discussion? Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 11:42, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I'd say it's okay to treat it as any other submission. User:Paul MacDermott is an experienced editor who will presumably keep an eye on it, and if an NPOV conflict breaks out in the future, the article can go through normal dispute resolution before heading to GAR. Just my two cents, though--I'm not sure what precedents there might be on a case like this. -- Khazar2 (talk) 11:52, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
I must confess the issue of POV editing did occur to me, though not in a GA sense. When I started I wasn't sure there would be enough information to get it this far as the events happened some years ago and sources can sometimes be hard to find for past events. I mentioned it at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Northern Ireland so they'd be aware of it. Talking a quick look at other related articles, I found Mountjoy Prison helicopter escape which appears to have made GA in three days. I'm happy to hold off for a while though if there are major concerns. Paul MacDermott (talk) 12:11, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
I'd say posting at WP Northern Ireland is probably enough for due diligence. Thanks for doing that. -- Khazar2 (talk) 12:14, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
No worries. I'm around at some point most days so I'll keep a close watch on the page. If there is any edit warring while it's awaiting review then I'll come back here, and it may be GAN for the article has to be postponed for a while. Paul MacDermott (talk) 12:40, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
It's not uncommon for newly created articles to become GAs- some biology writers, for instance, will nominate immediately after creation, and I remember cases of articles becoming GAs before they were featured on DYK. Of course, obscure mushrooms and rare fish aren't likely to attract the same kinds of problems as Troubles-related articles. J Milburn (talk) 13:13, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Second opinion on fair use image

Hey. Was wondering if someone could spend 5 min giving a second opinion on the fair use image used in 1998 FA Charity Shield. The review page is Talk:1998 FA Charity Shield/GA1. Thanks. - Shudde talk 11:53, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure about the resolution issue you raise. I often funnel my questions about images to User:Crisco 1492; I'll ping him here. -- Khazar2 (talk) 13:23, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Scope of biology section

Comparing the section "Biology and medicine" with "Chemistry and materials science", it is clear that the latter is usually empty, and the former is cluttered with largely unrelated articles/sections. Wouldn't it make more sense to merge the latter category with Health and medicine? Medicine seems to have more to do with chemistry than with organisms. FunkMonk (talk) 13:00, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

While some pharmacology articles could go either way, it seems like many medical GAs (pneumonia, 1918 flu pandemic, history of malaria, smallpox, Abortion–breast cancer hypothesis, obesity, meth mouth, etc.) would be poor fits for chemistry. I realize you can argue that even these all involve some sort of chemistry, but only in the way that they all involve some sort of physics as well. -- Khazar2 (talk) 13:24, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
A general point: While some biology reviewers like FunkMonk and I don't have much interest in medicine (I describe myself as interested in natural history, rather than biology), others, like Casliber and Sasata, have more. From a purely selfish perspective, I'd quite like to see medicine pulled out of biology, but I appreciate that there may not really be a good reason to do that. J Milburn (talk) 13:29, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
Medicine seems comparable in GA count to both Physics and Chemistry, so it wouldn't be unreasonable to make it a standalone section. -- Khazar2 (talk) 13:39, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
I could definitely get behind that. I'm guessing that there are fewer medicine than "biology" articles, but they stay around a lot longer because they are less popular to review. J Milburn (talk) 13:41, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
(Edit conflict) It often seems that health/medicine articles outnumber organism articles, but that may be because there are less reviewers... FunkMonk (talk) 13:42, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
Historically it looks like organism articles have outnumbered medicine articles (~750 to ~130), but I don't know how to check the current trends. -- Khazar2 (talk) 14:01, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
Yeah, no doubt in number, but I was thinking of what articles that are up for review at any given time. Due to medicine having less reviewers, there are often many of them on the page. FunkMonk (talk) 14:05, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
- Like right now, most nominations in the section are health related, but that is because the organism articles have already been reviewed. FunkMonk (talk) 02:59, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
If it's a help to you and other reviewers, I don't see any harm in separating them. It doesn't seem like it'll affect anyone but a small number of regular GA reviewers either way. So I'd say go for it if no one else objects. Just be sure that it's changed in a way that GA Bot doesn't get confused adding and removing nominations--I'm not sure how that part of it works. -- Khazar2 (talk) 03:23, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
I've asked Chris G, who operates the bot, what would need to be done. Barring any objection before or afterwards, we can simply split the sections and get on with it! J Milburn (talk) 21:34, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
Also, just musing on ways of doing the split- we could go for "Human biology" and "Non-human biology", but this, like "biology" and "Medicine" cuts across the categories in which GAs are listed. The other way to do it would be to follow music's lead and have "organisms" (covering all biological taxa) and "other biology". J Milburn (talk) 21:37, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
I'd imagine bacteria would go under "organisms", and the diseases they cause go under medicine. Splitting off "medical scientists, medical books, and health and medicine" off would be enough. That leaves "Biologists, biology books, evolution and reproduction, and organisms" in one section. FunkMonk (talk) 15:07, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

It's a bit complex to do, so it's easiest if I just do it. How do you guys want to split it? --Chris 13:28, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Requesting Assistance

Hello, I am quite new on wikipedia. For my first project I would like to try and get Josip Broz Tito article to GA status. What do I have to do? Thank you in advance. Anon7mous (talk) 22:42, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

To start, you should try to address the outstanding cleanup tags on the article like "citation needed". You should also open a discussion on that article's talk page to see if editors who have worked on that article before would be interested in collaborating. This will be a potentially difficult article to bring up to GA, since Tito's such a major figure and so much has been written about him, so teaming up with a veteran editor would be a big help. You might ask at Wikipedia:WikiProject Yugoslavia, too.
Other than that, you can find the list of GA criteria here. You can read the policies and see if the article appears to meet them. When you think that it does, go ahead and nominate. An intermediate option if you're not sure would be to put the article up for peer review comments first.
Best of luck! It's a big project to start out with, but it would also be a great subject to have as a GA. Cheers, -- Khazar2 (talk) 23:15, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
Thnak you for your quick reply and your time. I will try to fix it up and nominate the article for review. Anon7mous (talk) 11:47, 5 July 2013 (UTC)
To cut a long story short, some articles are easier to take to GA, and this one is a major challenge. As already stated, this would be an excellent article to improve, but major political figures require a delicate balance between being comprehensive, and too slanted towards a point of view.
The first thing you should do is spin through the article's recent history, and see if there are any significant edit wars or content disputes. This revert, where another editor undid Khazar2's changes as "speculative nonsense. No way is this worth a section" is immediate cause for concern. Not every revert is reason to stop a GA, it might be vandalism or a new editor making a good faith, but misguided edit. "Stability" is a core part of the GA criteria, and it means that, more or less, everyone's heading in the same direction. An instable article is one of the key ways a review can instantly fail, as it's basically nothing you can directly fix other than waiting and gathering consensus.
After that, I would check sources carefully - anything that you don't recognise the authority or credibility of may attract criticism as an unreliable source and cause problems passing the "Factually accurate and verifiable" section of the GA criteria. Having said that, GAN is easier than FAC (where people can (and should!) check every single source and ensure it's the best possible one going), so most news reports and commercially published books should be okay.
In any case, I hope you can improve the article, even if it doesn't meet the GA criteria - anything that improves the encyclopedia is always welcomed. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 12:07, 5 July 2013 (UTC)
I agree that the insertion/deletion of a section is a cause for concern, but just to clarify, I wasn't being reverted there and haven't been active at that article--I had just corrected a typo with AWB, and that edit simply happened to follow mine. -- Khazar2 (talk) 12:27, 5 July 2013 (UTC)
So you did. My mistake, sorry. Although it doesn't really detract the point that large scale removal with an edit summary that puts scorn on what was there doesn't bode well for passing GA criteria #5. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 13:08, 5 July 2013 (UTC)
Yeah, definitely a concern. -- Khazar2 (talk) 13:16, 5 July 2013 (UTC)
Thank you for your replies. I just realized how much work is to be done but that will not demotivate me. I find this article to be very important and it deserves to have a higher class if it meets the criteria and if not at least we'll have a better article as you said. Anon7mous (talk) 23:22, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Reviews

I used to do a few GA reviews a year or two back, and I'd be happy to try to help with the backlog, but I noted that genuinely gifted editors like Eric Corbett are being [heavily] slated for (amongst other things) being too picky about things like MOS compliance. I'm afraid I'd be inclined to advocate as much compliance with MOS as I know about. Any use to y'all or should I just stick to FLC/PR? The Rambling Man (talk) 17:22, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

As someone who also used to do a few GA reviews, until I ended up getting distracted by other things, I'd say (a) the more reviewers the merrier! (b) Wikipedia:What the Good article criteria are not might be worth a read (c) compliance with all aspects of MOS is not required for GA status (d) if you see other things in an article that don't comply with MOS but aren't in the GA criteria, you can either fix them yourself, or note them during or after the review as other areas that could be improved. Hope this helps. BencherliteTalk 17:29, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
Thanks Bencherlite, I'll perhaps roll up sleeves, re-learn the GA-way and attack this backlog. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:35, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict)Definitely useful! The Maunus/Eric brawl seems limited to a single article, so far as I'm aware, so I wouldn't interpret it as a general trend. The only thing I'd suggest re: MOS compliance is that since not all MOS pages are part of the GA criteria, it might be helpful to explicitly divide your MOS-related comments into those fixes required for GA passage and those that aren't. (You're probably already familiar with this page, but WP:GACN gives a good breakdown of what MOS points fall under the criteria and what don't.) In any case, thanks for volunteering to review. -- Khazar2 (talk) 17:38, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
Just to clarify I have no problem with MOS compliance. I have a problem with treating the MOS as if it is a law with penalty of public humiliation for offenders. Style questions are largely arbitrary based on someone's aesthetic preferences that add only cosmetic value to the encyclopedia. From my perspective an article can be good and passing the GA criteria if it complies sufficiently with the MOS to make the information accessible and to look reasonably consistent with how other good articles in the encyclopedia looks in terms of formatting. I also believe that there are sometimes reasonable justifications for not following the MOS if the aesthetic preference of the main author differs from it and it doesn't interfere with conveying the information it needs to. I believe that internal stylistic consistence within an article is good, but that stylistic consistency between articles is relatively unimportant, and that it is better for a collaborative encyclopedia including thousands of different aesthetic approaches to be relatively broadminded and lenient in its approach to style and formatting. And finally I believe judgment of style should never be formulated in terms of right or wrong, but wit an actual justification for why one choice works better than another. User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 17:49, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
Ok, I wasn't trying to start (another) argument, but I feel that MOS-compliance is usually easier than actually moaning about MOS-compliance. We have a MOS for a reason. But if I review GANs, I'll take Bencherlite's useful advice, to either note it as an aside, or fix it myself. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:01, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
I generally sweep though the article, and suggest anything that I think will improve the article, be it part of the GA criteria or not. MOS compliance is, by and large, common sense and based on the Formal English lessons I had at school. Sometimes it takes the form, "don't you think we should have a quote from source 'x'" or "don't you think we could fix those five consecutive sentences that all start 'In'?" If the contributors aren't sure how to proceed, or they think it might make the article overlong, or any reasonable counter-argument, I'll let it drop. The aim is that by the end of the review, the article meets the GA criteria at least, and if they want to carry on to FAC - well hopefully I've given them an easier ride there as there's less work to do. I think we need to remember that the purpose of a GA review is to make an article better, not to put another green blob on your userpage or to earn points over your opponent in the Wikipedia MMRPG, and I think sometimes we lose sight of that. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 18:04, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
Well, the purpose of a review should never really be about a green blob, who does that? I reviewed GANs because I wanted them to be better. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:08, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
I may be just a particularly vain and insecure specimen of the human race, but I find it rather rewarding to know that I have done a good piece of violuntarily contributed work that has been seen an appreciated by others - and the green blob is a visible symbol of that and therefore brings a certain satisfaction. Without an occasional pat on the shoulder and someone telling me "good work" the insane amount of negativity and grief one also gets here would not be worth the while. Otherwise I agree entirely with Ritchie about how to approach a GA review. User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 18:14, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
Sorry, perhaps I misunderstood. I wasn't expecting a "reviwer" to get a green blob. That job goes entirely unrewarded. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:15, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
Ah, Ok, I understand. (Although some reviewers do keep track of how many reviews they have done with small green blobs on their userpage). Some reviewers also like to tell how many they've done to other reviewers with fewer reviews to their credit. User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 18:19, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
I know you're frustrated, Maunus, but you need to consider dropping the stick and backing slowly away from the horse carcass. -- Khazar2 (talk)
Noted.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 20:36, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

If you can review articles The Rambling Man, feel free to crack on. If the writers dislike it, stuff them. You can't be too picky I don't feel. If I had any GAs nominated at the moment, I know I would be appreciative. LuciferMorgan (talk) 21:21, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Okay, well I intend, when possible, to review five GAs a day. We have a backlog of 400 or so, we'll see how it goes. If people get sniffy about me applying moderately strict MOS rules etc then I'll stop, but let's see. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:53, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
It'd be a huge help if you could. Thanks in advance, Khazar2 (talk) 22:53, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
I'm on it. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:32, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

A bit late to the party, but I generally note glaring MOS deficiencies and other issues that aren't necessarily part of the GA criteria in my road-related reviews. The problem comes when the article is not promoted over stuff that isn't in the GA criteria. --Rschen7754 21:46, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I think you will find some people who appreciate a tough review and some who don't. Obviously makes more sense to spend time on the articles where your skull sweat is appreciated.TCO (talk) 01:51, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

  • Generally the ease of the review depends on the article. Something factual and relatively short should go through easily. Something that requires more of a POV balance will take longer. Of articles I've sent to review, Keith Moon went through very easily, A74 road is taking a bit longer to gather additional sources and expand stuff. Swings and roundabouts, really. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 09:32, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Attracting new reviewers

Personally I think we need a recruitment drive of sorts to attract new reviewers around here, as wait times are quite long. Now there are several ways we could go about this, if we are to at all, and I will list the ones I can think of below.

  • A slightly more in-your-face advertising campaign encouraging nominators to review an article in exchange, quid-pro-quo, but optional.
  • Not have a recruitment drive, but a backlog drive, which would serve the same purpose.
  • Advertise at some of the other wikiprojects, send out invitations via RfC bot or the like.
  • Do nothing.

If we are going to encourage new reviewers however, we should all keep a close (but friendly) eye on their first few reviews to make sure standards are kept and WP:GAR isn't flooded. So if you agree with me that something should be done, please comment below. Thanks, ★★RetroLord★★ 19:03, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Whatever is done, I'm happy to advertise/encourage through the WikiCup newsletter (which is sent out at the end of the month). That gets to a lot of content-oriented editors, and a backlog at GAC is obviously something which is of interest to WikiCup participants. (Also, just as a very quick pre-emptive aside, the backlog is not being caused by the WikiCup. May/June saw around 150 reviews from WikiCup participants, plus a number more from me, with around 135 GAs passed that were nominated by WikiCup participants. My guess is that fewer than 15, but certainly not many more than 15, WikiCup-participant-nominated GACs were failed in that time, meaning the WikiCup is almost certainly not adding to the backlog. I can provide more concrete numbers if you like.) J Milburn (talk) 19:19, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
It would be great if you could do the wikicup advertising you mentioned. I also ofcourse understand the wikicup is not causing the backlog :)★★RetroLord★★ 19:55, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
One thing that's struck me about the backlog over the 7-8 months I've really been watching is how consistent it seems to stay. When I decided to do a review a day this year, I egotistically thought it would mostly eliminate the 300-article backlog, since I'd be doing 365 more reviews than the project normally got. But the backlog is the same as when I started (~320 nominations), six months and 200 reviews ago. It's possible that some other regulars dropped out at the same time I dropped in, but it's made me wonder if the backlog is more broadly self-correcting--the lower it gets, the less pressure people feel to review, while the higher it gets, the more pressure people feel to review, keeping it at about the same level. There are also some nominators who seem to restrict themselves to a certain number of open nominations at a time, so the more we review, the more they submit (which is of course a victory).
I don't mean to sound fatalistic about it; I'd love to reduce the backlog, too. Reviewing faster would mean that the nominator is more likely to be available, remembers the subject better, and still has the library books. But it seems like there are some forces that keep this in equilibrium, and I'm not sure how to get around that. -- Khazar2 (talk) 19:40, 3 July 2013 (UTC)
As you say, while reducing the backlog is nice, more reviews but with the same backlog results in a faster turnaround and (we assume) more good articles. These can only be a good thing. It's almost too obvious to say, but remember that it's easier for reviewers to find an article which interests them when there's a larger backlog, meaning that, for that reason if no other, we can expect more reviews when there's more of a backlog. J Milburn (talk) 21:59, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Part of why it's self-correcting, in my opinion is that there are reviewers who review when they are waiting on a review themselves. I've currently got 11 reviews to my name according to the stat line (and that does NOT count the ones I did in 2008 when I was initially very active). I have two waiting for review right now, and I'm not shy to admit I'm more prone to wanting to review if I know I can get more clear off of the video games category so the articles I helped to write will have a better chance of getting reviewed sooner. Of course, I should mention I don't just blow through reviews; I do follow the procedures and get critical to help out articles first and foremost when I do review. Red Phoenix build the future...remember the past... 01:02, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

A different kind of elimination drive?

I've had an idea, inspired by Khazar2's commitment to reviewing a nominee a day for a year. Rather than a two-month "who can review the most articles" drive, we have a two-month "I will review so many articles" drive. When people sign up to the drive, they commit to a certain number of reviews over the month; a minimum of (to pluck a number out of the air) 5 for the two months. Someone like Khazar would commit to 60 for the two months- I'd probably commit to about 25-30. We play out the two months, listing the good article reviews we have completed, and if we hit our own personal target, we get a barnstar from the drive's organisers. I think the advantage of this kind of drive are twofold: Firstly, it stresses that even those who can't necessarily slug it out with the big guns in terms of sheer quantity are still offering a worthwhile contribution, as they too are offered a reward. Secondly, as people are setting their own targets (and not competing with one another) there would be less incentive for the sloppy reviews which have lead to criticism of previous drives. I'm just throwing out this idea for consideration- when it first occurred to me, I thought it could be a year-long competition from January to December, but it would also work as a shortish-term blitz. Thoughts? J Milburn (talk) 18:20, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Support Sounds like a great idea. However, I think a shortish timeframe is best, as trying to forcast your availability over such a long period would be quite difficult. One month drives? ★★RetroLord★★ 18:40, 5 July 2013 (UTC)
Well, it'd work out great for me. But seriously, personal goal setting sounds like a very good way to frame it, and as you say, it'll hopefully encourage better reviews than a competition for sheer quantity. I agree that a time frame of 1-2 months would be best. -- Khazar2 (talk) 20:08, 5 July 2013 (UTC)
Support this as a smart idea that would be worthwhile to try. A one-month duration would be best, in my opinion. --Batard0 (talk) 06:01, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Number of reviews

I've only done 9 reviews so far, but in the Good Article nominations page it says that I've reviewed 20. Any thoughts? ComputerJA (☎ • ✎) 22:26, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Have you done any reassessments? I beleive individual ones get added to the count. AIRcorn (talk) 15:42, 6 July 2013 (UTC)
Nope, I do not. I just have the reviews. ComputerJA (☎ • ✎) 17:38, 6 July 2013 (UTC)
Have you possibly created review pages which have then supported reviews by others? J Milburn (talk) 17:57, 6 July 2013 (UTC)
Sometimes the bot just goes crazy and assigns extra reviews--QatarStarsLeague recently got 100s of reviews added to his account in the space of two days. Possibly a more mild version happened here. -- Khazar2 (talk) 18:23, 6 July 2013 (UTC)
Thanks ... no wonder. ComputerJA (☎ • ✎) 22:18, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Long enough for GAs?

I like to use GA reviews to ensure that my COI contributions are up to Wikipedia's standards and to defend the quality of my work. It occurs to me that GA reviews are a good idea for anyone with a COI who wants to make sure they're complying with our standards and to give others the confidence that they have done things properly.

However, I understand there is some fuzziness around how in-depth an article must be to qualify for a GAN. For example, while Viralheat meets our notability criteria, there isn't enough source material available to meet the GA requirements for depth.

I'd like to work on bringing Guthy-Renker and/or Proactiv Solution up to GA eventually. I was wondering how do I go about figuring out if the articles are large enough? CorporateM (Talk) 17:43, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Well I guess the easiest way to judge it is to look at the criteria. Does the article cover pretty much everything about the subject in sufficient detail? To an extent we can overlook small gaps where no references exist but if there are gaping holes in an article's coverage because of lack of references i'm not sure we can promote. Hope that helps ★★RetroLord★★ 18:07, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

As Retrolord says, raw length/size generally isn't the issue compared to covering "main aspects". WikiProject Companies might be able to give some guidance for what these are, but at first glance, both your examples appear to cover the basics I can think of: founding, history, ownership, services/products, location, etc. FWIW, I'd be comfortable with a GA at the level of detail present here. -- Khazar2 (talk) 18:21, 29 June 2013 (UTC)
  • If Abuwtiyuw can be a FA, I don't see why short articles couldn't be GAs. If there is no other information available than what's present in the articles already, then they are as comprehensive as they can be. FunkMonk (talk) 18:22, 29 June 2013 (UTC)
There's a difference between a short article that covers everything known about a subject, and a short article that covers some of whats known due to lack of references. If significant chunks of coverage are missing, the article cannot be a GA. ★★RetroLord★★ 18:43, 29 June 2013 (UTC)
Yes, that's what I implied in the second sentence. And even then, GAs do not have to be as comprehensive as FAs. FunkMonk (talk) 18:45, 29 June 2013 (UTC)
There are several legitimate WP:GAs half the length of the two articles mentioned above. What matters is whether you have contributed the proper breadth and depth to the subject matter.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 18:44, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

I wonder, could someone take a look at Mountbatten pink and tell me if it's sufficient in coverage? I struggle to think of anything else to cover. Superflat Monogram 20:08, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

While you won't know for sure without a proper review taking place, it looks fine to me based on my 60 second look at it :P ★★RetroLord★★ 20:10, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
Also based on a 60 second look, I'd concur. You appear to have covered history & uses, and I'm not sure what more there would be to say. I wonder if the color is used in fashion design at all, but I assume you've already Googled for other uses/appearances of the cover. -- Khazar2 (talk) 20:28, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
Worth a shot at GAN then, I suppose. Thanks for the advice. Superflat Monogram 23:02, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

What about Code 42 Software or Viralheat? Knowing that there is a comprehensive, competitive review published in Network World that would have to be added to Viralheat before it will be ready. I might bring both up to GA if they are not too short. CorporateM (Talk) 02:44, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

New York City

I am having a bit of trouble at the New York City article. I recently inedividually individually reassessed it, resulting in a delist. An editor disagrees with the reassessment and keeps readding the Good Article icon[15]. I am hoping someone can explain the process to Castncoot (talk · contribs) better than I have here. Regards AIRcorn (talk) 06:26, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Try learning how to spell, then try learning to tell the truth. It didn't "result in a delist", you delisted it against the consensus of making a few modifications which were made soon after.Castncoot (talk) 06:33, 9 July 2013 (UTC)
Thanks, I fixed the spelling mistake. AIRcorn (talk) 06:58, 9 July 2013 (UTC)
  • I had a quick spin through the article, and saw a number of unsourced claims. While some are general observations that I don't think need cites (eg: "The city is a major center for ... [list of things that happen there]"), the claim about it being the "centre of slavery", a controversial and loaded term if ever there was one, with specific figures listed, absolutely need a cite. How do we know those figures are correct? This might be easily fixable with a trip to the local library, or even a Google Books search, but the salient point is nobody wanted to do it. Therefore Aircon was right to delist. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 08:45, 9 July 2013 (UTC)
It's a ceremonial assessment. But delisting because the History section is (admittedly) in need of sourcing improvement? That's excessive action.

Castncoot (talk) 15:10, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

The GA criteria require citations for all "direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged". In my understanding, missing even one is cause for delisting if no one is willing to fix it. -- Khazar2 (talk) 15:37, 9 July 2013 (UTC)
Well, it's now fixed. And please look at editor JimWae's appropriate and thorough criticism of both Aircorn's editing skills and his delisting the article from GA status, at Talk:New York City#Lead.

Castncoot (talk) 16:13, 9 July 2013 (UTC) Castncoot (talk) 16:00, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Current event question--article on ongoing trial

I'm reviewing 2012 Delhi gang rape case at the moment. It appears that the trial of the defendants is happening this month, with the prosecution completing its case just yesterday [16]. One of the quickfail criteria used to be "a rapidly unfolding current event with a definite endpoint", which this seems to be, but we no longer have that listed. What's the policy now--should I fail this for now and suggest renominating at the end of the trial? Or should I proceed with the most up-to-date information we have?

Your input would be appreciated. Either way, we'll work on this in the meantime. -- Khazar2 (talk) 01:34, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

I really can't see how it can be considered stable. I would say once the trial has concluded, and if anyone is convicted, a sentence is given, then it could be passed (assuming it meets all the other criteria). But at the moment, there are going to be clear changes to the article. From a quick glance, it looks in very good shape, but I think it's a little premature for it to have been nominated. - Shudde talk 11:19, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
Thanks. Having done a little more research, I went ahead and failed it for now. One of the verdicts is due later this week but the other trial may go on for months--it won't settle down for a while, probably. I'm interested in this subject too, so I'll work with the nominators to make sure it's ready to go as soon as the situation is stable. -- Khazar2 (talk) 23:11, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Good Lists

Characters of God of War really does seem like a list of characters. Wouldn't this be better off being classified as a list? To me atleast it looks like a list, and therefore it would be out of wp:GA's scope? Thoughts? ★★RetroLord★★ 19:51, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

In my opinion, it has way too much text to be considered a list. Also, it doesn't only list the characters, but it goes into detail about each one of them. Cheers. — ΛΧΣ21 19:56, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
I disagree. This is pretty clearly a list- it would be thrown out at FAC as a list, and so should be thrown out here. The criteria are quite clear that stand-alone lists are not eligible for GA status. J Milburn (talk) 21:27, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
Considering it has a detailed reception and concepts section, I would have considered it on the edge. Certainly it seems like a list to me, but it is close. Perhaps this is something that could be suggested at WP:VPR for a separate nomination process for good lists? Red Phoenix build the future...remember the past... 13:30, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
So, what to do then? ★★RetroLord★★ 13:51, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
Good Lists have been proposed before (I even did it once), and it didn't gain any speed. I think that the best that can be done is let this go through GAN, given that 1) It has hay too much text to be considered a proper list (imho), and 2) Knowing the nominator, I know that he wrote it with the intention to write an article, not a list, hence why this is at GAN and not FLC. — ΛΧΣ21 14:00, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict)I don't know enough about the list/article division to judge well myself, I'm sorry to say. But ultimately you're the reviewer, and if you think it's over the line, I'd suggest you close the review without passing. Your judgement on that appears supported by others here, too (2 of 3 outside opinions considering it a list). -- Khazar2 (talk) 14:05, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
There are reasons "good lists" aren't something that many people are behind, but that's a separate discussion. I don't think we should really be setting a precedent that lists are welcome at GAC. We don't judge whether something is a list based on how much text it has or the intentions of the nominator- we judge it based on its purpose/functionality. Yes, there are going to be difficult borderline cases, but this really doesn't seem like one. Yes, it provides context, like a good list should, but it's easily comparable to some featured lists- see List of Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow and Dawn of Sorrow characters or List of Uncharted characters, for instance. Again, this would be thrown straight out of FAC, and so I don't see why the same shouldn't be done here. J Milburn (talk) 14:58, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
Seems like there's a combination of opinions here. As such, I've placed the review page on 2nd Opinion, and asked the Video Games WikiProject to help establish a consensus on whether or not it is an article or a list, and how to treat it. Anyone reading this is welcome, of course, to comment on it here as part of the second opinion process. Thank you, Red Phoenix build the future...remember the past... 17:03, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I think it's safe to say that Characters of God of War is a list. I say this because, as pointed out by J Milburn, List of Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow and Dawn of Sorrow characters and List of Uncharted characters have very comparable length 'character conception' and 'reception' sections to the God of War ones. I think it's safe to assume that there is a consensus that those articles are lists considering they are both Featured Lists, and therefore this should be too. Samwalton9 (talk) 17:16, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

It depends on the wikiproject. Video game wikiproject uses characters of because theres more general development and reception on the characters than most. Also the fact that their not format in a typical list, they see them as fullfledge articles.Lucia Black (talk) 17:19, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict) On comparison with the video game character Featured Lists cited by J Milburn, Characters of God of War also seems to me to be a list. -- Khazar2 (talk) 17:23, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Whichever way this goes, I think we should hold it true as well for Characters of the Final Fantasy XIII series, also listed here at GAN. Red Phoenix build the future...remember the past... 17:43, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Something along those lines, yes. As the nominator, I've seen other "list" articles go through this process, or at least I've seen them nominated, which is why I nominated this page. It also seems weird, at least to me, that there isn't some kind of GA, or rather GL, process before FL. --JDC808 ♫ 19:35, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
Like I said, maybe a suggestion for WP:VPR ;) Of course, if it's been shot down before as suggested above, I can see why. Red Phoenix build the future...remember the past... 19:39, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

To review, or not to review. It would be nice to wrap this up so neither the reviewer or the nominator is left hanging in GA limbo. At the moment I would argue there is a rather weak consensus that this is a list, (and therefore should not receive a review?). Could we agree on that as the outcome, and close this? ★★RetroLord★★ 19:49, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm not so sure I agree with it being a weak consensus. Right now, the list front has Retrolord, J Milburn, and Czar, while the article front has Hahc21, The Rambling Man, and Lucia Black. The points are pretty valid on both sides; naming it "List of characters of God of War" would favor it to be a list more, but replacing the bullet points with subheadings would favor it as an article. What to do, what to do? I think it's pretty close right now. Red Phoenix build the future...remember the past... 20:18, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
Perhaps as an interim measure you (or someone else) could carry out either a peer-review or a Bclass review(list equivalent)? I'll have time to go down that path over the next few days if its decided here that this cannot be a GA. ★★RetroLord★★ 20:21, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
In the summary above, don't forget me and Samwalton on the "this is a list" side. -- Khazar2 (talk) 00:11, 3 July 2013 (UTC)
  • My opinion -- review as GAN and debate afterwards whether to send this to FLC or FAC with the usual featured reviewers gang (or whether to keep a B or change to List if GAN fails). I don't think anyone here argued that it unequivocally wouldn't meet the GA criteria if it was classified as an article, so I see no objection to treating it as a GAN, then sending through FLC or FAC; if it later fails FAC, it'll remain GA, or if it fails FLC it'll go down to a standard list. Nobody's wrong and content gets improved. That's the point, no? ;) :) ·Salvidrim!· ✉ 23:55, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
    • It fails the GA criteria purely because it is a list. That's right there in the criteria. I'm all for giving it a good, solid review if someone's up for it, but promoting it to GA status is a no-no. Saying "I don't think anyone here argued that it unequivocally wouldn't meet the GA criteria if it was classified as an article" is a bit like saying "If it did cite reliable sources, it'd be ready for GA status- let's just ignore that fact unless it happens to go to FAC later!" J Milburn (talk) 00:07, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Characters of the Final Fantasy XIII series

I want to bring this article up too since it's structure is vastly different from god of war and is going for GA also. I believe it's a list since its structure is practically a fat version of List of Naruto characters. DragonZero (Talk · Contribs) 07:39, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. That is essentially as you say, a fattened up list. ★★RetroLord★★ 09:14, 3 July 2013 (UTC)
But a fattened-up list is still a list. Lists are explicitly against the GA criteria, and should instead be sent to FLC. J Milburn (talk) 09:37, 3 July 2013 (UTC)
I respect the three of you a lot, but I must disagree. A list has a clearly identifiable number of something...50 states for example, and is not nearly so text heavy. I believe that all these character articles are articles not lists for this reason; text heavy, and usually not a clear number of items. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 21:07, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Precedent

Posting this here so people see it. It would appear in the past Featured List has been used for these articles. For reference, observe the articles List of Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow and Dawn of Sorrow characters or List of Uncharted characters. As they have in the past been accepted as lists by the crew at WP:FA, wouldn't it follow that we apply the same rules here? ★★RetroLord★★ 09:22, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

I've pointed this out a couple of times above, but it seems that the featured list directors are of the opinion that they aren't actually lists. What they are isn't clear, because they certainly wouldn't be accepted at FAC... J Milburn (talk) 09:37, 3 July 2013 (UTC)
But if they are accepted as featured lists, I don't see how the FA directors can tell us they aren't lists? Am I missing something? ★★RetroLord★★ 10:00, 3 July 2013 (UTC)
You do seem slightly confused here. The featured article (FA) directors are not the same people as the featured list (FL) directors. The FA directors, as far as I am aware, have said nothing about these articles. If you're asking how the FL directors can say they're not lists- well, that's a good question. I'd be interested to hear an explanation myself. J Milburn (talk) 10:13, 3 July 2013 (UTC)
I have asked for an (expert) opinion from FL by posting the question there also, as it is related to them too. Furthermore, I am going to boldly fail the article in question, on the grounds (laid by FL precedent) that it IS, in fact, a LIST. ★★RetroLord★★ 10:36, 3 July 2013 (UTC)
That seems the most sensible option. I did the same thing with Girls' Generation discography a few weeks ago. J Milburn (talk) 10:58, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Anti-precedent

Characters of Final Fantasy VIII - featured article, Characters of Final Fantasy XII - good article. Those are incidentally the reason that the FF13 character page is structured as an article and going for GAN. --PresN 03:40, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Well, I think that PresN completely debunked J Milburn's claim that such articles would be thrown out at FAC :) — ΛΧΣ21 03:47, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
As per what PresN shared, that's why I nominated at GAN. Other articles that you could say are lists have gone through the process and passed. His first one linked takes it a step further. --JDC808 ♫ 04:14, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
Other GA "Characters" articles- Characters of Halo, Characters of Myst, Characters of StarCraft. Also, outside of video games, Characters of Smallville. --PresN 04:22, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
Also, Characters of Kingdom Hearts used to be an FA, but aged badly as the series progressed. --PresN 04:25, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
How about instead of having some immature "Haha i beat J Milburn" discussion, we have a formal RfC-like discussion, where we decide what to do with these types of articles. Some are featured lists, some are featured articles, I think this problem needs to be solved, and bickering here is not the right way to go about it. RfC anyone? ★★RetroLord★★ 07:21, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
Yeah, I think that would be best. I thought it would be easy to decide here, but I certainly didn't expect to see any have gone through FAC... J Milburn (talk) 07:30, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
Well, I am not trying just to go against Milburn. That'll be childish. I was just noting that PresN provided enough evidence to debunk a claim. However, I agree that we need to make some sort of RfC to solve this problem. As I said above, I'm fine if the result is to take em all to FAC, or take em all to FLC. — ΛΧΣ21 15:56, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
In response to Retrolord, I think calling it "immature" (whoever you were referring) was a bit uncalled for. But yes, this needs solved. --JDC808 ♫ 08:30, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
We also have GA List of counties in Delaware. Chris857 (talk) 20:30, 5 July 2013 (UTC)
Personally I think that one is a list, but it appears there need to be more than three items for a topic to qualify for featured list status. The article deservese some recognition so it is more an ignore all rules Good Article. AIRcorn (talk) 07:23, 9 July 2013 (UTC)
That's clearly a list. The fact that FLC doesn't want it doesn't magically make it an article. J Milburn (talk) 10:02, 13 July 2013 (UTC)
I delisted it on that premise, but it was reverted (see Talk:List of counties in Delaware#GA Reassessment). I think it is a bit rediculous that featured lists has a four item minimum rule, but that is their business. One thing I like about good articles is that we are alot more flexiable and can focus more on quality than specific hard and fast rules. AIRcorn (talk) 23:14, 13 July 2013 (UTC)
Who said FLC had a four item minimum rule? When FLC was in its infancy, it had an unwritten ten item "rule", but that was long ago and this "rule" has since been replaced by WP:FLCR#3b. Goodraise 23:25, 13 July 2013 (UTC)
I actually don't know what the minimum is, I was just told that three was not enough.[17] The FLC talk page didn't really clarify things regarding the minimum number of items (Wikipedia talk:Featured list candidates/Archive 18#Number of items in a list). AIRcorn (talk) 06:00, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
Nobody at WT:FLC told you how many items is the minimum, because there is no minimum. We simply don't do item counting. And you don't need to listen to what random editors (like me) tell you either. Just read the criteria. Everything you need to know is in there. Goodraise 06:59, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

I should note as the primary author of the Halo and Myst character pages mentioned above, that the Halo page went back and forth from a list to article. I believe I originally nominated it as an article, was told it should be a list, then was told later "this is too detailed to be a list, it's an article!" which is where it has stayed, after a variety of name changes before settling on the shortest formulation, Characters of Halo, which has since apparently been adopted as a nomenclature to use for these articles.

My argument for what separates these from pure lists is the amount of detail, a set scope that is narrower than simply "every character in this series", and an emphasis on out-of-universe content--development of the characters, info about their voice actors, merchandise and related goods based on those characters, etc., and a reception section. These "article lists" do not serve as an index (such as List of Halo media but rather are the page where links are funneled to. In my mind that makes them separate and worthy of GA/FA status. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 14:50, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Hm. Well, this has become interesting and confusing. Now I feel as if my nomination's closure was wrong and too quickly decided on. --JDC808 ♫ 07:52, 13 July 2013 (UTC)
Renom it if you disagree. ★★RetroLord★★ 07:58, 13 July 2013 (UTC)
I don't think nominating back and forth is productive. We need a central discussion on what we should call these pages, and it's clear that, for whatever reason, this discussion isn't it. I think a page on the video game WikiProject talk page with voices from the GAC, FAC and FLC communities would be best. J Milburn (talk) 10:00, 13 July 2013 (UTC)
I'm not going to renom (at GAN or FLC) until something is decided. --JDC808 ♫ 22:11, 13 July 2013 (UTC)
I don't understand why this is such a big deal. From the perspective of one of our readers it makes little difference whether a piece of featured content went through the featured list article process or the featured non-list article process. And that's really all that needs to be decided here, isn't it? Personally, I think the current situation is satisfactory; let reviewers decide what is what. The alternative is drawing a bright line between list article and non-list article, and codifying it at WP:SAL. That's not going to be easy however. Some articles are more "listy" than others. Exactly how much salt do you have to pour into a bucket of water until its content goes from saltwater to wet salt? Goodraise 23:25, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

IP reviewer

An IP address opened the review page at Talk:Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution/GA2 to post some angry comments about the article; it's the address's first edit and they don't appear to have any knowledge of the criteria. So far as I can understand, they appear to be angry that there are no citations in the lead ("OUTRAGE without proof... this page is terrible... This is the stuff that makes Wikipedia seem like BS."). Could someone close or delete this review? I don't mind if this is logged as a Fail, but this is an important and popular article, and I'd rather have it reviewed by someone more experienced. -- Khazar2 (talk) 11:34, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

I would say to revert the change to the talk page of the article and set the next review page to GA3 (as it is currently at GA2) and that'll mark it as still needing a reviewer with a fresh review page. I had to do it for one of my Star Trek articles recently. Miyagawa (talk) 20:15, 13 July 2013 (UTC)
IP users can't review. I've closed this one and renominated the article against the original nominator and timestamp. Pyrotec (talk) 17:24, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
Thanks, I appreciate it. -- Khazar2 (talk) 01:06, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Nominator retired

It seems the nominator of Great northern tilefish has retired[18], before finishing up the proposed changes in my review. What to do? Fail? Or is anyone else willing to work on it? FunkMonk (talk) 14:21, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

You could try asking at the relevant wikiprojects if you can't find an editor. But eventually yes, the article will have to be failed, although its up to you when that occurs. ★★RetroLord★★ 14:23, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
I listed it over at the fish project, I'll give it some time and see if anything happens. FunkMonk (talk) 21:12, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
I'll take it up and work on it. So please advise me. I will finish it in his place. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 19:58, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Is the bot running?

The noms page doesn't seem to be updating? ★★RetroLord★★ 12:56, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

I alerted User:Chris G. Looking at its contributions today, my best guess is that GA Bot's new task (alerting nominators when a review is begun) is momentarily disrupting the old (updating this page). -- Khazar2 (talk) 17:47, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Biology and medicine split

It seems there was support for it, but the thread was archived.[19] Seems we just need to agree on how to split it? I think it should be medicine/health (including related books and persons) in one, and then organisms (including related books and persons) in one. For example, diseases caused by bacteria should go under medicine, and the bacteria themselves should go under organisms. Evolution articles should go in the latter as well. FunkMonk (talk) 21:07, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

Sounds good. If no one objects you should just ask Chris to do the split. We can update the Wikipedia:Good articles/Natural sciences page easily enough. AIRcorn (talk) 06:58, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
Sounds good to me too. -- Khazar2 (talk) 10:29, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
Which Chris? FunkMonk (talk) 11:14, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
Oh, I see, I guess it is "only" Chris. FunkMonk (talk) 11:15, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Question about the criteria

Hi guys, quick question, do the GA criteria require quotes to have a citation immediately after them? Or is having a citation at the end of the sentence enough? Thanks, ★★KING RETROLORD★★ 09:53, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

GAN Report Bot

Just a FYI to everyone, I made a request at the bot requests page for a bot to do a simple report on all GA noms. The bot reports the following:

  1. Lists all maintenance tags in the article {{citation needed}}, {{refimprove}} and so on
  2. Check all images for fair use status
  3. Lists paragraphs that have no citations

The bot isn't live yet, but for a sample of what it looks like check out User:Theo's Little Bot/GAN.

Big thanks to User:Theopolisme for making the bot! ★★KING RETROLORD★★ 05:38, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Here's the original bot request – if you have any thoughts or suggestions, feel free to pose them there. The more the merrier! Theopolisme (talk) 05:44, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

"Future-class" articles.

I have been told by two different editors that an article I have written cannot be passed as it is has not finished being constructed. I find this very odd for many reasons:

  1. GAs already exist for things that havent happened at all - eg. Saudi Arabia women's national football team.
  2. There is more content available for it, then some GAs of existing (built) roads - Ohio State Route 228, and Ohio State Route 710, amongst many others.
  3. The criteria mention nothing about future events at all - Though it can clearly be argued that for movies, and the like you cant write plot summaries, reviews and the like until they are released (Even if a movie gets leaked, we arent allowed to use copyvios as sources). Similarly elections for similar reasons. These examples fall under failures of criterion 3.
  4. This causes some strange inconsistencies/issues - If a road exists, but is to be extended (even if its a 1km road with a 40km extension), it can become a GA. It also means that no construction project, anywhere, can ever become a GA, no matter how well sourced. (Despite there being examples against this - Disi Water Conveyance Project GA'd in 2011, completed or to be completed this year.) (Besides if we want to get down to it, technically this road does partially exist. The northern section is basically a upgrade/duplication, and renaming of the existing Majura Road, and the final interchange at the northern end has been constructed for years (and has fed Majura Road and Horse Park Drive).)
  5. If this road project shuts down tomorrow under these rules it would become eligible for GA - despite the fact that there may only be minimal additions to the article to explain why. (For example if a road project got cancelled in the newly bankrupt Detroit City area, you wouldnt write the entire backstory. You would summarise it and wikilink to the appropriate article.)

I am happy to receive a comprehensive review on the above article, and will work with the reviewer to change things that is required, I am not stating I want to be auto-GA'd or anything like that. I just want it to at least be considered under the same rules . -- Nbound (talk) 23:43, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

There used to be language in the stability criterion about an "ongoing event with a definite endpoint" not being eligible for GA status; that's probably the closest the rules come to covering this. In this case, though, the endpoint appears to be mid-2016. I understand where those reviewers were coming from, but I think this is stable enough to pass. At least two GAs I've had passed this year, for example--Pussy Riot and Anonymous (group)-- are very likely to need updating before this one does. Just my two cents. -- Khazar2 (talk) 00:04, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
Yep, but its not in the criteria any longer... and thats another thing as well, this is not an event (at least in the standard sense, event can be pushed out to cover many things). Elections, television shows, the Olympics, are... Before the event happens, you cant know the vast majority of the information. Roads are meticulously planned (to the point where they can create 3d visualisations of the voyage, as seen on the article), and you can know these thngs. Come opening day, theres no chance of surprise interchanges being unveiled... :P. Anyone who has seen or read and environmental impact statement will know how much detail goes into planning for any major project (road or not). -- Nbound (talk) 12:10, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
I don't know what Australia's like, but if it's anything like the UK (which, given the space it has, probably actually means it isn't), once the JBCs hit the ground, the project will be happening and the odds of stopping the project due to previously undiscovered colonies of great crested newts are pretty much zero, as Twyford Down protesters found out their detriment. More to the point, the "stability" part of the GA criteria relates to a major dispute about the article's content now - if Imzadi 1979 was repeatedly edit warring with you in the article, or doing large reverts, then that would fail a GA. But provided there's a general consensus about how the article will change in the future, then I think you're fine as is. To give you a road-related GA as a counter-example, Blackwall Tunnel includes information about the Gallions Reach Ferry and the Silvertown Link, either or both of which could substantially alter the traffic flow and signalling to the tunnel. We just don't know yet. That didn't stop it passing a GA review. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 16:03, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
Once construction crews hit the ground here, its pretty much a done deal. As per the usual process here, money has already been allocated for this road's construction. Any major road construction in Australia is also performed under contract by private construction companies rather than by the applicable transport/roads department themselves. If any more reasoning was required as to how likely this road was to be completed, the city where this road is located (Canberra) is a actually also a planned city aswell (and a highly planned one at that). -- Nbound (talk) 23:09, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
It makes sense to quickfail an article on a movie that has not yet been released because much of the article will be missing at that point - reviews, reception, etc. But for a road under construction, instability really isn't an issue. Once the shovel hits the ground, changes are exceedingly unlikely simply due to the engineering involved. Things like whether the project comes in on budget and/or on time will change, but those are minor. I understand where the reviewers were coming from, but I don't see a likelihood of this article being unstable. Resolute 23:18, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
I'm happy to re-review this. I won't be rubber stamping it though, and will go through my usual process. I do GA reviews in a somewhat different manner to your previous experience, Nbound, which is probably a good thing for the article as we'll get another angle on things. For what it's worth, I've never heard of the expression "future-class" despite doing 35 GA reviews including everything from KFC to the 1988–94 British broadcasting voice restrictions, and it's not mentioned in WP:WIAGA or WP:GACN, so as far as I'm concerned, it's irrelevant for a GA review. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 11:51, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Contest

Hi all! A short while ago we had a discussion, and the idea of a contest was brought up. Today I whipped up a quick draft of what the contest might look like at User:Retrolord/GA Competition. You are all very welcome to edit the page and/or make suggestion here. To avoid any concerns of sub-standard reviews, I added an arbitrary minimum of 1000B of review prose. Obviously we will need some judges to run the whole thing, and should the contest proposal be accepted I'm happy to volunteer as one of them. The concept is based on WP:MILHIST's contest, which I think works quite well, so I have adapted it to our needs. The contest would run each month, with each review being worth 1 point. Winners will receive prizes. All input welcome, Thanks! ★★King•Retrolord★★ 08:25, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

And obviously the draft would need to be prettied up substantially by someone well versed in wiki markup. ★★King•Retrolord★★ 08:47, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
That's not really anything like my proposal above. Were you intending it to be? J Milburn (talk) 11:07, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
Yes and no. I just thought of this so I proposed it, sparked by our previous discussion. I am completely unphased by whatever form the contest takes when its up and running, I'm just trying to move things along. You are absolutely welcome to propose the other idea you had in the last discussion. Thanks, ★★King•Retrolord★★ 11:19, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
I'd still prefer something more like J Milburn's "pledge drive" proposal, I think, for the reasons we discussed above. -- Khazar2 (talk) 11:39, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
Fine with me, I was just looking to get the ball rolling, thats all. ★★King•Retrolord★★ 13:03, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
I'll try to get something knocked up in the next few days, but I've got a lot going on outside of Wikipedia right now. J Milburn (talk) 16:17, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

A possible change to the bot

It's been suggested on my talkpage that the bot should notify the GA nominator when a review is created. Basically the bot would check for {{GANotice}} on the nominators talk page, and if its not there it would add it. Does everyone think this is a good change? Or will it cause problems/annoy people? --Chris 10:03, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

 Done Looks to be running smoothly --Chris 15:57, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

Opt out button?

Alright, I clearly missed the discussion, but I have a question. Would it be too much to ask for an opt out button? No offense, but talk page notices drive me up a wall and I've told reviewers as such. It would stop driving me nuts to have an orange bar for it. Mitch32(Wikipedia's worst Reform Luddite.) 21:12, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Talk:2011 Silk Way Airlines Ilyushin Il-76 crash/GA1

Hello. I have a serious concern regarding this review. Can anyone tell me why was it failed? To me, the issues addressed there can be easily solved by a simple copyedit. The article should have been put on hold, and little time (a week or so) given to address them. Thoughts please?--Jetstreamer Talk 20:54, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

It's basic common courtesy to the rest of the universe to proof-read articles before submitting them to GAN. That article was in awoeful condition, and probably still is. That is why it was failed. ★★RetroLord★★ 21:05, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
Plus instead of creating all this drama, why not re-nominate once you've addressed the problems? You were at the bottom of the queue, you have been in no way disadvantaged. ★★RetroLord★★ 21:06, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
Being at the bottom of the queue has nothing to do with failing or quick-reviewing. I'm asking for a third opinion. Thanks.--Jetstreamer Talk 21:10, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
I'm not really interested in your clowning about here, trying to whip up drama. You submitted an absolutely dreadful article, I quickfailed it, and now your appealing that instead of renominating? Have fun then, I won't be replying here anymore. ★★RetroLord★★ 21:12, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
Fine. Courtesy means giving an appropriate time to address the issues you raised, not failing it. As I said, I'm waiting for an opinion from anyone not involved.--Jetstreamer Talk 21:21, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
That's funny. I would have also thought courtesy extended to not submitting such drivel without at least proofreading it first, then getting all high and mighty because your ultra sub-standard work was failed. ★★RetroLord★★ 07:26, 8 July 2013 (UTC)
Retrolord, comments like this and this are inacceptable, and will do nothing but discourage people from GA. Furthermore, you haven't given any valid reasons for quick-failing the article; I myself have had ultimately successful reviews (Talk:Paris/GA1 comes to mind) where much more has had to be changed and yet it has been all very amiable and nobody suggested that my work was "drivel". If you don't think that reviewing GANs is worthy of your time then don't do it.--Gilderien Chat|List of good deeds 18:15, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
Gilderien your welcome to go fix it yourself. I'll try not to crucify you at WT:GAN next time you make a mistake, either. ★★KING RETROLORD★★ 02:25, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
And why did this need to be posted here? Couldn't find my talkpage I assume? ★★KING RETROLORD★★ 02:40, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
It was already at WT:WPGA, I just moved it between boards.--Gilderien Chat|List of good deeds 06:25, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
I'll interpret that as "I wanted to whip up some drama, so I reposted a complaint to another board". I'm done replying here. WP:SOFIXIT. ★★King∽~Retrolord★★ 06:35, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Moved from WT:WPGA.--Gilderien Chat|List of good deeds 21:52, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

  • Ugh. This shouldn't need pointing out, and I respect RetroLord's work here, but I agree that language like drivel, ultra-substandard, woeful, etc. is needlessly hostile, as was failing the nomination without any kind or encouraging word. Almost any nomination represents a lot of hard work by the nominator, even if it's still imperfect, and it's clear Jetstreamer improved this one enormously [20]. (FWIW, the response of "What kind of reviewer are you?" wasn't well calculated to get productive results either.)
Moving forward-- Personally, I wouldn't have quickfailed this article, but this is basically up to the discretion of the reviewer, so I don't know that it's useful to debate overturning that here. We at least all seem agreed that the article needs some work to meet GA standards. Jetstreamer, my suggestion would be that you two disengage from each other, and that you copyedit per RetroLord's comments and renominate. I've added a suggestion to the GA review page too. You're both editors I value; sorry you had this bad run-in with each other. -- Khazar2 (talk) 22:49, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Good Articles in DYK?

Hi, I have opened a Request for Comment here, which may be of interest. I have proposed that newly-promoted Good Articles be allowed to be nominated as a DYK, i.e. to get a hook fact on the main page for a few hours. Comments would be welcome on the RfC.--Gilderien Converse|List of good deeds 00:54, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Note that in section 2.8 of the RfC, a proposal to rewrite the GA criteria has been bundled in. -- Khazar2 (talk) 13:00, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
That concerns me. I don't consider DYK as the appropriate venue for discussing, agreeing and enforcing changes to the the GA process. Similarly, the GAN talk page is not the relevant venue for discussing, agreeing and enforcing changes to the the DYK process. Pyrotec (talk) 20:48, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
Should I also transclude it on the GA talk?--Gilderien Chat|List of good deeds 20:56, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
I strongly object to the DYK process making decisions on whether changes are needed in the GAN process, it has nothing to do with them. I did look at the comments and if I've correctly remembered it correctly, someone at DKY proposed combining GAN and FAC or perhaps GA and FA, again this is also nothing to do with them. I've also had personal experience of DYK warfare and I don't wish the GAN process to be polluted by them. That is putting it politely (I'd be banned if I expressed by thoughts in full). In many ways the DYK review process is infer to the FAC and GAN reviews and they know it. Especially the "since I've given your nomination a DYK you must give mine a DYK as well" culture. Let's be clear: a few years ago, DYK were feeling somewhat "threatened" by comments about poor quality DYK reviews and DYK articles with copyright violations, so they starting attacking the GAN review process for the same "errors". They then started a "name and shame" process, where recently awarded GA's were submitted to full copyright violation checks. If I remember correctly four or six newly created GA articles were found to have copy violations and these were headline-splashed across the DYK talkpages: half of them were reviewed by me and the other half by another GAN reviewer (that user has / is contributing to the debate at DYK, but I'll not name them). I like to think I take care over my GAN reviews, but at that time I did not have any experience of using software to carry out copyvio checks between electronically-available sources and wikipeidia, and I don't like being "named and shamed" at DYK. There are reviewers at GAN who do six reviews in an hour, I can't defend them, but I very much doubt that DYK is anywhere near the standard of a GAN or FAC review. As far as I can see this is another "shit throwing exercise" by DYK, with the mind set DYK is superior to GAN, so we will change GAN if necessary to bring it up to (that should be down to) DYK's standards. Pyrotec (talk) 21:48, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
This seems to have been before my time, but I understand where you are coming from. I have to say the quality of DYK articles seems to be improving since then, but we still frequently have to pull hooks from the queue or even the main page for serious issues. Do I get the impression that you would rather new GAs not be eligible to be mixed in? I shall vote as a proxy for you if this is the case, I can understand if you didn't want to contribute to the main RfC. --Gilderien Chat|List of good deeds 21:59, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
In passing: I'm not sure of the time frame, I was doing multiple educational assignment GAN reviews in November 2009 (see Wikipedia:WikiProject Classroom coordination), so I suspect it might have been then that copyvios first arose. My only objection is that DYK appear to consider their talkpage as a suitable venue for discussing changes to the GAN review system and (apparently) imposing these changes if they consider them necessary. I have no personal experience of DYK, I've never submitted an article to DYK nor carried out a DYK review, but I have carried out numerous reviews of GAN nominations that were previously submitted at DYK and came out well at GAN; and I've been a co-nominator of a small number of articles at FAC. Since the bot was down, I've been manually adding {{articlehistory}} templates to articles that I've reviewed and awarded GA status (and that usually involves migrating the DYK entry and DYK link into the template) and so I know that quite a few are also DYK's (I've done over 500 GAN reviews). So in that respect DYK appears to be beneficial; but other than that I don't know anything else about DYK. I'm not contributing to the main RfC because I have no knowledge of DYK and "slots" and "hooks". Pyrotec (talk) 22:41, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
Ok well this proposal probably wouldn't affect you apart from some the GANs might then be featured on the main page. I'm trying to get as wide a commenting base as possible, would you like me to explain it for the benefit of you and any others reading this page?--Gilderien Chat|What I've done 22:45, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
I share the concern that this proposal will turn GA into a drama-fest like DYK, ITN, and other Main Page projects, which is why I haven't voted for it. Anything Main Page-related attracts some editors more interested in controlling what content is posted than in creating/improving content, and certain that the future of Wikipedia is at stake; mayhem then ensues. I'd hate to see that happen here, and it's discouraging that a change to the GA criteria was already proposed at DYK by an editor who didn't seem to look at the GA criteria first. But if we're lucky, the requisite Main Page dramahs will mostly take place there instead of here. Since it seems like it's going to go ahead regardless, hopefully the advantages will ultimately outweigh the angst. -- Khazar2 (talk) 00:49, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Lovebird (song)

The bot just said that I failed Lovebird (song). I promoted it. What on earth is going on here? Adam Cuerden (talk) 18:05, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

This confused me the first few times I saw it, too. From what I can tell, if there's both a failed review and a passed review on the page, the bot reports it here as a fail, regardless of which was more recent. -- Khazar2 (talk) 18:09, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
Ah. Shouldn't removing the FailedGA template be in the instructions for passing, then? Also, what do I have to do to fix it? Adam Cuerden (talk) 18:12, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
I don't know that you really need to fix it; as long as the article gets the GA blob and listed at WP:GA, it probably doesn't matter how it gets recorded in this page's history. Ideally the way to remove the previous review template is to archive it into Template:Article history as at Talk:Jefferson Davis. LegoBot usually does this but seems to miss some articles for reasons that aren't clear to me. (Almost anything to do with the bots is a mystery to me, really.) -- Khazar2 (talk) 18:20, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
Think it's fixed then. Adam Cuerden (talk) 20:34, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Merseyside Skeptics Society review

I'm unfamiliar with the Good Article nomination process but from reading the instructions I'm a little confused. Merseyside Skeptics Society was nominated (by me) for Good Article status and was reviewed on 29th July. The reviewer passed the article as GA but hasn't done anything since. Should they have followed up and completed the process in making the article GA or should we wait for further comment? Samwalton9 (talk) 23:58, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Typically, a week or so is the most common time to wait for a review. Just give them time.--Jetstreamer Talk 00:00, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
The review's already done, is the point he's making, but the templates haven't been set. I'll go ahead and set them for you; it's clear from the GA page that the reviewer intended to do so and did indeed pass the article. Red Phoenix build the future...remember the past... 00:02, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
Sorry, I misunderstood the message.--Jetstreamer Talk 00:03, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
I've gone ahead and set the template, and also updated the Project templates to reflect GA. I'm also going to send a message to the reviewer just letting them know to check that next time. Red Phoenix build the future...remember the past... 00:04, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
Thanks! Samwalton9 (talk) 00:06, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Nominator also reviewing?

I noticed at WP:GAN#PHYS that the nominator of Voyager 1 is listed as reviewing, but the review talk page hasn't been started yet, either. I haven't been on WP in a while and am not sure what's going on with GA bot, so I'm not sure how to fix things up. Can someone with a better knowledge of these things resolve this? Best, Corvus coronoides talk 15:05, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

The review was started but was then deleted by Wizardman for the reason you state. GA bot usually takes care of updating this page, but it's been off its game for the past few weeks because of some expansions of its tasks. I've just manually removed the reviewer listing from the page to avoid confusion. -- Khazar2 (talk) 15:08, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
Ah. Thanks for the clarification. Corvus coronoides talk 15:15, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

A question

So basically, a user worked on Elastic Love and nominated it for good article status, and then another user came along and did the corrections that the reviewer specified and then took credit for getting the article to GA status. I find this very disrespectful to the user who worked on the article just to have someone else fix whatever issues there was and take credit for the work. I'm just wondering, is there anything against this? — Status (talk · contribs) 05:10, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia is a community project, so no single editor can "take credit" for an article's shape. If this editor wishes to put a green icon on his or her userpage, then fine – he or she did actually contribute to the article's GA status. Adabow (talk) 07:38, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
I agree with Adabow. Actually trying to sort out who deserves "credit" for what would be a time-consuming and drama-filled endeavor; people can claim on their user page whatever they feel they deserve. -- Khazar2 (talk) 14:40, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Retrolord

I came across Retrolord (talk · contribs)'s reviews of two major American figures, Jefferson Davis and George McGovern, recently and I have some concerns. Now, the articles themselves are in pretty good shape, so I'm not worrying too much about substandard articles being promoted. I am however quite worried that Retrolord's GA reviews are nothing more than a brief copy-editing session, and the parts of the reviews that are not that are exactly the opposite of the direction that we want these articles to go in (suggestions, for example, that the article be shortened for no real purpose). For such important topics, I would think that criteria 2-4 should be the most heavily examined, with 1a relegated to a minor point at best. Do other members have concerns about these reviews, or am I off base?

There's no need to further alert him to this conversation now that we have Echo, right? It should do it automatically?

Thanks, NW (Talk) 16:42, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

I did notice Retrolord had 15 open GA reviews, and politely asked to him to reduce the number down a bit. I checked one, a Spongebob Squarepants article, but I struggled to think of what on earth could be done with it. If he picks up one that's in my area of expertise, I might have a look. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 17:06, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
See my comments four threads above.--Jetstreamer Talk 17:20, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict) x2 I'd been thinking about intervening in that Jeff Davis review myself, in part because the demands for citations on statements that don't seem to need them per the GA criteria. I agree that RL's reviews seem rapid-fire in both passes or fails (see Talk:Richard M. Daley/GA1 or Wikipedia_talk:Good_article_nominations#Talk:2011_Silk_Way_Airlines_Ilyushin_Il-76_crash.2FGA1 for more examples of this), and to focus on copyediting matters over source/POV/etc. matters; I believe another editor recently pointed out that RL had something like 15 simultaneous reviews open at one point. His threads about GA competitions, automated aids for GA reviews, etc., add to the impression of a desire for haste. OTOH what comments he does make generally seem valid and on-point (the Davis citations being the exception here and not the rule). Just my two cents, RL; I hope you'll take them in a constructive spirit. -- Khazar2 (talk) 17:24, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
I personally would support a topic ban from GA reviewing at this point - 15 open GA reviews is ridiculous. --Rschen7754 19:58, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
The highest I've ever had open was 10 and those were all on the same class of ship and it took me a good deal of time, and I found numerous little errors and some questions on each one. I do not intend to have that many open ever again simply because related and short articles simply cannot be given the proper checks without 2 hours or more of verification and questioning. Haste is the last thing we need, more reviewers would be the better option at this point. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 20:16, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
Retrolord does some quite hard work, but some of his(?) reviews have been somewhat abusive and that started quite early in "his" editing career ("he" first appeared at wikipedia on 26 January 2013) with the review Talk:Archie McKellar/GA2 on 31 January 2013, he has also posted on Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents against several editors. I've tended to look positively on the hard work and somewhat ignored the bad points, so I have not brought this topic up so far. My concern is that some of the behaviour's exhibited by Retrolord are not unlike User:Mattisse who was blocked indefinitely back in 2010 for abuse; and who, possibly, was last blocked in January 2013 under the username User:MathewTownsend. A topic ban on Retrolord from GA reviewing has been raised above, but perhaps more importantly a Mattisse - Retrolord sock puppet investigation should be raised. Since if Retrolord is Mattisse, "she" should not be editing on wikipedia. A "loss" in the way that the loss of User:MathewTownsend as a GA reviewer was a "loss", but User:Mattisse knows the score. However, if Retrolord is shown not to be Mattise, then a GA topic ban might be a way forward. Pyrotec (talk) 20:49, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
Since you raised the name, I may as well admit that I've also been quietly concerned that Retrolord may be Mattisse for a few weeks now. Retrolord's account was created only weeks after the blocking of the MathewTownsend sock, and has followed a similar pattern to that described at Wikipedia:Long-term abuse/Mattisse: a massive tagging spree immediately after account creation with very little content contribution, followed by mass reviewing at GA and a particular interest in drives/competition, followed by drama and outbursts on various Wikipedia governance pages and forums. I agree an SPI seems indicated. If this concern is misplaced, an SPI could help to vindicate RetroLord; if the concern is valid, obviously we need to know. I'll add a note to the Mattisse abuse page to see if anyone more familiar with the case wants to comment here. -- Khazar2 (talk) 20:59, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
On second thought, I'll simply file the SPI; may as well get the ball rolling. -- Khazar2 (talk) 21:08, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
Apparently some random IP agrees with you: [21] --Rschen7754 21:24, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
The SPI case listing is at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Mattisse if anyone's interested. -- Khazar2 (talk) 21:34, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
Unfortunately, the IP above did not provide evidence.--Jetstreamer Talk 22:20, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Case closed on the SPI; it's been verified that the account is on a different continent from Mattisse, and there's apparently some secret evidence that they're separate as well. [22] Retrolord, I apologize for my concern about this. The similarities seemed striking, but I'm glad to know they were simply coincidences. -- Khazar2 (talk) 01:36, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

RetroLord's open reviews

RetroLord has just been blocked indefinitely for disruption, which means we'll probably have to do something about his/her 8 open GAs GA reviews. What's the precedent here--should other users step in to take these over, or should we put them on hold for a few days/weeks to see if there are further developments with the block? If it's desired, I don't mind finishing out most of these reviews myself, though someone else should review Jefferson Davis GA2 (I did GA1 and have worked on it a bit since). -- Khazar2 (talk) 22:50, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Generally what's been done in the past is as follows - if there's minor changes, go ahead and do them yourself, but if there's anything that requires substantial work and you don't want to do it, just fail it outright without a hold. --Rschen7754 22:59, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
Sorry, I meant RetroLord is actively reviewing 8 articles. I've clarified my statement above. -- Khazar2 (talk) 23:03, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
One of them is my nom, and I was of the impression that the review was complete. However, if there are queries about the quality of the reviewing RetroLord has been doing, I would rather the GAN was failed so I could re-nom. Regards, Peacemaker67 (send... over) 06:01, 27 July 2013 (UTC)
In my opinion, the reviews should be voided and started over, as his bad GAN reviews were part of the rationale for his block. --Rschen7754 06:36, 27 July 2013 (UTC)
Makes sense to me. I'll give it another 24 hours, and if there are no objections, I'll start this process tomorrow morning. -- Khazar2 (talk) 15:38, 27 July 2013 (UTC)
Khazar2, if you're willing to finish at least a couple of the reviews—which is effectively the same as redoing them—it's nicer for the nominators who have been waiting a while. Pennsylvanian (train) and Euro banknotes are June nominations; the others weren't nominated until the past week and won't suffer from being put back into the nomination pool for a fresh start. BlueMoonset (talk) 16:03, 27 July 2013 (UTC)
Yep, I'll be happy to do all but Jefferson Davis (where I've previously been active). It'll take me a week or so to get through them, but I'll do the ones that have been waiting longer first. -- Khazar2 (talk) 16:07, 27 July 2013 (UTC)
Isn't it better to continue his reviews instead of blanking them? He may have made some good points, which might be overlooked by the second reviewer. FunkMonk (talk) 16:08, 27 July 2013 (UTC)
I agree that there's no purpose in deleting that text. Retrolord's comments are often spot-on in my experience, whatever his haste in passing or failing. On the ones I take over I'll simply start a new subsection indicating where the new review begins. -- Khazar2 (talk) 16:32, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Okay, I'm taking over Pennsylvanian (train), George McGovern, and Euro banknotes. I returned Jefferson Davis, Great power, and Sora (Kingdom Hearts) to their places in the queue and archived Retrolord's reviews of each. Publishers Clearing House has been taken over by another reviewer, and User:Diannaa took the eighth (the name of which escapes me). Since the nominator for Jefferson Davis has already done substantial work for that review, I pinged WP:MILHIST to see if someone there would be willing to finish it off (an invitation I'd repeat here, too). I think that should cover it. -- Khazar2 (talk) 16:48, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

  • Questions were raised by another editor on Talk:Publishers Clearing House/GA1 on the 27 July 2012 about the above review and the way that it was being carried out after it was taken over, as it specifically referred to the review of that nomination that RetroLord had posted on his talkpage. That other editor also raised comments on the (second) reviewer's talk page. I also had concerns, as up to yesterday, it had the appearance of a "rubber stamp" review. The reviewer has now passed the nomination and has added the review template to give the appearance of having conducted a review and at 02:10 this morning posted a message on congratulations on the nominator's talkpage. Interestingly, eight minutes later, RetroLord also posted a message on the nominator's talkpage. I've opened a personal review of Publishers Clearing House. Pyrotec (talk) 08:10, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
  • Having exchanged postings with the second reviewer, I'm reassured that part of this may be due to a new reviewer finding his way around the system. However, I which we should also be wary of RetroLord appearing to influence reviews from a distance. P.S. I'll take the Jefferson Davis nomination. Pyrotec (talk) 08:25, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Requesting quick second opinion

I recently did most of a review for Antimetric electrical network, and I am inclined to pass the article but would like a second opinion from a more experienced reviewer, if possible. Specifically, I want to check that the article meets WP:NOTTEXTBOOK standards in terms of being written for the general reader. I have assessed the article and believe that if the issues I have already raised in my review are addressed, the article should be accessible to a technically cognizant general reader. Is this acceptable from a GA standpoint? Best, Corvus coronoides talk 13:19, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

I'm instantly lost here as a technically-inept general reader, but I could presumably look up the terms involved via the wikilinks. Anyway, since NOTTEXTBOOK isn't a GA criterion, I'd say that's not an obstacle to the article's passing, if this is something that would make sense to a reader who would be likely to click on it. -- Khazar2 (talk) 13:26, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
Instant fail (although should be easy copyediting to fix). It fails to make the distinction clear between symmetry of component layout (which is obvious to any putz looking at the pictures) and symmetry of resultant behaviour (which is what this article is about). It does mention this as "their electrical properties", but it's not clear whether this is about their impedance or their transfer function (i.e. an input turns into what sort of output). Worse, it then goes on to use terms like scattering parameters, which manage to be both pretty much the same thing, but couched in terms to hide this from the reader (and no-one uses "scattering parameters", it's "s-parameters" if you are working at this level).
A "typical reader" is assumed to have sufficient background knowledge to want to know what an article is about – i.e. we can assume some electrical knowledge, otherwise they just wouldn't be reading the article. In this case, we can assume that they know networks change signals from their inputs to their outputs (i.e. they apply filters etc.) so there's a base concept of a transfer function to work with. They might understand impedance too, but we shouldn't assume this (i.e., use it, but link it).
Encyclopedic accessibility for this article should, IMHO, begin by describing it in terms of an input-output transfer function. Andy Dingley (talk) 13:44, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
I can't speak to the technical issues here, but if it's an easy fix as you say, an instant fail doesn't seem particularly helpful; better to fix it while under review and get it done with, I'd think. -- Khazar2 (talk) 14:06, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
Andy, I have to disagree with your instant fail comment - there is an entire section in the article distinguishing between physical and electrical symmetry. If this is not what you mean, I'd appreciate you chiming in on the review page to elaborate more on your concerns. As I said, this is not my field, and I'm unable to comment as knowledgeably as I might wish.
Regarding: description of the transfer function, I'll make a note to the nominator on the review page that this concern has been raised. IMO the article was accessible w/o introducing transfer function discussion, but if it is a problem with coverage that also needs to be addressed. Corvus coronoides talk 14:09, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
PS. IMO it is more reasonable to assume knowledge of impedances than of transfer functions -- impedances are an intro E&M topic; transfer functions are an advanced circuits/intro signals&systems/differential equations topic. Of the four possible categories of classes, I think someone clicking on this link is most likely to have intro E&M. Corvus coronoides talk 14:14, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Editor appears to have abandoned a review

The reviewer at Talk:Big Blue River Bridge (Grafton, Nebraska)/GA1 made a comment that they were beginning the review, and that was on July 23. I posted a comment on their talk page today, asking if they will finish the review. What should be done if North8000 doesn't complete the review soon? This isn't fair to the nominator. SL93 (talk) 07:28, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

I think the standard process is to increase the review count by one in the template on the article's talkpage. The bot then thinks that this means no review has started for this nomination. IMHO there should be a speedy deletion criterion for abandoned GA reviews, which would achieve the same outcome but not clog up the talk page {{ArticleHistory}} with meaningless data. Adabow (talk) 07:41, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
I have used {{db-g6}} for these with good success. It does depend a bit on the admin, but if you explain the situation they usually have no problem deleting them. AIRcorn (talk) 08:40, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Trading reviews

Consider the following scenario: Editor A & Editor B both have articles they've nominated for GA status. Editor A asks Editor B if they've ever done a GA review, and then offers to trade reviews (A reviews B, B reviews A). Is that acceptable? It seems pretty dodgy to me. Qwyrxian (talk) 11:22, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

  • There is potentially a conflict of interest here on the reviewer(s), in this case Editor A & Editor B, the review process runs on reviewer integrity and in this case they aught to be aware of the potential a conflict of interest, but then perhaps we should assume good faith. This happens with some quite prolific nominators / editors: and I know that it was happening yesterday (but I shalln't name then); and it also happens in certain topics where there tend to be few independent reviewers. Well, unless it is strongly condemned, all we can do is keep an eye on these reviews. I once referred one such "pass" to a personal GAR, and had some minor improvements made to the article. In these cases of traded reviews (or its variant: pass mine & I'll pass yours), Editor A & Editor B gain the benefit of "avoiding / minimising the wait in the queue", which is not such a "crime", but potentially they get a "soft" review or even a review by someone who does not know what they are doing. Pyrotec (talk) 11:43, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Bot update needed

The edit summaries are going haywire again with repetitive notices. This invariably means that someone has rearranged the section/subsection scheme at WP:GAN without notifying the bot operator.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/WP:FOUR/WP:CHICAGO/WP:WAWARD) 14:17, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

When that happens all you have to do is go to the talk page and fix the status on the afflicted article. I usually fix it, but if it happens when I'm asleep it can stay that way for a long time, so that's how you guys fix it so you can keep up with it. Wizardman 15:10, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Blank Good Article review, but still passed?

Talk:Parasakthi (1952 film)/GA1 was passed, despite the reviewer leaving the review blank. I reverted the editor's re-assessment. SL93 (talk) 17:49, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

The same reviewer passed Talk:Montana Highway 87/GA1, but he doesn't appear to know what he's doing. He joined a few months ago also. SL93 (talk) 21:12, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
He also passed Code 42 Software, but that was reversed. However, he has opened reviews on the Parasakthi (1952 film) and Code 42 Software, but has not yet passed them. Pyrotec (talk) 21:16, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
He passed them without starting the reviews, but myself and another editor reverted the assessment. SL93 (talk) 21:17, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
Yes, I known that, but he has signed up to review them again. Both are currently shown as under view by that editor. Pyrotec (talk) 21:26, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
Ok. Sorry about that. SL93 (talk) 21:26, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
Technically, "writing something on the review page" is not a GA criterion. But if you don't write much (or anything), then people do wonder whether you understand what's going on. If there is any reason to suspect that the article doesn't currently deserve GA status, and there is no evidence that the reviewer considered the criteria, then I would revert the "promotion" without hesitation. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:29, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
It seems that he's been doing this out at GAN, AFC, CSD, etc. I've given him a warning to stop reviewing as it seems he doesn't know what he's doing at all. If he continues I'd say send it to AN/I and request a topic ban from reviewing. --Rschen7754 00:48, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
For what it's worth, I've reviewed Montana Highway 87 for real and will note that that one is legitimately at GA status. TCN7JM 00:50, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
Is there not a case for insisting that the GA reviewer be a Reviewer and that a new status flag "Help welcome" be generated. This will allow those with little experience in reviewing to review section of an article with the main reviewer opening and closing the review. Martinvl (talk) 15:37, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
There is currently an RfC open here for AfC, that's had exactly the same problem with questionable reviews, only much more severe. I have championed the requirement to have Reviewer rights in order to review submissions there, and I'd support the same here. An alternative suggestion, one championed by Eric Corbett, is of a quid pro quo solution - you cannot review any GA nominations until you have passed an article through GAN yourself. After what happened with Arctic Kangaroo, I'm reluctant to drag somebody else through the dramaboard that is ANI. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 16:06, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Article was renamed, should the review page be renamed?

One Day at HorrorLand was renamed from One Day at Horrorland because someone mentioned the spelling given by the publisher on the review page. Should the Good Article review page be renamed? SL93 (talk) 21:01, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Indeed. Cheers. — ΛΧΣ21 22:20, 12 August 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for catching this so quickly, SL93. The review page has to be moved as well as the article and its talk page, or the GA bot loses track of the review page. The review page has to be a subpage of the article's talk page for the bot to find it. BlueMoonset (talk) 22:30, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Review count

I was surprised to learn today that I've reviewed 111 articles in total. Can somebody tell me how this information in brackets in the reviews for each reviewer is totted up and if there's some list of all articles reviewed by editor. Not sure what the purpose of this is and I don't like the fact that somebody knows more about my reviewing than I do!♦ Dr. Blofeld 20:59, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

The bot tallies it after each review. SL93 (talk) 21:36, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
User:GA bot/Stats SL93 (talk) 21:41, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
I think the purpose is to reveal if a nominator also reviews other articles, not only nominating. FunkMonk (talk) 14:39, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

GA Bot Nominator Notifications

Recently, the GA Bot has been leaving messages on nominator's talk page's informing them when a review on one of their nominations began, went on hold, is passed, or is failed. Each time this is done, the bot posts the message under a new section (click here for an example). Using this example, the nominator of the Scream (roller coaster) article received three notifications all under three separate sections. For nominators that nominate lots of articles, this can become very annoying as having just 4 nominations equals to about 12 separate messages (assuming that the article goes on hold; if not, the number of messages becomes 8) on their talk page. My suggestion is that the bot get "reprogrammed" to post any new messages regarding the nomination all under the same section so one nomination equals one section on a nominators talk page (the notification for the review, on hold, and pass/fail are all under one section).

If we really wanted to take one step further, could we get the WMF involved in possibly incorporating these notifications with the notifications "app" (the number beside our user names at the top right) which would eliminate the need to have repetitive messages posted on nominators talk pages?

Anyone agree?

@Hahc21:@Chris G:@Wizardman:@Figureskatingfan:--Dom497 (talk) 03:08, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

If you were pinged above, that was only because I thought you could possible have some valuable opinions in this discussion--Dom497 (talk) 02:34, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Can't individuals just use {{bots}} on their talk page to block messages from that bot, if they want to? Adabow (talk) 05:10, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
I originally approached Dom about this. I definitely don't want to block the bot because the notifications are useful, it's just having up to 3 separate sections about the same topic one after the other that gets a little annoying. Twinkle is able to group automated warnings together by month, so I am sure a similar check could be implemented here to group by GAN. Themeparkgc  Talk  05:31, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
  • This is definitely something the bot operator would have to decide on & set up (but it seems a reasonable suggestion). Tying it into Notifications would be great, but probably won't be practical in the near future without a lot of work - maybe something for 2014. Andrew Gray (talk) 11:33, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
To embellish this a little, there's two problems that would need to be solved: a) allowing Notifications to notify based on "involved" pages rather than its current structure of "created" ones; b) getting it to recognise and understand the bot/template/status workflow. The first of these is a general limit that would need solved, the second one is probably doable but complex (it's trickier than deletion notifications, for example). So at the moment, changing the way the bot runs to use a single page section is probably by far the quickest & easiest mechanism!
However, in a year or so, we'll be getting WP:FLOW. Flow is pretty neat - it's designed to help automate a lot of workflows within the system rather than relying on templates & helper bots, and it'll be possible to have notifications to involved people for each stage of these workflows, if desired. The GA notifications are among some of our most complex workflows (subpages, conditional decisions, etc), but they're certainly something that could be supported by this once it's up and running. So, yes, notifications will eventually be coming ;-). Andrew Gray (talk) 14:32, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
I was talking to a WMF employee (Okeyes) and he said allowing integration with GAN and Notifications will not happen until Flow comes out in approximately 1 to 2 years (he said they are discussing to on purposely delay the official release to allow more testing). So it looks like we are stuck with the initial proposal to just move all the talk page notifications under one section. )I don't even understand what Flow really is (other than the part about talk pages)).--Dom497 (talk) 15:14, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
If it's possible to group them under one section per nomination, I agree that that would be preferable. Personally it doesn't bother me either way, though. -- Khazar2 (talk) 15:44, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

I had some spare time so I decided to look at the bot's source code. I've written some code which would need to be inserted and slightly modified for each type of notification the bot delivers. I've mucked around with the current contents of my talk page and it seems to work as intended. One change would need to be made to {{GANotice}} to allow the section heading to be removed, but that would be relatively simple.

PHP code
$sig = $currentNom->getVar('reviewer');
$sig2 = "-- {{subst:user0|User=$sig}} ~~~~~";
$msgNoSec = "{{subst:GANotice|article=$currentNom|days=7|section=no}} <small>Message delivered by [[User:$botuser|$botuser]], on behalf of [[User:$sig|$sig]]</small> $sig2";
$msg = "{{subst:GANotice|article=$currentNom|days=7}} <small>Message delivered by [[User:$botuser|$botuser]], on behalf of [[User:$sig|$sig]]</small> $sig2";
$talkSection = "Your [[WP:GA|GA]] nomination of [[" . $currentNom . "]]";
$content = $noms_talk_page->content();
$outputContent = "";

$splitContent = explode("\n", $content);	//Split the talk page to individual lines
$outputNext = false;						//If true, GANotice should be output before the next section heading
$added = false;								//If true, GANotice has been included in the output
foreach ($splitContent as $split) {
	if (!$added) {
		if (trim($split) == trim("== " . $talkSection . " ==") || trim($split) == trim("==" . $talkSection . "==") || trim($split) == trim("==" . $talkSection . " ==") || trim($split) == trim("== " . $talkSection . "==")) {
			//See if current line matches the new section's name
			$outputNext = true;
		} else if (substr(trim($split), 0, 2) == "==" && $outputNext == true) {
			//If this is a new section heading and we have already discovered the one we want, add GANotice
			$outputContent .= $msgNoSec . "\n\n";
			$outputNext = false;
			$added = true;
		}
	}
	//Keep all existing content as is
	$outputContent .= $split;
}
if ($outputNext && !$added) {
	//We reached the end of the page, passed the desired heading, and still haven't added GANotice -- add it now
	$outputContent .= "\n\n" . $msgNoSec;
	$added = true;
} else if (!$added) {
	//No relevant matching section, append the full message (including heading) to the page before saving
	$outputContent .= "\n\n" . $msg;
	$noms_talk_page->edit($outputContent,"/* " . $talkSection . " */ new section");
}
if ($added) {
	//Save the updated page with an edit summary relating to the new status of the article (on hold, passed etc)
	$noms_talk_page->edit($outputContent,"/* " . $talkSection . " */ updated status");
}

Hope this helps. Themeparkgc  Talk  07:46, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Four Award

See Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Four Award--TonyTheTiger (T/C/WP:FOUR/WP:CHICAGO/WP:WAWARD) 16:54, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Texas State Highway 168

As the reviewer of this article, I am not able to work on it because of my current leave/vacation (The internet where I am is slow and my ability to edit here is greatly limited). Rschen7754 has to constantly ping me to continue with it because of that, so to save his time, my time and the time of the nominee I would like to hand over the review to another reviewer, thanks! Prabash.Akmeemana 01:43, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

I can take over. -- Khazar2 (talk) 01:46, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
Thank you Khazar2. Prabash.Akmeemana 02:29, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

WP:FOUR RFC

There are two WP:RFCs at WP:FOUR. The first is to conflate issues so as to keep people from expressing meaningful opinions. The second, by me, is claimed to be less than neutral by proponents of the first. Please look at the second one, which I think is much better.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 06:00, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Page issue?

There seems to be a problem with the page or something? I'm not entirely sure what's the matter with it. here. GamerPro64 21:22, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

What's wrong with it? Everything looks fine in my eyes.--Dom497 (talk) 21:31, 25 August 2013 (UTC)
I believe I resolved the issue by removing the entry manually added by a user, which was transcluding the full article talk page. -- Khazar2 (talk) 21:32, 25 August 2013 (UTC)
Yeah you did. Thanks. GamerPro64 23:03, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Million Award?

I'm working on an award for editors who bring high-traffic articles to GA or FA level, which I'm tentatively calling the Million Award. My goal is to create a fun incentive for editors to work on Wikipedia's most-read content, which is often neglected because of the difficulties in improving it. (An important inspiration here is "Improving Wikipedia's important articles", which has some good facts and figures about this).

The three tiers of the award would recognize editors who successfully promote articles with an estimated quarter-million, half-million, or million annual views. (Estimated is a key word here, as this award would not be strictly supervised or regimented--it's for editor encouragement only). This would include almost all topics at WP:Vital articles/Expanded as well as popular contemporary topics. Recent qualifying articles would include Nazi Germany, Nelson Mandela, Thaddeus Stevens, Sea, National Football League, Skyfall (song), and Jefferson Davis.

You can see the full proposal at User:Khazar2/Million, though the graphic design still needs to be done. Since this award would most commonly be given to GAs, I thought I'd ask here for feedback. Any thoughts, objections, or dire warnings before I move this to article space? Is anyone interested in helping to design the award? Thanks to all, -- Khazar2 (talk) 12:35, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

I think that it sounds like a great idea. SL93 (talk) 18:51, 17 August 2013 (UTC)
A great idea- I'd certainly be happy to link this award with the WikiCup, which also offers large amounts of points for highly important topics (though we judge importance in a slightly different way). (Might I also suggest that you allow people to remove themselves from the list if they so wish? That's one of the things that caused such problems at the Four Award.) J Milburn (talk) 19:59, 17 August 2013 (UTC)
Good idea, but I don't think anything less than 1 million annual page (2740 daily) views is high traffic. I don't work in the high traffic area and I have some that probably get a 1/4 million.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/WP:FOUR/WP:CHICAGO/WP:WAWARD) 20:14, 17 August 2013 (UTC)
I rarely even review high-traffic articles. However, I know that LeBron James became very difficult due to a lot of outside editors, which discouraged the nominator. Bill Clinton was one I reviewed and watched. I also watch Tiger Woods. Those are articles that are difficult to get in shape and keep in shape. Down below 3000 page views, not so much. You should focus on million and multimillion, IMO. Otherwise, you will just be giving out awards to people who do articles. You should be focussing on rewarding the difficult ones.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/WP:FOUR/WP:CHICAGO/WP:WAWARD) 20:22, 17 August 2013 (UTC)
A good idea, and one that can learn lessons from recent controversy by viewing itself as a barnstar and taking itself no more seriously. Resolute 20:38, 17 August 2013 (UTC)
Thanks, everybody. I've gotten positive feedback in some other forums, too, and will proceed in some fashion when I design (or get someone else to design) the graphic and userbox for it. I don't know if that'll be a day from now or a month; we'll just have to see.
@J Milburn and Resolute, that's definitely my intention; I want this to be as informal as possible. I'll make that explicit in the instructions.
@Tony, I agree to an extent, and am still debating that issue with myself. But I'm hoping that awarding a more common lower level will inspire people to go for the elite higher level. ~650 daily views (a quarter million views annually) would still put an article in at least the top 10% of GAs, so far as I can tell. Unscientifically clicking through 20-30 random nominations just now, most had only 20-50 daily views; none had more than 200 daily views. For every Jefferson Davis or Colin Farrell, there seem to be about 10-20 Texas Recreational Road 8s. -- Khazar2 (talk) 20:46, 17 August 2013 (UTC)
I don't know which is my most heavily trafficked, but I don't have many. Anthony Davis (basketball) (137K page views in last 90 days) is up there and it has few high traffic issues. Neither does Trey Burke (120K), Tim Hardaway, Jr. (105K). Rewarding me for these would be wrong. There are no issues. I watch a lot of high page view articles and understand the issues, but the threshold you want is higher even if the award is infrequent. Maybe creating the award will change the frequency.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/WP:FOUR/WP:CHICAGO/WP:WAWARD) 20:57, 17 August 2013 (UTC)
P.S. I don't know which subsection you were at when you were sampling. Surely more than 10% of TV shows, Celebrities, Politicians and other subjects in the news and on TV meet your threshholds.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/WP:FOUR/WP:CHICAGO/WP:WAWARD) 21:06, 17 August 2013 (UTC)
Thinking of my own, Calgary Flames and Jarome Iginla are usually good for a quarter-million a year. "In Flanders Fields" is over a half-million, and Terry Fox nears 700,000. Though yeah, that's four out of about 80 GA/FAs. Resolute 21:17, 17 August 2013 (UTC)
I've just been looking through stats of some of my GAs. I think the best one I've got is Keith Moon which hits about 750,000 a year. On the theme of roads, Blackwall Tunnel, a pretty well known landmark I'd have thought, gets less than a tenth of that. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 21:20, 17 August 2013 (UTC)
Well, looking at the 10 most-recently nominated TV articles, it looks like 2 would potentially qualify. You have to remember that most TV-category articles are about individual episodes, which get only a few views a day. Out of the 10 most recent Politics articles, only 1 would potentially qualify. Out of the 10 most-recently nominated song articles, none qualify. Out of the 10 most recent album nominations, only 1 would potentially qualify. Out of the 10 most recent sports articles, none qualify. Out of the 10 most recent history articles, none qualify. And this is leaving out some categories like Warfare, Transport, Earth Sciences, Geography, and other categories where high-traffic articles are even rarer. So I feel like 10% seems like a fair estimate; if anything it's probably a bit high. -- Khazar2 (talk) 21:37, 17 August 2013 (UTC)
I think this an excellent idea. While taking any article to GA status is worthy, as it provides something a reader can trust to be complete and correct, a sense of priority to the general readership cannot be underestimated. I would dearly love to see The Holocaust at GA status again (and at FA status even more), but just don't have sufficient sources to do it justice myself. When I've got Hammond organ out of the way, I might see if I can tackle some more general-purpose instrument articles - I might be able to give saxophone a go as some friends work in a dedicated Saxophone warehouse and have books on the subject coming out of their ears (well, nearly). Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 20:50, 17 August 2013 (UTC)
It certainly would provide some sorely needed impetus for someone to work on such important articles as Human penis size, List of Sex positions and Justin Bieber instead of such elitist drivel as Koala bears and Lactarius indigo or the Duino Elegies. User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 21:05, 17 August 2013 (UTC)
Maunus, can you not imagine a Wikipedia where people work on both? Of course there are worthy less-viewed topics and "unworthy" high-traffic topics (though koala easily exceeds the million annual viewers mark, so it might not be the best example to lead off your second list with). Rewarding one kind of article doesn't have to mean deprecating another. -- Khazar2 (talk) 21:19, 17 August 2013 (UTC)
I think they are working on both already.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 21:21, 17 August 2013 (UTC)
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy obscure GAs, particularly if one of the "usual suspects" like Eric, Drmies or Dr Blofeld has had a hand in it, but the man in the street won't understand that, or much care. (If they did, Eric Corbett wouldn't be a redlink, would it?) Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 21:38, 17 August 2013 (UTC)
Ditto; I was actually the GA reviewer for Maunus's example of Duino Elegies and had a great time with it. I also write some extremely low traffic GAs myself--one or two get fewer than 5 views a day. So I'm not trying to deprecate anybody else's work here, just give an added thanks to people who take on the challenge of editing popular content. -- Khazar2 (talk) 22:00, 17 August 2013 (UTC)
  • I'm just going to leave it up to the discretion of the awarding (or self-awarding) editor. I agree it's a potential issue, but I'm reluctant to make any hard-and-fast rules. Perhaps I'll just add a note to the effect of "common sense should be used in evaluating articles with enormous one-time spikes". With regard to this specific example, I do have a note in there suggesting that main page appearances be discounted; the inauguration article appeared that week in ITN. -- Khazar2 (talk) 22:47, 17 August 2013 (UTC)
  • I appreciate the input. I'd still argue that improving a popular article like Barry Bonds or Cloud Gate is an important contribution, regardless of difficulty, but I don't mind that we disagree. Obviously, anyone is welcome to restrict themselves to giving out and accepting whatever tier of the award they feel is worthwhile. -- Khazar2 (talk) 17:53, 18 August 2013 (UTC)
  • Well during its 4 GAC attempts, Barry Bonds was a little higher volume article and a lot more contentious article than it is today. I am running out of data points for this discussion, but Jabari Parker (90K) as a high school athlete, has had few high volume issues and was not a contentious article (except when he was on the Sports Illustrated cover). Basicallly, I would not award for less than a million, but at a half million some issues pop up. I still think Michelle Obama is my only high volume issue article and oddly there are enough editors to watch it that I don't really get involved in it that much.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/WP:FOUR/WP:CHICAGO/WP:WAWARD) 15:51, 19 August 2013 (UTC)


Alternative criteria

Determining whether or not an article meets the criteria for the award based on the number of views will be difficult, and many people might not want to do the complicated math. An alternative (and much simpler) criteria is: the article promoted to GA/FA status needs to be listed at WP:Vital articles.--FutureTrillionaire (talk) 03:03, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

The problem is that a lot of major and popular topics still don't reach Vital Article status (even in the expanded list). Looking just at US History, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Wilkes Booth, Andrew Johnson, and Jefferson Davis don't make the cut for the Vital Article list, but these are all the sort of articles I'd want to recognize. -- Khazar2 (talk) 03:30, 18 August 2013 (UTC)
I should add, too, that there's no reason your proposed award and my proposed award couldn't simultaneously exist--that is, an award for high-traffic articles, and an award for Vital Articles. (It's kind of ridiculous that the latter doesn't already exist, actually, though I know the Core Contest and WikiCup both recognize this in their own forms.) The two would overlap sometimes but certainly not always. If you're interested in creating a complementary award, I say go for it. -- Khazar2 (talk) 03:58, 18 August 2013 (UTC)
The expanded vital articles list is a joke. This is a perennial discussion we have at the WikiCup, where we judge article importance on the basis of the quantity of interwiki links; the logic being that if an article has been created on dozens of Wikipedia projects, then it must be important. (In practice, this has resulted in a large number of points for articles we would intuitively say are "important" ones- last month saw lots of points for Henryk Sienkiewicz and Hans Bethe, Nobel laureates, a particularly notable battleship, the already-mentioned sea and Norman conquest of England.) J Milburn (talk) 08:55, 18 August 2013 (UTC)
  • Vital articles is essentially an "importance" ranking; the page-traffic approach is essentially a "popularity" one. They often overlap, but there's a lot of vital articles with low traffic and a lot of "non-vital" articles with high traffic. Andrew Gray (talk) 19:13, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

Does a bot fix this?

Greetings. I recently passed the nomination for Romania in the Early Middle Ages. I added {{GA}} to the talk page, as advised in the instructions. But the {{ArticleHistory}} template at the talk page hasn't been updated, and it's not clear how to do this. Will a bot take care of it, or it is something I should fix manually? Thanks, – Quadell (talk) 13:45, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

The bot should take care of it. It may not happen right away though.--Dom497 (talk) 17:29, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

Suspected sockpuppet appears to be sabotaging review

A suspected sockpuppet User:FishGF has hijacked a this GA Review. This user’s sole contributions to Wikipedia have been to conduct this and to start conducting another GA review. To date 90% of his review has been good, but I suspect that his ultimate plan is to spoil the article by sabotaging the review which I believe are borne out by the more recent comments that he is making in his review.

Although he was reported three weeks ago and ten days ago an SPI clerk endorsed CheckUser request, FishGF’s account has not been blocked and he continues to conduct the review in a manner that looks increasing as if he is trying to spoil it. Is there any way that I can get the review completed without his help?— Preceding unsigned comment added by Martinvl (talk • contribs) 03:58, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

My suggestion would be to simply close the review as a fail and renominate. If you've gotten to the point in the review where you believe the reviewer is a malicious sock (whether or not this turns out to be true), you've passed the point where you can work well together to finish the process out. Since this is an odd situation, I personally wouldn't object to your keeping the same time stamp on the re-nomination so it can keep its place in the queue. -- Khazar2 (talk) 04:10, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Million Award rollout

I've now begun the rollout for the Million Award. If you complete a review for an article with an estimated annual readership of 250,000 or higher, you can now give the appropriate level of the Million Award and a userbox in addition to a regular barnstar. If an article hits the highest level (a million views/year), you can add it to the Hall of Fame.

I'll make some effort to track down editors that qualify for the top tier of the award based on past contributions, but my method isn't comprehensive. If you know of anyone who deserves any level of the award--including yourself--please feel free to award/claim it. It'd be a big help! Cheers to all, -- Khazar2 (talk) 16:23, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

How to withdraw a GAN?

How can I withdraw a GAN nomination if I decide an article is not ready after all? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 16:03, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

If it's not being reviewed yet, just delete the nomination from the article's talk page. If it is being reviewed, ask the reviewer to close it as a "fail" so that any comments so far are preserved in the historical record. -- Khazar2 (talk) 16:14, 29 August 2013 (UTC)
Not long ago, I walked away from a GA review which just wasn't going anywhere. I just removed the GA review notice on the talk page and (iirc) a bot picked it up and marked it as failed. There's no real shame in doing this as long as you've made the article better. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 16:19, 29 August 2013 (UTC)
Yes, the GA bot is likely to regard it as a "fail", simple because it is not a "pass", and list it as a "fail" in both its edit summaries (it takes two operations). If there is an already opened review then this closed review will be itemised in the {{articlehistory}} at some future date as a GAN result = "not listed", but if no review exists this event won't be recorded in the article's {{articlehistory}}. Pyrotec (talk) 20:06, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

GA nom ninja?

I recently have been topic banned. And I'm already seeing a couple of editors take advantage of it. But the worst part is that there's been an article I've been adding a lot of info. Now due to the topic ban, I can't touch it. Obviously the point is another editor has nommed it. And this editor knows full well that I'm still an active user and I've done plenty of contribution to that article. Not only that but its not ready. I can't help but see implications of this being intentional

How do these things get addressed???Lucia Black (talk) 06:59, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Anyone can nominate any article to GAN. If it ends up passing then great, if not, you can always renom post-ban -- Nbound (talk) 07:19, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
Yes I know that, but even if not officially acknowledged here. There is a form of ettiquette before nomming. And this situation proves more advantagious than beneficial.Lucia Black (talk) 07:21, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
Yes, there generally is etiquette, but obviously a topic banned member cant give advice on the topic they are banned from. To ask you for an opinion would be akin to trapping you into further sanctions, especially if people didnt agree with you (which is likely considering whatever it is has escalated to a topic ban). Theres nothing stopping you from claiming you contributed to a GA'd article. Noms dont own their GAs :) -- Nbound (talk) 08:14, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
I know that, but the circumstances couldn't have come oppurtunity..that's the point.Lucia Black (talk) 08:16, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
I hate to point out the obvious, but the topic ban has occurred for one reason or another, you may not consider them just (im not familiar with your case), but the best thing in future is to try not to allow things to escalate that far. If that were the case you'd be GAN-ing the article rather than the alleged ninja. -- Nbound (talk) 08:22, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

There's nothing else I can say other than this editor and I have had disputes in the past and itt what with this specific editor that led to this topic ban in the first place. But even so, that's not the point. But I suppose etiquette doesn't serve anything when your topic ban.Lucia Black (talk) 08:30, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Talk:A Girl like Me (Rihanna album)/GA1 - Nominator has never edited article, and reviewer is a 60 edit total IP.

Reviews needs deleting, article needs withdrawing.  — ₳aron 16:18, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Good_article_reassessment/Fullmetal_Alchemist/1

I find this in somewhat bad faith, insofar as it basically ignored every criterion-based argument, and claimed there were none, despite the arguments specifically turning around policies linked from WP:WIAGA. Adam Cuerden (talk) 21:16, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

I had trouble following this comment. Looking at the background, the article was awarded GA back in November 2008 at Talk:Fullmetal Alchemist/GA1, and Adam Cuerden delisted it with apparently fully justified reasons at Talk:Fullmetal Alchemist/GA2, so this community reassessment is an appeal against Talk:Fullmetal Alchemist/GA2 and it only has two combatants contributors. I will respond sometime, but I've doing one review which has been open far too long and I need to get that finished before I move onto other reviews / reassessments. Pyrotec (talk) 22:03, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Plagiarism and close paraphrasing RFC

Comments are needed regarding the plagiarism and close paraphrasing resulting from the DKY RFC, I'm requesting comment on Wikipedia talk:Good article criteria page. Thanks, Monty845 21:56, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Its probably worth repeating here. DYK clearly have no idea of what they are asking, and there is little evidence that they are doing such checks themselves. Wikipedia does not claim copyright on its articles, so copying text from one wikipedia article to another is not a COPYVIO, but if its done without a formal reference then that is plagiarism. Now, that is a check that DYK appear to be forcing on GA. If fact the comment that Monty845 has kindly placed above, also appears elsewhere in wikipedia. There is no formal declaration that it appears elsewhere, so that it plagiarism; and by order of DYK, it has to be checked for and if this was a GAN it would have to be failed on the grounds of plagiarism. Pyrotec (talk) 23:07, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
@Pyrotec:. I have not seen the RFC—I just happened upon your post here so I am not speaking to any larger issue—but what you've stated about copyright is incorrect. Wikipedia articles are copyrighted and specifically bear two free copyright licenses (the CC-By-SA 3.0 and the GFDL) which require attribution to the authors of the content, which are the people you see in the article's page history. For example, if I am the sole contribution to an article, and you copy its text anywhere on Wikipedia and don't provide attribution to me (though all you need do is state what you've done and link to the article [which has a page history] in the edit summary), you are violating my copyright. This is just a technical point and probably will never happen in practice, but under the foregoing scenario, I would have a non-frivolous basis for a lawsuit sounding in copyright law. Please see Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia for further information.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 23:23, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for correcting me on my error in respect of wikipedia. However, to return to the point DYK appear to be trying to impose copyright, close copying and plagiarism checks on GAN, so are you saying that every DKY is specifically checked for unattributed copying from wikpedia. I can, but don't intend to, name editors that "create" wikipedia articles by wholescale copying from wikipedia, including the citations? I've reviewed some of these articles at GAN and awarded them GA-status (I could name them) and some of them are now FA's. In many cases hyperlinking back to the original article is present, but there are rules on OVERLINKING, so not all such "copy and paste" will be hyperlinked and again, where appropriate templates such as {{main}} are present, not not always so. I will give one specific example of a delete and copy: India of Inchinnan was "lifted" almost in its entirety by KTM at 12:22, 18 December 2005, from Inchinnan with an edit summary on Talk:Inchinnan"(Deleted text moved to new article about the India of Inchinnan building.)", but there is no such attribution on Talk:India of Inchinnan. As such, there is some acknowledgement here, but many copy and paste as opposed to copy and delete operations have no such acknowledgements. Pyrotec (talk) 07:52, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
Another point where Pyrotec is incorrect, is where they say "DYK clearly have no idea of what they are asking, and there is little evidence that they are doing such checks themselves". I am a DYK reviewer, and every DYK submission I review receives a spot-check for copyvio and plagiarism. I am well versed in both these areas, as I have reported multiple editors for long-term patterns of copyvio, and also have raised complaints regarding copyvio problems (inter alia) where, in multiple cases, the editor responsible was banned or indefinitely blocked. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 00:18, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
Firstly, can you provide example of plagiarism being found and published at DYK, I'm happy to acknowledge that some copyvios are found at both GAN and DYK, but I'm unaware of plagiarism being highlighted at DYK? I am well aware of the war between DYK and GAN a few years ago where DYK started to "name and shame" at DYK newly listed GAs with copyvios, since I was (in effect) named and shamed at DYK for awarding GA status to two out of the four newly listed GAs that DYK found copyvios to be present. Note: there were two reviewers for these four articles, so in effect two GAN reviewers were named and shamed at DYK. I also have reported copyvios at GAN, since just after that I was reviewing of educational assignment GANs, and I'm happy to report that I received valuable assistance from some members of DYK in using software tools to check for copyvios on electronically-available sources.
Secondly, many DYK are fairly trivial in content since the requirement (there are several) can be boiled down to double it with references, or five-fold increase it without references. I reviewed Ethanol fuel in Brazil which took considerable effort, but an article such as this is unlikely to appear to DYK because its almost impossible to double it in five days. However, I challenge you to do a full copyvio, close copying and plagiarism. When you have completed this, please report back how long it took to do. My review for a article of that length was very short, nowadays I'd do a longer review and it would probably take a couple of months to review against [WP:WIAGA]], but then I did it in six full days. Pyrotec (talk) 07:52, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
Can I suggest we centralize discussion at the link Monty provides above? I understand you're frustrated, Pyrotec, but starting threads in multiple places is just going to lead to confusion. -- Khazar2 (talk) 02:28, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
Since Monty's remarks appear in several places, I responded to them in several places. A major problem is that specific decisions on GAN reviewing policies should not have been made by DYK and specifically not made on DYK pages and talkpages. Its not DYK's place, to make those decisions and then dictate to GAN that they are implemented. Pyrotec (talk) 07:52, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
  • Thanks for that. I'll restate and expand my point. DYK have already decided on their talkpage what checks GA must carry out to satisfy DYK. Having made those decision there, they are asking GA here to provide formal method statements of how these DYK-imposed checks are to be carried out. At present changes to WP:WIAGA are being drafted to submit to DYK for them to approve or refer back to GAN. Is that better? Pyrotec (talk) 08:56, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Bot updates on page

I'm glad to see there's a bot up and working again, but there's an issue I've noticed: I've done six GA reviews so far (two were started while the page was being updated manually), but the bot is currently listing my review number as four. It's a pretty minor issue, but I'm a little concerned that there might be some other errors on the page due to the bot not picking up things that went on while it wasn't working. --1ST7 (talk) 19:06, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Its not the same bot. Some editors manually updated the "frozen page" and the new bot took over, so there might be "lost changes". You can add 2 to your count, at User:GA bot/Stats but you have to get the timing right (I need to update mine as well). Pyrotec (talk) 20:35, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

What to do without GA bot?

According to User talk:Chris G, Chris is taking a wikibreak and has turned off his bots for the duration, including GA bot. This means that, for an undetermined yet extended period, the nominations page is effectively stuck in time: no new nominations will show up, no closed ones will disappear, no reviews or holds or requests for second opinions will show up. I discovered this by accident when a FailedGA template I added did not cause the nomination to be removed from the GAN page.

I have no idea what might be done—he does give a link to the source code in his message—but I thought it was important to notify everyone here right away. Managing over 400 active nominations strikes me as an impossible task without some sort of automated processes. Best of luck! BlueMoonset (talk) 16:37, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

The project was run sucessfully without a bot for quite a few years, longer than the bot has been in use, so if we can't rely of the continuity of the bot perhaps we should just dump it. Looking at the bot's user contribution list, it seems to have been started at 06:18 on the 4th January 2010, but there was a longish period of parallel running and dicussions regarding this will be found at various places in the archive of this talkpage. Again, from the bot's user contribution list it last ran at 10:19 this morning. From memory (I started reviewing in September 2008), it was easy enough to run the system without a bot: the hardest job would be the change over back to a manual system. Without the bot the nominator has to nominate the article on the GAN page, using standard templates: which is easy enough. The reviewer (when someone decides to review a nomination) has to create the /GAx page and manually update the GAN page (to "on review") and do this every time there is a change of status (such as "On Hold"), including removing the nomination from the GAN page when it is passed or failed. I also assume that the GA-star ){{good article}}) will need to be manually added to newly listed aticles. The bot updates a lot of pages that where not used in the manual system, so there were no User:GA bot/Stats nor Wikipedia:Good article nominations/Topic lists. Pyrotec (talk) 19:10, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
Going on that idea, of running WP:GAN without the bot, I would suggest enabling Twinkle functions so that users may perform this on a semi-automated basis, if indeed consensus reveals the bot is too unreliable. LazyBastardGuy 02:06, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for that suggestion. I've never used Twinkle, so that causes me problems, such do I need to learn how to use it and how to enable it for this function? Note: At an unsustainable maximum I've completed 58 reviews on one month (back in the 2010 backlog review drive), which meant 58 change of status (to "on review") on both the relevant article's talkpage and the GAN page, and 58 deletions from the GAN list (and 58 GA stars to add). Nowadays, I'm not likely to do more than one or two reviews per weeks, but sometimes its a low as one or two reviews per month. So, for that quantity is it worth me learning to use Twinkle? To return to the last point: the bot has generally been reliable, but the problem for this project is that the bot operator (for good reasons, I beleive) has walked away and turned off the bot, for an unknown time, without any notice to this project. Pyrotec (talk) 07:06, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
It's not hard. Think of it this way - a lot of the things you might be doing on Wikipedia anyway will be done a lot faster. Nothing's changed except for how long it takes you to do certain things, such as tagging articles for cleanup or notifying users of article deletions. And instead of having to wade through the massive page of wikicode, yes, I do believe it would be worth using Twinkle as it would get the job done a lot faster (assuming of course it was expanded to do this, which I understand would not be a quick process at all). You won't have to worry about using the right templates, for example, as I've seen this page naked (i.e. in the editor window :P) and it looks ugly that way. I personally would not want to have to deal with that. Twinkle would, if its programming were expanded to do so, find all the right templates to do the job in a fraction of the time it would take us feeble, slow humans. And if it turns out to be successful, the bot may be outmoded entirely. Then again, using Twinkle too rapidly (as the userbase is no doubt apt to do) would probably cause a lot of edit conflicts, which I'm hoping will be resolvable using similarly-efficient means. Twinkle is efficient and easy to use, and I think this would be a great way to expand its functionality. LazyBastardGuy 07:53, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

For as long as the bot is out of commission, is it okay if we make adjustments to the page ourselves now? (I'm asking admins and such generally here) LazyBastardGuy 20:22, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

You don't need admin approval. Go for it. Adabow (talk) 20:34, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
In progress! LazyBastardGuy 21:15, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
I just edited in the Video Games section; I hope it doesn't cause an edit conflict. Apologies if so: one was the fail I mentioned at the top of this section, the other was putting the nomination back in the reviewing pool since the reviewer has been voluntarily blocked for over two weeks now, with no end in sight (I checked with the nominator, and this was her preference). BlueMoonset (talk) 21:22, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
No worries; I started from the top and worked my way down. It was tedious, as any task by a bot is apt to be, but you were done before I had even made my first edit here. I just went down the list and removed nominations that passed or failed (interestingly, almost all of them were passes, which makes me happy). Thanks for your help! LazyBastardGuy 22:01, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
Maybe perhaps to make this easier for us, are there any templates we can substitute or whatever? Some new nominations are not appearing here and I'd like to help with that. Just wondering if there's a way to speed it up a bit. LazyBastardGuy 23:38, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
Surely someone could grab the GA bot code and make GA bot 2 or something... Adabow (talk) 05:51, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
With all due respect, I don't understand why Chris G didn't just ask someone to maintain the bot while he's away. I'm not saying I could have done it, but surely someone could have. I'm certain he has his reasons for not doing so, though. LazyBastardGuy 07:23, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
I just discovered something. {{subst:GANentry|Prior to the Fire}} yields this:
Prior to the Fire (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (start review)
From there, all I would need to do is copy and paste siggies and timestamps. I had a hunch this would work. LazyBastardGuy 19:21, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
Aaaaand then again I also had a hunch that it wouldn't. I tested it by clicking "Start review" and it led me to "Bad title". Anyone know what's wrong here? LazyBastardGuy 20:54, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
See below LazyBastardGuy 21:00, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps we need to change the instructions or something, in the meantime? --Rschen7754 05:58, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

We might need to, but I have to wonder how long GA bot will be out of commission. If it's not for but a few months even to the rest of the year at this point, I almost don't see a reason to do that. If it turns out Chris G ends up at Missing Wikipedians, then this would be necessary, assuming no one tries to make GA Bot II or something. I assume he'll be away for awhile if the matters to which he is now attending are too pressing to allow for a quick return. I guess we could just ask people to do for themselves for now, as in, update their own reviews with being reviewed, put on hold or seeking a second opinion or whatever. And when the nomination passes, whoever passes it should take it off the page. LazyBastardGuy 07:23, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

I've raised the issue at WP:VPT to see if anyone can help. In theory I could do this (probably by creating a new bot user and taking it through WP:BRFA), but I tell you now that Mrs 333 will not be amused at me taking on yet another voluntary task. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 08:15, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Nothing. Anyone who is both willing and able can do it, but I'm only unable. Like they say, "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." LazyBastardGuy 05:12, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
I've never ran a bot before but if someone assisted getting it set up I'm sure I'd manage just fine. I've been looking for an excuse to learn PHP anyway. Cabe6403(Talk•Sign) 08:49, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Hi. I think I got the bot working. Please let me know if I fucked anything up... I'll set it up to run every hour, let me know if it should run more frequently. Legoktm (talk) 16:20, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

I think it was configured to run every 15 minutes. There's a problem in that all the review counts have been reset - you could probably fix that by scraping the previous totals from the last good diff and manually populating the field user.user_review_count in the local GA Bot database. I don't suppose you could you deal with RFC bot (talk · contribs) while you're at it? Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 16:37, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
I think it was every 10 minutes.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 16:45, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
Ok, set to 10 minutes. Ritchie333, can I just copy from User:GA bot/Stats? Legoktm (talk) 17:23, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
Yes, the problem you've got is that the name for that page is the bot name + '/Stats' appended - there's no way to separate the two easily. Your run of the bot is now looking at User:Legobot/Stats. I've synced that file with the old GA bot/Stats so it should now work; you'll just need to tweak the code if you want a different name. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 17:42, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
Hm, I just adjusted the code to look at User:GA bot/Stats instead, lets see if that works. Legoktm (talk) 18:08, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
Yes, that seems to have done the trick. I was a bit concerned the bot kept reporting new GAs, but looking at the code, it appears a line has got to have an exact match against what's already in WP:GAN, or it will report it again, and the new totals trip that up. I don't expect it to happen again. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 18:36, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
The bot appears to have deleted the video game section (diff), and now can't figure out where to put the VG noms. Do we know what happened here? Dana boomer (talk) 19:51, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
On the off-chance that this was confusion on the bot's part in its first run, possibly caused by the extraneous "War and military" subsection under Warfare (the proper subsection is "Warfare", which is there and has plenty of noms), I've restored the Video game section and subsection. (This kind of restoration has sometimes worked in the past.) If Video games gets deleted again, then we'll need to take a further look. BlueMoonset (talk) 20:11, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
Follow-up: looks like that did the trick. The bot just ran, and added a single entry to Video games. BlueMoonset (talk) 20:33, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Am I correct in assuming that the (Reviews: x) field is how many reviews a particular user has done? Well, I've done three, and it says I've only done two. Any reason for this? (I reviewed Brown Album, 1,000 Years, and Unfinished Music No. 2: Life with the Lions for the record.) LazyBastardGuy 19:09, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

The problem is that has never been adequately defined. It appears to be a count of the number of review pages /GAx (were x = 1, 2, 3 ...) created by that particular editor directly related to articles at WP:GAN. My count is low by about a dozen (12) or so, so it does not appear to include review pages such as /GA1, /GA2 created for recent articles at WP:GAR, neither does it seem to included reviews that were opened by another reviewer and then "transferred" somehow to another reviewer (I suspect that, on the basis of my review count, it does not include review pages that have been previously created and deleted, before being recreated). Note: I mentioned my count was low by about 12, it has slowly increased to 15 and I'm sure that two or so of those "missing reviews" were WP:GAR reviews and I think that some of the original 12 were due to malformed {{GA nominee}} templates on the article's talkpage where I had to correct the template and or adjust the number of the review page (such as changing a /GA1 to a /GA2, etc) before reviewing, and reviews I'd taken over).
It's certainly not strictly "reviews done", since I've seen reviewers (such as IP users) listed as having done (say) three reviews, but all or many of them were incomplete. The reviewer opened them and then "walked away", or if they were an IP user the reviews were deleated by an Admin). Note: there is a different count, related to newly listed GAs, and those are only counted if a certain bot puts the {{GA}} star on the article, so manually adding the star, as I used to do, meant that the bod never counted and listed them. Pyrotec (talk) 19:55, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
I have never done any WP:GAR reviews, and I started all three reviews myself (they were not begun by someone else and then transferred over to me). None of the articles I reviewed passed. And if this parameter isn't well-defined why do we even have it? LazyBastardGuy 20:19, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
Firstly, the bot goes crazy at times (updating the same "new review" every 10 or so minutes) and that usually results in a massive over-counts for individual reviewers (sometimes by 100 or 200 in a couple of days). I'm only giving examples of under-counts. You are only one short, I'm currently 15 short and I can't precisely give reasons for all or them, neither can I state which ones of mine are missing from the count. As I stated above, the count appears to be related to review pages created, look at User:GA bot/Stats, there are IP users with "reviews" the highest with 18 and the next with 6 but the majority of the IP users listed have one review each, but IP users can't (are not allowed to) do reviews, so none of these "reviews" resulted in a "pass" or a "fail". Secondly, quite simply a user made a request for the bot to produce that information, and several people supported that idea, and that request was implemented. That thread can be found in the archives of this talkpage and / or in the archives of User talk:Chris G. The oldest data in User:GA bot/Stats goes back to 17:20, 24 August 2012‎, so the request must pre-date that timestamp. So, if you want to find out why it was done, go back before 24 August 2012‎ and try and find it in the archives; otherwise wait in the hope that another editor might give a better answer than mine. I was not all that interested in those discussions, and I can't recall contributing to that debate, so I can't remember the details. However, your question has been asked several times before on this talkpage, and I've not yet seem a "better answer" than mine (I would like to see a better answer, but its not yet appeared). Pyrotec (talk) 20:56, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for the info. I think perhaps to make the bot run more stably we should omit this; if stability concerns were the reason Chris G took it offline in the first place we need to make sure it can run, well, stably in his absence. [Review counting] (edit conflict) seems not to have been such a good idea in practice if it relies on such technicalities that it cannot produce accurate results. I can only imagine my review count as displayed by the bot would be even more inaccurate the more reviews I did, which makes it a useless piece of information to display in my book (not to mention that several recurring WP:GAN contributors have userboxes on their userpages stating how many reviews they've done; it might not be updated with every review written but it would give a much more easily manageable idea than that provided on WP:GAN by the bot itself). But I don't imagine this would be the place to raise the issue; maybe I'll go looking for the appropriate venue and raise it there. I'm not interested in opening that can of worms here. LazyBastardGuy 21:09, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
(ec with LBG) To be fair, it's not so much a case of the bot going crazy as it is GIGO...a user inputs the wrong information into the subtopic field when they place the template on the article talk page, then the bot doesn't know where to put the article on the GAN page. Therefore, it keeps trying each time it runs, making it look like it's updating the same review every time. Easily solved by correcting the subtopic field on the article talk page to one that the bot recognizes... Dana boomer (talk) 21:10, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
Dana boomer gives the reason for the bot going crazy, so a reviewer picking a nomination with a GIGO subtopic field gets a highly inflamed edit count. My review count according to the bot is 529 reviews, I started reviewing in September 2008 (this is not intended to intimidate anyone) and I think it has under-counted by only 15, so the bot is about 97% accurate in my case, for LBG it appears to be 67% accurate. Pyrotec (talk) 21:25, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
FWIW, if you counts are wrong, I should be able to adjust them relatively easily. I haven't had the chance to examine the code indepth (just enough to make sure it wouldn't blow up :P), but I will look into fine tuning the counts when I get the chance. Legoktm (talk) 01:38, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
Well ChrisG suggested that the list at User:GA bot/Stats be manually updated and he added 12 for me, I've subsequently added one (twice) to my count, but it seems that the GA-bot undoes those changes the next time round. If you check the history, I added one to my count with this edit and it was undone with this edit. (This was for a /GA2, in both cases, I'd opened as a personal reassessment at WP:GAR, not a community reassessment). With a lot of effort I could go through the list and find Chris' adjustment of my count by 12 and I suspect that there would be a matching updo operation. Other reviewers have infrequently made changes, as there names appear in the edit summary. Note I see that Legobot has now (as of 23:13 yesterday) taken over the updating. 08:08, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
Right, the same thing should work with this bot. A mid-air collision happened, the bot started running at 18:10, loaded the page, you edited the page at 18:11, and then it re-saved it's version once it finished the run at 18:12. Since the bot runs every 10 minutes, if you try again at an :*7 or :*8 it should work fine. Legoktm (talk) 08:37, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
I updated my review count. It worked. Thanks for the tip. LazyBastardGuy 07:43, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Basic GANentry template

{{GANentry|1=Article|2=x}} The second input field is how many times the article has been nominated in the past, plus this one. LazyBastardGuy 21:00, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for that info. I manually changed that template on some nomination talkpages to correct for two (now deleted) reviews opened by a banned user and I got it wrong. The bot obviously regarded my changes as GIGO and so that "error" of mine probably resulted in at least one of my reviews being "lost" from the edit count. Pyrotec (talk) 08:14, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

TonyTheTiger has been blocked

Hi, TonyTheTiger has just been indefinitely blocked from editing. Could somebody who knows what to do deal with Tony's 12 articles that are waiting to be reviewed? Should they be removed from the queue or should they still be reviewed? --Sp33dyphil ©hatontributions 08:34, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

I wouldn't be quick to remove them. They may be up to GA standard already and be "quick-passed", for want of a better word. If there are minor issues then there are likely interested editors, or even whole WikiProjects, interested in the article/topic who may be happy to help out. If there are significant issues, then interested editors in the future will have some pointers for improvement on the article. Besides, from the comments on Tony's talk page, it seems to be more of a matter of when/under what conditions he gets unblocked, not if. Adabow (talk) 09:01, 12 September 2013 (UTC)
I have never seen a GA review (from either side of the fence) that didn't not require at least one point of discussion, so if Tony's not around to do it, somebody else needs to be. I had a look at Lucky Guy (play) and the first thing I thought was "lead probably wants to be two paragraphs per WP:MOSLEAD and some sections are too small per MOS:PARAGRAPHS". I wouldn't quickfail it based on that alone, but it definitely requires discussion and further editing. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 09:27, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Tony will be unblocked soon once the problematic behaviour he has is addressed. So I don't think you need to worry too much :) --Errant (chat!) 09:58, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Let me know what the articles in question are. I will step in for Tony to present his viewpoint until he is able to comment on them himself. I may not be at Tony's level of editing ability or familiarity, but articles don't need to quickfail because of an editor, esp. when the articles are not the problem. I am guessing others will also lend a hand; its an encyclopedia, not high school. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 16:04, 12 September 2013 (UTC)
Phil (or anyone), can you post a list of the 12 here so people can watchlist them or whatever? --Demiurge1000 (talk) 16:53, 12 September 2013 (UTC)
Here you go ... Chapter 1 (House of Cards), Pilot (Devious Maids), Lucky Guy (play), Disgraced, The Trip to Bountiful (play), Kinky Boots (musical), Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (play), Frank Underwood (House of Cards), 2012-13 Big Ten Conference men's basketball season, Shane Morris and Randall Cunningham II. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 19:11, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Unfair close of GAN for International System of Units

User:FishGF just failed the GAN at Talk:International System of Units/GA1. Many editors have been working on the article since 4 August when it was picked up by FishGF as the very first action of a new editor, a very unusual debut. A few eyebrows were raised in the expectation that FishGF would not prove to be skillful enough to conduct the GAN, but instead he was very familiar with the topic. In fact, a week later he picked up the GAN for History of the metric system. User:Martinvl submitted both of these articles for GAN and has been very active in improving the articles to meet the exacting demands of FishGF. I just posted on FishGF's talk page to say that I think he was applying too high of a standard, higher than WP:GAC, higher than needed.

I noticed that FishGF had a surprising familiarity with Wikipedia processes for a new editor, so I wondered if FishGF was a new account by an old editor, or even a sock account of a blocked editor. Martinvl apparently came to the same conclusion. The suspicion of being a sock was brought up here (Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations/Archive 19#Suspected sockpuppet appears to be sabotaging review) in August by Martinvl, and Martinvl added FishGF to the request at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/DeFacto/Archive#31 July 2013 at the same time, with the result that FishGF was "unlikely" to be banned user DeFacto.

At this point I don't see FishGF as the kind of GAN reviewer who understands the limited scope of the project. I suspect that FishGF wanted the article to reflect his own POV or else he would fail it. At Wikipedia:Good article help#Nominator seems reluctant to qualify ambiguous words, User:Khazar2 recommends Martinvl just start a new GAN and go for it again, assuming FishGF is not the next reviewer.

Personally, I would like to see FishGF demonstrate or at least indicate that he knows what the GAC requires and what demands he made were beyond the remit of the GAC. Binksternet (talk) 21:59, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

There are also open threads about this at WT:GA, Wikipedia:Good article help, and User talk:FishGF, but since Fish has agreed to withdraw from both reviews, I'm not sure there's any action left to take. I suppose the articles could be sent to GAR to have the "fails" formally overturned, but given how slow GAR is this days, it's likely faster to go through a second, standard review, keeping the original timestamp so that the nominations don't lose their places in the queue. (As an aside, it's a bit of a mystery to me why everyone decided to battle it out with a suspected sock for months instead of just withdrawing from these reviews in the first place; I suggested this to Martin when he posted here at the beginning of August, but he refused to respond, and here we are more than a month later with five open discussion threads having the same fight.) An apology from Fish would be great but seems unlikely; a topic ban is probably premature, but maybe could be a next step if there are continued problems. I suggest we keep an eye out for any further reviews from Fish (or brand-new reviewers for Martin's further nominations) but otherwise try to move on. -- Khazar2 (talk) 22:28, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Talk:The Swarm (roller coaster)/GA1

Over at this GA review an editor started the subpage with some comments regarding a copyedit request I had previously made. The editor however does not want to pursue the completion of the full GA review because they are unfamiliar with the GA process. I was just wondering if anyone would be willing to take over and continue the review? Or would my best option be to increment the page counter and seemingly renominate it? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Themeparkgc  Talk  22:14, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

I'll take it over--if I remember right, I owe you one for stepping in and finishing off an abandoned nomination I was reviewing earlier this year. You're a class act, Themepark. -- Khazar2 (talk) 22:31, 12 September 2013 (UTC)
Thanks Themeparkgc  Talk  06:22, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Talk:Indio Comahue Monument/GA1

I was wondering whether someone would be willing to step in and finish this review. The reviewer, Teb00007, last edited on August 11, after having created an edit notice about going to a funeral on August 8 (but not connecting it up to the talk page). Thanks for considering it! BlueMoonset (talk) 20:45, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

I can take it over--will finish it off sometime this week. -- Khazar2 (talk) 18:09, 17 September 2013 (UTC)
Much appreciated. Many thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 03:16, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Zeng Guo Yuan

This article is undergoing a GA review and its BLP compliance is in doubt. Editors familiar with the BLP policy, please provide constructive input at the review page. Thank you. --J.L.W.S. The Special One (talk) 15:34, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

I wrote a comment there shortly before I saw this: it's the prose and organization of the article that I think falls well short of the GA standard. I'm surprised that no one mentioned these problems earlier, even before ChrisGualtieri pointed out the BLP issue. Good that you brought it up here, however, since neither the reviewer nor the nominator did so. BlueMoonset (talk) 00:35, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Withdrawing a nomination

Hi, I have a question about withdrawing a nomination. The instructions say: "To withdraw a nomination after the review has begun, let the reviewer know. They will close the review using the fail process so the outcome is recorded."

This means the nominator is dependent on the reviewer to do this. If the reviewer doesn't do it for some reason, or isn't around, the nominator is left unable to renominate, or has to come here for help to sort it out. Could a template be created for nominators to withdraw a nomination themselves? SlimVirgin (talk) 20:29, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm not somebody who is thoroughly acquainted with the different steps required for the different possible outcomes of a GAN. I haven't come across anybody who has decided to withdraw their GAN halfway through a review. However, my understanding of the guideline above is that it is devised to let the reviewer know that there is no longer any commitment from the nom so that they won't have to fruitlessly expend more of their time on the review process, and/or to prevent failed GANs from going un-documented.
I would suggest you leave in the review page a note that indicates your intention to withdraw from the process. If the reviewer wouldn't respond within 48 to 72 hours, and provided of it's done in good faith, you could then close the process yourself and archive the GAN, or ask a third-party to archive it for you. That would be my thinking if I were in your situation. Hope that answers the question. --Sp33dyphil ©hatontributions 14:06, 24 September 2013 (UTC)
That would make sense, but doing it with the current wording would risk nominators being reverted by the reviewer. Nominators do sometimes want to withdraw a nomination and renominate, or are left stranded when a reviewer disappears mid-review. So what I'm proposing is a clear way for nominators to withdraw a nomination at any time, preferably with a special "nomination withdrawn" template. Or that we add to the instructions that a nominator can close the process and archive the GAN themselves, to make clear that they needn't rely on the reviewer to do it. SlimVirgin (talk) 16:35, 24 September 2013 (UTC)
I think it is highly improbable for a situation to arise where the nominator would want to withdraw the nomination, let alone wanting to do so when the reviewer is away. Even then, to minimize any misunderstanding or reverts, the nom should leave a note in their summary and on the reviewer's talk page indicating their intention to withdraw. I really don't think this is a problem at all. If you insist that a template be created, I suggest you make a request at Wikipedia:Requested templates and wait to see how editors there could help. Alternatively, you could ask the folks at Wikipedia talk:Substitution to create such a template for you, although that page has not been edited for several months. --Sp33dyphil ©hatontributions 22:46, 24 September 2013 (UTC)
I agree with Sp33dyphil. There is absolutely no need to create an extra layer of bureaucracy with a template. Nominators can just state that they are withdrawing the nomination on the review page and change {{GA nominee}} to {{FailedGA}} on the article talk page. If the review hasn't started, it's even easier: just remove the GA nom template on the talk page. I can't envisage a situation where neither of these options would work. Adabow (talk) 22:52, 24 September 2013 (UTC)
If the review hasn't started, it's not a problem. I'm talking only about once a review has begun. If you see an extra template as unnecessary bureaucracy, I'll just add a note instead to the instructions saying, as Adabow suggested, that nominators who want to withdraw can change {{GA nominee}} to {{FailedGA}} on the talk page. The way the instructions are currently written doesn't make that clear, hence my query. SlimVirgin (talk) 22:58, 24 September 2013 (UTC)
  • I thought we changed that wording a while ago. There was a case a couple of years ago when a reviewer (now indeffed) would not let a nominator withdraw their nomination after the review turned nasty. This was brought in to basically say that if a nominator wants to withdraw they can, for whatever reason. However the review needs to be recorded in the article history template. I think the wording should be changed to indicate that a nominator can withdraw (or "not pass") their nomination at any time without relying on the reviewer. AIRcorn (talk) 23:05, 24 September 2013 (UTC)
Made an edit to the instructions to hopefully make this clearer [23]. AIRcorn (talk) 23:13, 24 September 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for doing that, Aircorn. SlimVirgin (talk) 23:24, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Current GAN for Grand Theft Auto V

A GAN has been made by the user Boaxy for the video game article Grand Theft Auto V. The game was released only a week ago and as such the article's content changes on a daily basis. In addition, the reception section is currently being constructed and does not at present cover the critical reviews for the game adequately. Therefore the article fails criterion 3 and 5. As one of the main contributors to the article, I found it strange that the article was nominated for a GAN so soon. The user who nominated the article has not made a single contribution to the article and nominated the article after three years of editing inactivity. For these reasons, I've concluded the current GAN for the article is negligent and am requesting a speedy withdrawal of the nomination. CR4ZE (t) 14:15, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

  • I picked up the review and quickfailed it on criteria 5 for the reasons you specified, plus a cursory look through the article's history. It's not in my area of expertise, so I've no idea if it meets the other criteria without a thorough read and check of sources. Aside from Boaxy following up on all this, I think that's the problem solved. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 14:40, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Colin Farrell GA Review 2nd opinion requested

A 2nd opinion has been requested by the nominator for this GA Review.

I welcome this, because I think the article in its present state can only benefit from additional GA Reviewers.

It might even be best to shift it to a Community GA Review.

— Cirt (talk) 16:42, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Cirt, are you giving up on this review? I ask because on the nomination page, you said on August 25, after the nominator made the requested fixes, you'd "take another look soon", yet I don't see any evidence of you doing so before the second opinion was requested yesterday, possibly because the nominator thought the review was abandoned. Do you not plan to finish your review there? If not, rather than suggest a "Community GA Review", which is only available on GA reassessments, perhaps you should request someone take over the review from you. BlueMoonset (talk) 00:35, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Is anyone willing to take over this review? It seems clear that Cirt has abandoned it, given the lack of response here, which doesn't seem very fair to the nominator. BlueMoonset (talk) 05:26, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Inactive nominator, no one else to address article concerns

User:AJona1992 has not edited since August 12, and even then he has not edited any nominated article since at least a few weeks before that. At least one nomination he submitted was closed as a fail since he was not there to address any of the concerns raised and, being the nominator, would likely have been the one most capable of doing so adequately; now there are three reviews that are on hold and which he is not here to respond to. Should we close them all as fail since the comments of the reviews will still remain visible, allowing him to resubmit for nomination in the near future, or should we wait and see if he comes back anytime soon? LazyBastardGuy 04:21, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

I apologize if this means that I'm lazy but could you point me to the articles currently on hold? If they are Latin music related (like most of Ajona's work) I think that me or a couple of users could help. Cheers. — ΛΧΣ21 05:14, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
Dreaming of You (album), Ones, Chris Pérez LazyBastardGuy 05:18, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
Oh, and I forgot, someone is working on Dreaming of You. So it's really the other two that need to be wrapped-up one way or another (I would help but I know next to nothing about the subject matter and am only interested in seeing WP:ALBUM-related reviews move along). LazyBastardGuy 05:24, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Other editors chiming in on reviews

Unexpected drama occurred. Consensus is that as long as all parties assume good faith, other editors are welcome to comment at GA reviews, but the reviewer has the final say in what happens. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 15:52, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

I was always under the impression that one reviewer reviewed a GA article. At least, in my 13 of my 15 reviews under this login and about 140-150 under my older user names, no one ever interfered in a review or chimed in unless a second opinion was asked for. Now, in the last 24 hours, I've had two users chime in on two different reviews unsolicited (before I even began the review on Talk:Estadio Chile (poem)/GA1 and just a few moments ago on Talk:Parsnip/GA1. Quite frankly, I don't know when this practice started, but I'll seriously reconsider participating in GA reviews if it's going to become a committee discussion or if other editors think it's a free-for-all where anyone can participate like a FAC and interfere with my doing the review.--ColonelHenry (talk) 14:06, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

From the Good article reviewing instructions: "Other editors are also welcome to comment and work on the article, but the final decision on listing will be with the first reviewer." Sasata (talk) 14:24, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
The instructions say that while the review is yours, other people can help out. Of course, "help" does not mean "be a back seat driver!" I've seen things from both sides. I dropped two comments into Talk:Jimi Hendrix/GA2 because I wanted to do the review but somebody else got there first, and clearly annotated I was stalking. I had a message dropped onto my talk page for Talk:Lucky Guy (play)/GA1 about some comments which I further dealt with. Again, no issues. Then there was a GA I put up where the reviewer got a posse of his friends to gang up against me, that I walked away from because I don't rise to threats. So there you go - a whole spectrum of results. In your case, Estadio Chile I think was a fair comment, and you probably shouldn't have responded the way you did. Parsnip, on the other hand, concludes with another editor saying you told them to fuck off when you didn't. I think they should come here and explain themselves. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 14:27, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
  • @Ritchie333: - does it make a difference to you that the person who commented on the Estadio Chile review suggested to the nominator to make copyright-protected non-free material more prominent--especially since the presence of said infringing material was one of the reasons I failed the article. While a comment can be helpful, this while of good intentions was incorrect and could have inspired the nominator to ignore my comments to the detriment of the article.--ColonelHenry (talk) 15:15, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
Attempting to justify your rudeness does not make it look any better. If you do not want to interact with me, then please stop mentioning me. Regards.--MarshalN20 | Talk 15:24, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
  • Assuming someone else to be guilty of rudeness doesn't make it rudeness. Especially in this world of text devoid of other sense context or data. After all, WP:AGF, but your seemingly increased belligerency over it will not garner an apology. --ColonelHenry (talk) 15:44, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
(ec) I think in that case, I would have directly said "Sorry, I don't think that's a good idea because it could cause WP:COPYVIO problems" (with a link to the relevant policy). Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 15:26, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
While Colonel Henry didn't specifically tell AfadsBad to "fuck off", he did tell him in no uncertain terms to leave the page: "do not interfere with my review", and I too would have read it as "fuck off". All AfadsBad did was leave two quite reasonable points of comment on the review page: he didn't attempt to take over the review, didn't say that he planned to fail the article or something, didn't show any interest in undermining ColonelHenry as the reviewer. As both an article writer and reviewer, extra useful comment should always be welcomed, not told to get lost, which is exactly what ColonelHenry did in this case. Dana boomer (talk) 14:47, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
Oh that. I did say "fuck off from commenting." But, yes, I am going to have to rewrite a lot of cultivation sections on GAs nominated by this same user, and I just wanted to get this one section a little more on the encyclopedic track as this editors works very hard on articles. Nip it in the bud. --(AfadsBad (talk) 14:55, 26 September 2013 (UTC))
(ec) Okay, I understand what's going on, and see what you mean, though I think there was just a bit of cross-purpose communication. I would interpret "do not interfere" as "carry on commenting but take care not to take over" (ColonelHenry did directly thank AfadsBad, after all) I certainly wouldn't personally equate it to the same level of "fuck off". As long as we all agree we're trying to improve Wikipedia's coverage of parsnips, then all is well. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 14:58, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
ha ha. Nice try. He wants only "one reviewer," does not want anyone else to "chime in," and does not want people to think "anyone can participate" like a FAC. Please reread the Colonel's comments; this is not saying, "Okay, you can comment, but I am in charge" but as clear a "Go away" as ever. However, if he comes back and apologizes for the mixed message saying he was only trying to establish control not kick us off, I will give this to him. I am expecting a door slam, though. --(AfadsBad (talk) 15:17, 26 September 2013 (UTC))
Serious ownership issues? Wikipedia is a community written encyclopedia. If you want to work by yourslf, you could get a blog. There are problems with recently promoted GAs in plants. The nominator of this article puts a lot of time and effort into the articles, so I think it would be easier to mention Wikipedia policies up front so that articles designated as GAs don't contain bad sections such as the cultivation how to sections. All of these will have to be rewritten out of numerous GAs. But, again, the template has the guidelines, and Wikipedia is a community written encyclopedia. You can't lock anyone out of anything, and, as you appear to be the reviewer passing the how to manuals, you probably should not want to. --(AfadsBad (talk) 14:34, 26 September 2013 (UTC))
  • Please do take your disagreement with my attempts to improve the Parsnip article and alert readers to its problems right to AN/I. I will put it on my watchlist and follow your contributions in eager anticipation --(AfadsBad (talk) 15:25, 26 September 2013 (UTC))
  • @AfadsBad: - I appreciated your comment and stated so, I did not dispute your comment, but you alone took it the wrong way. If you retaliate, it may end up at WP:AN/I, that's your choice and wil be based on your conduct (i.e. "interference") going forward. Appositely, I advise you that going on a crusade of disrupting Wikipedia to make a point might not look good when that time comes.--ColonelHenry (talk) 15:48, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
  • Right, but telling people they can't participate where a template invites them to is not the least disruptive. If you disagree with any of my templates, please feel free to take it up on the article talk page where I will be discussing all of them. Outside of the precious Colonel's GA Review, of course. --(AfadsBad (talk) 15:22, 26 September 2013 (UTC))

(edit conflict) I personally have no opinion against one-person GA reviews. Both of my GA articles were passed through them and it was often a rewarding experience to interact with the reviewer. My comment at Talk:Estadio Chile (poem)/GA1 was nothing more than a minor, relevant suggestion. In fact, that was all I planned to comment because I have no significant experience with poetry/song articles. I specially had no intention to bother Henry, considering he was the only kind soul volunteering to review the Peru national football team article, and even left him a friendly message in his talk space [24]. What I can neither accept or understand is Henry's ugly response, which was arguably even more unfriendly than the one he gave AfadsBad. That said, while I leave the door open to a sincere apology, I have neither time nor interest to deal with this issue. Regards.--MarshalN20 | Talk 15:20, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Ritchie, when was it ever disputed that reviewers have (or do not have) "the final say" on reviews? Your hat-note above is highly favorable to an editor who exhibited combative ownership problems. Henry here is victim of neither ignorance nor misunderstanding. We are all sufficiently old enough to know how to respectfully interact with one another. If there is a consensus here, it is that "head reviewers" at GA nominations do not have a right to kick-out additional contributors nor treat them with disrespect. Best regards.--MarshalN20 | Talk 16:01, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Time limits - Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

According to the talk page of Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act this article is a "a good article nominee". The tag goes goes on to say that "Recommendations have been left on the review page, and editors have seven days to address these issues", but also according to the same tag the article was nominated on 29 July 2013.

So is there a 7 day limit or not? Just confused. XOttawahitech (talk) 14:34, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

When an article is GA reviewed, it is normally put "on hold" for improvements to be made so it can meet the GA criteria and pass. The guideline is for 7 days, but that's not a hard and fast rule - if both parties agree, it can go on for as long as they're happy for it to do so. If the review was sat for a month or so with no comments, though, it would be worth looking at it to see if it was abandoned. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 14:48, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Breaking Bad

Under the media and drama section, it is claimed TonyTheTiger is reviewing the article Breaking Bad when in reality nothing has happened. It also gives the date he started reviewing it as being in late 2011. What's up? Taylor Trescott - my talk + my edits 01:15, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

  • I've fixed the GA nominee template on the talk page. Basically, instead of using the GAN template like you're supposed to, the nominator appears to have grabbed an earlier GA nominee template and attempted to edit it, with unfortunate results in a number of areas. It now has the correct date, the "onreview" status has been deleted, the subtopic changed to "Television" from "Media and drama", and the nominator's talk page wikilink included. BlueMoonset (talk) 00:15, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Template:GAReview

Every article name from natural sciences and below has been replaced with "Template:GAReview"... FunkMonk (talk) 21:36, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing it out. I've left a note for Legobot in case it's bot-related. SlimVirgin (talk) 23:21, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
From the looks of it, the page got overwhelmed by all the templates (gareview, ganentry, etc.) and does time out somewhere in the biology section now. If the bot can get around it, then that's good, but if not then we have a serious problem where there may not be an easy solution. Wizardman 23:29, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
Post‐expand include size: 2048000/2048000 bytes. I'd like to suggest the nominations be split into multiple pages. DragonZero (Talk · Contribs) 07:04, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
Looks like the issue has been resolved now. GamerPro64 16:16, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
I created {{GANentry/sandbox}} in which I ran through a series of substitutions which resulted in this change to {{GANentry}} which has fixed the immediate problem. The page is now at about 64% of the template include size limit. That being said, there is a larger concern that the page is at 98% of the Expensive parser function count limit. The reason for this is because of the '''({{#ifexist:Talk:{{{1|Example}}}/GA{{{2}}}|[[Talk:{{{1|Example}}}/GA{{{2}}}|discuss review]]|<span class="plainlinks">[//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:{{urlencode:{{{1|Example}}}/GA{{{2}}}}}&action=edit&editintro=Template:GAN/editintro&preload=Template:GAN/preload start review]</span>}})''' in {{GANentry}} which creates the (discuss review) or (start review) links on every entry. The members of the project need to discuss an alternative to those links as #ifexist: is an expensive parser function. I suggest having it always simple be a link to the talk page (if it's red, it doesn't exist yet). This won't add your preload template, a small JavaScript userscript could be created to check if the page exists and set that for you without using this expensive parser function. Another alternative might be a Lua module to detect if the page exists or not and define the link. I'm not sure I could create either of those on my own at the moment (pretty busy with RL), but I'd be willing to try or find you someone who can. Let me know. :) Technical 13 (talk) 17:18, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
  • Okay, so I spent most of the day working on this for this project. I have a JavaScript solution for you, that can be expanded to add functionality.
First, I modified the sandbox version of the GANentry template to remove the expensive #ifexist: parser function. This just leaves a regular link to the talk page for the discussion.
Next, I created a GANreview.js script for reviewers to be able to use to update these links. To use this script, you need to add the following to your common.js:
importScript( 'User:Technical_13/Scripts/GANreview.js' );// [[User:Technical_13/Scripts/GANreview.js]]
Next, you need to bypass your cache and you can navigate to the test cases page to see the script in action (on a smaller scale).
This script can be modified to do more stuff, but I would like to see it implemented as is to alleviate your immediate issue that you are at 486/500 (~98%) of the expensive parser function limit. Technical 13 (talk) 20:40, 29 September 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for doing all this, T13. It's very kind of you to sort it out. SlimVirgin (talk) 21:33, 29 September 2013 (UTC)
Agreed. Thanks for performing a too-often thankless task! Resolute 21:43, 29 September 2013 (UTC)
All that is needed to make this new way of doing it live is a consensus of your project members. I don't want to change it until enough of you say to because all of the links would be just to the talk page (no preload template to start discussions) unless members were using the script. So... Ping me once enough members acknowledge and support the change. :) Technical 13 (talk) 21:46, 29 September 2013 (UTC)
The preload is pretty important. Are there other alternate solutions?--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 23:24, 29 September 2013 (UTC)
My JavaScript solution offers the preload, your other option "might" be to do it with Lua, but you would have to ask a Lua "person" about that and Mr. Stradivarius "might" be able to point you to one that knows. Technical 13 (talk) 00:03, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
  • I've looked at the Lua manual and it has the ability but it is also an expensive parser function so that method gains nothing. I've discussed it with Legoktm (legobot) and he's going to modify the bot to add a parameter once the discussion has been started and I'll add the parameter to the template tomorrow. That will take some of the pressure off. The JavaScript may still be a good option for eliminating the issue entirely by taking the load off the server. Technical 13 (talk) 03:31, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
Thanks! Don't understand the technical stuff, but if it works, I support it. FunkMonk (talk) 16:22, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
  • I'm happy to support this, provided using the script is strictly optional and just enhances the user experience. The bot and newcomers to GA reviews should still be able do it manually in case adding stuff to common.js freaks them out a bit. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 16:26, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
    • Okay, well I'll need to run one more test to see if I can do something about it with JavaScript if that 500 treshhold is broken. Also, for anyone interested, I've created a GAN IRC channel and can be found there whenever awake if you want to discuss or ask questions. #wikipedia-en-GAN connect Technical 13 (talk) 17:16, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
      Works for me. A minor point, however, is that User:Legobot stopped working now since the addition. Probably easy enough to fix it updating the page again though. Wizardman 17:26, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
  • Legoktm should comment on Legobot stopping... It had nothing directly to do with the template change (actually stopped before the change). I'll be uploading the screenshots of my results to commons shortly and will post links to allow you to see differences... Technical 13 (talk) 17:52, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
  • Screenshots as promised:
    • commons:File:EPF links bottom.png
      • Shows the #ifexist: links at the bottom of the page all defaulting to "start review" as they are over the 500 threshhold.
    • commons:File:EPF links top.png
      • Shows the talk page links at the top of the page working (all links are blue and hard to distinguish).
    • commons:File:EPF technical data.png
      • Shows the technical data for the page.
        • CPU time is about 15.5 seconds.
        • Real time usage is about 16.5 seconds.
        • The Post-expand include size is 1,566,531 bytes
        • The Expensive parser function count is 544.
    • commons:File:JS links bottom.png
      • All links are still working even on bottom of page.
    • commons:File:JS links top.png
      • Shows the talk page links at the top of the page working (Easy to see red/blue links. Red links apply preload template.)
    • commons:File:JS technical data.png
      • Shows the technical data for the page.
        • CPU time is about 13 seconds.
        • Real time usage is about 14 seconds.
        • The Post-expand include size is 1,323,955 bytes
        • The Expensive parser function count is 5.
  • Summary:
    • JavaScript is 16% faster than the current method on CPU speed.
    • JavaScript is 15% faster than the current method on real time speed.
    • JavaScript has a 15% smaller page size footprint.
    • JavaScript uses 99% less expensive parser function calls.
  • Ritchie333, the fallback you suggest will mean that if there are more than 500 nominations that have not had a review started, everything after that will create a new page (even if the review already exists) and start a new review. It will wipe the old review in the process. If the members of this project are okay with that behavior, I will implement it in that way. The alternative, is I can switch the order that they are in the template so that the default behavior if it goes over the 500 limit is to just go to the talk page with no preload. New reviewers may not know what to do in those cases and it may cause issues that way. Once Legoktm is done with the update to the bot, you will have a little time to talk it over amongst you and decide what you want. WP:THQ and WP:WPAFC both "mostly" rely on helpers/reviewers using a script to assist with reviews. There is a fallback for WP:THQ that isn't an issue. WP:WPAFC does not have a fallback for new reviewers (the template system is just too complicated for most of them to manually review), and the fallback for experienced reviewers is slowly fading. I'll be monitoring changes to this page on #wikipedia-en-GAN connect (there's a live feed when an edit is made to any GAN project space). Look forward to your discussion! Technical 13 (talk) 18:36, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Section break

Ok, so myself and T13 have implemented a partial solution-hack thing that will keep it working for the near future. The bot will now add |exists=yes if the review page exists, which saves a #ifexist. It's currently at 404 which should hold for a while (I hope!). Also apologies for the bot downtime for the past 24 hours, I was mucking with the code and didn't want to run anything broken. It should be back on it's normal schedule now. Legoktm (talk) 20:34, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Review of 'Palak Muchhal'

I have nominated Palak Muchhal on 08 May 2013. Will be glad if someone starts review and point out what is needed to improve the article. Thanks! Abhi (talk) 17:57, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

With all due respect, posting here that you want something reviewed is not going to get it done any faster. Some articles get reviewed sooner, others later, it's just the way it is. This page is not to be used to request someone to review an article; someone will when they find they're interested and have time. Please be patient; it sucks sometimes, but it has to be this way. LazyBastardGuy 19:13, 29 September 2013 (UTC)
It should be acknowledged that this is the fourth-oldest nomination in GAN, out of nearly 500. As such, it's likely to be picked for reviewing relatively soon (though that might still be a couple of weeks from now); there's one left from April, and then two from earlier in May, followed by this article. Over half of the nominations at GAN were submitted more than a month ago. BlueMoonset (talk) 00:23, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
I don't exactly think it's fair for one to wait five months when others are reviewed within five hours, a trend which is occurring more often of late, unfortunately. I'll try to hit some more of the May articles over the next few days, since I haven't done much reviewing in recent months. Wizardman 00:51, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
That is simply the way it is, my friend. There's no guarantee about what will get reviewed when; the process rests entirely on the voluntary nature of Wikipedia, which in many ways can guarantee the best possible performance. It'll be worth it when it comes. Some are reviewed within minutes, others within weeks, there's just no way to tell and the only thing you can do is be patient when it comes to submissions of your own. LazyBastardGuy 02:36, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
Ouch! What is the issue in a polite request for a review of an article that has not been reviewed for months? All sorts of places editors are politely requested to review from the end of the line, even here. There is no evidence that voluntary guarantees best performance. Performance-wise this probably results, once more, in a Western-culture bias that does not make Wikipedia as useful as it could be. A little polite request isn't gonna cause the fall of the Wikipedia. --(AfadsBad (talk) 20:05, 30 September 2013 (UTC))
I'm sorry if I come off as brusque at times, but this page is not to request someone finally review an article. If we allowed that, then many nominators would try to come here and do that, which would gradually make it as useless as the nominations page itself is perceived, by some, to currently be. Why is the nominations page not good enough? By nominating a page and having it listed there, that's a request in and of itself. Why do the same thing twice?
And perhaps "guarantees" is a bit strong of a word. By that, I meant only that if someone were to come by, be genuinely interested in the topic and decide to help-out, they would likely do their best to give it the treatment it truly deserves. Let it come naturally; nobody can be forced to edit, and nobody can be forced to review. On the nominations page itself there are plenty of measures taken to ensure that people know there is a hefty backlog of reviews to get to; the article in question, Palak Muchhal, is receiving the necessary exposure in the red box at the top of the page. Sooner or later it will get reviewed. This entire thing is a process; Wikipedia is a work in progress and it should not be rushed.
Oh, and by the way, if I'm not mistaken your post is written in an unnecessarily-confrontational tone. Re-read my post and watch for the panicked tone (hint: there isn't one). If I'm not mistaken, you also indirectly accused me of having a "Western-culture bias", and also indirectly said I was panicking like Chicken Little. If it pained you to read my post, it must have been because you pinched yourself. I don't see anywhere in my post where I rebuked or shamed anyone. Please lay-off the harsh tone. That's all I ask. LazyBastardGuy 22:43, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
Ouch again. Maybe someone else accused you of panic? I don't see it anywhere, maybe a post on another page. Back to the issue; no need to be brusque and bossy at all. I do see that a lot on Wikipiedia, though. I asked for autopatrolled before 50 new articles and was told that one person doing this would cause a sheeple stampede of a billion such requests, so maybe there was panic that the volunteer not using a space perfectly in compliance with the rules would bring down the house of cards. i did not sense your panic, but, as you addressed a paragraph to it, I am trying to be helpful.... Not really. Scolding is so overdone on Wikipedia. How about just point out that other articles have taken so long to review, or just post a general notice here reminding reviewers that there is a backlog and seeing if any volunteers are willing A work in progress for rules, also. A gentle method might get some more reviewers. I have considered it, but keep running into how rules-driven, with individual interpretations it is over here. I would follow rule A and someone would demand I follow A prime and take me to ANI for not doing so. Go ahead and reread my post, and fond the accusations of panic. Maybe you pinched your eyes shut while reading. --(AfadsBad (talk) 23:24, 30 September 2013 (UTC))
"A little polite request isn't gonna cause the fall of the Wikipedia." The need to point this out implies that I was panicking, or at least overreacting. I fail to see how I overreacted to anything.
Even if I am at times brusque, I am not "bossy". Nor was I "scolding" anyone. I am to the point, even if a bit blunt at times. All I said was, this page shouldn't be used to request that people review articles. That is all I said. Please tell me where I went wrong with that.
I have to admit, I'm sensing an analogy to do with pots and kettles. LazyBastardGuy 23:37, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
By the way, mind addressing the "bias" comment? LazyBastardGuy 23:39, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
A little old fashioned with today's modern kitchens, but when in Rome. Generally when someone says, "With all due respect," they are implying that an abnormal and small amount is all that is due. Western culture bias? How dare anyone think it is Western bias when it takes a minute for a Western cartoon to be picked, but an Indian pop star langusihes for four and a half months? It is a possibility, considering a couple of the oldest articles are Indian topics. It could also just be lack of editing experience in these areas, so being polite and encouraging to editors capable of producing articles in these areas might increase en.Wikipedia's coverage of these topics. In fact, it might be cool to offer barnstars or special acknowledgements for editors who can assist with these articles, right here, on this badly abused page. --(AfadsBad (talk) 23:55, 30 September 2013 (UTC))
"With all due respect" - by that I was hoping to negate any possible negativity that came with my comment. I was always under the impression that it meant, "I do not mean to be rude, at all." Which is what I meant by it. I very calmly and politely responded to the request. What part of that was uncalled for? I intended it as a gentle reminder that this page isn't for those sorts of requests; in fact, I even empathized with the OP at the very end while admitting the system cannot be any different.
Perhaps this percieved bias (and I note you did not retract my response that you accused me of having one) is imagined. Perhaps people over here are not so familiar with Indian topics? In my case, it is due to a lack of familiarity with how one goes about reviewing a biography article (WP:BLP is quite stringent and I am not yet as familiar with it as I am with, say, the guidelines for writing album articles, which is why I do album reviews almost exclusively at this point). The nationality of the subject is irrelevant, and your insinuation that it apparently matters borders on accusations of racism. I especially feel uncomfortable with it being personally addressed to me; you said such a bias was symptomatic of the approach that I recommended, which was to allow someone who is genuinely interested in the topic to do it justice. Ergo, not playing nice.
If you would like to be part of the solution to the problem you claim exists, perhaps you would like to help Abhi out by reviewing the article? LazyBastardGuy 00:05, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
I'm very new here, but please stop this. Please. Soranoch (talk) 00:10, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Bot lag?

I see the bot has now updated the nominations page, but it doesn't appear to have touched the subpages. Taylor Trescott - my talk + my edits 21:13, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

 fixed, sorry about that. Legoktm (talk) 00:41, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Bot updates

The bot doesn't seem to be updating the reviewers' number of reviews. Is something wrong? --1ST7 (talk) 23:12, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

[25] Is there a specific discrepancy you're seeing? Legoktm (talk) 05:25, 5 October 2013 (UTC)
When I was at 12 reviews, it was still saying 10, so I updated it manually. Then, the next day, the bot moved my review number to 13 even though I was still at 12. Now it says 14 even though I'm now at 13. Is there a way to get this sorted out without any more complications? Thank you, --1ST7 (talk) 18:15, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

New reviewer needed for Talk:Polish–Prussian alliance/GA1

The existing reviewer averages ~5 edits a month and has not been active in the last three weeks. This review needs to be taken over or restarted, and the reviewer should be banned from messing with future GANs. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 08:44, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

 fixed --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 05:27, 6 October 2013 (UTC)
I understand it can be frustrating when something you submit takes so long to review, but please refrain from calling for users to be topic-banned and please don't accuse them of "messing" with anything. In the spirit of civility, please try to see the best side of things. Please don't let your experience here get you down. Please? LazyBastardGuy 02:13, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

Is this an acceptable review?

I like getting my work passed for GA, who doesn't? But... what are your thoughts about brief reviews like Talk:Stephen_Báthory#GA_Review? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 09:25, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

I agree. It's flat-out impossible for an article to be submitted to GAN and not have some kind of problem with it. Even if the problems aren't so bad the article must be failed immediately, no article is perfect. I would suggest a reassessment of all the problem articles. LazyBastardGuy 19:50, 6 October 2013 (UTC)
  • Since Talk:Zeng Guo Yuan/GA1, which has significant issues, hasn't been visited for over three weeks, can it be taken over by someone competent? It probably should have been failed already for the substantial problems noted, but it needs a new reviewer to replace the current one. BlueMoonset (talk) 22:25, 6 October 2013 (UTC)
  • Put it back in the queue. Thankfully that's his only open one. He's had a lot of issues left, to put it lightly, and I'd be reluctant to have him do any more reviews right now, since he still doesn't seem to get it. Wizardman 22:57, 6 October 2013 (UTC)
  • Looking at the first example of Stephen Bathory, I see at a glance the sentence "Báthory, together with his chancellor Zamoyski, led the army of the Commonwealth in a series of decisive campaigns taking Polotsk in 1579 and Velikiye Luki in 1580 and ." We all overlook errors sometimes, but taken with the other evidence of haste, that hard-to-miss incomplete sentence suggests to me this wasn't read very closely during its review. When this issue about QSL's reviews was raised a few months ago, I suggested that she/he slow down, give more thorough reads, and make more explicit use of the templates. Since that hasn't happened, it probably is time that we ask QSL not to do any more reviews for a while. They might also consider doing the GA recruitment/tutoring process when they want to resume. Would you agree to that, QSL? (Note about this discussion left on the user's talk page.) -- Khazar2 (talk) 00:31, 7 October 2013 (UTC)
  • Wizardman, I see you've put it back, but I'd be prepared to fail Zeng Guo Yuan right now. My comments on September 17 were pretty straightforward, but were only partially addressed later in the day (and not the most important part), with nothing done since. This is not an article that's even near GA, on prose and structural grounds alone, even ignoring the very real BLP issues. I don't think it helps to have it back in the queue at this point, and barring a strong objection, I think it should be ended now. BlueMoonset (talk) 03:10, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

Wrong section

I just realized I've nominated William Hayden English under the wrong topic (I but it where living politicians go; he is long dead). I was going to just move it, but wanted to make sure I follow the right procedures and don't foul anything up. What's the procedure for that? --Coemgenus (talk) 13:37, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

Just change the parameter in the template from politics to world history (or whatever) in the nomination template on the article's talk page. Thanks for the nomination, good luck with it -- Khazar2 (talk) 13:38, 7 October 2013 (UTC)
Done. Thanks! --Coemgenus (talk) 14:12, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

formatting error

Hello. In the economics and business section, there is a nomination with the username formatted as "CorporateM|note=COI nominator". I've copied the full entry here:

  1. Noodles & Company (talk | history | start review) CorporateM|note=COI nominator (Talk) 01:36, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Does anyone know what's causing the error with the username link? Edge3 (talk) 21:48, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Request for outside input

I'm interested in getting additional opinions on what appears to be a sticking point for the GA review for the Hope Solo article. Please see the discussion in the "In popular culture" section of the review. Thanks for your time. Hmlarson (talk) 23:16, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

I am the reviewer and although I appreciate the concern, the procedure is that the reviewer is the party that requests outside opinion. The nominator or any interested third party is allowed to request second opinion through WP:GAR. I would prefer if outside parties just let this one proceed between me and the nominator. If the decision is not deemed appropriate, please address that at WP:GAR.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 00:48, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
Since your interpretation of WP:RGA (see Disputes section) and the last sentence in the FAQ included at the top of this page and others in this GA section is different than mine, I'd like clarification from others. Hmlarson (talk) 03:25, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
I don't see any issue with the nominator requesting a second opinion here or through any other suitable forums (using the template, help and so on). However, the final decision in the review will rest with the reviewer. I would think most reviewers would welcome outside input, but they are certainly entitled to ignore it if they don't agree with the second opinions. AIRcorn (talk) 04:47, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
Agreed. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:17, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

The Al-Mansuriya article needs just a little push...

QatarStarsLeague stopped editing Wikipedia nearly a month ago. When he did so, he had several GANs up for review, one of which is Al-Mansuriya. I reviewed the article at Talk:Al-Mansuriya/GA1, and it is quite close to GA status. If someone is willing to take over as nominator and address the issues I've raised, I think it would only take a little effort to get the article promoted. Does anyone want to do this? (For comparison, when Brigade Piron placed QatarStarsLeague's nomination of French Sudan on hold, I was able to jump in and address all concerns, and the article attained GA status.) If no one volunteers, I'll have to fail the GAN, but that would be a shame. Any takers? – Quadell (talk) 22:51, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

I'll give it a try... I have some knowledge of Arabic and Shia Islam to drag on. FunkMonk (talk) 13:45, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Undisplayed nominee

I nominated Countdown to Extinction for GA review yesterday, but it's still not placed on the waiting list. Do I have to do it manually or maybe there is minor malfunction with the bot?--Вик Ретлхед (talk) 08:40, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

See this conversation with Legoktm, the bot owner, it's an (unplanned) outage based on a Labs update that took far longer than expected. Doesn't look like Legoktm has been back online since Labs came back up, so there could have been a tweak that requires him to manually restart the bot or something. I'd say give him a bit more time and see... Dana boomer (talk) 11:57, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
It has since appeared. BlueMoonset (talk) 06:14, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Withdrawing a nomination

Hi all! How do I go about withdrawing a nomination? Specifically I would like to withdraw nom of Croatian special police order of battle in 1991–95 after a consensus was reached that the article is in fact a list (thus ineligible for a GAR) at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history#A list or a regular article?. Regards.--Tomobe03 (talk) 10:59, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Never mind - found the info - not sure how I missed it before.--Tomobe03 (talk) 11:11, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

GA Nomination Spam

I can't help but notice that user "23 editor" has made about a half dozen article nominations for GA review, most of them with cursory or no attempts to improve them first, and all on Serbian topics. Whilst I applaud their enthusiasm, they are clearly spamming the process and more interested in just getting loads of Serbian articles listed as GA, than actually improving the articles to genuine GA standard. See their latest nomination, Skull Tower. If this is GA standard, we may as well list anything as GA. Is there no rules or guidelines about just spamming dozens of articles for GA review?!?? -PocklingtonDan (talk) 19:18, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Dan, I have no idea what you're looking at. Here's the diff on 23 editor's work on your example article so far. She/he added many sources, removed some problematic content, and appears to have rewritten the article top to bottom. How is that in any sense "cursory"?
I'd suggest again to you that you learn how to review articles yourself before stirring up more trouble in forums like this. Your GA contributions so far appear to consist of methodically quick-failing all of the nominations ahead of your own in the History queue-- am I reading your history correctly that you have a quick-fail rate of 100% so far? A comparatively new GA editor, Chris Troutman, has already announced a leave of absence from Wikipedia immediately after an ugly run-in with you. Instead of lecturing others, you need to take a deep breath and learn the basics here. Would you be willing to work with an experienced reviewer for a bit? -- Khazar2 (talk) 20:00, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
Sorry, striking my mistake above; after our previous confrontation about his 4 consecutive quick-fails of nominations ahead of his in the queue, Dan then quick-passed the next article. His correct quickfail rate is 80%; I apologize, Dan, for the error. -- Khazar2 (talk) 20:07, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
Khazar2, I'm not sure I appreciate your neutrality on this matter, or the accuracy of your comments: perhaps you would be better excluding yourself from the discussion here based on your partiality to the topics of articles in question (based on your own edit history), and your own history of personal disagreement with me? I think that would probably be the more mature thing to do, or you are going to make this personal again. I am not "stirring up trouble", but seeking steer on what I see as a genuine issue. I think even you would have to admit that the GA nomination history of "23 editor" is highly unusual. As you admit above, you are inaccurate in your summation of my invovelment in wikipedia, no doubt coloured by your own personal dislike of me. Your arguments are all ad hominem (I have taken two articles to FA, so need no help from "experienced reviewers" such as yourself, but thanks for the offer), and do nothing to address the points that I raised: the reviewer is nominating every article they work on, even where they have made only brief edits, and is spamming the nomination process. I seek clarification on what is acceptable here from parties with no personal history with me, or involvement in those articles. Please can you back off and let neutral community members respond -PocklingtonDan (talk) 20:47, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
Your assertion that I caused Chris Troutman to leave is also innaccurate and personally vindictive, his own edit summary on his reason for leaving states that his article failed two GA reviews. One was by me, one by another editor with which I have no association, so I suggest that it would be hard to argue that my review of his article was anomalous. You need to take your personal off-topic, ad-hominem attacks against me off this thread - PocklingtonDan (talk) 20:49, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
(edit conflict) FWIW, I believe my first and only previous interaction with Dan was a pair of comments I made to his talk page a few days ago about his interactions with the same editor; I asked him to be less quick on the trigger with quickfails and less hasty to assume bad faith. (here and here) He called me a troll and deleted the comments, but others can be the judge. I will step out of the thread at this point, though. -- Khazar2 (talk) 21:01, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
Dan has just returned the "nothere" template to his user page (he had never removed it from his talk page). He was back on Wikipedia for all of four weeks. In tonight's bit of irony, the article he nominated at GAN has just been taken for review, mere hours after he checked out "for another 7 years"... BlueMoonset (talk) 02:19, 15 October 2013 (UTC)
Not gone yet. He is currently working on passing Wade's Causeway. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 19:04, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Can anyone help?

I am currently conducting two reviews: Talk:2005–06 Arsenal F.C. season/GA1 and Talk:Michael Rush (rower)/GA1. Unfortunately, real life commitments mean that I am not going to be able to guarantee enough of my time and concentration over the next couple of weeks to continue the reviews. I will probably be on Wiki from time to time, but not consistently enough for these reviews. I would be grateful if another editor, or pair of editors, would be able to take over these reviews for me. Apologies for the inconvenience, I feel very guilty about having to do this. Regards, Harrias talk 19:25, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Will do --Mdann52talk to me! 13:44, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Looking for a coreviewer who would handle the quality of prose part

I would like to be more active as a reviewer, and help reduce the backlog, but I am always uneasy about reviewing as I know I am not a native speaker, and I will not be able to focus on prose as much as some others. I wonder if there are editors who would like to work with me on this - handle the review of prose part? FYI, I am planning on reviewing Battle of Warsaw (1831) as my next GA review. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 06:40, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Hey Piotrus, I'd be happy to split at least a few like that with you. I'll put Battle of Warsaw on my watchlist now; just ping me when you want to start any beyond that and I'll let you know what my schedule's like. -- Khazar2 (talk) 12:47, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

COI GAs

About half of the GA nominations for Economics are articles that I have nominated in a COI capacity. Based on the advice I was previously given on this Talk page, I included a COI disclosure in the GAN note, so reviewers may choose for themselves if they want to collaborate with a COI or not. I should have Monster (company) ready for a GAN within a few weeks or so as well depending on how quickly I get responses from editors and Yelp, Inc. could be ready relatively soon depending on the promptness of responses to my edit requests etc.

I just want to make sure that this is still ok? I am a little concerned about if editors will feel I am overwhelming GA reviewers and creating a burden on the community to invest so much time into relatively unimportant articles where I have a COI, however I do not know if that is actually a problem or if I am only imagining it. As the flip side is editors could be quite pleased that I am so committed to making sure they are up to the community's standards. CorporateM (Talk) 12:36, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Personally I appreciate your efforts to improve articles and forthrightly disclose your COI, and I don't think your articles are unimportant; I imagine they're more highly trafficked than many of our articles on roads, historic homes, local music groups, minor nobility, etc. It would be a help if you would review some other nominations when making nominations of your own--you can go through the GA mentorship process if you don't think you're experienced enough to jump right in--but this isn't required. I'm just happy the articles are getting improved, even if there's a backlog. -- Khazar2 (talk) 12:55, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
Cool, I'll keep hammering away at them. I notice there are only about 100 GAs under WikiProject Companies and my hope is - within a couple years - to increase that substantially.
I've done quite a few GAs now and may be adequately qualified at this point to review others. CorporateM (Talk) 13:12, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
It's a pleasure to review GANs. Sure, we may be backlogged, but that shouldn't discourage anyone from participating in the process. Also, I agree with Khazar2. I consider your articles to have "high priority" since they receive a lot of traffic compared to other GAs. You're COI hasn't been an issue, and it doesn't negatively impact the GA review process. In fact, I think you're actually helping us by working on articles related to companies and brands, since those articles normally don't get much attention from GA writers! Edge3 (talk) 19:13, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
True. Out of about 17,000 articles in WikiProject Companies, only ~100 are GA or above, which is a little more than one-half of one-percent. I have done 13 GAs now, so that is about 10 percent of our most highly ranked content about brands. I've been thinking about whether it would be offensive to the community if at some point that number gets to 30% and I start advertising that I've created 30% of our most highly ranked company content ;-)
It is in the client's best interest I think. The best way to ensure the durability of the content and deflect COI criticisms is to simply make sure the content itself is exceptional. CorporateM (Talk) 14:19, 18 October 2013 (UTC)
Better patrolled articles and high quality work is the best, but the long term abuse of the business section is more likely because of actual errors and the ease of vandalism. It is good work you are doing and I doubt many rational editors could find a fault in the pursuit of encyclopedic and balanced coverage of any topic. All it takes is one dedicated person to tackle the brambles. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 02:36, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Proactiv nomination incorrectly marked as "failed"

I passed the GAN for Proactiv, but Legobot seems to think that I failed it. [26] As a result, the bot never added the GA mark on the article page, among other tasks that it normally should do whenever a GAN is passed. Could someone please look into whether I did something wrong with the process? Edge3 (talk) 19:28, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

It's because there's a failed GA template on the talk page. When passing previously failed articles, you need to add the Article History template. Example: Talk:Roger Crozier. Taylor Trescott - my talk + my edits 19:31, 18 October 2013 (UTC)
Are you sure about that? This step isn't documented anywhere in WP:GAN/I. Regardless, I'll go ahead and implement the Article History template. What are the steps that Legobot usually does whenever an article is passed? Should we do them manually? Edge3 (talk) 19:49, 18 October 2013 (UTC)
It's not official, but what you've described in your original comment has happened before. Not official, but I guess when Legobot scans for new GA templates, it detects the failed one first. Anyway, when it's passed, Legobot adds the template to the page and leaves a congratulatory message on the nominator's talk. Taylor Trescott - my talk + my edits 20:37, 18 October 2013 (UTC)
Okay, so I added the Article History template, another editor added the GA template, and the nominator is aware that the article passed the GAN. Has everything been fixed now? Edge3 (talk) 20:59, 18 October 2013 (UTC)
Yeah, I think it's good. Taylor Trescott - my talk + my edits 21:21, 18 October 2013 (UTC)
So for the bot to consider it passed, it checks for either the articlehistory's |currentstatus=GA or the presence of {{GA}} AND then, the absence of {{FailedGA}}. If those conditions aren't met it's considered as failed. Maybe the bot could check that the GA template is above FailedGA? I'm not very familiar with all the variations of these templates to know if that's a good solution. Legoktm (talk) 22:49, 18 October 2013 (UTC)
Reviewers don't always place the GA template above FailedGA, so that solution wouldn't be ideal. However, since the GA and FailedGA templates both use timestamps, would it be possible for the bot to look for the most recent timestamp? If not, I think we should update the GAN documentation to require that the reviewer implement the Article History template. Edge3 (talk) 14:46, 19 October 2013 (UTC)
This might be an opportunity to make the bot smarter about Passed and Failed vs. Maintenance in its edit summaries. I've replaced a "GA nominee" template with a "FailedGA" template, only to see the next bot edit summary say "Maintenance" rather than "Failed" and the article name. I've seen the same thing happen with a GA template resulting in a "Maintenance" edit summary. As Edge3 notes, if there isn't an article history section, the more recent GA template (as in within the past couple of days) should trump an older FailedGA template, with their dates based on the template timestamps. BlueMoonset (talk) 04:15, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Can an article be GA if it violates WP:CFORK

I started a review Talk:Hart Lake (Oregon)/GA1 and noticed that the Hart Lake article being reviewed spoke little about Hart Lake and spent 60% of the article's content on the Lake's parent valley, Warner Valley. There is a considerable amount of overlapping material. Before I consider continuing the review through (it is a pretty good article on its own and could with minor work be a good GA), I'd like to resolve whether this article as a possible WP:CFORK violation, should be eligible. I would venture given the overlap, it ought to be merged back into Warner Valley, but I defer to whatever consensus emerges. Please advise (and ping me so I know you responded). Thanks. --ColonelHenry (talk) 21:53, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

@ColonelHenry:, my suggestion would be to propose a merge or deletion as you see fit and put it on hold in the meantime; a consensus will hopefully emerge one way or the other to give clear guidance. CFORK isn't really an issue by the GA criteria, but there's no point in taking the time for a GA review if you're not sure yet that the article will continue to exist. -- Khazar2 (talk) 22:42, 18 October 2013 (UTC)
  • @Khazar2: - In this situation, would it be a viable solution in conjunction with some of the ideas above, to state that this article lacks the focus demanded by criteria 3b? I think an article that spends 60% of its content discussing things covered in another article that are not specific to the article subject, we would have a 3b problem? Am I right in thinking this?--ColonelHenry (talk) 02:27, 19 October 2013 (UTC)
  • @ColonelHenry: - My take after a quick skim would be that the article is okay on 3b grounds. It's probably not going to be possible to discuss the lake without discussing the surrounding wildlife, climate, geology, etc., and the article regularly ties the discussion to the specific lake. So it seems like the biggest issue here might just be notability, which technically isn't a GA criterion (though is often a good idea to resolve before adding the green blob); it's hard to tell without a much closer look at the sources which are quality RSs that discuss the lake in significant detail. But you've worked with this article in more depth than I have, so I'd say it's ultimately up to you... sorry I can't be more definitive. -- Khazar2 (talk) 16:46, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

If you'd like to help determine this issue, I've opened up discussion for a proposed merger. Please feel free to join in the discussion at: Talk:Warner Valley#Merger proposal. Thanks. --ColonelHenry (talk) 13:50, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Cultivation sections

Although not exactly a GAN issue, another user (now retired) has been following me around and putting tags on the "Cultivation" sections of Parsnip, thus totally disrupting the GA review, and the recently promoted Onion and Blackcurrant articles. Clearly an article about a food plant should have a cultivation section to make it "broad in scope" and the question is, how much detail should be included in the section? The source I largely used, The Royal Horticultural Society Encyclopedia of Gardening, went into considerable detail but then it was designed for gardeners. I did challenge the tagger to rewrite one of the cultivation sections to his satisfaction but he did not do this. It irks me to leave these tags in place. Another view would be welcome. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 05:57, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

  • @Cwmhiraeth: - Speaking as the editor who was involved in reviewing and promoting the Onion and Blackcurrant GAs, and as someone raised on a family dairy and produce farm (and in my formative years where I worked like a slave) I found the articles and especially the cultivation section to be informative, correct and comprehensive for a general audience which is what we seek to be at Wikipedia. We aren't a technical guide, so the specificity demanded by User:Afadsbad was a little excessive. If he came with a better approach, it would have been easier to work with him for improvement, but sadly he frustrated himself with the attitude he brought to bear (quite like Ozymandias, if you ask me). Gladly, we can/should point to technical guides for those inclined for more information, but we need to keep clear of alienating a curious audience who are overwhelmed by the overly technical (there's a tag for that). I would remove the tags because that user stated his intention to be disruptively WP:POINTy after I asked him to not interfere with my review of the Parsnip article. In deciding how much information is necessary: Find three sources at the general level comparable to the RHSEG you use (maybe a USDA guide, or agriculture extension service guide, other horiticultural works), and compare what they write about cultivation. If they are comparable, you ought to be fine and leave it at that. If they offer more information, include a little more. If they offer less, you ought to be fine with what is as the article. I found the articles to be GA worthy and will continue to fight for them knowing the quality of your work and your dedication to improve that work if necessary, if another editor disagrees, we have a process for that by opening a review. --ColonelHenry (talk) 13:27, 19 October 2013 (UTC)
  • I would also suggest removing the tags. I haven't looked in detail at the situation, but if an article has already been reviewed and approved, the tagger is therefore likely in the minority in their concerns; to follow an editor from article to article to repeat the behavior, rather than using talk pages or GAR, seems seriously disruptive. If another user wants to reinstate the tags, they can always take it up at the talk page, but for now I say take them down. -- Khazar2 (talk) 21:29, 19 October 2013 (UTC)
  • Thanks, Peter. By suggesting that the tags be removed, I didn't mean to suggest that either side was right/wrong here--only that the talk page and collaboration should be the first step to pursue concerns on newly promoted GAs, rather than large amounts of tagging without concrete suggestions. (FWIW, I'd suggest the same for any addition to an article that can be presumed in advance to be disputed by several editors there.) I appreciate your efforts to take a more constructive approach. -- Khazar2 (talk) 13:29, 20 October 2013 (UTC)
I have now rewritten the section in Parsnip along the lines Peter suggested, and will deal similarly with the other two. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 18:21, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

User:GA bot/Stats

I keep trying to increase my review count on this page by one but both times I did, it wasn't saved. Is this page bizarrely protected or something like that? I received no notice that I'm not allowed to edit it, and I have edited it successfully in the past. LazyBastardGuy 21:15, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Nope, there is no error message on the editor window (I use wikEd to help make sense of things), and when I return to the page after I've clicked Save page, I scroll down to find I'm still stuck with only 11 reviews. I undertook a 12th recently. It's not saved in the article history and I can't find it under my recent contributions list. LazyBastardGuy 16:37, 20 October 2013 (UTC)
I went and changed my review count to 9000 [27] and it showed up, so I can't help you here. Taylor Trescott - my talk + my edits 18:05, 20 October 2013 (UTC)
I do use Firefox, and both times I edited that page my browser lagged to the point that Firefox told me there was a script on the page which could make it unresponsive. Naturally, I clicked to stop that script, and although my ability to use the edit window (again I use wikEd) was not impeded, I did not see a "Your edit was saved" message appear afterward either. LazyBastardGuy 18:07, 20 October 2013 (UTC)
Okay, I tried it again. This time it worked. I got no message about problem scripts and the edit was saved successfully. It must have had to do with that script I told the browser not to run. LazyBastardGuy 18:09, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Community reassessment for Hope Solo article

Would anyone be willing to take look at the community reassessment for the Hope Solo article? There's a solid consensus for good article assessment, it has been listed for over seven days, and the discussion has run its course. Thank you. Hmlarson (talk) 00:02, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Done. Adabow (talk) 01:10, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

IPs nominating articles

I've found that articles are being nominated by IPs every once-in-a-while. This almost guarantees an article of being failed since the IPs don't know there are concerns to address until the article is failed if ever. Is there any way to prevent the IPs from nominating an article or is this just a lost cause? Iainstein (talk) 23:16, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

I've seen IPs return to discuss a review, but I agree that it's rare. I wouldn't have any objection to amending the rules to require editors to be logged in to nominate a GA. -- Khazar2 (talk) 00:10, 22 October 2013 (UTC)
To be fair, there's nothing preventing an inexperienced registered user from nominating either. I've seen a few GANs that were clearly not ready but were submitted by users who hadn't been around long enough to know that. I'd say give them the benefit of the doubt, as I've also seen plenty of unregistered IP address users who are enormously beneficial to the encyclopedia. I guess I'm saying such a rule would make no difference other than possibly restricting the incoming flow of GANs a little bit because if an unregistered user really wants to do it, there's nothing preventing him from registering and going through with it. Only the truly lazy bunch won't do it, and there's no guarantee that having an account = having experience, or that not having one = not enough experience. LazyBastardGuy 18:13, 22 October 2013 (UTC)
I've reviewed and passed (deservedly so) a few articles by IP users. Some IP users don't wish to, or agree with having usernames, but they still contribute to wikipedia. An IP user (with a static IP address) can put a nomination onto their watch list, so they know when an review starts and can respond accordingly (if they choose). No one forces editors to review nominations, so if they don't wish to review an IP nomination they don't need to do so. I happen to agree with LazyBastardGuy, getting a username does not mean that you are capable of getting an article up to GA standard, or of reviewing nominations correctly. Pyrotec (talk) 19:20, 22 October 2013 (UTC)
  • Right now an article I've written ("Langit Makin Mendung") is nominated for GA; said nomination was by an IP. I don't mind if people nominate something I've written without being a major contributor or the like, so long as I catch that they've made the nomination and can follow it (I agree that IPs are unlikely to return). — Crisco 1492 (talk) 22:28, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Backlog and page loading

So, despite efforts to knock out some of the backlog this week, apparently the GAN page is so big, my browser now freezes every time trying to load it. This has happened twice this week. Today, and the first time a few days ago. --ColonelHenry (talk) 23:29, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Its working for me, now and I'm using a computer that is about four or five years old; running Vista and Firefox. Out of curiosity it tried it on my "old" machine, original bought with Windows ME (and a 0.9 GHZ processor) and later ungraded to Windows XP (with a 1.3 GHZ processor), also running Firefox. It struggles to scroll WP:GAN when the antivirus software updates itself. Incidentally, that is about the same specification of what is available in our (county) Public libraries (they are XP machines using Windows Explorer 7(?)). I (we) get 30 minutes free time on selected sites (ring fenced), but the first three minutes is consumed by logon and accepting the terms and conditions of use! Sorry, but I suspect that you need a newer computer or a better browser. Pyrotec (talk) 16:26, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
@Pyrotec: new laptop (well, 2 months new), and sadly Win8 and IE10. Better browser...have yet to see one. IE is the lesser of many evils, and the competitors never measure up in terms of functionality IMO to Microsoft's bête noire.--ColonelHenry (talk) 05:23, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Reference nerds needed

Hello GA folks. Posting to here to let you all know about a workshop to improve the reference editing abilities of the new VisualEditor software. I figured GA editors care a little bit more than others about refs ;). Feedback on use-cases, basic requirements, and what templates it should support would be welcome. Workshop is here. Thanks, and pardon the somewhat off-topic posting, PEarley (WMF) (talk) 22:26, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

ColonelHenry's reviews--help needed

User:ColonelHenry is withdrawing from the GA project and has asked for new reviewers to take over the three reviews he's currently signed up for:

I'll probably take Die Forelle, since my dryer sings this song to signal when a load is done.* But new reviewers at the other two would be appreciated, and if you beat me to Die Forelle, you're welcome to that, too; my dryer will understand. -- Khazar2 (talk) 23:02, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

*Not a joke. Samsung's an odd company.

Resolved
I've taken two of these, and closed a third (which had no comments) and returned it to the queue with the same timestamp. -- Khazar2 (talk) 18:33, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

User:QatarStarsLeague

I came across Talk:Turkish people/GA1 today and was very surprised to see no effort in the review. Thus was concern we may have a bit of a problem... looking at Talk:Stephen Báthory/GA1 and Talk:Apollo's Chariot/GA1 I think we do. Think we need some eyes on this problem and to look at all the articles affected. Looking at Talk:Zeng Guo Yuan/GA1 its clear the user is not all that familiar with the whole process.-- Moxy (talk) 20:16, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

Well, yes this was brought only two days ago at Is this an acceptable review?, above, but I'm quite sure that this reviewer has been mentioned here before in respect of superficial reviews. In fact, after checking, this reviewer was mentioned under the heading Rubber stamp reviews back on 10 June this year (see Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations/Archive 19#Rubber stamp reviews). Pyrotec (talk) 20:56, 8 October 2013 (UTC)
Would be prudent of us to revers the GA upgrades and put them up for review again as per everyone's concerns. Its clear a third party needs to review the pages in question. -- Moxy (talk) 21:07, 8 October 2013 (UTC)
Having now checked the article's talkpage, there is a live community reassessment at Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Turkish people/1. This reassessment was visible in the article's history (at the top of the talkpage), but I've now transcluded the review onto the both of the article's talkpage to make it more visible. Pyrotec (talk) 21:39, 8 October 2013 (UTC)
I hope your not suggesting we have to go through this process for ever article that has been upgraded to GA. No need for our editors to have to waste so much time on GA upgrades that are invalid to begin with. I will revert the GA nominations with comments on the GA pages over the next few days after a few more chime in here.-- Moxy (talk) 21:47, 8 October 2013 (UTC)
Well, I was a bit surprised that you are asking here why an article is a GA, when a community WP:GAR was opened some two weeks earlier; and that was listed at the top of the article's talkpage. If the community GAR decides to remove GA-status then that will happen, and both reviews will be recorded in the {{articlehistory}}, but the article keeps its GAs-status whilst the GAR is in progress. Reverting is not necessarily the correct approach: these articles were awarded GA-status by a "reviewer" and that review should appear in the article's history. Any uninvolved editor is entitled to review nominations, so they are not invalid on that basis (unless the reviewer has a conflict of interest due to having made a significant contribution to those articles). However, the reviewer might not be competent to review them, or might not be reviewing them competently: which seems to be the case here, as some "open" reviews have been taken over by other reviewers and the nominations "failed". However, the action of that reviewer does not seem to be vandalism, they appear to be well-intended actions. Some of these articles awarded GA status by that reviewer may well be of GA standard and some might be border-line standard, even if they were just "rubber stamped" reviews. It's hardly fair on the nominator in such cases for you to revert it / them. Clearly, where an article is not up to standard it needs to be reassessed; and that does not have to be a community reassessment. If you believe that an article was wrongly awarded GA assessment then you or any other editor (with no conflict of interest) can open a personal review (GAR) and either fail it or put in "on hold" for the article to be fixed (and if its not fixed in a reasonable time it can be subsequently failed). You obviously do believe them not to be of GA-status since you have stated that you will revert them. Your statement of intended action is obviously well intended, but unilaterally removing GA-status from articles is likely to upset nominators and that seems to be the case with Turkish people. I've done perhaps about 50 such personal reassessment of articles that were listed as GA, so I do know how much effort is needed (and the record shows that I've expended that effort). Perhaps the way forward is to try a get a topic ban on QatarStarsLeague, to stop him form reviewing nominations. Pyrotec (talk) 23:22, 8 October 2013 (UTC)
Competency is required to do the original reviews ... if they are not done properly they should not stand...why do we need a history of a review that did not take place. Wasting editors time having to do reassessment when the process was not done to begin with sounds a bit backwards to say the least. Let editors do a proper GA review of the articles in-question over wasting time doing reassessments of articles that did not get a review originally . As for a topic ban that would be a good idea and is something we need to look at closer.-- Moxy (talk) 23:46, 8 October 2013 (UTC)
Competency is not a requirement, arguably it aught to be but it is not. So if you are claiming that it is, that is your personal view not one required by WP:WIAGA. Also, if you look at that "reviewer's" talkpage he has quite a few barnstars and messages of thanks for awarding GA-status by nominator who I assume like lightweight / rubber stamp reviews (take your choice) (see User talk:QatarStarsLeague & User talk:QatarStarsLeague/Archive 1) and some of those are from people active at GAN and /or who have extensive experience of nominating. Pyrotec (talk) 08:23, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
Yeah, I agree, a waste of time to do a GAR when the GA was not reviewed originally, as appears to be the case with the user's latest reviews. --(AfadsBad (talk) 23:57, 8 October 2013 (UTC))
The problem here is that the GAR had been sitting there for awhile. Editors, both involved and uninvolved, had already expressed their concerns over the articles status as GA and we can't let this continue. Above all, the nomination of the article was the first issue Athenean (talk · contribs) had pointed out. It is clear that the GA review was not fully carried out. Therefore, an eruption such as the one in the talk page, which has resulted in edit-wars was inevitable. To avoid such misunderstandings with the nomination and to help the article move forward, I was bold and removed its status as GA. The move was under full consideration of the procedure of delisting GA status articles. I suggest, in order to get over the crisis that the article is now in, to remove the GA status and we can move forward from there. Otherwise, such problems are going to keep reoccurring. Clearly, it is no where near the status of GA as mentioned and affirmed numerous times. Proudbolsahye (talk) 01:51, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
By that logic, Proudbolsahye, the GA status should be removed from your Confiscated Armenian properties in Turkey article, since its original review completely missed the extensive close paraphrasing in the article, and which remains a problem a full month after the article was listed. Weeks of rewriting have yet to rid the article of all the problematic prose, yet it still sports the GA logo. BlueMoonset (talk) 04:56, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
What you did Proudbolsahye was to remove the GA star ({{GA}}) from the article and that re-started an editwar and a series of comments at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. The GA star was soon replaced. That is certainly not removing GA status. Again, it was a well-intended act, but if one editor is under criticism (rightly in this case ) for awarding GA-status without adequately reviewing against the criteria, what is the difference when other editors remove or intend to remove GA-status on the basis of personally-imposed criteria or by bypassing the review process. Since the first review was accepted by the nominator as valid, the nominator aught to be given a fair re-review / reassessment; and, if the article is found to be only marginally non-compliant, reasonable time given to "fix" the problems highlighted in the (2nd) review. However, looking at the article at the time of the review, there was already signs of minor edit waring, which have got worse since the article was awarded GA-status. The problem is that ex-nominators tend to respond in that manner when they feel "threatened"; and that is why there is a formal review process. Pyrotec (talk) 16:38, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
Moving on with the topic at hand... about User:QatarStarsLeague non-reviews .... should the GA's be revoked outright or do we need to go through the reassessment process for these specific cases. I personal believe that the GA's were "awarded" without due process thus should be put back for proper assessment ..that is back in the pool for assessment . -- Moxy (talk) 16:44, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
I think a community re-review is a tougher standard; and there is nothing about the articles or their primary editors that indicates they require anything but a proper GA nomination with a review monitored by a single volunteer. --(AfadsBad (talk) 17:24, 9 October 2013 (UTC))
I've been GA reviewing Sega Genesis and on the review page, the nominator expressed surprise at the detail the review has reached, and noted that it was the polar opposite to Talk:Sega v. Accolade/GA1, which was, frankly, rubbish. I've noticed a couple of other GA reviews getting far too brief treatment elsewhere. Perhaps the easiest solution is to just watch passed reviews in areas of your interest, and just do a quick sanity check that things are being done correctly. Any blank ones should be undone and put back on the queue with the minimum of fuss. Shouldn't take more than a minute or two per review I'd have thought. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 17:29, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
The words "wasting editors time having to do reassessment" has already been used above as justification for such an approach as "putting them back in the pool for assessment", but I would question whether such a blanket approach is necessary. Unfortunately, there are plenty of articles at GA with "non-existent" reviews, so I don't see much point to returning "good" articles back to the pool for proper assessment. Turkish people is an obvious non-GA but a community reassessment is already in process, so it should be allowed to continue and reach its verdict. I'm not too sure that Apollo's Chariot is an obvious non-GA, and I suspect that it could be left as a GA without undermining the GA-process. Possibly, similar comments apply to Stephen Báthory. Community reassessment is only one of two approaches (at WP:GAR), the other is a personal reassessment (GAR). I could probably do an assessment (GAR) or a (GAN) on both of these articles in a hour each; but I do question why it's regarded as necessary? If it is felt that all of QatarStarsLeague need to be considered, I suggest that they be listed and grouped into three groups: bad, marginal pass / fail and good (as "arbitrary labels"). The "good" a suggest could probably be left as the are, the "marginal pass / fail" could be considered on a case by case basis and possibly improved without a formal review (but they might need to be reassessment. Turkish people is a classic case of why the assessment process should be followed. Removing {{GA}} tends to "piss off" nominators. Pyrotec (talk) 17:37, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
I'm understanding what Pyrotec (talk · contribs) is saying now. An improper review at the GA should be treated as though its just like any other improper review. Fair enough. But how long will this continue? Can we have at least some sort of oversight over GA reviews in the future? Now look at the dilemma we are in. It's taking us months upon months to resolve an improper GA reviews that only took a matter of seconds. Proudbolsahye (talk) 19:23, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
I agree that removing GA tag will piss people off.... But I see the re-assessment process at Turkish people to be exactly what we are not looking for... Not really a re-review - but a debate on the sources, copyright vios and the articles NPOV....that all should be solved long before it even came to the GA review. The article is simply not stable and has huge sourcing problems that were not even looked at during the original review. To quote our policy on this matter - "it is rarely helpful to request a community reassessment for an article which has not had a proper review;" I dont see anyone here thinking the original reviews were done properly at all. -- Moxy (talk) 19:28, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
Well, yes I also think that community reassessment is rarely helpful in producing a fast response, but personal reassessments are also available (but not at the same time as a community reassessment). If I object strongly enough to a "pass" or a "fail" I (or anyone else) can open a personal assessment and review the article against the criteria WP:WIAGA and pass or fail the article as it currently exists, see Talk:Publishers Clearing House & Talk:Publishers Clearing House/GA2. That involves me doing work and I'd rather spend my time helping to reduce the backlog at WP:GAN. As Wizardman has already stated below, we have a resource problem at GAN. Pyrotec (talk) Pyrotec (talk) 05:37, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

While it would be nice to go and re-review everything the user has done lately, unfortunately we simply do not have the manpower. GAN's already backlogged five months, which might be its longest ever. Best we can do is keep an extremely close eye on him, or for that matter just not let him review anymore. Wizardman 04:39, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Wizardman (talk · contribs) and Moxy (talk · contribs)...as for the article we have at hand? Turkish people. What should be the next step? Can we expect to receive input on the article from you guys at the GAR? Proudbolsahye (talk) 05:18, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
It is fairly obvious what the next step aught to be, decide as a group whether the article: is compliant with WP:WIAGA, non-compliant with WP:WIAGA, or marginally non-compliant. If case (1) close the review and give a verdict of "keep", if case (2) close the review and give a verdict of "delist", if case (3) given the user more time to fix the problems, "keep" it, or "delist" it. Pyrotec (talk) 05:37, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
P.S. And be aware that if the group goes for "lack of stability" as one (or one of several) reason(s) for "delisting", i.e. non-compliance with WP:WIAGA clause 5, that has to be on the grounds of edit-warring. Improving the article and repairing damage from vandalism, undoing well-intended changes, etc, does not contribute to lack of stability. Pyrotec (talk) 07:32, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

I support banning this user from reviewing, and I support reopening all of his reviews, including my Talk:Stephen Báthory/GA1. I don't think we can let his reviews stand; it's clear that some if not all of the articles he passed have outstanding issues that make them substandard Good Articles. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 06:37, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Banning would be too harsh, this is most likely good faith errors. And in any case, he isn't active now. FunkMonk (talk) 07:01, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
I support banning if he returns. 'Good faith errors' they may be, but he's clearly not up to the task of doing a meaningful review, and promoting articles that may not be suitable is harmful to WP.--KorruskiTalk 10:16, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
I've just noticed and scanned this thread. He did the GA on an article I created (Legal system of Saudi Arabia) Any advice on what I should do? Should I put it back in the GAN list? To be honest, I was just grateful that anyone was prepared to review it: when I put it into GAN before it looked like no one was going to touch it. DeCausa (talk) 09:04, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
Having had a fairly superficial look, it seems to be a much better review than the sort of rubber-stamping that has raised concerns here. So, although I haven't re-evaluated it in detail, I'd see no issue with you leaving it as a GA. If someone wants to take it to review then fair enough, but for now I wouldn't resubmit it or anything.--KorruskiTalk 17:36, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
After taking a superficial look myself, I agree with Korruski. If problems arise later, they can be addressed or taken to GAR, but I see no reason for automatic delisting here. -- Khazar2 (talk) 17:50, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
Ok, thanks both of you. Yes, he made a bunch of points but I was puzzled at the time by a GA reviewer making several of them e.g. saying the lead lacked inline citations. (When I mentioned WP:LEADCITE, he immediately dropped the point like it was news to him.) DeCausa (talk) 20:08, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Lawful images

See Talk:Charles I of England/GA2 and my questions to User:Mark Miller . I think that MM's answer to my question on images is insufficient and disappointing. I would appreciate it if someone knows what the editors who hang around GA think about this issue would explain MM's interpretation by pointing to the relevant policy sections. So that the conversation is kept in one place please reply on Talk:Charles I of England/GA2#6.Illustrated, if possible, by images: using the example I have given as a test case. -- PBS (talk) 19:01, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

I believe the former FA article was dropped from its listing due to the large amount of third party claims on images. There were a number of images that have these claims taken from the National Portrait Gallery such as this one. "one or more third parties have made copyright claims against Wikimedia Commons in relation to the work from which this is sourced or a purely mechanical reproduction thereof. This may be due to recognition of the "sweat of the brow" doctrine, allowing works to be eligible for protection through skill and labour, and not purely by originality as is the case in the United States" In other words, for Wikipedia this is a non free image and it can also easily be replaced with a freely licensed image with no third party claims. I even replaced one where it would have interfered with the formatting of the double image with caption. These images can easily be replaced by free public domain images with no issues.--Mark Miller (talk) 19:37, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

Hey PBS you may actually be right. From what I am finding there is no protection of these works in the US and that the third party claim is protection for the UK only unless a restored copyright which I do not believe this is. This is what I find for our own policy:

Per Wikipedia:Non-U.S. copyrights:

While Wikipedia prefers content that is free anywhere in the world, it accepts content that is free in the United States even if it may be under copyright in some other countries. For example works of the U.S. federal government are in the public domain in the United States and widely used on Wikipedia, but they may not be in the public domain outside the United States. It is not always simple to determine the copyright status of a work first published outside of the United States. To determine the copyright status of a work in its country of origin (and there are at least 192 different national copyright régimes) it is typically necessary to know the date of death of the author, while to determine the copyright status in the United States it is typically necessary to know its publication history and its copyright status in the country of origin not on the date of uploading but on January 1, 1996.

But there are a few other things for me to check. Give me a second here...--Mark Miller (talk) 20:28, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

There appears to be a legal threat attached to these specific set of images from the law firm that represents the Nationl Portrait Gallery in the UK. Here is the link to the fully copied letter.
Here is what they claim about the use of these images in the US:

Jurisdiction of UK Courts

Whilst we know that you are based in the United States of America, your activities nevertheless give rise to claims under UK law because:

1. The servers on which our client’s website is hosted are based in the UK and therefore, technically, your unlawful downloading (which give rise to some of the copyright, database right and breach of contract claims described herein) took place in the UK; and

2. The pages of the Wikipedia website on which you have reproduced our client’s images are clearly directed at (amongst others) UK users of the website.

(I believe this claim to be inaccurate as the location of the uploader was the US. While their servers may be located in the UK, the download itself did not occur in their jurisdiction as their site is freely made available to the US. I also note that no article on Wikipedia is directed to any specific user of any nationality or country of origin)

They go on to say:

It should be clear to you that our client has grounds to commence proceedings against you in respect of your numerous breaches of their legal rights. If our client were to sue you through the UK Courts our client would be entitled to damages, injunctions and the recovery of its legal costs. However, our client is very keen to avoid commencing proceedings against you if this can be avoided. Our client has already indicated, in writing, to the Wikimedia Foundation that provided that all of its images are removed from the website it will not take any further action. However, the Wikimedia Foundation has ignored this request which requires our client to seek its remedy directly from you.

and

Our client remains willing to enter into a dialogue with the Wikimedia Foundation to discuss terms upon which low-resolution images of paintings in its collection can be made available on the Wikipedia website and our client will continue to write to the Wikimedia Foundation with requests for discussion. However, to date, the Wikimedia Foundation has ignored our client’s attempts to negotiate this issue, preferring instead to take a more harsh approach that one would expect of a corporate entity.

These are only selected snippets from the full letter on Wikimedia Commons, signed "Farrer & Co LLP (Solicitors)".

It is my belief that this legal threat may be responsible for the images being thought of as legitimate copyright, covered within the US. It appears the Foundation disagrees, as do I. Both the foundation and PBS in this instance are correct. Therefore I apologize directly to the user PBS and find that their interpretation of lawful images is correct for use on Wikipedia, whose servers are located on US soil and protected by US copyright law.--Mark Miller (talk) 20:43, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

Second opinion needed

If someone would like to take a look at my nomination of Talk:Lieutenant Governor of New Jersey/GA1, I'd appreciate a second or third or fourth opinion. I disagree with some of the things mentioned by the reviewer who seems to be going beyond the criteria with comments that have the essence of "I'd do this different and you should too" rather than judging strictly by the criteria (and I've pointed the reviewer to WP:GACN). Apparently, I'm being rude for stating the reasons for my disagreement with his suggestions. --ColonelHenry (talk) 14:57, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Deportation of Armenian notables on 24 April 1915

I'm currently reviewing Deportation of Armenian notables on 24 April 1915 and am a little concerned about passing it since a list makes up a sizeable portion of the article. Can someone please provide a second opinion on this? --1ST7 (talk) 00:07, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

My impression is that this is more list than article and therefore ineligible for GA. Crisco 1492, SchroCat, you're both pros at this--if this was to advance, this would be FL, not FA, right? -- Khazar2 (talk) 00:46, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
  • @Khazar2:, I second your assessment. This would be appropriate to work toward the FL criteria. I had a GA review a few weeks ago regarding different measures of airline portage statistics (mostly a series of top ten lists), and I referred the nominator to seek a peer review on how to improve the article toward FL. --ColonelHenry (talk) 01:14, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for the help. Is it possible for me to close out the review without necessarily failing it? --1ST7 (talk) 05:11, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Yes, certainly falls into the list category more than article. Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 07:29, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

@1ST7: unfortunately not, though you might emphasize to the nominator that this is on technical grounds rather than quality grounds. ("not promoting" rather than "failed"). And definitely encourage them to consider FL. Anyway, good catch. -- Khazar2 (talk) 11:23, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
Thanks to everyone who gave their opinion on this. @Khazar2: Thank you for the advice and for answering my question. --1ST7 (talk) 23:13, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Question

I have two articles that I putted up for GA review, they haven't been reviewed since the past three months, which is obviously weird, dispressing, and a long time. I wonder why you guys haven't reviewed them yet? Blurred Lines 21:29, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

There's currently a very large backlog - over 30 articles are still here that were nominated in July. Your oldest nomination dates back to August. Also, this talk page is not intended to be a "pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeease review my GAN pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease oh pleeeeeeeeease oh pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease" request board. Just sit tight. Taylor Trescott - my talk + my edits 21:47, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
I really don't feel like being judged of my question, because that's not what I came here for. If you don't have anything civilized to say, please do not say it, because that quote you just said, "this talk page is not intended to be a "pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeease review my GAN pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease oh pleeeeeeeeease oh pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease.", was immature, uncivil, unnecessary, and offensive, because my question did not sound anything like that, and trust me, I have sitten tight enough because obviously it's been three months, and it should not take that long time. Blurred Lines 22:06, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
Come on. It's not "obviously weird" seeing as how these articles aren't even close to being the oldest unreviewed articles. Sit tight. This talk page is not intended for review requests or to call attention to the fact that your GAN has gone unreviewed for a while. Taylor Trescott - my talk + my edits 22:11, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
Now, isn't that better. You could of say something positive like that on your last comment. Blurred Lines 22:49, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay, Blurred Lines. We only have so many volunteers interested in reviewing, and some areas also go faster than others. Television and songs particularly tend to be areas where many editors nominate but choose not to review other nominations, creating a backlog. Hopefully someone will be able to pick it up soon--I realize the delay can be frustrating. Your work on these is appreciated, though. -- Khazar2 (talk) 22:52, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Why, thank you very much for the statement Khazar2, I know that reviewing some articles could take more time, I understand that very clearly. I do not have a problem waiting longer for the articles that I nominated to be reviewed. Blurred Lines 23:15, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

WP:GANR not updated in over 8 days

FYI, WP:GANR has not updated for over 8 days.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 05:15, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Now I can see a report for each of the last 8 days. I don't know what happened.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 15:28, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Alarming QF

I just Quickfailed a nomination (David Beckham, review) by a nominator (Royroydeb) with among the most nominations at WP:GAN, which is a bad sign. I could use some help looking over his other nominations.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 10:22, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

I am just noticing a distinct pattern of driveby nominations of articles in which the nominator has very little involvement. In all the articles that I checked, Royroydeb had fewer than ten edits. Many of these were properly cited throughout. The following were distinctly not fully cited, but not as alarmingly as Beckham:
  1. Kaká 5 paras with no WP:ICs and a citation needed template almost uninvolved (7 or fewer edits)
  2. Jordan Rhodes 6 paras with no WP:ICs only 5 edits
  3. Alessandro Del Piero 3 paras with no WP:ICs almost uninvolved (6 or fewer edits)
Not sure if any warning is appropriate here, but GAN is not a place to run around nominating all your favorite athletes.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 16:00, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
On the Piero article, all the issues in last year's GA review are still prevalent, so the drive-by nominations are concerning. I've removed the tag from those three, and I'm now wondering about the rest of his articles. GAs do not have to be perfect, of course, but if you're drive-by nominating articles with obvious problems like you mentioned above, then that's an issue. Wizardman 19:24, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Question about GA table use on Talk:Fahrenheit 451/GA1

Can anyone help with why my comments for (6a) aren't showing up? — Cirt (talk) 18:18, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

It's the = sign inside a template - I've fixed it for you. (hopefully...) Andrew Gray (talk) 18:20, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
Thanks very much!! — Cirt (talk) 18:21, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

GAN error

I have recently nominated 2013 Rosario gas explosion (a gas explosion in the city of Rosario, Argentina), and placed it in "Miscellaneous" because none of the other categories seemed to be appropiate. The template generated told that I had selected no category, so I added "Miscellaneous" again. The template seems correct now, and the nomination is displayed here, but the talk page has a red category now, "GAN error". What is it? Did I do something wrong? Cambalachero (talk) 01:35, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

  • Cam, according to the directions on {{GA nominee}} which uses {{GAN/Status}} to determine subtopic, "Miscellaneous" is not a valid subtopic. Valid subtopics are: "on review", "on hold", and "2nd opinion". Everything else will add it to that category. If that was not the intended behavior, or you need help improving updating templates let me know and I would be happy to help. Technical 13 (talk) 04:15, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
Template:GA nominee says that the subtopic should be left blank for miscellaneous nominations. I've changed the template on the article's talk page accordingly. Edge3 (talk) 05:01, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
I was following Wikipedia:Good article nominations/Instructions, which told to fill it with "Miscellaneous". I have fixed that page with the info from this discussion. Cambalachero (talk) 13:00, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Recently started reassessment

Two days ago I opened a discussion about de-listing two albums from the GA features. (here and here). Can someone place them on the reassessment page so other Wikipedians can make comments on the topic?--Вик Ретлхед (talk) 14:22, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

You can switch these to community reassessments if you like, but you're welcome to keep going with them individually. If you want further comment, consider pinging the major contributors, the original reviewer, and a relevant WikiProject or two if you haven't already done so; honestly, you're likely to get more response that way than from GAR these days. -- Khazar2 (talk) 14:31, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Any minimum length requirement?

I noticed that Ohio State Route 822 just passed GA review: Talk:Ohio State Route 822/GA1, but the article strikes me as extremely short, with fewer than 15 sentences of prose. Is there any minimum content requirement for GA's? -Zanhe (talk) 03:55, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

The GA criteria 3a ("Broad in its coverage") states explicitly that it's not as strict as the "completely comprehensive" criteria for FAs, and that shorter articles that don't cover absolutely everything are okay, as are broad overviews (not sure what that means, but History of the British Isles sounds like a potential candidate). That said, if all that can said about an article is 1588 characters of prose, and consensus is that it can be expanded no further. then it should not necessarily even be an article in its own right. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 09:03, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
Additional - consensus seems to be emerging at Talk:Ohio State Route 822 that the decision to pass GA was questionable at best. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 12:21, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
I have written several short GAs (less than 4000 characters of prose). However usually, these are college football or basketball players whose articles eventually expand. WP:USROADS has many of the shortest GAs and they are mostly articles that are not likely to expand. Often I see these pass with less than 3000 characters or prose. In general, this is not a problem because the articles do meet the requirements, including having sufficient breadth.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 15:09, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
That is most certainly not what the consensus is. All that has been said relates to notability. The GAN process does not care about notability; all that it cares about is that the criteria are met. The question of notability can be handled in other venues. --Rschen7754 19:37, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
@Taylor Trescott: When I reviewed that article, it was much longer.--Dom497 (talk) 20:06, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

While we're on the topic of short good articles, can someone take a look at John Millner and let me know whether it can become a GA? The article previously failed at GAN and GAR, mainly due to issues of length and breadth. Edge3 (talk) 04:25, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm having a similar problem for Andean Cock-of-the-rock. This is a pretty well known bird I believe, so I think it is on the short side even for a GA. Am I wrong? FunkMonk (talk) 19:52, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

@FunkMonk: In a case like that, I'd compare to a few summary-level sources about the bird if possible (encyclopedia articles or entries in other reference works). If nothing important is missing, I'd say pass it regardless of total length. -- Khazar2 (talk) 14:46, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
Thanks, I'll see what I can find. FunkMonk (talk) 14:56, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Good King Haakon

The nominator for Haakon VI of Norway is an inexperienced editor, User:Jokkemans91, who seems to have inadvertently started the review as well at Talk:Haakon VI of Norway/GA1. I will drop a note on the talk page. This is presumably easy enough to fix but I am not familiar with the process myself. Ben MacDui 16:32, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

It'll need an admin to delete the page, I think. I tagged it as needing admin help--let's see if that gets the job done. And thanks for the catch. -- Khazar2 (talk) 16:37, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Please could someone finish Talk:Saengerfest/GA1?

Hi, I was in the middle of a GA review, but I'm on wikibreak now/in about two days and can't finish the review before I go. Please could someone finish it off and pass/fail it as needed? Thanks and sorry, RainCity471 (whack!) 23:18, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, please. This review was abandoned half-way through. Could someone please pick it up and finish it? — Maile (talk) 00:11, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

GA nomination question

After peer review, I have nominated Bodh Gaya bombings article for the GA nomination. I am looking forward to hear suggestions (if any). I have added it under Miscellaneous subtopic. I hope it is correct? Can anyone please review it? Many thanks.-----Bhooshan NPY (talk) 10:19, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Crime or History might be better. If you don't mind, I'll move it to History, though you're welcome to move it again later if this seems inappropriate to you.
Someone will definitely review it, but you might have a wait--there's a significant backlog, so the wait could be anywhere from a few days to a few months. The History queue tends to move faster than some of the others, though. Anyway, thanks for your work on this one, and good luck with the nomination! -- Khazar2 (talk) 11:17, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
Dear Khazar2, Great to hear from you. I think History is more appropriate than crime for Bodh Gaya bombings. I have nominated one more article Namantar Shahid Smarak under Social sciences and society subtopic. Is that correct? Many thanks.-----Bhooshan NPY (talk) 07:55, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Good articles/recent

It appears the bot that updates this page is slacking off, as several GAs have been promoted and it's not touching the page at all. Taylor Trescott - my talk + my edits 23:06, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Project page created for December backlog drive

Hello all. Please take a look at Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles/GAN Backlog Drives/December 2013 for information about our upcoming backlog drive. (Thanks, Dom497, for developing the page.) As we previously discussed on this page, we're also encouraging users to pledge a donation to the WMF for each review. Please consider participating by reviewing articles and/or making a pledge. Even the smallest contribution will help clear the backlog and support a cause that we all care about. Best, Edge3 (talk) 23:55, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Would a quickfail be appropiate here?

Bart Baker is currently a GA nomination. I saw the article, and I do not think it merits the GA status. While it is probably not the writer's fault, I see the article is really short, and basically only says "he makes video, they are positive reviews." It does not leave me feeling satisfied. What are your thoughts on this article? Beerest355 Talk 22:36, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Yep, I agree with your concerns; sources just don't seem to exist on this yet (or at least, aren't yet in the article), outside of a single Huff Post interview. Not necessarily the nominator's fault, just a lack of material to work with. -- Khazar2 (talk) 23:49, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Desert pupfish GA

Something strange has happened at the desert pupfish GA nom. I've put my review at Talk:Desert pupfish/GA1 but it's no longer linked to the talk page, and now the article's been renominated at GAN. Can someone more familiar with GAN bots and article histories sort this out? Thanks. -- Yzx (talk) 21:56, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Someone renominated it for some reason. I've just removed their nomination and added the old one back to the top of the page. J Milburn (talk) 22:13, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
I think J Milburn and I kind of crashed into one another on the page, but it seems to be sorted now. Part of the problem was that various GA/education project templates were spread all over the talk page, and the wikiproject banners had been removed. Now they should all be at the top of the page where they belong. I really wish teachers wouldn't ask their students to aim for GA, unless they're working in small class sizes with an experienced editor for a teacher... Dana boomer (talk) 22:18, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
I actually think GA is a great target, but it's not necessarily an easy target if you aren't already familiar with what a GA looks like. Given the waiting times, need to act upon (perhaps several rounds of) feedback, to get an article all the way to GA status will likely take more than a term... (Especially when all the work is inevitably done in the last few days of term.) J Milburn (talk) 00:13, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Second opinion on Talk:Doug Stone/GA1

Could somebody have a quick look at this GA review and give me a second opinion on whether to pass or not? My main concern is the article is a bit short and glosses over a few bits of information, principally details of a plane crash he survived, and the parentage of one of his children, though it does so because the sources cited also omit key details. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 15:52, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

This has since been resolved. – Quadell (talk) 16:06, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

December/January Backlog Drive

Hi everyone!

Me and Hahc21 were recently talking about how the RfC which took place earlier in the year has effected the nominations. The goal of the RfC was to replace the Backlog Drives by coming up with other ideas on how to reduce the backlog. So now that almost 6 months have passed, I took a look to see what has been improved. The instructions, tabs, and Recruitment Centre were created but overall have failed to reduce the backlog at all. With that, here I am proposing something that most of us probably thought would never be proposed again. My proposal? Lets hold another Backlog Drive. Yes, we all know the past drives were flawed but now's the chance to start all over, possibly create new rules that will eliminate the flaws and make the drives something reliable.

So, who is up to participate in another drive which will be held probably around December/January? All opinions are welcome!--Dom497 (talk) 00:22, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Somebody, I think it was Ritchie, made the good suggestion recently that the next Backlog Drive could be conceived of as more of a "pledge drive" than a competition. Editors could set their own goal--"I will review X # of GANs in the Drive"--which might alleviate pressure to review faster, and also provide an achievable motivation for those unlikely to place in the top 2-3 of a competition. It makes sense to me. -- Khazar2 (talk) 00:42, 26 October 2013 (UTC)
Maybe we should ask one of the WMF's wealthier donors to pledge a certain amount of money for each article we review during the drive. Edge3 (talk) 03:56, 26 October 2013 (UTC)
You want to get paid? I thought Wikipedia was volunteer based. By doing this, yes, lots of people would participate but would bring one of the biggest flaws in the past that people reviewed as many articles as they could and didn't care about the quality. And that was using barnstars...add money into the equation and you got a bigger problem. I like Khazar's idea.--Dom497 (talk) 11:16, 26 October 2013 (UTC)
No, I wasn't proposing that we get paid. I was proposing that someone donate a certain amount of money to the WMF for each GA review. Each editor would have more motivation to review articles, because we know that someone would be donating money to a cause that we care about. Edge3 (talk) 15:04, 26 October 2013 (UTC)
Oh, sorry about that. I misread your post. It sounds like a good idea but I don't know how to execute (I don't know any "wealthier donors").--Dom497 (talk) 14:20, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
Khazar, that was my suggestion, inspired by your "review one a day" pledge. I never got around to writing it up, but I'd be more than happy to see someone else take it on. Concerning Edge's idea (and I'm just thinking aloud) we could have a few editors make micropledges? If 10 of us promise a few pennies per review, that could mount up fairly quickly. J Milburn (talk) 18:41, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

I don't know why this says December/January. Is it going to start in the middle of December or run for two months? I think it should just be a December Drive. 2013 is almost going to be the first year in many that we did not have a drive. We should do at least one per year.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 07:28, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

I agree. Maybe we can start on December 1 until December 31. — ΛΧΣ21 17:25, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
I just put December/January because I didn't know when we wanted to start. Anyway, December 1 sounds like a good start date.--Dom497 (talk) 18:49, 1 November 2013 (UTC)
Count me in! :) If I said "I'm miffed!", would you come running or go? (talk) 16:20, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
Same here, I'm in! Ruby 2010/2013 20:20, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
I'm in. I'd be happy to make a pledge, if many people would support adding a monetary aspect to this backlog drive. Edge3 (talk) 20:49, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
I'm in for J Milburn's proposed approach, and would be happy to do a pennies for reviews system as well. -- Khazar2 (talk) 21:27, 2 November 2013 (UTC)
@Edge3 and Khazar2: Are you guys offering to be the donaters or you're just supporting the idea?--Dom497 (talk) 13:48, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
I will donate. Hopefully we can get more editors to pitch in a few pennies per review. We should open up a larger discussion to discuss the logistics of a pledge drive, solicit donations from other Wikipedians, and get insights from the WMF. Edge3 (talk) 14:15, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
Put me down for something like 2-3 cents per review. I'm sorry to say I won't have time to help with other logistics, though. -- Khazar2 (talk) 14:32, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
Thanks Edge3 and Khazar2! @Edge3: Could you please elaborate, specifically about getting insights? Also, where would the "larger discussion" go?--Dom497 (talk) 14:38, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

We could have the discussion on the page for the next backlog drive. (I was trying to find the discussion page for the previous backlog drive, but I couldn't find it.) I think it would be good to discuss how we're going to determine the final number of "valid reviews", which will determine the amount of each donation. For example, I'm concerned that users might submit drive-by nominations, or that reviewers might rush through reviews during the backlog drive. This could compromise the quality of the GAN review process and inflate the amount of each donation. However, I suppose that my concerns aren't new... haven't we faced similar issues in previous backlog drives, even though we didn't add a financial component to them?

I'm not sure what we can get in terms of insights from the WMF, but I would hope that they have enough fundraising experience to advise us on how to coordinate a pledge drive. Edge3 (talk) 15:57, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

I created a draft of what the backlog drive page would look like in my userspace and right now, the draft says that "a reasonable amount of reviews must be reviewed for quality before barnstars and donations are made. Users who help review reviews will get an additional barnstar." I honestly don't care if it takes a year to reach "a reasonable amount", as long as quality is priority. Also, I don't think WMF will be any help because they probably have never heard of this backlog drive (I could be wrong though).--Dom497 (talk) 16:12, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
The drive page can be found here.--Dom497 (talk) 19:57, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Length of GAs

Hi, sorry if this is an incorrect place to ask this, but in a past GA nomination (failed), and a present peer review, concerns have been raised about the length of article. I had a look, and found that there are shorter GAs, and given that the article in question, Clarence Chesterfield Howerton, is about someone who performed nearly 100 years ago (i.e. not long enough to be in history books, but too old for mass news references), I wondered if it would be long enough to pass a GA review? Thanks, Matty.007 19:54, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

It seems to me that the article does a reasonable job of covering the facts of the subject's life; I'd suggest you consider renominating and get a second opinion at least. Personally I've never objected to short articles that adequately summarize the basic facts, as long as it's not a major figure. ("Short" articles? Anyone? No?) -- Khazar2 (talk) 20:13, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
Although a lot of it is sourced properly, the ammount of sources are really clumped together. if they have any independent information, try to expand the article from them. The article is a little short, but i think the problem is a couple paragraphs seem a little empty. IF you can provide some more information (an additional 2 sentences) on the troubled areas, then maybe it could be renominated. Just to be safe.Lucia Black (talk) 20:17, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
I have tried to merge a couple of paragraphs, but I think that the sources have been exhausted. Is it OK for a GA nomination now? Thanks, Matty.007 20:33, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

How Brown Saw the Baseball Game

Hi. I nominated How Brown Saw the Baseball Game for GA. It is a fairly short article, but the film is from 1907 and is lost. It is probably as comprehensive as it will get, though. Are there any precedents for articles like this? I think I've exhausted all the sources available. Taylor Trescott - my talk + my edits 00:42, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Shorter articles than this have made GA status. The subject appears notable, and the article seem well-formatted, at least at first blush. I'd say it's got a good chance, so long as you're willing to wait around for a reviewer. (That usually takes anywhere from 7 to 120 days, of course. Usually.) – Quadell (talk) 01:52, 15 November 2013 (UTC)
P.S. Actually Æthelric II might be a closer analogue. – Quadell (talk) 01:56, 15 November 2013 (UTC)
I did some digging and I think the closest comparison is the GA Si Ronda. It's also a lost film and the article is much shorter than How Brown Saw the Baseball Game so I'm confident that the article can reach GA status. Thanks for the help, Quadell. It's much appreciated. Taylor Trescott - my talk + my edits 02:27, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

More school nominations

The natural sciences section is once in a while flooded by articles nominated for school projects, and many times these have several problems. The new batch has a lot of articles missing citations, for example. I've failed the worst offenders (around ten missing citations each), but where should the line be drawn? See for example the latest ones, Fathead minnow and Army ant, which are clear quickfails in my book. These students seem to think they can pick any random article and nominate it if they think it is "good", though this is obviously not the way to go. FunkMonk (talk)

I wanted to ask you about this, actually. I quickfailed five or so with obvious problems (no leads, long-standing orange warning banners, etc.), but I'm not experienced enough in this subject to readily compare the quality of others with standard nominations.
I'm also concerned after looking at the class assignment last night that this is just the beginning. The course has 57 students, and they're required to make one nomination each and being encouraged to make more (many so far have nominated 2 or 3). Assignment here; the deadline's still not for four days, so there's presumably many more to come.
This is always a frustrating situation. It's great to see students working to improve Wikipedia, and hopefully some quality work will come out of this; if even a portion become GAs, it'll be a nice new set of articles. On the other hand, assigning them to all come to GA at once slams us with a wave of work, and there doesn't seem to have been much quality control on their end first.
A few possible approaches:
  1. Reach out to relevant noticeboards for help with the deluge, and tell reviewers to be fast on the quickfails to separate the wheat from the chaff.
  2. If the teacher, TAs, or course ambassadors are experienced Wikipedians, ask them to assume the bulk of the reviewing workload. (Seems unlikely.)
  3. Wait until January to begin any of these reviews; ping each review before starting work to see if any students remain active and genuinely interested in editing. My past experience is that almost no students will be interested in doing this after grades are in, but I've had one or two nice surprises. Quickfail the rest. (Not ideal, but is usually how this plays out by default.)
  4. Review a sample of the articles, say 5 or 6, each from a different student. If few or none are close to ready, quickfail the class's work as a whole as an unreasonable demand on reviewer time.
  5. Quickfail all nominations from this class where the editor has yet to make an edit to the article (seems to be at least half).
What do you think? I think at the very least we should reach out to the professor and ask what her plan is; I'll do that now. -- Khazar2 (talk) 01:02, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
As an update, I left a note for the instructor, and quickfailed the two articles you mentioned (I agree both deserved it). -- Khazar2 (talk) 02:09, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Sorry about this. I'll talk to the class on Tuesday and send something out tomorrow to them. We have geared up a lot from last year. I agree the pieces should be excellent before they get GA status. It is a good idea to join projects. It was the first thing they are supposed to do. It is a really good idea to get them to do this. As the professor of the course, I will read and edit every word my students put up before the end of the semester, but I do not do this in the middle of the semester. So, no wrong word will remain. I think we should not let them nominate for GA. We should in future only do that ourselves once we see they have met the standards. I am very appreciative of all the hard work you do and do not want to overload the system. Thanks for your helpful, constructive advice. We'll figure this out! Agelaia (talk) 03:13, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for understanding! Cheers, -- Khazar2 (talk) 03:33, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
FunkMonk et al., there's an attempt to centralize discussion about this course here if you want to chime in. -- Khazar2 (talk) 04:50, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
Since these continue to suck up reviewer time, and have all been quickfailed except for one passed by a brandnew account (now being reassessed), I've simply removed the course's remaining nominations from the queue. A good guidance document to point these classes to in the future is WP:ASSIGN; the Education Noticeboard agrees that professors aren't supposed to be putting together projects like this. -- Khazar2 (talk) 14:19, 15 November 2013 (UTC)
Thanks, Khazar2. – Quadell (talk) 15:23, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Second opinion on Talk:North Coast Hiawatha/GA1

Apologies if this is in the wrong place. @Bhtpbank began the review of North Coast Hiawatha and make a number of suggestions but advised me to seek a second opinion; he's not willing to pass or fail it himself. Is there someone else who could review the nomination? Thanks, Mackensen (talk) 13:21, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Resolved
Since Bhtpbank felt it would need a new review from scratch, returned to the queue to await new reviewer. -- Khazar2 (talk) 10:35, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Review and fail in 3 hours?

Ghost in the Shell (video game) was up for GAN, the reviewer @Niwi3: has listed the issues and failed it within three hours. The problem is he made his post starting with several issues that need fixing before its passage and moves right to fail by the end of it.[28] A majority of the issues which it was failed for was: T*HQ -> THQ, Production I.G. -> Production I.G, a reference that was duplicated, a reference that 404ed in October (fixed with archive), and other really minor things. So minor that its actually taken more time to try and get the editor to discuss why they didn't hold it than to actually even fix the issues. I've spent less than half an hour and almost all of them are fixed. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 00:04, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

i think the problem was that the issues Niwi presented were definitely fixable and could've been placed on-hold before failing it. No matter, it can be re-nominated.Lucia Black (talk) 00:07, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
I did what I thought was right. And I think there are still major issues that need to be addressed (expanding the gameplay, for instance). But if you don't agree, feel free to re-nominate it. --Niwi3 (talk) 00:17, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
It is not a major issue. it can be fixed.Lucia Black (talk) 00:20, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
In my opinion, that is relative to the reviewer's experience. --Niwi3 (talk) 00:27, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
@Niwi3: Would you at least extend the courtesy at this point? Only because the alternatives are either waiting 3 months or having a formal review requested which will still take a long time. There are three people responding to the issues you've raised all within mere hours of the review going up, all the issues are being quickly resolved. You need only say the word. Or can we get someone to possibly take it up? ChrisGualtieri (talk) 01:17, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
Sorry for waiting so long to respond; it was 2 A.M. when I posted my last comment. In any case, there are still issues that need to be addressed: the gameplay section needs to be expanded and therefore referenced. After that, you are welcome to re-nominate the article. --Niwi3 (talk) 11:12, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't like seeing quickfails like this. It is, IMHO, disrespectful towards the nominator, and pushes the article months back into the review queue. I'd support a change of policy that would require that the week hold period is given to all reviews, outside of exceptional circumstances (major rewrite / copyediting needed and primary author(s) are inactive). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 03:40, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Special category for education project GANs?

It has become common for educators to assign their students the task of submitting articles for GAN. It can work (I speak as an educator whose students have written 10+ GAs) but it requires ensuring that reviews happen before the class ends. I achieve this by asking (begging... :>) here; most educators are however not experienced Wikipedians, don't realize that the backlog exists, and/or haven't contributed enough to this project to be able to count on any significant good will here to fast-track their articles. Thus I have often seen educational GANs carried out "in vacuum", as the student editors have long since finished their class and are not active. This clearly wastes the time of the reviewers, while providing only a limited benefit to the article (the review may still be useful, but given our backlogged reality, we would benefit more from reviewing only articles whose authors are still active).

Have we figured out a solution for this? My draft one is to ask a question on the talk page of each educational GAN how long the students plan on being active. After that time, the GAN should be cancelled. If the students do not reply within a week, it should be cancelled as well. See my question at Talk:Gender_inequality_in_the_United_States#GA_review_comment for an idea of how this can work. It would be more efficient if we could generate a list of educational GANs (which should be doable, given that they are tagged with {{Educational assignment}}). We could probably generate lists of whether such a question was asked, whether a reply was given, and delist articles after a course finish date has passed. For those who actually want to encourage such assignments, it would also give a list of GANs they should prioritize (try to review before the students leave). Thoughts? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 03:37, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I think I've reviewed something like 20-30 student GANs and passed only one, so I'm pretty skeptical of the value of student work at GA at all; even when I catch the students still active, the work is rarely at GA standards. (Part of the problem is that the students so often take on a sweeping, difficult article, like the Gender Equality in the United States cited above.) I do believe that Piotrus as an experienced Wikipedian can guide a class to writing GAs, but most professors seem to just drop off their students here the way I drop my daughter off at daycare. GA is a high bar to set for a first-time editor, and a lot more guidance and drafts are required than it's practical for us to do during reviews.
So I'm also skeptical of making a special effort to fast-track these. Unless we're getting extra help from the Education Project folks (and we never seem to), fast-tracking one set of noms means the others would go slower. Since probably 50-70% of non-student noms become GAs, whereas I'd be surprised if 5-10% of student noms become GAs, this would be concentrating our resources in the worst possible place. If anything, I'd say we should consider refusing to review student nominations until there's no longer a backlog for regular editors.
But that said, marking or separating out student nominations might still be best. Those specifically interested in working with students could review there, while the regular GA process wouldn't be slowed by generally substandard work. Ultimately GA seems to work best when everyone reviews what they're interested in (instead of treating it as a chore and getting burnt out), so if editors are particularly interested in these, I'd support at least that part of it. -- Khazar2 (talk) 13:58, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
Agreed. I wouldn't recommend fast tracking student noms as a regular procedure, not without help from Education Project or other quid-pro-quo help coming from course instructors/ambassadors (I always promised to review another GAN for each of my student GAN's community would review...). But listing them separately could facilitate such fast-tracking IFF we receive such assistance, allow some to help out with them out of good will, and warn others that those GAN's may be inactive (another trick to deal with them - start a review, before sinking time into it - ask if anyone is still active, notify authors on their talk pages, put it on hold, fail it after a week of inactivity...). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 07:13, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
It might be useful to have separate list of those current GANs that are part of an educational assignment, so that anyone interested can look at and compare them, and perhaps review if they choose. I don't think the main Wikipedia:Good article nominations page should be modified to allow for this, though; unless the student leaves a "note" in the {{GA nominee}} template saying it's part of an assignment, these GANs shouldn't appear any different on that page. But I do see a value in maintaining a list at another location of those. (It might also be useful to maintain AfC entries that are part of an educational assignment at that same location.) I guess the question is, where and how should this be maintained? – Quadell (talk) 13:59, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
I'd list them below the Wikipedia:Good_article_nominations#Miscellaneous. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 08:31, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
I'm not convinced it's a good idea to separate them out that way. In any normal GAN, a reviewer will see the nominee at the topic he's interested in. If "assignment" GANs are not listed with the other GANs in their topic section, I'm afraid the GA process for these will be different from the GA process for other articles. (And if they are listed in two different places on the WP:GAN page, that's problematic for other reasons.) I'd prefer to see a separate page for these. – Quadell (talk) 13:54, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
That's a good point. We don't want, for example, biology nominations separated from the view of reviewers who regularly work in that area. -- Khazar2 (talk) 13:58, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
Ah, I wasn't clear. I don't recommend we move them, just copy. Ie. they should be both where they are now, and also in a separate list at the end. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 08:48, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
I'm not sure why, but I don't like the idea of some nominations showing up twice on WP:GAN, based on the criterion that they are student project submissions. I would feel more comfortable with a list on a separate page, and a link to that page from WP:GAN. I can't really explain why; perhaps it would lead to other groups of nominees being listed twice for other reasons? It just feels like a bad precedent to me. – Quadell (talk) 14:26, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
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