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Voyager 1

I want to withdraw the GA nomination for Voyager 1. What shall I do?? Herald talk with me 12:44, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Simply remove the GA nomination template on the articles talk page.--Dom497 (talk) 19:49, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
That's only supposed to happen if the review had not yet commenced. Once the review has started—and this one has been ongoing for a while—it needs to be closed as not listed if the nominator wishes to withdraw it, which involves the FailedGA template. The Instructions page is quite clear: 'To withdraw a nomination after the review has begun, let the reviewer know and then follow the first three steps under the "Failing" section of "Finishing the review"'. I've just done these on the article's talk page—and also restored an earlier FailedGA template which should not have been remove—and I'll be notifying the reviewer after I post this. BlueMoonset (talk) 16:34, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Talk:Seventh Amendment to the United States Constitution/GA1

User Khazar2 has redrawn their nomination, Seventh Amendment to the United States Constitution/GA1. On the talk page they make it clear they intend to simply re-nominate in a few days.[1]. It's an odd reasoning in my opinion when they pinged me to begin the nomination, as they had waited a while for it to begin. I began the review at that request.[2]. (my beginning the review [3]).

Is this done often? The editor had no problem waiting for that review to begin as we were in another discussion for some time on another similar article and I felt it best to allow some room between the discussions. They were separate issues. At any rate if they intend to re-nominate, I intend to re-review under this circumstances unless there are objections based on our guidelines. Is there a guideline for GA review that would disallow me from reviewing it upon re-nomination days later?--Mark Miller (talk) 22:11, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi Mark, I'm disappointed you're choosing to escalate in this way, and even more disappointed that you won't just let another reviewer take a look at this one. I won't bore the board with details, but anyone who wants to judge the reasonableness of this review can see the article talk page. (Spoiler alert: the highlight is Mark's insistence that the US National Archives is not a reliable source for the ratification of the US Bill of Rights.) And to boot, it's taken me weeks just to get these initial comments out of him. I don't know what else he thinks we were working on together that he was never able to put up a full review, but this is the first I've heard of it.
So I guess if Mark's determined to block this one from getting a regular review, I'll resubmit it, he can quickfail it, and we'll go directly to GAR. It's unusual, but I'm not sure how else to get a second opinion here. Sorry to everyone for the drama. -- Khazar2 (talk) 22:29, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Having interacted with both of you two in positive ways, I guess I'll just explicitly assume good faith here and say it looks like Mark Miller is legitimately willing to review the article, and he has raised some concerns, and Khazar sincerely wants to make the article as good as it can be, and it nonetheless isn't working out particularly well between them. That's okay; not everybody gets along like peanut butter and jelly. If I'm ever reviewing a GAN and the nominator doesn't like my style and requests a different reviewer, I'm always willing to close the nomination and let someone else review it instead. The new reviewer can see my previous comments and concerns, and can give them whatever weight he or she feels is appropriate. (Worse come to worst, if the new reviewer is inappropriately uncritical, I can always submit it for GA review.) I would strongly urge Mark Miller to take the same approach. – Quadell (talk) 23:01, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

I stated outright that other editors were welcome when he stated that a second opinion might be needed but I stated he could just try to work with me. I have no issue with them, they seem to be taking issue with me and have yet to give a legitimate reason. They came out with an outrageous post they then struck out and simply suggested a second opinion. Per our instructions:
"If you are unsure whether an article meets the Good article criteria, you may ask another reviewer or subject expert for a second opinion by:
  1. Changing the status of the template on the talk page so it says "2ndopinion" as in {{GA nominee|...|status=2ndopinion}}
  2. Make sure to indicate on the review page what issue you are looking for a second opinion on."
Now, I'm not sure, but that sounds very much like a second opinion is for the reviewer to ask, not the nominator. But perhaps that is worded badly and either editor may do so with this procedure.
If they requested a new reviewer that would be one thing. They didn't. They just withdrew after blowing up and making a number of accusations and inaccurate statements. I am not a new reviewer. I have been reviewing articles for years. If they object to my style and wish another reviewer (and I think it is safe to assume that), I think it best to take the advice of Quadell and allow that. But I do strongly feel that Kahzar2 was making far too many assumptions and their behavior may not make them the best editor to re-nominate that article.--Mark Miller (talk) 00:09, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
Thanks, Mark, for being willing to let a second reviewer take over. Cheers, Khazar2 (talk) 00:42, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Never mind. If there is an actual guideline against this I will not attempt a second review. If there is not, I will simply take the review and continue. Clearly this has become a situation where the guidelines are needed to insure that this process is followed to the letter. If there is such a guideline where I am not to take the second review, I will not do so, but on the flip of that, if the nominator has abused their privilege of nomination by withdrawing for the wrong reasons, we may need some intervention to make this right. I will defer to those that know the guidelines. If I hear no opposition to the second review, I will take it.--Mark Miller (talk) 02:54, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

The context for Mark's reversal above is his demand that I withdraw my nomination and put it another editor's name, or he would pursue administrative action against me.[4][5] The other editor and I both thought this was nonsense, so here we are.
Regardless of where the fault lies (and presumably it's shared), I think it's obvious that Mark and I just aren't getting along well at the moment and could use a break. Mark, I wish you'd take the advice that everyone has given you on this one so far (me, Quadell, and SMP) and just let another reviewer take a look at this one. -- Khazar2 (talk) 11:03, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
Mark Miller, you're making it increasingly obvious that you are emotionally involved here, and that your interests lie more with getting your way that with what's in the best interest of Wikipedia. The spirit of the policies of Wikipedia:Consensus and Wikipedia:Ownership of articles apply here: you are not the only person who gets to review this article. WP:GAN says "Good articles are articles that have been evaluated by an uninvolved editor against a minimum standard of quality." If you're determined to focus on this one, whatever the consequences, against the stated requests of both the nominator and uninvolved administrators, then you are no longer acting as "an uninvolved editor". There are many more articles in need of review where you could be of valued assistance, if that's your goal. I sincerely hope that's your goal. – Quadell (talk) 13:38, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
I think what is obvious at this point is that I have been kicked off the review without a legitimate reason and yet you accuse me of being emotionally involved here? I don't see that. What I see is a manipulation of the review process by another to exclude an editor as being credited with this review. It is outrageous. I also think the accusation that Kahzar and I are not getting along are unfounded, just because they have something stuck in their bonnet, please do not give me an equal share of that sentiment. I am acting as an uninvolved editor as I have not edited the article and also Quadell, I feel you are exaggerating when you say "whatever the consequences". I stated clearly "if there is no guideline" so please don't wikilawyer me to death here. Just state the guideline that shows why the first reviewer cannot review when the nominator has withdrawn and re-nominated. it is as simple as that. As I said, I will not review it if there is a guideline against it. Frankly, accusing me of article ownership is ridiculous. It seems the one with the ownership issue is the one being allowed to dictate who gets to review the article.
For the record...I have not done anything to be accused of Quadell. I have asked for clarification as to our guideline. You made a very good argument about letting the article go to another reviewer if such a request was made, but no request was actually made, as I said, there was only a suggestion that a second opinion would be needed. My goal was to review in good faith the article that was nominated. Obviously the bad faith withdraw is far more supported here so I guess my goal is not the same as yours or the projects. To be open, transparent and honest about these reviews. You seem to be supporting a rather obtuse behavior of someone that seems to want to accuse me of not liking them. Funny...I have never said a single word against this editor, yet they have made accusations against me over and over again. Of course I am not the only one who can review the article, but then, anyone can renominate it as well. If there is no guideline that can be produced and no demonstration that I am being unreasonable (which I do not believe I am), please let me know why you still feel it better for me not to review. took your words to heart yet you still don't see that no request was made for me to understand that a new reviewer was being asked for...because none was ever asked for. I restate that Kahzar is working in bad faith, you made a good and very honest suggestion that I intended to take until I saw the things being discussed on the talk page and it seems to me there is an ownership issue there, not with me since I have not touched the actual article or stood in the way or obstructed anyone in anyway to finish this review, nor do I intend to. But if you are point blank telling me to leave. I will do so and not bother to darken GA gain. I have always felt that GA had a few issues, but really, it just lacks true guidance. At least you, Quadell are attempting that. I will NOT disrespect you or your feelings on this outside my initial reaction to your above post.
I am disappointed to find that, even with a true good faith review of an article, that the nominator has the right to revoke the reviewer without any legitimate reason. I will restate that I am not emotionally involved (how that assumption was made is beyond me). I am professionally involved, and expect a professional response. If you simply feel it is best to walk away in this instance, at least try to convince me with something more than telling me you see me as too involved when I am not involved with the article at all. By the way, I was once removed from a review (by a consensus of a good amount of editors who contributed to the discussion) because it was established that I had edited the article and while I felt it was not enough to exclude me as a reviewer, there was a consensus of editors that agreed that the amount of editing I did was enough (even though there is no actual number mentioned in the guidelines, so I see that situation as at least establishing a maximum edit count that would exclude an editor) to exclude me as an editor as too involved. I understand that, I don't understand the comment here.--Mark Miller (talk) 06:01, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
Mark, when you're accusing me of acting in bad faith to escape scrutiny, why would I want to work with you after that, and why would you want to work with me? Obviously, it's time for a second editor to step in and check the situation out; no value in us wasting the next month fighting to the wiki-death. Again, I'm sure you see the irony that you've invested far more time and energy on this argument in two days than you were willing to spend on the GA review in two weeks; surely, with the GA backlog as high as it is, you can find better places to spend this effort. Sorry again that we've disagreed here, and I hope we'll be able to collaborate better next time we meet. -- Khazar2 (talk) 12:18, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
You decided pretty clearly upon our first encounter at another article that I was all sorts of things...including not being around Wikipedia as long as you and telling me others knew better. I do believe you are not acting in good faith and I see you still continuing to make accusations such as accusing you of bad faith to escape scrutiny. If I were attempting to escape scrutiny, I wouldn't be on this page discussing times when I was highly scrutinized. I don't attempt to "escape" scrutiny, but I see you have figured out the deflection method. I will always attempt to collaborate with you, but clearly every attempt has been met with bad faith accusations from you. If you didn't get the point of why I waited to begin that review, again, I ask why it wasn't withdrawn then and not when you pinged me to begin and I responded in earnest. You are the oddest Editor Retention member I have encountered in quite some time. You have an attitude I distrust, but I am not going to avoid you because you have issues with me. I will not take on that second review. Quadell's point is still valid. I can walk away as reviewer and simply contribute as an editor to the review when it comes back. And since I am not the reviewer I can now collaborate on the article itself.--Mark Miller (talk) 20:55, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
Okay, you win. (To put your mind at ease, by the way, I simply meant you were saying I was avoiding scrutiny.) It's pretty clear that persisting in this GA review means having you as a permanent part of my life; submitting this article through GA just isn't worth it when I have other projects this is stealing time from. I will withdraw the nomination as you requested, withdraw from the page, and take it off my watchlist. -- Khazar2 (talk) 21:09, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
Resolved
Article withdrawn from GA per Mark's request. Sorry to everyone for the drama, -- Khazar2 (talk) 21:16, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
Mark didn't request you withdraw. And it isn't the reason you gave on the review page...which I hadn't touched by the way. You said "Hey Cirt, I'm just withdrawing this. Mark Miller's threatening to hound this one in various ways if I don't"--Mark Miller (talk) 21:50, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
Win? This is a loss for the GA project. Sorry you feel that way Kahzar, but I am not a part of your permanent life. I think we can both agree that is a very good thing, but we are also both members of many projects that we are very active in. If you have a difficult time collaborating I will certainly not be going out of my way to find articles you are working on, but don't expect me to run screaming from the articles you are also involved in or the projects I have invested hundreds of hours over. I suggest that you think about the disruption you are causing by continuing to use the GA process in this manner. Simply put...who are you to tell me I can't contribute to the review even if I am not the reviewer when you yourself asked for a second opinion. It seems clear who has the problem with whom. As always, I will continue to attempt to work with you in the number of locations we may be editing. But I don't think you should continue to make accusations. That is simply not helpful for anyone, including yourself.--Mark Miller (talk) 21:47, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
Mark, I'll just quote your diffs.[6][7] This will be my last comment in this discussion, except to wish you the best for finding a more productive use of your editing hours than this conflict. -- Khazar2 (talk) 22:49, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
I don't know what that is supposed to demonstrate. I never stated or implied that I was going to hound anyone or any page and, as I stated, have made no attempt to do anything or obstruct anything. I reacted to your actions. Twice withdrawing a GA nomination just because of my involvement. I feel there are certainly many article I can edit and many articles I can review and may editors I can collaborate with. I will say it again Kahzar, I have nothing against you and forget stuff like this easily when I see a true and honest attempt to let it go and move on. We will surely be interacting in the future but I feel you need space right now. I don't hold a grudge. Many of the editors and admin I look up to and respect, I had originally had a conflict with. I see no reason myself, to feel we cannot get along and work together in the future. Have a good weekend.--Mark Miller (talk) 06:27, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Mark Miller said this at the 2nd GA Review page: "Thank you for your input Cirt. I will agree to your request and not edit the article or the review for the time requested. Thanks." I commend him for this statement and let's all try to move on positively and constructively from this. Cheers, — Cirt (talk) 22:23, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Nominating a GA for GA status!

Hi, I just want to check that I've done this correctly. Disappearance of Madeleine McCann was given GA status in August 2007, three months after the disappearance. A lot has changed in the case between then and now, so I began a rewrite in May 2013 to reflect the most recent developments. I would like to nominate it at some point for FAC, but in the meantime I'd like a GA review of this version to make sure that it is still GA standard, and to act as an intermediary step to FAC.

I was going to nominate it for an individual GA reassessment, but the reassessment page says that's for articles that are thought not to be GA standard. I've therefore nominated it in the regular way, but I've left a note in the nomination template explaining that an earlier version already has GA. Is that the right way to do this? SlimVirgin (talk) 16:04, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

I've never seen that done before, but it seems like a good idea in this specific case. It's a high-profile article and fraught with potential issues, so it makes sense to double-check after a major rewrite, and it'll likely get a more in-depth review this way than it would at a community GAR. Thanks for taking this one on! -- Khazar2 (talk) 16:46, 24 November 2013 (UTC)
You're welcome, and thanks for the response. I'm glad it's okay to do it this way. It seemed to make the most sense. SlimVirgin (talk) 16:53, 24 November 2013 (UTC)
Why not do a Peer Review instead? Those are usually used to review at articles that are looking to be GAs or FAs; in this case, it would seem tailor made for the multiple reasons you want the article checked over. The GAN page says "Here, potential Good articles are nominated for review against the Good article criteria"; this isn't a potential GA, it is a GA. GAN seems less appropriate than GAR, really. BlueMoonset (talk) 17:18, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

This sounds a lot like the situation below. I don't think it's a problem to resubmit it for GAN, although PR and GAR are also legitimate choices. The most important thing is that a knowledgeable reviewer go over it to see if there are glaring issues before a FAC. Whatever mechanism makes that happen is fine. – Quadell (talk) 18:50, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Talk:Stephen Báthory/GA1

As we discussed a while ago, this was not a proper review. Would anyone care to provide a proper review? I'd be happy to address them as usual. I just don't feel like we need to start a GAR on this (it would also be a bit weird for me, the GAN nom, to also do a GAR on it... ). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 09:55, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm currently reading through it, I'll be glad to participate in properly finishing the GAR. I've made no contribution to the article, but have familiarity with the subject space. Ajh1492 (talk) 10:43, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

This sounds very similar to the situation in the section just above. Personally, I don't see a problem with renominating an article at GAN, even if it has already passed, so long as the article has been significantly rewritten. It might be questionable in terms of the letter of the instructions, but it fits in beautifully with the spirit of the GA process. – Quadell (talk) 18:47, 25 November 2013 (UTC)
I have done a read through the article and made some minor comments on the GA1 talk page. The article does not need a significant rewrite, I would suggest fixing the changes, making another review pass, then sustain the GA status of the article. Not necessary to redo the GAN. Ajh1492 (talk) 23:05, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Psychology class nominations

It looks like a graduate course from UCLA has been assigned to nominate articles to GA. They're hardly flooding the board (4-5 so far), and it's graduates rather than undergraduates, so I don't think it's a big concern, but I've still asked a few of them to request that their professor get in touch about the plan for these (how many total submissions we'll be getting, if the class is in touch with Wikipedia:Education Program, if they've been doublechecked by the professor before submission, if they're seeking rush reviews or will still be here in the spring, etc.). I figure we'll open up communication and work from there; I'll probably also put them in touch with the Education Noticeboard. Cheers, -- Khazar2 (talk) 23:54, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

@Khazar2: Yes, these recent psychology nominations are for Graduate ProSem in Social Psychology, for which I am campus ambassador. Professor Karney specified in the syllabus for the students to submit their articles to DYK and GAN for extra points. (It is not a mandatory step, per se.)
I did not expect this sort of reaction, which is why I didn't object when the professor provided the syllabus to me. All 21 of the students in this class are new to Wikipedia and most of their articles will not meet GA standards. These students won't have time to develop them, won't be here in the Spring, and I didn't expect anyone on the GA WikiProject would get to them so quickly. I've not heard anything from the folks at DYK, either. I've already e-mailed the professor and asked him to comment here. Chris Troutman (talk) 07:12, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
Hi, this is Ben Karney, the professor of the class in question. I'd like to allay any concerns that I am demanding or expecting a quick review of my student's articles, or anything else from the dutiful and generous people who manage Wikipedia for the rest of us to use and enjoy. The class has 20 doctoral students, all of whom were given links to submit their articles for DYK and GA status. I offered these links as a way of encouraging interaction with the broader Wiki community, but I did not intend for this to become a burden on anyone. I have not reviewed the students' work, but I do know that the excellent Chris Troutman, our ambassador, has been very involved with the class (and I am grateful for that involvement). In two weeks, the students will each email me a link to their article with a description of the feedback they have received. Then the class will be over. it would still be awesome if their pages were approved as Good Articles, but that would not be part of their grade or part of the class. Just part of their experience, no small thing. Does this help? I hope so. Benkarney (talk) 07:47, 26 November 2013 (UTC)Ben Karney
Thanks for the quick responses. That sounds reasonable, but the one request I'd make is that you remove the nominations when the course is done unless the nominators intend to keep editing Wikipedia; assignments like this can turn into a time-suck if reviewers are reading articles and posting reviews for nominators who have already abandoned the articles. Disappearing nominators is the main reason our failure rate for student work seems to be around 90% or higher, and is also part of the reason for the approach suggested by WP:ASSIGN, where the professor and online ambassador select a few of the best to nominate for DYK or GA. That way there's some checking on the class's end before the checking on ours, which splits the work; there's someone (the professor or ambassador) who's willing to keep editing the nomination after the semester's end; and we're getting submissions with a higher likelihood of passing GA in the first place. I can't speak for everyone, though, so I'll bow out after this comment and see if others on the board want to chime in.
More important than any of that, though, thanks for all the quality information your students have been adding to their articles! I looked at these articles' original states, and your students' expansions have been substantial and impressive. Cheers, -- Khazar2 (talk) 12:49, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
Just as a quick followup, I forgot that I had already quickfailed one of these here; this is the kind of nomination that would have benefited from either the professor or ambassador taking a look before it was sent on to GA. (It looks like a good expansion on the whole, but still has some obvious problems with citation, etc. Hopefully the student will be willing to act on these comments soon.) Thanks again for everybody's work, -- Khazar2 (talk) 14:38, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

WP:GANR down since Novemeber 8

WP:GANR has been down since Novemeber 8.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 09:45, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I e-mailed Dvandersluis about it. – Quadell (talk) 13:47, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
What is our next step?--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 17:21, 24 November 2013 (UTC)
I don't know. He hasn't written back. We may need to solicit someone to rewrite it at Wikipedia:Bot requests. – Quadell (talk) 00:54, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Hey guys, sorry for the delayed response; I haven't had a chance to look into this until today. The bot itself is functioning properly, but there is a bug in Mediawiki now it seems that is causing bots to receive a 503 Service Unavailable error when trying to edit a large page (details available at Wikipedia:VPT#503_errors_on_the_API). There seems to be a patch that will fix this issue, but as far as I've been told on the #wikipedia IRC channel, it won't be deployed until December 5th.

This means that in the meantime, the GAN/R page update will fail. The page is over 125KB, and full of transclusions, both of which apparently are problems for this bug (the short version, as I understand it, is that MW tries to render the page 3x during an API edit, which causes the request to timeout and fail). As far as I understand, there are two courses of action that can be taken now:

  1. Wait it out - I understand that this page is important to this project, but the patch that's on its way should resume proper creation of the report.
  2. Update GAN/R to somehow be smaller / have less transclusions so that it doesn't timeout - it was suggesting to me that splitting it into multiple subpages and transcluding them *may* allow the page to be updated. I believe there is another bot that makes use of the report page so I'm not sure how that would be affected. As well, I'm not sure how much time it would take to reorganize how the bot outputs the page, and I'm pretty busy currently.

Anyways, I apologize for the delayed response and for not really having an easy solution. Let's discuss and figure out how to proceed. —Daniel Vandersluis(talk) 18:13, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your response, Daniel. Personally, I'm happy to wait it out, seeing as how the problem will fix itself in ten days. – Quadell (talk) 18:52, 25 November 2013 (UTC)
I'd be fine with waiting, too; the bot is handy but not so urgent that you need to redesign it just for the next ten days. Let's see what the patch does. Thanks, Khazar2 (talk) 20:31, 25 November 2013 (UTC)
Alright cool, let's wait for the patch to be deployed and see what happens. —Daniel Vandersluis(talk) 01:44, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
Should the patch have resulted in the usual 2:00 report?--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 09:48, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Okay, I've run the bot manually and all pages have been updated! Looks like the bug is fixed. We will return to our regularly scheduled program starting tomorrow at 4AM EST. :) —Daniel Vandersluis(talk) 18:18, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Wonderful, thank you! – Quadell (talk) 18:22, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
That's terrific, Daniel--thanks much for all your work on this. -- Khazar2 (talk) 18:23, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Please remember {{Good article}}

Hello reviewers. There is a bot (specifically, one of the many, many tasks done by Legobot) that comes in after articles are promoted to GA status and makes sure that the GA promotion is documented with an oldid. The bot can't do that if you don't put {{Good article}} in the article. As importantly, people won't see that a good article is a good article if you don't add {{Good article}}. A few people have been forgetting. Please add {{Good article}} to the article after you promote it. Think of the server kitties. Sven Manguard Wha? 00:49, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

I thought the bot already did this. Taylor Trescott - my talk + my edits 01:09, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
It does. Taylor Trescott - my talk + my edits 01:11, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Need quick second opinion

For the GAN at a manga series (at Talk:Doll (manga)/GA1), I have requested the editor should have the months included for the series' serialization instead of just a year. I'm hoping for a quick second opinion and will accept whatever consensus is formed. DragonZero (Talk · Contribs) 23:32, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Replied there. -- Khazar2 (talk) 01:08, 29 November 2013 (UTC)
Thanks. DragonZero (Talk · Contribs) 04:01, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Request a second review

I am short of time, but a friend of mine stopped at my talk page to let me know about this review:

He is asking for a re-review, since he considers that the first reviewer did not perform a good job, and I concur.

Sorry for the shortness of the post. Cheers! — ΛΧΣ21 04:37, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

I'd personally be willing to give it another try. CorporateM and Hahc21, I can either re-review the article overlooking that aspect, or [preferably (for your guys' sakes))] a new, uninvolved reviewer. I feel bad about quick failing it now. It's well-sourced. Maybe source some of the claims in the lead, but otherwise after re-considering, I think it could absolutely pass. As I said, I can either thoroughly re-review the article or we can get a new reviewer. Again, I do feel bad, can you forgive me CorporateM and Hahc21? Best, Sportsguy17 :) (click to talk • contributions) 11:32, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
I'm going to re-review it. I will not be quick failing it and after re-reading the article, I feel bad for quick failing it and want to give it another review. This could take up to and maybe slightly over one week. Sportsguy17 :) (click to talk • contributions) 11:35, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
No problem. The Lead is the appropriate length for a short article and is not suppose to contain citations because it summarizes the body of the article, which is sourced. (see WP:LEAD) I don't mind if editors are uncomfortable or disinterested in reviewing my COI works, which is why it's disclosed in the GA note, so editors can choose for themselves if they want to work with a COI editor or not. But it would be preferable if that's the case to not review as oppose to quick-failing on the basis of a disclosed COI. Based on your note, I'm presuming you're ok with reviewing it ;-)
I was very pleased to see your note here Sportsguy! It continues to surprise me the situations where good-faith is still appropriate. Now I feel just as bad for going around and pinging another editor, instead of just talking to you. Civility and good-faith carries the day. CorporateM (Talk) 15:04, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
Sportsguy17: Forvigen :) Let me know if you need help reviewing it. Cheers! — ΛΧΣ21 17:59, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
After re-reading it, I was really surprised about how well-written it is. CorporateM is basically the creator of the article. I too, assumed bad faith because of your COI. Previously, I've had bad experiences with COI editors, but you are a) open about it and b) here to write quality articles and use your knowledge to create quality articles, which really makes you blend in with constructive editors and is often not brought up, since it doesn't cause problems. Hahc21, feel free to look over it. I honestly think it is pretty much a GA. The lead needs some/a little bit of work, but once I have more time on my hands, we'll work on it and I think we can get this to GA pretty quick, considering the CHECKLINKS and REFLINKS reports are all good. Best. Sportsguy17 :) (click to talk • contributions) 22:39, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Ghost in the Shell (video game) needs another reviewer for GAR

Our current reviewer had seemed to drop out and we are needed of a new reviewer. It would be great if it could be done swiftly, the improvements i believe had been made extensively. and i know the holidays are coming so it would be best if we can get a new reviewer soon before breaks start coming in.Lucia Black (talk) 07:19, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

I may try to chime in there after I have time to check over the article myself, but be warned that a community GAR is a somewhat cumbersome process. In a case like this, where there's no specific single point in dispute, it needs several editors to do a full review, which is a "big ask"; this is why GAR says in its instructions, "However, it is rarely helpful to request a community reassessment for an article which has not had a proper review; it is usually simpler to renominate it." (Though I should add that glancing at it, I don't find Niwi's review as unreasonable as you and Chris did.)
So you might post neutral notices at WikiProject Video Games and WikiProject Anime pointing them to this GAR to see if others want to chime in; that might get you enough reviewers to move this one to consensus. But I'd say brace yourself for this to potentially be there another 1-4 months, and still possibly close as upholding the original review or as no consensus. I know it's the last thing you want to hear, but personally, I'd recommend just withdrawing the GAR and renominating at GAN--I think that is the faster road to becoming a GA at this point. Regardless of the path, though, thanks for all the work you and Chris are putting in on this one! -- Khazar2 (talk) 11:32, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
THis was intended to be a one-member GAR, not a whole group. but regardless, you have avoided assistance in the GAR extensively. its like you were only there to vote it off. its almost bias. I would like another reviewer.....possibly to expand on the issues Khazar2 claims there are. The whole reason why i even asked for a new reviewer was because the previous reviewer chose not to finish it as he didn't feel adequate enough and also i believe part of it has to do with being semi retired.Lucia Black (talk) 17:49, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
Hi Lucia, if you and Chris intended this to be a "one-member" GAR, you used the wrong template; this was nominated as a community GAR. Now I see why we've had so much trouble communicating about this process, though. Anyway, if you'd prefer an in-depth response from an individual reviewer (which is what I'd suggest, too), you can return it to the GAN queue. If you'd like the community review to keep going, you might follow up on my suggestion to ask neutrally at relevant WikiProjects so you can get more eyes on it. Hope this helps you find a way forward, -- Khazar2 (talk) 18:34, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Who wants to see TonyTheTiger win the Backlog Elimination Drive?

WP is in danger of TonyTheTiger outperforming everyone at the latest Elimination Drive. If you don't want to see that happen, get out there and do some reviews.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 17:42, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

I'm going to be fair here: I'm going to allow you to lose ...just kidding, best of luck. Sportsguy17 (talk • contribs • sign) 02:59, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Talk:China/GA3

Reviewer Khazar2 has left before the GAN review has finished. Can someone pick up where he left off?--FutureTrillionaire (talk) 14:47, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

If you're willing to close the nomination as not passing, and then immediately renominate the article, I'll review it right away. Does that work for you? – Quadell (talk) 14:56, 5 December 2013 (UTC)
(This may be moot, actually, since it appears LT910001 is willing to take over the review.) – Quadell (talk) 17:06, 5 December 2013 (UTC)
Sorry, Quadell, I didn't see this thread! I'd be more than happy for you to take the review if you so desired, and help out in a secondary capacity. Your proposal has the additional benefit of providing a clean slate for a reviewer. Consequently, I would be happy with either choice made by FutureTrillionaire (continue or clean slate review). --LT910001 (talk) 02:15, 6 December 2013 (UTC)
Oh, I'd be more than happy for you to do it, LT910001. I'll only take it over if no one else is interested. – Quadell (talk) 15:02, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

United Nations review issue

Hi all. Currently, the article United Nations (nominated by Khazar2) is being reviewed by TonyTheTiger. As Tony and Khazar have an interaction ban, in effect since September. I do not think Tony deliberately chose the article because of Khazar's involvement, but he must still be bound by the i-ban. As such, I think the review (which has not been done in detail yet) should be stopped and the page deleted to ensure that both editors keep in line with their ban. Does anyone agree? — Crisco 1492 (talk) 04:50, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

I did not notice the nominator. I just found the topic interesting. I withdraw my reviewership. I don't know how to wipe out a page though. An admin is free to do so.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 05:00, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

"National hero"

There is a discussion here about whether the term "national hero" is a peacock term, for the purposes of GAN reviews. Any insights would be welcome; please comment there. Thanks, – Quadell (talk) 18:01, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

The issue was resolved there. – Quadell (talk) 15:54, 8 December 2013 (UTC)
Resolved

Opt-out from reviewing Legends of Bikini Bottom

For various reasons I am unable to review this article which I had started. It would also be unfair to the nominator.Turnitinpro (talk) 05:31, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

I deleted the review page. Now anyone can review the article. – Quadell (talk) 14:24, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Reviewing your own nomination

Can someone take a look at Talk:2013–14 Drexel Dragons men's basketball team/GA1.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 21:34, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

This looks like it's been resolved. – Quadell (talk) 14:28, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Quick question about GA standards for fictional characters

So lately, there has been fictional character articles which mostly consist of just plot and reception such as Tōshirō Hitsugaya. Sena Kobayakawa and Yoichi Hiruma has a short blurb about conception and creation. I don't believe Alphonse Elric is an issue though. Is it fine if I review the first three articles while ignoring the broadness of coverage? DragonZero (Talk · Contribs) 08:38, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Unless I'm missing something, I can't really see why it would be OK to just ignore one of the criteria. J Milburn (talk) 10:06, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
Oops. I mean, is there enough to review them or should they be quick failed for lack of broadness. DragonZero (Talk · Contribs) 11:00, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
Right, anyways. I guess I'll just assume they pass for broadness and will review them later. DragonZero (Talk · Contribs) 07:40, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
I wish I could help, but I honestly don't know the correct answer. – Quadell (talk) 14:29, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
Imo, they are broad enough. However, per WP:GACN, if an aspect that is "discussed significantly in reliable sources" is missing, then we have a problem. Check the RS to see if anything important is missing.--FutureTrillionaire (talk) 20:56, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
Usually conception or creation is merged with design due to not being big enough to have its own section.Lucia Black (talk) 00:50, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Feedback requested for Talk:Geodesics on an ellipsoid/GA1

Would appreciate feedback from experienced GA reviewers about my review at Talk:Geodesics on an ellipsoid/GA1. Its a complicated maths article exclusively developed by an "expert" (1 or 2 peer reviewed 3rd party publications) who also extensively self references his publications (including several unreviewed ones). I would like feedback on whether I overextended myself while conducting this review.Turnitinpro (talk) 06:38, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

This appears to have already been resolved. – Quadell (talk) 14:30, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
I was the nominator for this article and while I'm happy with the final outcome (wait a year and renominate), I was troubled by the reviewing process. You can see my comments under "Here's a counter-proposal..." at Talk:Geodesics on an ellipsoid/GA1#Interim proposal. The whole process left rather a bad taste in my mouth and would probably discourage other editors who are experts in their fields. cffk (talk) 23:23, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Closing reassessment

Can some of the participants close the reassessment about the Eminem album. It's been opened for a month and I don't think it will receive additional comments. Regards.--Вик Ретлхед (talk) 14:13, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

And why "Erica and I are hangging out" is written at the top of the FAQ?--Вик Ретлхед (talk) 14:17, 24 December 2013 (UTC)
As for the Eminem reassessment, could you link to it? As for the Erica graffiti, that was just odd vandalism; I reverted. – Quadell (talk) 16:34, 24 December 2013 (UTC)
Here is the discussion.--Вик Ретлхед (talk) 20:00, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Question

I have a new user I guess you could say reviewing an article I nominated, Sacrifice (2005). He only has two edits on the book and they are on the above article GA review page and another GA review. I'm not exactly sure what I should do. I'm not exactly sure he/she is the best person for the job but I may be wrong. Is there any suggestions?--WillC 14:29, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

I'd say do a speedy delete. His only edit is that page so it is suspicious. DragonZero (Talk · Contribs) 04:41, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
Meh, I might as well. It is probably for the best.--WillC 05:20, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

WikiCup 2014

Hi there; this is just a quick note to let you all know that the 2014 WikiCup will begin in January. The WikiCup is an annual competition to encourage high-quality contributions to Wikipedia by adding a little friendly competition to editing. At the time of writing, 106 users have signed up to take part in the competition; interested parties, no matter their level of experience or their editing interests, are warmly invited to sign up. Questions are welcome on the WikiCup talk page. Thanks! J Milburn (talk) 20:39, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

Can I get a new reviewer...

The reviewer on Talk:Daniel S. Schanck Observatory/GA1 hasn't come back to the review for 12 days now after I disagreed with several suggestions, I reached out to him several times to conclude it and the indifferent reply that has me thinking the failure to return and finish is intentional. I'd like to get this done and move on to other projects. I'd appreciate another reviewer to pop in so that the review can be concluded.--ColonelHenry (talk) 05:57, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

The reviewer was away from Wikipedia for ten days—no edits at all—and posted on December 27 (first edit back) that it would be a few days more before he or she had time to look over your changes. At this time of year, WP:AGF would seem to default to the assumption that other things have intervened, not that the reviewer is deliberately acting to delay the review in a display of bad faith. BlueMoonset (talk) 00:57, 29 December 2013 (UTC)
  • BlueMoonset, I can understand the urge to assume good faith during the holidays, travelling, family, and post-meal insulin-fatigue, but I generally don't...especially in those 10 days when I had the time for almost 800-900 edits, including wrapping up an FAC, starting another FAC, doing a GA review, commenting on TFA/R and a few other projects. I don't start a review and disappear for a fortnight.--ColonelHenry (talk) 00:15, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

Quid pro quo reviews

Are these kind of reviews allowed for GA/FA? Like "you review mine I'll review yours" stuff? I have seen two users doing that in the song articles hence asking. —Indian:BIO · [ ChitChat ] 13:40, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

In my experience, if I open a FAC and just sit and wait for reviews, nobody will make any review, and the FAC will be eventually closed as failed because of "no consensus". This system seems a good way to encourage people to review a FAC they wouldn't review on their own. As for GAN, as they stay nominated for an indefinite time until someone makes a review, it is possible to do just that and wait. Cambalachero (talk) 14:07, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
Agreed completely, and that it also the case for GAs! Months will typically pass before anybody takes up the review and by the time somebody comes to review it you'd forgotten about it and moved onto a completely different topic!♦ Dr. Blofeld 16:46, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
You definitely want to avoid any appearance of a "you support me and I'll support you" deal. When someone specially requests that I review one of their GANs or FACs, I take extra care to be thorough and demanding, just to avoid the perception of favoritism. – Quadell (talk) 14:59, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
If this is related to the WikiCup, could you let me know, please? I'd hate for the WikiCup to be implicated in any kind of sub-standard reviewing. J Milburn (talk) 15:04, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
I'm just going to come clean, I asked to do this with another user, but there isn't any favoritism, our reviews are too, thorough and demanding. I don't see why this shouldn't be allowed, since there isn't any kind of bias whatsoever... prism △ 15:09, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
As long as the reviews are fair and thorough, I don't personally have any objection to it. Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that I was out to get anyone! J Milburn (talk) 15:42, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
No problem, but, while you're at it, just check WikiRedactor's review for "Legendary Lovers". prism △ 15:47, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
An informal "quid pro quo" GA review is nice, provided there are two reviews on a similar topic that you could both do. It helps foster a collaborative environment. It gets tricker for prolific reviewers and contributors who churn out lots of GAs (I can only manage one a month at best), but it's worth giving it a go.
Regarding FAs, from my (rather limited) experience, if you just open an article up for an FA review, it will sit and sit and sit and sit and you'll get fed up and lose interest. The best FAs always have a few messages passed around some stalwarts, like Eric Corbett, Drmies, Dr. Blofeld, John, etc etc, who go and polish them up to a professional journalism standard that then goes through the procedure smoothly. I think for FAs you really need a team behind it, even serial FA writers have co-workers on here they call on. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 16:16, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
Journalism standards? I like to aim a little higher, Ritchie! I do think that some GAs could do with more reviewers, and what I dislike most is reviewers taking ownership of GA reviews. I'm not opposed to QPQs as long as they're done by seasoned editors who can set friendship aside and give fair, honest reviews, and since the reviews are there for everyone to see I think the opportunities for abuse are limited. That's not to say they can't and don't occur, but I see that risk as no greater than if friendships and QPQs were not involved. Thanks, and to all the reviewers, thanks for your efforts. Drmies (talk) 16:22, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
Absolutely, so long as the involved parties maintain a neutral, critical perspective on the articles. I regularly review GAs and editors are glad to ask me to review them rather than have to wait months before anybody reviews them and vice versa. I nominated an article back in November for GA and nobody took it up, and it was only when I asked somebody I've reviewed for to review it that it was taken up. At FAC a lot of the regulars tend to be aware of what each other have nommed and often provide vital input either at peer review or at the FAC itself. In fact many of the reviewers are so well trusted that it often results in FAs passing within just a week which I think is a positive thing, given that usually a lot of input from notified editors has gone into it and they all agree it's up to FA standard. Notified editors can also be of vital importance to an article passing FA such as last minute copyediting, Eric being the most accomplished at that. So long as people are not canvassing support without providing criticism or easily passing GA reviews just because the other reviewer easily passed theirs etc it's productive I think.♦ Dr. Blofeld 16:35, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

The only time a QPQ review is a bad thing is when it has the hallmarks of meatpuppetry. That's an abuse of the system. Bad articles don't benefit from softball reviews and tag-teaming only works in fake TV wrestling (emphasis: fake). I've had some bad reviewers, and I've worked with great reviewers. The more times I run into a bad reviewer, the less I like waiting months for someone to pick a review up--the Russian Roulette of the GA system. Bad reviewers tend to have skewed interpretations of the GA criteria, try to impose on the article beyond the basic meaning of the criteria, and become entrenched when you disagree with a suggestion. And we're bound to disagree from time to time...some ideas are incredibly bad just like some can be quite brilliant (like "why didn't I think of that?"). However, when I get a great reviewer, it's usually because they really understand the GA criteria and are able to provide keen, constructive criticism and suggestions that you can see obviously improve the article (i.e. "why didn't I think of that?"). It becomes a dialogue focused on improvement and you learn how to be a better writer, a better contributor, and as a result I really enjoy the experience of working with them. QPQ is not a bad thing when you get a good reviewer--especially because you can see by reading the review that the goal is a thorough, diligent attention to improving content and not something that smells of rotten meatpuppetry. It's a benefit because you know the end result will be a better article. The more articles you prepare for GA, the more reviews you do, you make some friends and there's a mutual respect when both sides know the GA criteria, know how to write good articles, and know how to polish them. QPQ has the potential of being a great symbiosis. --ColonelHenry (talk) 17:05, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Well, good, it sounds like consensus is that there's nothing wrong with QPQ reviews, so long as the articles are reviewed just as thoroughly as any other. But we all agree that "soft" reviews among friends, or meat-puppet reviews, are not acceptable. – Quadell (talk) 19:15, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

(Reviews: #)

This may be a stupid question. I'm assuming that the "(Reviews: #)" before each nominator's name is a bot generated number of reviews the nominator has completed? If this is the case, I'm curious to know if the bot is able to match up my previous username with my current username. I believe it said I had completed 17 reviews when I first listed Josh Hutcherson as a nomination. I had my username changed a few weeks later, and the "Reviews" bit went away. Anyone know of a way to get the bot to recognize the name change or is that impossible? Gloss • talk 07:11, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

On that same note, there were cases where the original GAN reviewer dropped out, and I took over and performed the GAN. Since I didn't created the page, GA bot doesn't count those. (This is the primary reason for the discrepancy between GA bot's count and my list.) If I edit User:GA bot/Stats manually to add these, will that work? It won't break the bot, will it? – Quadell (talk) 15:53, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Should be fine, looking at the page history, quite a few people have done it. Courcelles 18:33, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
The bot overrode you, Quadell. I was wondering about the counter, too, because one of mine is missing. I've created nine GA review pages, but the bot is saying I've done eight. It's a minor thing, but I was wondering whether there's a way to fix it. SlimVirgin (talk) 19:31, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Talk:Mountain Grove Campground/GA1

The reviewer (a newbie) hasn't responded to the my comments at the GA review in 4 days. Can someone else take over the review? --Jakob (talk) 13:28, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

@King jakob c 2: Why don't you try contacting the reviewer?--Dom497 (talk) 14:04, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Filmography at GAN?

I just noticed that Audie Murphy filmography is nominated here and already has a review open. The article does have a lot of text, but surely it is still considered a list, thus making it ineligible for GA? Or perhaps the article should be renamed "Film career of Audie Murphy"? Pinging the nominator and the reviewer: @Maile66: @Chris troutman: --Loeba (talk) 21:11, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

There are a lot of these quasi-lists. The seasons of Spongebob, for instance, are often deemed "list class" by wikiprojects on their talkpages. After I passed one, I changed its quality rating from class=list to class=GA, but I wasn't really sure if that was the right move or not. – Quadell (talk) 22:17, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

I would probably put that up at FL just to be consistent with pretty much every other filmography article. Some have a bit of text but are still considered FLs; example Ronald Reagan filmography. Taylor Trescott - my talk + my edits 22:39, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

It's an embedded list. I think the amount of prose makes it eligible to be a GA but I'll think about making it a GA class list instead. Chris Troutman (talk) 02:04, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
"GA class list"? I'm surprised to hear that exists, isn't that an oxymoron? Personally I think the best solution is to rename the article "Film career of Audie Murphy". --Loeba (talk) 17:36, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
Believe it or not, I did not get this ping - there's nothing in my notifications about this. I just happened to run across this thread. My ultimate goal is taking this, and two related articles to Good Topic and/or Featured Topic. Main article Audie Murphy is A-class and being worked on for FA status. Second article is Audie Murphy honors and awards and is a list that passed A-class review at WP Military History. I would like the filmography to get GA, but perhaps you all can advise how to do that. I've had a considerable amount of conflicting advice on these three articles over the past year. Everybody with good intentions, and everybody with their own opinion. So, how do we work this out to reach my goal? Also, if it passes GA, then I can nominate it over at DYK, which I think would be a good thing.— Maile (talk) 21:04, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
And by the way, I have no problem renaming the article to Film career of Audie Murphy. That actually sounds better to me. Would Chris troutman move it? I'm a little unsure about moving it in mid-review, but I assume you all know how to make that happen correctly. — Maile (talk) 21:17, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
Well it doesn't need to be GA to be part of a Good Topic or Featured Topic - you could still achieve that by bringing it to WP:Featured list status (which you'll surely have to do with the awards article?) But then I'm not sure what FLC would think of the filmography article's structure...yes, probably best just to rename it - and probably best to do that once the review is finished? --Loeba (talk) 21:59, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
I'd like to give this article a shot here at GA. Then we'll see if it's up to FL, but no one has ever reviewed this article before. So, I think GA is a good place to start. — Maile (talk) 22:03, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
I think it's pretty unconventional to go from GAN to FLC? One is for articles, the other is for lists. You need to decide whether you want it to be an article or a list. --Loeba (talk) 22:15, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
Probably worth pinging the FL delegates about their opinions on this too (@Giants2008:, @Hahc21:, @NapHit:, @Crisco 1492: and @SchroCat:). Would be worth getting a decision on it one way or another since it's probably going to come up every now and then (I'm currently working on a prose-intensive list which could benefit from going through both, too). GRAPPLE X 22:25, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
My opinion, and which is longstanding practice, is that filmographies are to be placed at FLC, not GAN. — ΛΧΣ21 Call me Hahc21 22:37, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
Well, I have no experience for Featured anything and don't know if this filmography is close to Featured criteria. Can you give any insight on that to me? Because I sure don't want to abort the GA idea just to find out Featured isn't interested in this.— Maile (talk) 22:44, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
Well, lets first explain some things: FLC is a process where interested editors take a look at the candidates to become feature lists, leave comments and reach consensus whether to promote or not the list to featured status, which is significantly different from GAN, where a single editor assess the article against the criteria. So, all lists have a chance to become featured lists, provided that they meet the FL criteria, which is decided by consensus. Actually, this filmography does not meet the GA criteria because is a list, and lists are an immediate quick fail. My recommendation is to abort the GAN and go through FLC. I'm not going to promise it's going to pass at first try (specially if this is your first ever FLC) but if you follow the reviews and comments swiftly, you will have your list promoted. Cheers. — ΛΧΣ21 Call me Hahc21 22:49, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
Then if it's going to FLC, would you recommend renaming it to Film career of Audie Murphy? I do actually like that title better. — Maile (talk) 23:09, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
I actually prefer its current name, since the one you propose is not standard naming practice :) — ΛΧΣ21 Call me Hahc21 23:23, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
(edit conflict)I actually think after a read that this would do well at FLC. Yeah, some technical changes would have to be made, esp. as the tables relate to WP:ACCESS, but that is hardly insurmountable. Reasonable minds could differ here, but , IMO, this is too listy, and I would have failed it as a GA based on that. (A third option. Run the awards list up the flagpole at FLC now. If nothing else, you'll gain a valuable perspective on what goes on there and know better what to do with this one -- that's what I'd do if I were you, let this GAN play out while taking the other list to FLC.) Courcelles 23:14, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
All right, then. Based on your Third Option suggestion, I have just nominated this at FLC. Here comes another learning curve for me. — Maile (talk) 00:22, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
Wow, I disagree with the consensus here big time. When I think filmography, I think a list of films. This is most certainly not a filmography. It's a biography of a man with an emphasis on his film career. As a result, this should be moved to a Film career name, as it is an article and not a list at all. This isn't even a borderline situation like the season articles are. Wizardman 00:29, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
I really dislike the idea of things going through GAC before FLC. The good article criteria are quite clear that something's being a list is enough to disqualify it, and if something's enough of a list to become a featured list, it's certainly too much of a list to become a GA. J Milburn (talk) 14:47, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

LivingBot

LivingBot seems to be running but has not updated Wikipedia:Good articles/recent in the last 46 hours. I have had three articles pass GA in that time. I have contacted Jarry1250.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 17:17, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

(TonyTheTiger) Just some teething trouble after I moved the bot over to Wikimedia Labs from the Toolserver. Should be fixed now, we shall see. Apologies to the authors of the 29 good articles missed in the meantime. - Jarry1250 [Vacation needed] 17:23, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
Jarry1250, two more passed 40 minutes ago that LivingBot missed.--21:33, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
Would you believe it, it missed them because it tried to edit with an edit summary that was too long (of all the trivial things!). Anyway, should be fixed momentarily. - Jarry1250 [Vacation needed] 17:03, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Speak Good English Movement

In 2010, a group of Nanyang Technological University students wrote five articles about language use in Singapore. The nomination of Speak Good English Movement was passed by Goodmami, whose contribution history raises alarm bells. The article has obvious stylistic problems and goes into excessive detail, but is nevertheless quite close to meeting the GA criteria. Instead of filing a reassessment request (where the article would be delisted but not improved), I would like to invite experienced writers and reviewers to help clean up the article. I am also copyediting and cleaning up the other four articles, namely Languages in Singapore (nomination failed), Language education in Singapore, Language planning and policy in Singapore and Speak Mandarin Campaign; any assistance would be most appreciated. --J.L.W.S. The Special One (talk) 12:56, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Process is opaque

I noticed that Andy's Play is now a good article, but (from the point of view of a naive reader) there's no discussion on its Talk page, nor any straightforward one-click way to locate the discussion which resulted in the good article review and improvement process. I'm asking for one thing:

I'm asking here for feedback before going to the GA template Talk page. --Lexein (talk) 14:57, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Surely there's already a link to the relevant GA review in the GA template - it's the "Review" link at the left hand end of the third (bottom) line, isn't it ? Gandalf61 (talk) 15:31, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
Doh. Yes, and it was filled out, and rendered as Review. Sorry, all. I suppose I disregarded it because "Review" can be a noun or a verb. "Reviewed" or "Discussion" might be better? --Lexein (talk) 16:33, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

February GAN Backlog Drive

@Chris troutman, Diannaa, DragonZero, Edge3, and J Milburn: See below (could only ping 5 people at once)--Dom497 (talk) 14:34, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

@Khanate General, Lemonade51, Moswento, MusikAnimal, and Quadell: See below--Dom497 (talk) 14:34, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

@Royroydeb, Ruby2010, Sturmvogel 66, Taylor Trescott, and TonyTheTiger: See below--Dom497 (talk) 14:34, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

@Wilhelmina Will: See below--Dom497 (talk) 14:34, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

With what I think was a successful Backlog Drive, do you think we could hold another one in February or should we take a longer break (March?). Also, any feedback on what could be improved in the next drive would be extremely helpful!--Dom497 (talk) 14:34, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

I would say we should wait a bit longer to avoid reviewer fatigue, but this is just one person's opinion. Thank you for helping out with the last one! Ruby 2010/2013 14:37, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
March would work better for me. (Thanks, all, for a successful drive!) – Quadell (talk) 14:38, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
I like March! Though you might see me reviewing sooner than that @Dom497: What about those of us who pledged donations? What are the totals that we should pay, etc.? Thanks! — MusikAnimal talk 15:59, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
@MusikAnimal: I am going to wait until all reviews listed on the totals page are reviewed. Articles that have the red "X"'s beside them will not count toward the final total so we got to wait it out to see if any other reviews are quickfails before making the final calculation. I will let all the pledges know once I get the total amount (this will hopefully happen before the end of January).--Dom497 (talk) 16:59, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
March would be better than February for me. I'm an undergrad and can only take advantage of this break between Fall and Spring semesters. I'll have a week-long Spring Break in March but I wasn't planning on doing a GA drive during that period. I'm glad this December drive was conveniently scheduled. Chris Troutman (talk) 17:12, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

You asked for feedback to improve the next drive. I'd like to propose an age bonus be added for GANs. What I mean is, if an article had been waiting less than a month before someone agreed to review it, it's worth 1 pt; if it had been in the queue up to 2 months it's worth 2 pts; etc. The oldest nomination right now is 4 1/2 months old, and would be worth 5 points. That encourages it to be an actual "backlog elimination" drive, and not just a "snatch up the easy ones quick" drive. Would that be workable? – Quadell (talk) 19:23, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

The easiest way to get a bot to work out the total, I suspect. I agree that this would be sensible. J Milburn (talk) 20:04, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
+1 to User:Quadell's idea. Some people may still chose newer, shorter articles as they are new to GA reviewing, but any means to motivate reviewing older submissions is a very good thing. As you could imagine it must be very frustrating to see a one week old article get reviewed while your 4+ month old submission lay idling. — MusikAnimal talk 20:17, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
@Quadell and MusikAnimal: I proposed the exact same idea back when we held the RfC (which turned out to be a massive failure). No one understood what I was talking about so I withdrew it. If you guys want to give a point system a shot, I'm all for it. We just need to come up with a reasonable point chart (how much articles are worth) :) @J Milburn: I don't quite understand what your talking about. --Dom497 (talk) 01:00, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
I was just thinking aloud- we offer different numbers of points for different (for example) good articles over at the WikiCup, and we have a bot that works out how many points each is worth, rather than leaving it to the judges or participants. J Milburn (talk) 01:02, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Bot error? (more likely my error)

I just passed David Jewett Waller, Sr., but the bot edited this page with the edit summary "Failed David Jewett Waller, Sr.". Did I do something wrong? --Coemgenus (talk) 19:27, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Very minor question

In the big green "List of good articles nominations, arranged by subject" box on the main GAN project page, the link to "Media and drama" links to the top of the "Media and drama" section (which includes a subsection within it of the exact same name). Is there any way to link it to the actual "Media and drama" nominations instead? Sorry if I lost you, wasn't too sure how to word this. Gloss • talk 02:34, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

I made a crude adjustment to force the link to the correct place, but one line below the desired location. It'll have to do, I think, unless anyone can tweak it to the header. Adabow (talk) 05:58, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
That works. I just noticed that in the "Music" section, there is a subsection Wikipedia:Good article nominations#Other music articles - what about changing the heading of the "Media and drama" subsection to "Other media and drama articles"? Gloss • talk 06:04, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Requesting quick second Op for 3a

There is a disagreement on main aspects of 3a here. Seems like a quick yes or no. I will concede my argument if I am wrong. DragonZero (Talk · Contribs) 07:43, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, this will be the last time I re-note this. Requesting quick opinion still. If nothing, I'll just let it fail. Thanks for the time. DragonZero (Talk · Contribs) 10:23, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

War crimes in occupied Poland during World War II: Request for mediation

This request applies to the section directly above as well ("No way out"). Two established and competent editors are involved in a protracted dispute over referencing in a GA review. I tried to mediate the argument as best I could, but I am neither familiar enough with the GA criteria nor referencing on Wikipedia to be able to give a definitive opinion on the matter. I ask that any long-term GA reviewers, as well as anyone familiar with referencing on Wikipedia, to comment on the GAN page and help us reach consensus. I am sad that this dispute has so soured the relationship between these two editors, and I think we need several members of the community to step in and help resolve this dispute. This is an urgent matter, and the sooner other editors step in, the better. I would greatly appreciate any assistance you can give us in the matter. Thank you. AmericanLemming (talk) 23:43, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

By the way, if there is anything other editors believe I am doing wrong in attempting to mediate this dispute, please let me know. I am fairly new to Wikipedia, and I am willing to consider any criticism you have of my conduct. If you have any advice on how I should conduct myself on Wikipedia, I would greatly appreciate you sharing it with me. Thank you. AmericanLemming (talk) 00:56, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
The reviewer has decided to fail the article, so there is no longer any need for mediation; the nominator and the reviewer will go their separate ways. AmericanLemming (talk) 02:05, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
The reviewer failed the article, then another user passed it within 24 hours, without opening a second review. Can an independent review check this over, several members of WPMILHIST have expressed doubts over it meeting the GA criteria. Being a member of MILHIST I recuses myself. Jim Sweeney (talk) 10:24, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

I have reverted GregJackP's "promotion" of the article. This is not meant to endorse any side of any dispute, it is merely because it clearly did not follow the procedures, which have been established for good reason. The reviewer (who seemingly had every right to be the reviewer) closed the review for reasons which are potentially perfectly reasonable. Any dispute should be taken to the article talk page or to GAR. Unilaterally "overturning" a legitimate closure is not at all appropriate. J Milburn (talk) 15:53, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Is there a reason for your use of "scare" quotes in your comments? I would suggest that you look to the actual policies governing GA reviews and criteria before you unilaterally support MB. A number of very experience editors have pointed out how MB was trying to use standards which were not included in the GA criteria. Unless you can explain how those arbitrary requirements are in the GA criteria, I will revert you. Or, should you prefer to do a GAR, and state your reasons why the article is not a GA, we can do that, but it will be by the actual criteria, not by standards made up by MarcusBritish. GregJackP Boomer! 16:26, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
A number of very experienced have pointed out that the article was not GA standard, and is still not.Jim Sweeney (talk) 16:40, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
Greg, I used scare-quotes because you did not promote the article. In order to promote an article, you must follow the procedure laid out here, which you clearly did not do. I am perfectly aware of the policies surrounding the GA procedure, and the fact that you believe that your addition of a template on an article talk page constitutes "promoting" an article reveals that you are not. As I made quite clear, I did not "unilaterally support MB". I have no opinion on any dispute you may have with any other user, but I've ever opinion on your abuse of the GA procedure. If you believe MB was not following the GA criteria, so be it- start a discussion here or with the user in question, or open a GAR. Those discussion would probably lead to the suggestion that you renominate the article. It is not, however, your place to overturn GA reviews made in good faith. Your demand that I open a GAR is laughable- there is no review to discuss, as you promoted without one. J Milburn (talk) 16:49, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
This discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

For your information, from my statement to MilHist, which has received several supportive remarks:

Section 1b of the GA critera states, "it complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation." Refering to MOS:LAYOUT we are drawn to section 3.4 Notes and references. It begins "For how to generate and format these sections, see Help:Footnotes and Wikipedia:Citing sources" Wikipedia:Citing sources aka WP:REF includes section 6.1 Variation in citation methods aka WP:CITEVAR. Extracted guidlelines of note from sections 6.1.1 and 6.1.2:

To be avoided

Switching between major citation styles, e.g., switching between parenthetical and <ref> tags or between the style preferred by one academic discipline vs. another

Generally considered helpful

Imposing one style on an article with incompatible citation styles (e.g., some of the citations in footnotes and others as parenthetical references): an improvement because it makes the formatting consistent

By following GA-criteria I was led, with no uncertainty, to a sound conclusion and made the reasonable request that all references be made consistent. They are currently a mixed bag of <ref>s and {{sfn}}. Per WP:CITEVAR this is avoidable and unhelpful, and therefore unacceptable, in my opinion it failed the GAN requirement to follow MOS:LAYOUT closely enough.

For reference, the first use of "sfn" was made by the nominee, Poeticbent, here, his edit summary even stating "introduced {{sfn}} template". Therefore, GregJackP's claim that "Initial reviewer applied incorrect standards, violated WP:CITEVAR without consensus to change style used" is a proven unfounded lie, de facto. I should be demanding apology from him for passing the GA based on a fallacy and an assumed position, but it isn't worth my time to remake such a request to a lair who can't see the black and white past his own sheer pride. To other editors I leave proof of how I came to a reasonable conclusion that WP:CITEVAR should be requested on a nominee over the likes of a mere non-consensus-based essay such as WP:WGN written by two editors which has not entered into the more formal territory known as "guidelines" which serve to assist editors and reviewers to greater effect and from which we draw out determinations, not from essays. Clearly there are polarised views on what is "wrong" and what is "right", but I feel the second "review" was more disrepectful of the GA process than my own initial review, which at least holds water compared to one based on what an essay presumes to state without consensus. The lack of WP:AGF assumed by GregJackP was also dishonest and pretentious, editors who reassess GAs should do so transparently and impartially with respect for the nominee and previous reviewers. This was not the case there and the second reviewer took it upon himself to declare himself "victor" based on a review purely aimed at assaulting and disgracing the first length and highly detailed review, rather than to present a convincing application of WP:GACR. The reversion by uninvolved editor is welcome and I hope those now involved in developing the article the best of luck. Ma®©usBritish{chat} 19:15, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Marcus, as you know, Greg had agreed to step away from the issue. Why do you feel the need to continue? Just let it drop. J Milburn (talk) 20:19, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
If he's so keen on a voluntary interaction ban, one might ask him to stop fucking about reverting my edits and consider "out of sight, out of mind" good advice. I'm not (Redacted) who was banned for anti-Mormon sentiments, or (Redacted), therefore GregJackP should learn from experience not to engage in protracted disputes. His war editing is becoming very tedious and utterly childish. He also needs to learn the diff. between a "personal attack" and an observation of events. RPA template is being abused by GregJackP and his arbitrary enforcement of "right and wrong" in his own favour on my edits is really starting to piss me off. Tell (Redacted) to quit WP:BATTLEGROUND activity. ArbCom has noted such behaviour before. No point in him repeating it. Ma®©usBritish{chat} 20:23, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
If you're committed to that kind of attitude, there's really nothing I can do. If you're going to continue being this personal, it's going to end in unhappiness. J Milburn (talk) 20:53, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
Oi, just a bleeding second, your comment above states, "If you believe MB was not following the GA criteria, so be it- start a discussion here..." You can't extend that sort of invitation to one editor and then bitch at me for highlighting how I was following GA criteria, that's plainly biased, I'm sure even you can realise that. As for my "kind of attitude", there would be no attitude if (Redacted) [Greg] wasn't persistently reverting my edits or uttering hypocritical remarks on his talk page. For a guy with a history of discrimination against a group, his remarks are beyond laughable. Besides, there is no evidence of "racism", he's being hyperbolical over one little remark, not a history of prejudice as he holds. Until he decides to STFU and drop his stick there's nothing I can do. The onus is on him, I'm not the one who engaged in reverting things, abusing RPA tags and so forth. Ma®©usBritish{chat} 21:05, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Second reviewer

@J Milburn: I want to review It Takes Two (Katy Perry song), an article that is currently a GAN, though a less experienced and not well aware of the GA policies and guidelines decided to review the article, and quick failed it without a proper review. It's just that I'm in the WikiCup run and I'd like to know if anything else is needed to do before I do the review so the review counts as points. Thank you in advance. prism △ 23:34, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

There is no reason that a second review is any different from any other, as far as the WikiCup is concerned. J Milburn (talk) 23:56, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

No way out

Please help me save my nomination Talk:War crimes in occupied Poland during World War II/GA1 from being destroyed only, because the GAN review process is out of control. I don’t want to withdraw my nomination, but there is a line I will not cross as nominator. I've been groundlessly accused of “playing the victim”, “making unfounded accusations”, “being rude”, “personal attacks”, “being wrong”, “wasting editor’s time”, “belittling his hours”, “manipulative words”… all in a rant by this article’s first-time reviewer. I was advised to “tuck my tail between my legs” if I want to… Some of you call it the Russian Roulette of the GA system, but I've had enough.... I want to make this article better, however, if it isn’t possible with GAN help, I will try somewhere else. Thanks in advance for your feedback, Poeticbent talk 23:10, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Poeticbent, I understand that you feel all of MarcusBritish's accusations are unfounded, but you have told him that "you don't know what you're talking about" and greatly insulted his ability as a reviewer. I understand that you are upset with the things he's said about you, but at the same time, you have said some unkind things to him as well. Please consider the possibility that you may be at least partly at fault. Thank you. AmericanLemming (talk) 23:47, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
I did not invent that. My statement "you don't seem to know what you're doing" (note the difference) was a direct response to his own arrogant remark from previous paragraph (quote): "This may be my first GA review, but I'm confident enough in what I'm doing and I'm aware of what needs to be done..." (end of quote.) Poeticbent talk 23:50, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

I accept no blame and make no apology for following GA critera. Section 1b of the GACR states, "it complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation." Refering to MOS:LAYOUT we are drawn to section 3.4 Notes and references. It begins "For how to generate and format these sections, see Help:Footnotes and Wikipedia:Citing sources" Wikipedia:Citing sources aka WP:REF includes section 6.1 Variation in citation methods aka WP:CITEVAR. Extracted guidlelines of note from sections 6.1.1 and 6.1.2:

To be avoided
  • Switching between major citation styles, e.g., switching between parenthetical and <ref> tags or between the style preferred by one academic discipline vs. another
Generally considered helpful
  • Imposing one style on an article with incompatible citation styles (e.g., some of the citations in footnotes and others as parenthetical references): an improvement because it makes the formatting consistent

By following GA-criteria I am led, with no uncertainty, to a sound conclusion and made the reasonable request that all references be made consistent. They are currently a mixed bag of <ref>s and {{sfn}}. Per WP:CITEVAR this is avoidable and unhelpful, and therefore unacceptable, in my opinion it fails the GAN requirement to follow MOS:LAYOUT closely enough. I will be failing this part of the GA nomination should the article remain a mixed bag, per WP:GACR which is built upon consensus that affects ALL of wikipedia and ALL GA nominations. A local consensus cannot seek to make an exception for one-off nominations, WP:IAR does not apply here. Poeticbent has repeated stated his dislike of such referencing; I'm not reviewing a GAN as "pass" based in his WP:IJDLI motives and won't be coerced into accepting blame for reading the GACR properly. Poeticbent is completely at fault here for seeking to pass a GAR under false pretences. Ma®©usBritish{chat} 00:15, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

That isn't the issue being discussed here.. the lead is something to worry about once the main body is developed, not now. Can we stick to the current problem at hand instead of worrying about new and unrelated ones, please. Ma®©usBritish{chat} 00:38, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
  • The issue being discussed here is people being unable to see the forest for the trees. Take a look at the general picture as well. I would not have expected something so blatant to get through the first steps of a review, let alone be ignored while two editors of good standing bicker about references. Now, as for no way out... it's simple. Fail the article. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:34, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
Well, MarcusBritish, you are entitled to your opinion, and I thank you for respectfully stating your point of view. I would ask that you would continue to stick to the specifics of the disagreement (that is, how to interpret these particular Wikipedia policies) and refrain from posting anything that could be perceived as an insult. Focusing on your interpretation of Wikipedia's policies rather than your interpretation of Poeticbent's conduct, like you are doing here, is, in my opinion, the more productive way to deal with this dispute. AmericanLemming (talk) 00:47, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
For what it's worth, I was not the first to make untowards accusations. Poeticbent did that by misquoting WP:CITEVAR [8]. Note his underlining of "personal". Bearing mind that he was first to switch some refs to "sfn" in the first place, I believe this places the onus of making changes to the refs against the standing format firmly on him and therefore my request that he finish the job by converting all refs to a similar standard was a natural response that any sensible reviewer would raise, which is not "personal" but a matter of me doing my job properly without being accused of bad faith, as he implied. Furthermore, I believe his confidence in my ability to review "his" article was always in doubt, per his remark to you: "you know how hard it is to get someone like MarcusBritish commit themselves to a difficult subject"[9]. Now you tell me, how comfortable would you feel trying to do your first GAR when the nominee has openly expressed doubt on your ability before you've even began it and who doesn't even know you? Pre-judgement is not only pretentious, it represents assertiveness from someone feels that following the GACR is beyond them and was always prepared to challenged his reviewer. I would also suggest that his changing the GAR to "second opinion needed" [10] (something a reviewer is supposed to ask, not a nominator) amounts to WP:FORUMSHOP, as clearly he only want the answer he wants to hear and wasn't even prepared to wait for consensus. So far it is not the "subject" proving difficult, but the nominator. Ma®©usBritish{chat} 01:16, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
I admit that I am not pleased with Poeticbent's handling of the situation, particularly his "please save my nomination from being destroyed" and "you have no idea what you're doing" comment to you. I think we can all agree that some work needs to be done with the references; I think the dispute is over how much work needs to be done with the references. Anyway, I think some outside input will help clear things up, at which point I will likely step in to help make the necessary changes. I appreciate your detailed GA review of War crimes in occupied Poland during World War II and your comment to avoid doing a "rubber stamp" review, but I think the way in which you have asserted your interpretation of the GA criteria has not been well received. I'm not sure how much of that is your fault and how much of it is Poeticbent's, but I will do everything I can to help solve this dispute and get the article to GA status. Again, if you have any advice on how I should conduct myself, I would greatly appreciate that. Thank you. AmericanLemming (talk) 01:29, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
I am forced to conclude that I feel inclined to "fail" this GA based on my interpretation and/or withdraw from seeing it through. I do not think I can continue working with someone so inclined to cry "crocodile tears" after his display of self-interest. I spent 5 hours initially reviewing the GAN and several more since, as well as a number of hours actually helping make the changes I suggested. I have lost faith in the GAR process from the POV as a reviewer and do not feel inclined to take up the role again anytime soon. I won't say I fell at the first hurdle, I feel more like I was tripped. As much as I want to help with the GAR backlog, I don't suffer fools gladly, and especially won't perform reviews for editors who don't value the standards set out in the MOS. As far as I'm concerned the MOS is a consensus.. this matter of seeking another consensus to clarify it feels deranged and challenged my ability to take on a GAR without being held to account for my comprehension of the guidelines. The lack of WP:AGF I've felt since his first "someone like MarcusBritish" remark is far from reassuring, and this tagging to "2ndopinion" is enough to push me over the edge. In short, fuck it, bye. Ma®©usBritish{chat} 01:44, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Pertinent info was reverted?

I'm very new at Wikipolicy, so please do forgive me if this all turns out to be a matter of my own sheer ineptitude, but: In the course of offering a few suggestions to polish up the GA-nommed Day of the Doctor article, I discovered that among other things the nominator had been subsequently banned from editing. I left a pertinent note on the article talkpage and attempted to leave one here, using the 'info' icon as I'd seen on other entries. However, my note here was swiftly reverted by (I'm assuming) the automated maintenance bot. I don't want to re-add under the circs, but I also feel like any prospective reviewer should be aware of what they're getting into. Guidance please and (many) thanks? Shoebox2 talk 04:22, 13 January 2014 (UTC)


GAR delay

It has been a day and a half and Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Freedom from Want (painting)/1 is not showing at WP:GAR. What gives?--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 18:25, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

GA participant blocked

Please see the last bit of User talk:Finealt#January 2014. Maybe someone can fill in. I'm not sure how it works. Many thanks, Anna Frodesiak (talk) 05:38, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

As per the response on Finealt's talkpage, the procedure seems to be simply to remove the GA template from the page--thus effectively cancelling the nom--if no-one else is interested. I'd be willing to try the review myself (on the assumption that more experienced reviewers would be available to give a second opinion as needed); however at this point, despite my note, nobody involved with the article has stepped up to claim responsibility for what seems to have been a classic 'drive-by' nom. We'll have to wait awhile and see what happens from here, I guess. Shoebox2 talk 20:42, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
Addendum: given the noticeable absence of anyone else willing to take responsibility for the nom, I've removed the GA template as directed. A note has been placed on the article talkpage advising that the article can be re-nommed at any time without prejudice. Shoebox2 talk 04:34, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia Visiting Scholar (please apply now)

Want to gain free access to a top research university's library so you can improve Wikipedia articles? Apply to be a Wikipedia Visiting Scholar!. George Mason University's position is now open: Application. Cheers! Ocaasi t | c 15:54, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Request for second opinion for Al Khawalid

Have requested a second opinion for this article Al Khawalid (review is here: Talk:Al Khawalid/GA1). Would appreciate some extra input from other reviewers. Have completed the review. --LT910001 (talk) 03:12, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Neglected review

The reviewer for this short article: Stapes, Wilhelmina Will, has not updated the review in 20 days, despite being an active user and a ping'd message on the talk page a week ago. Am therefore requesting that the review be taken over. Review is here (Talk:Stapes/GA1). Sorry to Wilhelmina if I have mischaracterised the situation or if you have other plans afoot. --LT910001 (talk) 03:00, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

As it happens, I just promised to take an all-nighter and get the reviews done tonight, later on. Is it the end already? It felt like we were just getting started! (talk) 04:46, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

I'm actually in the same boat, although my article is a bit longer. 1995–96 South-West Indian Ocean cyclone season hasn't been updated in 11 days. I've talked with the reviewer Jason Rees several times, and in essence he says he doesn't feel like finishing it. What should I do about this? ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 22:57, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

query

For some reason Seabuckthorn just failed Talk:Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike/GA1 after I requested a 7 day extension. The main reason for this extension is that this reviewer suddenly started reviewing all of my articles putting me in a bit of a bind to keep up with his pace of reviews. Has anyone ever seen a first request for a 7 day extension be denied by an editor in good standing? As a long time reviewer, I almost always will grant 2 7-day extensions if the editor has any half decent explaination, including RL. The following are the dates in the last month that this reviewer has put my articles on hold, which explains why I have had trouble keeping up with his reviews: Frank Underwood (House of Cards) (12 January 2014), Claire Underwood (12 January 2014), Cliff Alexander (8 January 2014), Freedom from Fear (painting) (6 January 2014), Freedom of Worship (painting) (6 January 2014), Tyus Jones (4 January 2014), George Campbell (American football) (3 January 2014), Selina Meyer (31 December 2013), Michael Novogratz (20 December 2013). In addition to responding to his reviews, in the last month I have also successfully responded to the following holds from other reviewers: Alyssa Miller (22 December 2013), Orel Hershiser's scoreless inning streak (never put on hold), Freedom of Speech (painting) (never put on hold), Shane Morris (3 January 2014), and Randall Cunningham II (3 January 2014). Shouldn't I be allowed to request an extension or two here for this review. I have never seen a first request for extension denied before.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 19:47, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

  • Hi! I'm glad to see your work here. I've been impressed with your meticulous articles. I'm not sure I agree with the points you raise in this forum. But really, I'm willing to respect any decision that is taken here. Don't take it too hard! I've made lots of mistakes. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you very much for this accolade you crafted diligently for me despite such severe time constraints.

--Seabuckthorn ♥ 01:08, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

  • I have taken the liberty of hiding the somewhat irrelevant barnstar that I gave you. This discussion has nothing to do with the impressive extensive detail of your recent reviews. It is about your sudden decisions to make what I feel are illogical closure decisions.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 04:42, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
  • Thanks for the ping, Tony. I rarely read this page now and pinging me is a good way to catch my attention :) So, on the issue, I believe that the only reasons why an article is going to be failed are of the nominator refuses to address valid concerns, or if the nominator is unresponsive for some two weeks (inactive or actively editing). Otherwise, the nominator has the right to spend as much time as needed solving the issues pointed out in the review, especially if the nominator has around 20 GANs like Tony. Therefore, I consider that Seabuckthorn's close was a bit harsh on his part, since Tony was still active and explicitly required more time. And after all, there is no set limit for GANs to be opened. Ricardo Arjona's GAN was open for 3 months and it was passed at the end, for example. There should be no rush when reviewing GANs, I think. — ΛΧΣ21 Call me Hahc21 16:14, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
  • There's no 7-day rule, as you know Tony, and I've always been happy to extend the deadline if a nominator requests it. So I certainly wouldn't have failed the article the day after you requested another week to work on it to address the reviewer's comments. Eric Corbett 17:55, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Respecting the consensus here, I've reverted myself. However, I've resigned from the reviews. --Seabuckthorn ♥ 07:06, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

I think you have only reverted 3 of the 4 relevant pages. I think you still need to revert Talk:Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 08:17, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
  • I want to say, that I hope you do not resign from WP. I appreciate your hard work. In a very short time, you have improved tremendously as a reviewer. I apologize for asking you to refrain from picking up so many of my reviews, However, unless the subject matter is such that there are few people with sufficient expertise to review articles in a subject area, one reviewer should not be picking up all the review of one nominator.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 08:21, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
  • Got to love those bad faith accusations Tony. You quickfailed DBZ and wouldn't discuss it and were rather rude after I responded less than a half hour after you took it. It took less than one hour from the time you closed it to address your main issue, as it was already written, to start with. You wouldn't even give it a proper look, forget 7 days, you didn't even spare 30 minutes. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 14:57, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
  • Point was I asked for a week and a review, it was one of the first I did and the content already existed as evidenced by its quick inclusion. But whatever, I asked for time and got none. That's the point. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 18:21, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
It was not even 30 minutes since you started the review. All I needed to do was re-drop in the info, I could still fix that article (it still is pretty active) in less than a day's worth of work, A&M's standards have changed - and for good. It was "oh, the plots the same as the manga, it doesn't need more than 4 sentences". No one cared about the stand-alone aspect of an article, and the GAN was to serve as both a stepping stone and way to get a proper peer review on that matter. But no worries, I hold content aside in disputes so if a 3O needs it, it is ready. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 15:42, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Drive-bys

Rudra john cena (talk · contribs) has made a handful of drive by nominations, that do not give the impression that he is competent enough to go through with the review process. Just a head's up for the reviewers.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 20:44, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

It may also be worth noting that the same editor has listed himself as a GA mentor, claiming to be a 'former reviewer of nominations', though nothing on his contribution list supports this. He also claims at the top of his userpage to be 'a proffesional user and a administrator of wikipedia' (sic); the RFA he recently opened, apparently to support this claim, was speedily failed. Shoebox2 talk 22:57, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Article size

Hello. I apologise if this question is covered somewhere but I haven't been able to find anything that answers my question. I understand that stubs can't be nominated but is there a minimum size requirement before an article can be nominated for GA? Green Giant (talk) 23:36, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Per WP:GACR, the article needs to be long enough to broad in its coverage with out rambling on about tangents. Is there a specific article you're looking at, or? --AdmrBoltz 23:45, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply. Sorry, I don't think I phrased my question the right way round. It occurred to me while reading the bit that says "short article" in the "Neglected review" section above. What I mean't to ask was: is there a minimum size requirement if an article otherwise meets all the criteria, similar to the Did you know requirement of 1500 characters of readable prose? There is no particular article I'm thinking of but for example would a two-paragraph, thoroughly sourced article (which covers the topic as broadly as possible), with one or two free-for-use images, qualify? Sorry if that last sentence is a bit of a mouthful. Green Giant (talk) 01:08, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
I don't know of a hard-set limit, at least there's not one listed at the GA criteria list I mentioned above, but I could be wrong. --AdmrBoltz 01:14, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
There is no set criteria for a certain length. AIRcorn (talk) 09:22, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
Green Giant, If it helps you at all, articles such as Senior Prom, Operation Sandwedge and Europa and the Pirate Twins have had no problem passing GA reviews, and neither are particularly long. It's mostly about comprehensiveness rather than absolute length (although a GA review doesn't require an article to be exhaustive in the way that FAC does, you do need to demonstrate a broad sample of the available sources). GRAPPLE X 13:42, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
I have written many short GAs, including MINDS, Pathlight School, Xiaxue and Ya Kun Kaya Toast. Reading thes examples may shed some light on how short GAs can be broad and what is expected of them. --J.L.W.S. The Special One (talk) 15:00, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
Thank you one and all for your replies, it is pretty much what I suspected. I will study the examples given and hopefully will have an article or two to present here sometime soon. Agin thanks. Green Giant (talk) 23:54, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Review started accidentally ? withdraw nom

Could someone take a look at Talk:Wookey Hole Caves/GA1? I did some work on the article Wookey Hole Caves and thought it was ready for nomination. Another editor has now highlighted some areas for further development (and made lots of useful and constructive edits). That editor then started the GA review inadvertently by adding a comment about the areas needing improvement before nomination. What is the best way to handle this - would the simplest thing be to just withdraw the nom until improved & then renominate - if so how is this done?— Rod talk 20:38, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

As more work is going on with this article & the current nomination page has been started inappropriately can I withdraw the nomination. The FAQ says the nominator has the right to do this but I can't find any instructions for how to do this. If not can someone quick fail it & I will renominate once everyone on the talk page is happy?— Rod talk 17:01, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Bot gone a bit bonkers?

I had occasion to check the edit history for the GA nomination page this afternoon, and discovered 'Legobot' making like the proverbial broken record over one review, the Dewey Decimal System article by Rosiestep. Punctually every ten minutes for the past few hours Legobot has removed and re-added this same entry, assigning Rosiestep a new review every time, so that her counter goes up accordingly (it was up to 51, from an initial total of 25, last I checked). I don't mean to pick on Rosiestep particularly, I'm sure she's a fine reviewer -- and frankly part of me would sort of enjoy seeing how long Legobot can keep this up -- but it does occur that this single-mindedness might be preventing it from carrying out other duties. Shoebox2 talk 22:00, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

I already poked the bot-op, so we shall see... --AdmrBoltz 22:03, 3 February 2014 (UTC)
That worked. Turns out to be a simple formatting glitch that the bot (apparently) kept trying to fix. What Rosiestep now wants to do with her newly hyper-inflated review count (it eventually got up to 56) is I suppose up to her. :) Shoebox2 talk 23:48, 3 February 2014 (UTC)
Well, that's one way to rack up my review count. But I prefer reality, so how do I change my count to 11? --Rosiestep (talk) 02:38, 4 February 2014 (UTC)
I have reset your count in the table. --AdmrBoltz 17:07, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

2012 Summer Paralympics ‎

This article has been nominated by an IP editor in their one an only edit. While it seems that IP editors can nominate GAs, and I am willing to review, it seems problematic to be dealing with an IP editor with only one edit. Hawkeye7 (talk) 07:00, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Should be explicitly mentioned that maybe only "established" IP editors should be able to. ViperSnake151  Talk  00:26, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
What is the definition of an "established" IP editor? --220.255.2.90 (talk) 05:16, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Backlog by topic

Some statistics from WP:GAN/R, correct as of 7:17 am yesterday:

  • There were 344 outstanding nominations and 236 unreviewed nominations.
  • 45 outstanding and 32 unreviewed nominations were from the Media and drama category.
  • 70 outstanding and 58 unreviewed nominations were from the Music category.
  • 42 outstanding and 34 unreviewed nominations were from the Sports and recreation category.
  • These three categories account for about 46% of outstanding and 53% of unreviewed nominations.
  • These three categories account for 7 of the 10 oldest unreviewed nominations.

I suspect that while many contributors keep writing similar articles on these topics, reviewers are unable to keep up with the flood of nominations and lose interest. If so, the backlog could be reduced by encouraging contributors to write on more diverse topics, which also helps counter systemic bias.

--220.255.2.26 (talk) 05:42, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

renimination issues

i been trying to renominate an article and i remmber the instructions being more indepth but now its very simple. but when i used the same template it wouldnt work. i remember a separate template or parameter for renominations. whats the template or parameters for it?Lucia Black (talk) 13:06, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Looking for prose co-reviewer

Resolved

As I am not a native English speaker, I've decided to report all my GA reviews here, and see if a native English speaker would be interested in commenting on the prose aspect of the articles I am reviewing. For now, I am mostly done with Talk:Hanpu/GA1; I think the prose is fine too, but another set of eyes can never hurt. Cheers, --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 13:11, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Unavailable reviewer

Harrias began to review the D'Oliveira affair (review here) but real life means that he is unable to continue. I'd be grateful if someone could take over. Thanks. Sarastro1 (talk) 19:42, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Stalled review

Regarding Talk:Mladen Stojanović/GA1, Peacemaker67 indicated his willingness to review the article on 10 January 2014, and that was the end of it. He also seems to have gone on a wikibreak (not active since the end of January). If there is another willing reviewer, I think they should get involved and review the article. Vladimir (talk) 15:54, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Hi

Hi,

I've made a mistake while nominating Georgian alphabet for the first time as I clicked on the review link what I should not have done so I had to nominate the article for the second time couple of minutes ago. Thanks for understanding. Jaqeli (talk) 21:24, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I've cleaned up the talk page, and tagged the erroneous review page with {{db-self}}. An admin should come along shortly and delete it, and which point the article will go back to "on review" and things will be sorted. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 21:47, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for your help Ritchie. Jaqeli (talk) 22:09, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Nominator has retired

Iskander Mirza has been nominated under World History by User:IDangerMouse, who has retired from Wikipedia. Can someone more expert than me take whatever action is needed. Dudley Miles (talk) 21:46, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Have you checked if any other editor familiar with the article is willing to take on the responsibility for the nom? I'd leave a note on the article talkpage for a few days. If there aren't any, then the nom can very easily be cancelled just by removing the template from the talkpage. Legobot will take care of the rest. :) Shoebox2 talk 15:38, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Abandoned reviews

I'm sorry for being the squeeky wheel all the time. I have two GA nominations - SAS (software) and Viralheat - where a new account started a review, then just abandoned it for a month or longer. In both cases I am affiliated with the subject of the article and am using the GA review process as a way to get my work checked for NPOV/COI and whatnot. In both cases I have pestered the reviewer about it.

user:AmericanLemming "Failed" one of the reviews on account of the reviewer retiring and said I should get an admin to erase the original "review". So I'm just trying to figure out what I need to do to clean this up and get them both back in the queue for a proper review. CorporateM (Talk) 14:42, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Renominate it. Someone else will pick it up soon enough. Adam Cuerden (talk) 18:04, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
Thanks. I have re-nominated both and pinged you on your Talk page as requested. CorporateM (Talk) 18:11, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Vandalism on review

I am reviewing 6th National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam and put it on hold. Another editor posted a comment that the article is failed as it has a lot of mistakes. He or she also failed the article. The nominator reverted the comment on the GA1 page, and I reverted the failure of the GA as the other editor is not the reviewer (and no specific mistakes were pointed out). However the article is still not back on the list of GANs. Can anyone advise? Dudley Miles (talk) 19:07, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

I bit the newcomer appropriately. It appears his edits have been reverted, so that GA nom is still on hold waiting for improvement. Chris Troutman (talk) 19:18, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
The issue is that it has not reappeared at WP:GAN. However, I think that is because the bot currently appears to be sleeping or something (?). Dudley Miles, you reverted the talk page closure at timestamp 18:14, and the bot has not made an update to the page since 17:51. If the article doesn't reappear the next time the bot makes an edit, I would start to worry, but from the formatting on the talk and review pages, the article should reappear properly the next time the bot makes an update. Dana boomer (talk) 19:22, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Ownership vs Stewardship on a GA nom

There's an issue regarding a GA nomination. A long-time contributor to the article in question takes offense at another user nominating it for GA without their approval. If I'm wrong on this, please say so. Chris Troutman (talk) 19:24, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

I can appreciate how Carlietwo feels. Avario87 is obviously very new to the GA process and shouldn't have nominated it; so what I would have done is removed the GA notice for now and dropped Avario87 a note explaining why it wasn't the right thing to do. --Errant (chat!) 20:59, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
Why not go through with the nomination with both nominators? It seems Carlietwo was willing to nominate himself. It shouldnt be a problem that two people think the aticle is ready for a GA review.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 22:20, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
It should be common courtesy to notify the main editors before nominating at the least. FunkMonk (talk) 05:40, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

January reviews not done by a single reviewer

I have just noticed that ChrisGualtieri has started MANY reviews in January that he has not actually begun. E.g., see Talk:Rule of law doctrine in Singapore/GA1 and Talk:Threshold issues in Singapore administrative law/GA1. I noticed them in the Wikipedia:Good article nominations#Law section, but there may be many others. Can we expand WP:GANR so that after 3.6 Nominators with multiple nominations there is a section that has 3.7 Reviewers with multiple nominations? Can someone figure out what we should do with Chris' nominations.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 12:47, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Actually, it seems that all of Chris's reviews other than those in the Law section are fully reviewed and on hold for further work. Those reviews in the Law section start out with the comment "I will review this and I will throttle the pace by doing them all, as they are of similar structure and relevance to Singapore.", which is in fact exactly what the nominator has asked to be done in their comment with the nomination (all of the Singaporean law articles, which are the ones that Chris has taken, were initiated by the same editor at the same time). Although I'm not sure I personally would have "throttled" the reviews quite so slowly, he is responding to nominator wishes. Dana boomer (talk) 13:33, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
  • I've throttled them quite a bit, but some could probably be outright failed for a number of issues. the Constitution one was all about the legal matters of the constitution and barely a shred on what's actually in the constitution. I've been really busy as of late, but as the professor does teach a class and these are all class projects, I suspect fixes will be hard to come by. I could just do the reviews on each, but I hate to have these linger for so long. They are all just very similar and I've previously reviewed last year's batch - though while overall, well-written they have pretty big issues with tone and quite a few seem to go against WP:SS. I'll go do the basic "this needs to be done or I will fail this" part now. Then I can get into more on style and other issues if those issues can be addressed. The whole point is that I didn't want to overwhelm the aides and the professor by bopping them all at once. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 17:23, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Check-out

Hi. I wanted to ask if someone can volunteer to check the articles listed as GA's at Wikipedia:Good articles/Music. I was going through the artists' biographies and noted that the list contained many articles that were either promoted to FA or demoted. This is probably because the list was not frequently monitored, but regardless, it needs to be fixed. Cheers.--Вик Ретлхед (talk) 21:45, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

I think there is a preferences option or a script which changes the colour of a wikilink, depending on the class of the article. This could help whomever checks these out. I think AWB has something similar too. 100% manual checking would be tedious. Adabow (talk) 00:06, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
Well, I spend most of my Wiki-time editing the articles, and I'm not too familiar with the technical stuff. If someone of the more experienced users can deal with this small issues, I'll be very grateful.--Вик Ретлхед (talk) 09:12, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
It was actually a script I was thinking of, with a slightly different function (User:Anomie/linkclassifier if anyone cares). I'll take a look in a minute. Adabow (talk) 09:26, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
Damnit, it's playing up a bit. Anyone else have suggestions? I don't have the time (or patience) to go through every article). Adabow (talk) 09:32, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

GAs

Hi, I have been looking at the Good Articles log, where I have found several important topics which would hugely benefit DYK. I propose that in the GA message delivered by Legobot, there is a note along the lines of "Don't forget, if this article hasn't been in DYK in the past, that it is eligible". Thanks, Matty.007 19:39, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Does anyone have an opinion either way on this? Thanks, Matty.007 16:55, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Daily Report not running

I suspect that StatisticianBot is down—many of the bots had to be restarted a few days ago because of work on the tools servers, and I imagine this one was caught in the outage. Can someone email the bot owner to ask for a restart? Thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 20:35, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Burning of women in England

I nominated this article, here. How come it hasn't yet appeared on the nominations page? Parrot of Doom 00:15, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

It seems that the bot is down at the moment. Adabow (talk) 00:18, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
The bot that auto-lists the noms is apparently on the fritz, the possible result of some maintenance done a few days ago. Not to worry, it should be back up and running shortly. Shoebox2 talk 00:37, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Bot not working

I see a lot of manual edits to the page. Is there already a discussion somewhere regarding the status of Legobot?--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 16:31, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, it's not deleting closed reviews or posting new ones.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 16:37, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
Agreed/just noticed too. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 22:39, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Rhodes piano

Me again. Can some of the administrators see what's the case with Rhodes piano? An editor has removed the GA tag and required reassessment, but his explanation seems rather confusing. As far as I can see, he is inexperienced user who relies on his own knowledge, and seeks re-evaluation because he doubts the content of the article.--Вик Ретлхед (talk) 22:51, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

I haven't picked apart exactly what point he's making, but if his site has original scans of manuals, they are perfectly fine sources to use. The article as I took it to GA cites the service manual hosted on his site as a footnote, but I can't see any direct citations to it - presumably I found all the facts attributable to other third party sources for balance. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 10:41, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

this project has a help page?

Question about outside input on a GA review. Chris Troutman (talk) 18:38, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Multi-nominator nomination

Currently, I am working on the article Narwhal with User:LittleJerry, and I was wondering if it is possible to nominate an article with more than one nominator. As far as I know, it is not possible, but I am just checking for future preference. If anyone known, comment on my talk page or ping me using Template:talkback or Template:replyto. Thanks. IJReid (talk) 16:24, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

@Reid,iain james: While I can't say "no" definitively, both of you can reply to the reviewers comments, and both of you can but a GA icon on your userpages, pending it passing. -- Zanimum (talk) 18:30, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
The only problem with that is I am in the WikiCup this year. I am not sure that if LittleJerry is the nominator that I will be able to claim points for the article. I will talk to LittleJerry, seeing if it is okay if I nominate the article, and I will also contact the judges to let them know my predicament. Thanks for your help Zanimum. IJReid (talk) 22:20, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Good articles/Log is out of date

The bot that runs to populate Wikipedia:Good articles/Log may be halted. The Wikipedia:Good articles/Log page is four days out of date. Cheers. N2e (talk) 19:20, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Agreed. I've passed Chakotay and Prism (Katy Perry album), and neither has been nixed off the list. -- Zanimum (talk) 18:24, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
Ah, discovered this talk page comment thread: User_talk:Legobot#Update. The bot is being moved from one server to another. It's been turned off during migration, so that it doesn't do things twice. -- Zanimum (talk) 18:28, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
Do we know when it will be back? Thanks, Matty.007 08:28, 22 March 2014 (UTC)
That's interesting. All the passed noms have been added to the same day. At least they are all there. Thanks, Matty.007 11:15, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

Left aligned image after heading

The old guideline stating that "left aligned images should not be placed after headings" has been removed from the manual of style.[11] Yet people still make the suggestion in FA and GA reviews, likely because they remember the old version. So this is a heads up, please don't make the suggestion anymore. FunkMonk (talk) 13:55, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

GA report question

I haven't been involved with GA for a very long time, but I was interested to see that the StatBot report is still running. I couldn't see a link to it anywhere on the GAN page, though. Does anyone still pay attention to it? For example, there are several holds more than 30 days old -- as I recall the plan was that after a few days, and a ping to the participants, the review would be closed if there was no response, so that other reviewers would know the article still needed a review. There's also a list of reviewers who have multiple nominations at once -- I believe there used to be a limit, but I don't know if there still is. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:47, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Seabuckthorn

Hi. Anyone know what's up with Seabuckthorn (talk · contribs)? This user has done a lot of GA reviews, but suddenly vanished about two weeks ago, leaving several in the lurch. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 10:43, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

I deleted the ones that weren't started. The remaining ones are all completed, so someone will have to look over them and pass and/or re-review them. Wizardman 03:40, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
I've taken over one of the deleted reviews, for Girl With a Pearl Earring. In the course of researching the nom afterwards I noticed that Seabuckthorn has placed a note on his userpage indicating that his Net time is severely restricted, but he may be working on the outstanding reviews offline. So I've left a note on his talkpage in turn advising him of this discussion and asking him to get in touch if/when he can. We shall see. Shoebox2 talk 22:29, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
Speaking of Seabuckthorn, I have addressed his suggestions and concerns for the following articles. Would it be possible for another reviewer to take one or several of these reviews on? I've been more than patient in waiting for Seabuckthorn's responses. I'd appreciate any assistance or guidance regarding this matter--thanks! -- Caponer (talk) 03:15, 28 March 2014 (UTC)
I've taken a quick look at some of these, and given how close they already are to (if not actually at) passing, would be willing to take on the task of closing out these reviews -- it's really unfair to the nominator to leave them hanging like this. However am not entirely sure of the ethics of taking on another reviewer's workload wholesale. Thoughts/reassurance from more experienced editors please? Shoebox2 talk 17:50, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

Similarly, Sportsguy17 has not been very active lately, and has left several GANs in the lurch, including Talk:Cody Asche/GA1 (one that I nominated). What is the protocol here? Go Phightins! 23:37, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

I do apologize for going AWOL without closing some stuff up beforehand. I meant to close Cody Asche before I had to take an unofficial break for my studies. The only other one I have open as of now is Jack Tatum, but no progress has been made, so I will be failing that article since no communication or signs of article improvements have been made. But to make expectations clear, I will not be very active. I have a lot going on between AP Exams and other research papers for my studies. I also am going to the Caribbean next week for 10 days, so I will look for updates but will not act upon anything. For now, good luck Wikipedia. Sportsguy17 (T • C) 01:09, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
Hi Sportsguy, thanks for closing that review. Good luck with the AP exams, and have fun in the Caribbean :-) Go Phightins! 01:12, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Finding category

Hi all! I would like to submit Croatia–Serbia border dispute for GA review, but I'm quite unsure which category would be appropriate. Should it go to Geography, Politics or Miscellaneous, or something else altogether? Thanks--Tomobe03 (talk) 13:17, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

Never mind - will use Pedra Branca dispute as a precedent.--Tomobe03 (talk) 13:24, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

Question for more experienced reviewers

I'm thinking of reviewing Museum of Zoology of the University of São Paulo, and I have a question that I'd like input on from more experienced GA reviewers. The article essentially uses one source, the website for the museum. I don't speak Portuguese, but looking in Google Books for sources in Portuguese I think there are at least a couple. I've left a note on the article talk page mentioning the sources I found.

My question is: does the "broad coverage" requirement at GA mean that a reviewer should require the nominator to take a look at those sources and say if they could add significant new material? If the sources were English I could make my own judgement; here I suspect the coverage is too thin, but I can't prove it. So I'm reluctant to take on the review. Or is the right answer that only someone who speaks Portuguese is qualified to review this article? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:20, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

It's probably too light, for one thing, WP:RS says "reliable, third-party sources, so if the only source is the museum's own web site, that is problematic for anything other than the most basic information (i.e. size, layout, etc...). They are going to need more sources (see also WP:ONESOURCE). For reviewing foreign language sources, Google translate is enough to allow you to look at the site and see if it appears to contain the basic information cited. If you go to WikiProject Portugal or WikiProject Brazil (I presume there is one), you may find a Portuguese speaker to offer a hand for the tough calls. But sounds like you can tackle it. Good luck! Montanabw(talk) 02:37, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

Reviewing a GAN?

Is there anything certain a Wikipedia editor must do before they are allowed to review a Good Article nomination? I don't have much work on Wikipedia under my belt, but as an editor in real life, I think I am capable of following the Good Article guidelines. wirenote (talk) 00:30, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

@Wirenote: Check out the recruitment center. They'll train you on how to review GA noms. Chris Troutman (talk) 01:11, 20 April 2014 (UTC)
There's no real requirement other than being a registered user, but personally I'd recommend getting your own article through GA status first if you can, as you'll know what to look out for. I know Eric is of the same view, though in my case since there's always a backlog you might end up waiting several months before your own article is looked at. Still, the more you do, the better you'll get at them, like anything. If you enjoy cross examining articles and finding stuff to fix or improve, you might do well at it. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 10:40, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Can Legobot update the counts at the end of each list of GAs?

I've promoted a couple of GAs recently and found the counts at the end of the sections were wrong in each case -- e.g. here. Is this something a bot could do? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:01, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Screwed up GAN

Something weird has happened with Sos mi vida, and I hope someone who understands GAN better than I do can fix it. You Are the One (telenovela) has had three reviews; the third one was done on 31 Dec 2013. The article was renominated on 12 Jan 2014, and on 6 Mar Legobot attempted to transclude a fourth review, which turned out to be a redlink. The article has also been moved to Sos mi vida, and it looks as though the talk page was moved today, separately. Legobot now seems to think that You Are the One (telenovela) has failed, but that Sos mi vida is a new nomination -- see this diff and edit summary. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:36, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Just realized that Legobot got the last part right; it's left Sos mi vida in the nominations list with the old nom date of 12 January. However, I don't understand the redlinked GA4 on the article talk page. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:39, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
I have begun a move request at the talk page; the name in English (the one in the article when I nominated it) is the international name, and I consider that it's the name that the article should use according to the related policies or guidelines. As for the redlinked GA4, that's because someone intended to make a review some weeks ago, created the review page; and then retired from the process without saying anything (and so, asked for the deletion of the page, so it did not appear as if the article was being reviewed) Cambalachero (talk) 12:55, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Talk:One World Trade Center/GA1

At the GA nomination page of One World Trade Center, very few issues were raised on the review page, except for two MOS issues, which I fixed the day that Acalycine reviewed the article. The editor is offline now, and I think that the review can be closed quickly, so can someone else close the GAN on the article? Much appreciated, Epicgenius (talk) 18:55, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Have you tried asking Acalycine on their talk page to return to the review? Given that they only reviewed the article two days ago, and were active on WP as recently as yesterday, I highly doubt they have abandoned the review. Other editors only tend to close reviews where the reviewer has made no edits at all for weeks, not days. Dana boomer (talk) 22:33, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
@Dana boomer: As a matter of fact, I did. Sorry for wasting your time; I was getting impatient with the reply time, as I fixed the issues just nine hours after the initial review. Epicgenius (talk) 22:42, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Egypt at the 2012 Summer Olympics

If I renominated Egypt at the 2012 Summer Olympics, would someone be able to look it soon? I think it's unfair that an article like this was held to one editor's unreasonably high standards, and I say "unreasonably" because many of suggestions had nothing to do with the GA criteria. I tried to undertake as many as possible because, after all, we're here to improve an encyclopedia, not collect achievement tokens, but it's recognition in the form of barnstars and Good Articles that keep people volunteering even though they might have much better things to do with their time. I had to wait five months for this to be failed just because one person's interpretation of WP:LEAD is different than my own. Considering the quality of the articles that are passed, and how low the official standards for GA are these days, I do not find it appropriate that I'm being held to completely different standards that, in the end, boil down to the subjective judgment of one individual. Canadian Paul 22:49, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm in the middle of a couple of other reviews at the moment, but would be willing to look at it in the next week or two. No promises on how I'll interpret WP:LEAD, though! I haven't looked at the failed GA so I don't know if I would agree with the reviewer. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:24, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for User:Canadian Paul starting this thread without having the courtesy to link me to it. It wasn't just the lead, that's an entirely unrepresentative view. The five months wasn't my fault, in fact I picked it off the pile specifically because it had hung around for so long. I spent hours reviewing it and all I get now is "I do not find it appropriate..." and "unreasonably high standards..." thrown in my face. No wonder decent GA reviewers are hard to find these days if that's the thanks hours of review time gets in return. Good luck with the re-review, I'm certain it'll be fine and Canadian Paul will get his little green cross, but at the cost of a GA reviewer. Cheers. The Rambling Man (talk) 11:05, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
Paul: I'd have thought that complaining about the GA reviews you have received like this is just going to mean you'll have to wait longer in the future. There is sometimes going to be a legitimate disagreement about the quality of the article, as well as legitimate disagreement about what the GA criteria entail (I have no opinion on this particular case, however). It's regrettable that you were unable to work with the reviewer to bring the article to a place you both agree is GA-worthy, but I'm not sure that complaining that worse GAs exist is the best response. J Milburn (talk) 11:32, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Looking at the review, the vast majority of comments were related to general prose issues, which are part of the GA criteria (some of the prose was in tables, which doesn't change the fact that they are prose comments, such as capitalization). Also, yes the lead should absolutely be longer. 35101 character of body text? Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section, part of the GA criteria, says such a long article are recommended to have three or four paragraphs of text; this one has only one.  — Crisco 1492 (talk) 11:47, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
And this is not a matter of interpretation. Look at WP:LEADLENGTH. It's a clear-cut recommendation, rather than "just go with it". — Crisco 1492 (talk) 11:49, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
  • I don't like the attack on our editors who do great work on US Roads, diminishing their entire body of work because of an IDONTLIKEIT attitude. Especially over prose issues - and I know for a fact that many of our articles on Roads and other subjects far exceed the sources commonly accessible or available by the government's own publications. A lot of the work done by some Wikipedians are great examples of scholarly research and historical archival. I got complained about for having "impossible standards" for one of my reviews before - but I don't think the issues highlighted were above and beyond any of the requirements and it has improved greatly as a result. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 15:30, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

You know, since I wrote the above, I've had a very frightening experience that really put what matters into perspective. I still have strong disagreements, particularly with the idea that the lead should be expanded (while I recognize that it's a short intro given the article length, it's not considering the article content, as trying to incorporate everything in the body would either mean a subjective judgment of what is to be included or be excessively long, thus violating the letter of the guideline the other way). As TRM pointed out, however, that little green cross is completely meaningless. I spent many long hours turning the article into an informative, content-filled piece. I then spent many more, with TRM's assistance, polishing that piece up. Other contributors filled in the gaps. The article was vastly improved and Wikipedia is better off for it. Whether or not it's one rank or not is not worth wasting time that could be spent otherwise improving the project, or maybe just enjoying life in general. I think that after spending so much time on one thing only to have it rejected is frustrating, so hopefully I can be forgiven for being upset and disappointed, but there's no need for me to drag things out.

As for your comment ChrisGualtieri, please don't pigeonhole me for an "IDONTLIKEIT" attitude. My "attack" (if one wishes to call it that) is based off of having worked with US Roads articles in the past and having received the impression that certain editors were not, in fact, interested primarily in improving the project, but had ulterior motives. If that has changed these days, then I apologize, but that was the experience that I had. Canadian Paul 21:48, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Again another personal attack on those editors... I don't much care for the theatrics, but if you can't back up these "ulterior motives" with diffs - its a personal attack and some of those editors have spent a great deal of time working with me on various articles. Many of the articles are excellent collections of information on the very backbone of civil infrastructure! You were comparing apples to oranges and used it as an example of something being "unfair" and as an excuse. I disagreed and called you on that negative and bad faith accusation and you followed up with an even more inflammatory response. I am not "pigeonholing" you - but when someone spends hours going over piles of paperwork to make good and featured articles, that says quite a lot. Those same editors are going to be essential to making historic parkways like Merritt Parkway GA and FA. I personally know how difficult it is to get much of the material you casually dismissed. Please don't insult the work of other editors or drag them into this... it reflects poorly on everyone who has to deal with it. You are welcome to dispute the lead issues, I prefer shorter leads, but editors should grow from such disputes and not shrink from them. I've done far more then I thought possible because of such disputes after all. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 04:30, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Review of King John's Hunting Lodge, Axbridge

I put a request for help at Wikipedia:Good article help#Review - not sure if process has been followed. but got no resonse so can I ask here as well... A couple of days ago King John's Hunting Lodge, Axbridge was passed for GA - following comments and responses at Talk:King John's Hunting Lodge, Axbridge/GA1. Following this another user removed the GA star & started Talk:King John's Hunting Lodge, Axbridge/GA2 stating that the page is full of basic grammar errors. (I believe there was one introduced during the review, but am not aware of others). It has since been copyedited by another editor. It does not appear on Wikipedia:Good article reassessment and I was wondering whether the appropriate procedures had been followed or what I need to do now?— Rod talk 07:25, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Bit odd of a procedure, but it would have been better to address on the talk page and resolve it less forcefully. The lead doesn't adequately summarize the article and it lacks the typical depth of most other listed properties, but we all work with what exists and is reasonably accessible. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 04:35, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Can someone review them?

I have been reviewing two articles, Peter Ostrum and Marie of Romania for a long time. But due to difficulty in time management, I no longer want to review these articles. Can anyone help to sort my problem out? RRD13 (talk) 07:28, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

I'll finish them. SilkTork ✔Tea time 09:53, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

GAs with no GAN

I think people should check out some of the shortest articles listed at the newly-refreshed User:The_ed17/Good_articles_by_wiki_text to see if they are really GAs.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 01:24, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Couldn't there be a bot that checked whether articles with the star had also passed a nomination by checking the talkpages? FunkMonk (talk) 04:34, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
Yes we need a list of suspect GAs to check.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 05:13, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

User:The ed17/Good articles by prose size has also been updated, which might lead to a couple easy false GAs.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 05:13, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

  • People, this is a very serious issue. Now there are too many GAs to do sweeps on all of them. We should create a category of current GAs with no GAN page or section. Is there support for such a thing.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 09:15, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
    • I agree, but most of the GAs without nominations are the ones before 2007–08 or so, since before then, none of these articles needed a separate nominations page to be promoted. These articles should all be reviewed again, this time with a nomination page. I haven't got a list but I will see what can be done. Epicgenius (talk) 19:40, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
We did the sweep of all GA articles reviewed before August 2007, so for best use of resources, a new sweep would focus on GA articles listed after that date. However, I don't think we list them chronologically so that might be difficult. I'm currently working on sweeping all Places articles, and I'll see how I feel after that about doing another section. My sweep, however, is concentrating on looking for obvious problems, so I'm not actually doing a full review for all the articles - only those which have obvious issues on a quick read through. SilkTork ✔Tea time 15:30, 3 May 2014 (UTC)
Maybe we could sweep GAs that have been promoted since a certain date that have no talk page. What was the cutoff date for the last sweep and when did talk pages start?--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 04:35, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
The cut off date was August 2007. Talkpages started in Summer 2008, but I don't have an exact date. They were in place by June 2008. There may be a chronological list of GANs somewhere, but I don't know where. SilkTork ✔Tea time 07:19, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Talk:Freedom from Want (painting)/GA2

Something is wrong with Talk:Freedom from Want (painting)/GA2 making the bot think it is under review.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 04:38, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

When a GAN is deleted "onreview" remains on the template on the talkpage, so that needs to be removed: as here. SilkTork ✔Tea time 08:09, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Justin Bieber/GA1

Can we get a second opinion over at Talk:Justin Bieber/GA1 please. -- Moxy (talk) 17:12, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Looking at this further I think we need to review some of the GA's passed by this reviewer. -- Moxy (talk) 17:41, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
I haven't passed Justin Bieber yet, we're still waiting for the input from those second opinions you requested. ☠ JAGUAR ☠ 18:03, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
We have gotten that opinion(s) and there is some grave concerns over main problems overlooked by the review - like dead refs, unreliable sources, incorrect citation style, unclear prose etc... I am concerned this is a problem for other articles. This reply and the fact the refs are so messed up there leads me to believe that there is a problem with the overall reviews you have done. Sorry just what I am seeing. -- Moxy (talk) 19:14, 7 May 2014 (UTC)
For another example of a problematic review by this editor, see this review and subsequent discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Plants#Tephrosia apollinea. Sasata (talk) 19:25, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Discussion on use of data boxes

While sweeping through Places articles I have noted a use of {{Weather box}} and {{Climate chart}} in many settlement articles that may be violating some GA criteria. I have listed some of these articles myself with the {{Weather box}} in place, but I am wondering now if this is appropriate. Discussion started at WikiProject_Cities, but didn't reach any consensus, so now I've opened it up. Discussion at: RfC: When is the presentation of statistics, such as with Weather box and Climate chart, excessive?. SilkTork ✔Tea time 11:15, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

New operator needed for VeblenBot and PeerReviewBot

CBM implemented and ran VeblenBot and PeerReviewBot, but is retiring from Wikipedia. I am in occasional email contact with CBM who wrote:

"It would be a good idea to find a different person to run the bot jobs. With the WMF Tools setup, I can actually just hand them the entire bot as a turnkey, they would not need to re-implement it. If you can find someone, please ask them to email me (and you email me) and I will be able to communicate with them that way."

VeblenBot updates Peer Review, Good Article Nominations, Featured List Candidates, and Featured Article Candidates, (see here) so I am asking at all those places. I already asked at Wikipedia:Bot owners' noticeboard, but got no responses there.

If you are interested in taking over these bots please reply here. They are usually pretty trouble free. My email and CBM's email are both enabled.

I do the monthly PR bot maintenance (making the files and categories) and that includes adding the new PR category each month on the VeblenBot account - I would be glad to keep doing that (and give details on email).

Thanks, Ruhrfisch ><>°° 22:30, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

@Ruhrfisch: Hawkeye7 volunteered to maintain the bot on the FAC talk page (though I saw your notice to keep the conversation on this page). Wanted to bring it to your attention. czar ♔ 11:21, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Legobot process and GA toolbar

Some regulars are still adding the GA icon manually, which I believe interferes with the automated nominator notification process (GANotice). In other words, if a user passes an article, the bot adds the GA icon to the article and then notifies the nominator. From what I can tell, if the user manually adds the icon, the nominator won't get the GANotice. Is there a way to update the instructions and document the bot behavior so that users can become more familiar with the process? Also, it would help reviewers if we had a Twinkle or toolbar equivalent that allowed us to click through the process (pass, hold, fail). Finally, the process of manually adding newly passed articles to the GA pages could be automated by topic. Thanks. Viriditas (talk) 03:05, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

I have asked the bot owner if there could be an opt out of the automatic notification, but I'm not sure that has happened. I prefer to inform all contributors myself with a message appropriate to the circumstances. The bot will often spam a user's talkpage regardless, so users end up getting several messages. It might be appropriate to open a discussion on just how useful it is to have a bot leave automated proxy messages on people's talkpages. The really awkward part of the GAN process is listing the article, and that's the part the bot doesn't do. The part that is easy and is more appropriate that a human do, is the part that the bot should not do. It's worth pointing out that the nominator is only one person in the process, and sometimes has not edited the article. An experienced reviewer will check the contributor history and inform significant contributors what is going on. Sometime nominators drop out of the process altogether, but the GAN continues. Sometimes the original reviewer can't finish, so a second reviewer takes over. None of these things the bot can (or should) handle when leaving messages.
In short, the bot could handle all mechanical, fiddly aspects, such as listing the article, handling the GAN page, amending (or creating) the article history template. But talking to other humans is best done by humans. SilkTork ✔Tea time 09:39, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
A user could wait anywhere from several weeks to several months for a review, and when one is finally notified that the process is under way, no matter which reviewer is doing it, the bot handles notification. For nominators who aren't on Wikipedia on a daily basis, this can trigger email notification, bringing users back to the site to review the status of their GA noms. All it is doing is letting the user know that the article they nominated is under review, on hold, or that it has passed/failed. This merely draws their attention to the status of the nomination. Essentially, this is a mechanical process. The only reasonable counterargument I see here is the concern with spam, but that could be said about any bot message, and is best handled on user talk pages with the appropriate template which blocks/denies all bots on that page. I don't see a good reason for manual GA notification as I don't consider it "talking". It's just a note saying, "hey, remember that article you nominated a long time ago? It's on review/on hold/passed/failed". This is no different than a DYK notification delivered by a bot, or any number of other types of bot messages requesting attention, such as DPL bot asking for users to fix dab problems. I think we need more of these types of bot messages, not less, and I find that this kind of automation frees up users to spend time on more productive matters. In fact, I will go a step further and say that we need bots to help editors review the criteria. For example, when a GA review is started, the {{Good article tools}} template appears (I assume this was inherited from the FA process), but an editor must spend the time to review it. To save time, a bot can review it instead and leave a short report detailing the results. This saves three steps. Same thing with reviewing images, article length (DYK check already does this, but the user has to initiate it) etc. Editors need bots to communicate with them more not less. Viriditas (talk) 10:44, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm also a proponent of the automatic message, even if it is redundant. The conversation should be happening on the GAN page anyway. I'll add while this is on the table that it would be useful to have a direct link to the GAN page in the talk page message—there currently is none, so it takes several clicks to get there. czar ♔ 20:17, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

I tentatively support your proposal to modify Template:GANotice in order to point to the GA review. However, the counterargument is that there may be GA-related comments directly on the talk page, not necessarily just in the transcluded review page that appears on the talk page. In my past experience, it may be beneficial to point to the talk page. Alternatively, we can provide links to both. Viriditas (talk) 04:20, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

Delisting a GA

The article Black mamba was found to contain extensive close paraphrasing, and had to be reverted to a pre-GA version. What's the procedure for removing GA status here–can one simply remove the GA icon and the listing at WP:GA, or is a formal GAR required? Sasata (talk) 01:26, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

A semi-formal review (i.e. a subpage stating which criterion/a the article fails) is required. I have carried that out for this article. Adabow (talk) 01:44, 18 May 2014 (UTC)
Thanks! Sasata (talk) 01:56, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

Jabari Parker's high school career

This article was edited down in length in the userspace by TonyTheTiger, nominated for GA, then deleted. As such, how do we wipe the GAN? -- Zanimum (talk) 01:07, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

I have left a message with the admin Discospinster at User_talk:Discospinster#Jabari_Parker.27s_high_school_career and expect a restoration. WP:CSD#G4 is not for pages that were greatly revised in userspace. He either is unfamiliar with G4 or unaware that the article was greatly edited, IMO.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 01:20, 21 May 2014 (UTC)
The new version of the article has to be AFDed to be deleted.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 01:21, 21 May 2014 (UTC)
Since you insist: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jabari Parker's high school career (2nd nomination). Resolute 16:12, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

GA banners on talkpages

The GAN banner, same as FAC, as they are temporary banners indicating something that might be of current interest to editors, used to go at the top of the talpgae listing. This has recently been changed. FAC still goes at the top, but GAN and GAR now go below the talkheader. If a human places it above the talkheader, a bot or editor running AWB will move it down as here.

A discussion has started at Wikipedia_talk:Talk_page_layout#GA_banners.

Also worth discussing is if the GA listing banner should remain so high on the talkpage. Currently a GA listing is placed above priority BLP and ArbCom notices. This is not the case for a FA listing. It seems appropriate that a GA listing should appear in the same place as the other article milestones. SilkTork ✔Tea time 09:17, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

SAS Institute

I've created about 10-15 GA articles on pages where I have a COI. Several times in the past editors have declined my GANs on the basis of my COI disclosure, citing COI and promotion, then passed the article later once they actually read the article and its sources. This article is over-the-top positive and contains a lot of properly-sourced material that is normally a very strong indication of poor COI editing. Therefore I expect the same issue to arise here and thought I should bring it up in advance. Maybe get the page added to a few watchlists if I'm lucky. It is probably the most positive company article I have written. If I came across it myself for the first time, it would jump onto my COI/promo radar, though it is actually very toned down from the sources. CorporateM (Talk) 01:32, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

"Locked Out of Heaven"

I totally forgot about the review. I've just noticed it's been sitting there for three weeks. I will be unable to take the review for the song. Can anyone step up and take over? Cheers.--PeterGriffin • Talk2Me 20:08, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

Sure, I'll do the review. XXSNUGGUMSXX (talk) 20:24, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

Closing the reassessments

Can someone close the older nominations at the reassessment page? And why aren't they listed chronologically? Is there some malfunction with the bot?--Вик Ретлхед (talk) 16:29, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

If someone is going to look at sorting these out could they look at Talk:King John's Hunting Lodge, Axbridge/GA2 which doesn't appear on the reassessment page - but I don't know why. I believe the issues identified have been addressed and I've not had any response to my messages on the talk page of the editor who nominated it for review.— Rod talk 20:23, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

Reviewers who edit the articles they are reviewing

I have several GA candidates awaiting or currently being reviewed (Esophagus, Cervix, Parathyroid gland). One article, Cervix, has received significant edits to structure, lead and style during the review from a user who is also a reviewer (Snowmanradio), who has also advised another user on Parathyroid gland "There is no reason why you could not edit the page and also take part in the GA review; however, sometimes it might be simpler not to work on the page" ([12]). This is very frustrating. See Talk:Cervix/GA2#Stop for more information. Reviewers should not be making significant edits to articles during the review for a number reasons:

  1. It is a conflict of interest
  2. There is less opportunity for nominees to disagree, as many will want their articles passed
  3. A large number of edits impact an article's stability, which is a GARC
  4. The review will need to keep pace with changes, particularly to the validity of sources and copyedits
  5. If the article changes significantly in ways not related to the comments of a reviewer, then the review itself may be void and have to start again

How much should a reviewer edit? Is this documented somewhere? --LT910001 (talk) 06:28, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

I think that it may be acceptable if the changes are minor or trivial, things that nobody would reasonably disagree with, such as grammar or spelling mistakes or small wikify issues. Cambalachero (talk) 00:43, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Infoboxes optional?

I have never heard of infoboxes being optional. However, at Talk:Sergei Prokofiev/GA1, I am getting resistance toward including one. Are these really optional now?--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 23:16, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

When were they ever required? Granted they are extremely common, and I think articles should include them where possible, but as far as I know, nothing has ever actually required their use. Imzadi 1979 → 23:23, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
Infoboxes are there to summarize the article's key info. iv'e seen members have personal agendas against infoboxes. Lucia Black (talk) 23:25, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
I read the links to our style guidelines and they do technically say that infoboxes are optional. However, it is generally recognized that it is an improvement to have one. While I have no policy-based-backing, IMO it is common sense that it should have one before being GA-ranked. The argument against it seems to be more of a technicality, from my perspective. CorporateM (Talk) 23:28, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
Welcome to the weird world of Wikipedia:WikiProject Composers the odd ball of Wikiprojects. Wikipedia:WikiProject Composers#Biographical infoboxes will explain more. The group has had many GA and FA pass without the infobox despite the norm to use them. In the pass this topic has lead to lots of edit wars but should not change the GA review....as in the article does not need a box to be a good article. For a list of all the talks see Wikipedia:WikiProject Classical music/Major discussions and arbitration case as for our rule see Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Infoboxes#Using infoboxes in articles -- Moxy (talk) 23:29, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
I think they are optional, however depending on what information ins't stressed in the lead that normally doesn't would make it more necessary. I personally believe Biography articles vary much more between the lead and the infobox because the lead focuses on different things than the infobox (for biographies) Lucia Black (talk)
  • Just a reminder: the issue is contentious enough to have reached Arbcom. I personally wouldn't force it. Some articles work better with infoboxes, some don't. Some editors prefer using them, some don't. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:02, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
Indeed - there is long-running consensus that there is no consensus for infoboxes on composers. Best left with the status quo whatever that may be :-) Andrew Gray (talk) 14:54, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Bot reverting

Usually, several times per week a newbie will make an edit directly to WP:GAN and be reverted by Legobot. I will often notify that person and tell them to go back and follow the instructions like this. The bot should do this. Usually, people are trying to make a nomination. Sometimes they are trying to tinker with an existing nomination by adding a note or noting that it is on hold. Can we have the bot leave a message when it makes such a reversion?--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 14:08, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Legoktm, can you comment here.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 01:47, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
Right now the warning to editors is 4 lines:
  • Attention! This page is automatically maintained by a bot. Updating this page is unnecessary.
  1. To add or update a nomination, follow the GA nomination instructions.
  2. To withdraw a nomination, remove the {{GA nominee}} template from the article talk page.
  3. To fail a nomination or list it as GA, follow the GA reviewing instructions and replace the {{GA nominee}} template on the article talk page.
Can we add a line to the warning about adding notes or requesting second opinions to a the nomination page. Also, we could clarify the second line to state that updating includes adding a note or a 2nd opinion request as well as placing an article on hold.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 18:09, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Quickfailing unreleased media

I brought this up specifically for video games at the project talk page and I'm moving it here as the better venue:

Videoball (nom) does not have a release date, but the article includes all coverage of the game from development to hands-on prerelease reviews. Its GAN was quickfailed by virtue that it could not pass 3a or 5 (see WP:GACR) until it is released. Since this is a recurring concern (I've brought up a variant before), I'd like outside and informal input from the project.

My position is that a review is done on the sourcing available at the time, not off of what it could be. I recently passed Automonopoli (nom), which didn't have sections like development or even a very thick reception, but it used the sources available—and under the same logic, Videoball used all of the sources available and shouldn't be penalized for want of sources that don't exist. Likewise, we've been discussing the need for a development section in F-Zero Climax (nom) when none of us can find such coverage. (I'd review the article otherwise, but this is a gray area.) Thoughts? czar ♔ 20:07, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

You go with the sources possible, and I agree with you on Automonopoli that it doesn't fail 3a just because development info doesn't exist, but it is certainly standard practice to fail unreleased media articles that are not vaporware (DukeNukemForever) on criteria 5- they are not stable. When the game comes out, the whole article has to be majorly rewritten- a reception section needs to be created/drastically changed, gameplay generally gets a drastic overhaul since so much more information becomes available, Plot generally does the same thing (not applicable in this case), and development typically expands as well. Even assuming that the game does not drastically change from pre-release to release (which is not a given for any game, and certainly outside our ability to know/predict), the article post-release is a very, very different thing than the article pre-release, which is the definition of unstable. People have previously proposed that we allow GAs for unreleased media and require a re-review when it's released, but that was considered unworkable; instead, they just aren't passed in the first place. If you want to change this, I'd recommend bringing it up at WP:GA, since it would really encompass movies and books and such as well. --PresN 20:22, 5 June 2014 (UTC)
I agree with what PresN said, just because he beat me to it. NathanWubs (talk) 20:34, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

My question is whether quickfailing a GAN for being unreleased goes against the idea of assessment based on the sources available at the time. In the case of Videoball above, all usual aspects of video game breadth (gameplay, development, reception) are covered with the full range of sources available. The reality is that (especially with no set release date) it would be presumptuous to say the article will definitely change when it is stable and complete as of now. As for how the article would change post-release, I see it changing as much as media that receives a new edition several years later or Barack Obama doing whatever he does next after leaving office. If circumstances were to change, it should be subjected to the same GAR treatment that any article receives, but for now, I don't see how we can preemptively quickfail GANs for breadth and stability when they meet the criteria at the time and for the near future. Thoughts? czar ♔ 21:07, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

Personally I'm sketchy on the whole idea of dedicating pages to unreleased games as it stands, let alone GAN promotion. I feel the whole process of featuring an unreleased title skirts into promotional territory. It's one thing when an upcoming game is mentioned as part of a series, and that higher level page is nominated (eg, The Sims and The Sims 4). I would say the same thing about any kind of unpublished media being discussed. BcRIPster (talk) 21:20, 5 June 2014 (UTC)
I don't see how an article on a work of any unreleased media—game, book, movie, music album, etc.—can possibly meet GA criterion 3a. for broad coverage of the many aspects of a work in that medium: actual plot and/or tracks, success/failure in the marketplace, reception from reviewers, etc. If 3a is now deemed to be insufficient, then I would urge that the loophole (for that's what it is) be closed: anything that does not yet exist except in reports has an aspect of WP:CRYSTAL to it: a lot can change between early reports and the actual item that is ultimately sold. Because of this, such articles should not be eligible to become GAs. BlueMoonset (talk) 21:41, 5 June 2014 (UTC)
Having created, developed and promoted video game articles to GA status, I can honestly say that there is a massive structural difference between pre-release and post-release titles. That being said, it is safe to leave the policy as is, due to the general tendency of articles essentially becoming new articles after release. I understand the concerns of the Czar, as I was frustrated when my first GAN received a quick fail. DARTHBOTTO talk•cont 00:25, 6 June 2014 (UTC)
To be clear, I want to make sure we're talking about quickfailing of unreleased titles that, from all possible standpoints, still appears to be on track to be released. It is completely possible for a title to garner enough information while unreleased and then fail to be released or otherwise cancelled; at that stage, the article on the cancelled title is completely fair game for GA since we expect no new information it. --MASEM (t) 00:41, 6 June 2014 (UTC)
Yeah, that's an appropriate condition. DARTHBOTTO talk•cont 00:46, 6 June 2014 (UTC)
I agree, it would be ridiculous for example to quick fail something like Star Fox 2 which was cancelled almost 19 years ago.--69.157.253.74 (talk) 02:50, 6 June 2014 (UTC)
Here's my $0.02. From WP:VG/GL#Essential content; "A "Reception" section. This shows the impact that the subject had on the game industry: commercially, artistically, and technologically." Such paramaters cannot be assessed for a game that has not been released (unless it becomes a notable example of vaporware), hence my reasoning for Videoball's quick-fail. Because Videoball lacks reviews based on final copies of the game, it's entirely reasonable that no consensus as to the game's actual quality can be assessed until it's shipped/embargoes are lifted. Also to develop on BlueMoonset's point, we can't consider an article complete if the game is unreleased, because there's no way we can confirm that every announced feature will end up in the game until it comes out. Have a look into Peter Molyneux's history of promoting Fable, for example. Now, an article covering an unreleased game may be good, but I hold that it can't yet reach 3a and 5 of the criteria, so it's best to hold off and wait (maybe a month-ish) for all the sources to calm down and write up something that's accurate and unchanging. CR4ZE (t • c) 12:08, 6 June 2014 (UTC)
@CR4ZE, for what it's worth, the Videoball sources were from February and April and the content isn't changing. czar ♔ 21:00, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
Just to make sure that we are on the same page, something like Star Fox 2 would qualify for GA since the fact that it was meant to be released in the summer of 1995 would mean that it meets the vaporware requirement you mentioned?--69.157.253.74 (talk) 21:46, 6 June 2014 (UTC)
Yep, video game articles on games that were canned are fair game. See Pirates of the Caribbean: Armada of the Damned or Sam & Max: Freelance Police which are both featured. Taylor Trescott - my talk + my edits 22:39, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

Wait time

Is there any written rule that once you expand an article significantly from its previous version from sandbox merging, you have to wait a week before nominating it for GA? —Indian:BIO · [ ChitChat ] 18:13, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

Not a specific time amount really, but articles like Grand Theft Auto V failed stability when first nominated as it was too soon and was in the process of expansion. I figured a week would be good settling time, but could be wrong- maybe articles can be considered stable in cases where they were just substantially expanded before nomination. XXSNUGGUMSXX (talk) 18:45, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
@XXSNUGGUMSXX: An article that has been expanded and then nominated for GA does not qualify for being unstable. An article that is in the midst of major expansion during a GA nomination would definitely qualify for being unstable. @IndianBio: There is not. — Status (talk · contribs) 18:53, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
I see, will keep this in mind for the future. XXSNUGGUMSXX (talk) 18:55, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
Even if stuff is changed mid review, it's okay if the nominator doesn't mind. I have stability failed maybe two GA review out of 50, and both occasions there were large scale reverts going back and forth, with a nice dollop of "you don't know what you're talking about" on the talk page. If you're not at that stage, I wouldn't quickfail, as it does annoy people. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 20:22, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for the input, Ritchie. Your review of GTA V was one of the most unstable nominations I've seen. Other big stability issues I've seen include GAN's for Justin Bieber and Grand Theft Auto IV (the latter of which was also first nominated for GA shortly after its release). I have failed nominations before where stability was an issue, but not quickfails without going into any other detail. The initial nominator for GTA V also wasn't even a significant contributor, yet didn't withdraw nomination before you quickfailed it. XXSNUGGUMSXX (talk) 22:15, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

Misuse of Good article

What procedures exist for detection and handling of cases where {{good article}} has been applied to a page that never went through WP:GAN, as here? --Redrose64 (talk) 13:18, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Hello Redrose64. I noticed your comment regarding misuse of the good article template. Perhaps the template code should check for the page itself, as in: 

{{#ifexist:Talk:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/GA1|  
{{Top icon
| imagename    = symbol support vote.svg
| wikilink     = Wikipedia:Good articles
| description  = This is a good article. Click here for more information.
| id           = good-star
| maincat      = [[Category:Good articles]]
}}
|}}

This would preclude it from posting the top icon unless the page exists.—John Cline (talk) 13:59, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

I thought of that, but it wouldn't remove the icon if the GAN had failed, nor if there were subsequent events that mean that the page is not a good article. What we need to find is that: the most recent GAN passed (even if it was /GA2, /GA3 etc.); there has been no subsequent successful FAC; and no subsequent WP:GAR which resulted in delisting. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:16, 7 June 2014 (UTC)
Thank you. I thought it was too easy.—John Cline (talk) 14:34, 7 June 2014 (UTC)
This report will show up articles with that template (or in Category:Good articles) which don't fully implement articlehistory on the talkpage and/or don't actually have GA status. I think. Currently ~35 entries, some of which may be false positives. Andrew Gray (talk) 14:52, 7 June 2014 (UTC)
(Incidentally, I think most of these cases are well-meaning errors - people copy over article header templates without realising what this one does among all the other code) Andrew Gray (talk) 14:53, 7 June 2014 (UTC)
25 cleared - ten difficult cases left. I'll see if I can figure out what's going on with these. Andrew Gray (talk) 15:47, 7 June 2014 (UTC)
After removing all the ones which had no GA review, we're left with:
Andrew Gray (talk) 15:58, 7 June 2014 (UTC)
Only three left - thanks all! Andrew Gray (talk) 20:05, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
Fixed the last three. Adabow (talk) 22:43, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
Thank you --Redrose64 (talk) 22:51, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

Missing nom

I started the review of Talk:4th Army (Yugoslavia)/GA1, but it's dropped off the GAN page for some reason. Can someone fix this, please?--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 17:26, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

Changing subtopic

Hi, I've just nominated Ayscoghe Boucherett and placed him in the Politics and Government section; however, the nominations page states that only living politicians can go there (the instructions page doesn't say so). How do I move him to the History sub-topic? Thanks, Noswall59 (talk) 10:25, 7 June 2014 (UTC).

I've just changed the subtopic to "World history". For future reference, all you need to do is modify the "GA nominee" template on the article's talk page by changing the subtopic field from one subtopic to another. Make sure to retain the exact orthography when you do so. BlueMoonset (talk) 22:35, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
Thanks, I'll remember that :) Noswall59 (talk) 16:20, 9 June 2014 (UTC).

Establishin Notability as part of the criteria

i think we should establish it in the criteria. it may seem like its common knowledge but i actually seen a few GA articles get deleted in the past. and i think looking for notability will be the safest to make sure they dont get deleted. Lucia Black (talk) 12:37, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

  • That's not the same, really. Hurricanes are prone to that as well. Sometimes the project or community moves the bar a little, but the bar for creation of an article doesn't usually move that much. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:12, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
  • Its pretty much the same. the articke wont exist, the content will be moved back. But beside all that, does it even matter? GAs should at least be notable and there is large ammount of room where they can meet the current criteria and not be notable. so with that said. Why are you so against notability to being part of the criteria? Lucia Black (talk) 13:16, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
    • They are already (implicitly) part of the criteria. The mergers that Czar points out had people who supported keeping the articles, as well as people who supported merging the articles. The "notability" of the articles wasn't clear, and it wasn't objective, and is therefore not fair to force on a single reviewer in such close cases. The hurricane mergers were, I believe, part of a project-wide shift in the guidelines for such storms (please correct me if I'm wrong). This affected not only GAs, but also FAs, and was not something that could have been predicted at the time of the GA nominations. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:19, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
      • I've reviewed articles at GAC which I've failed (partly) on the grounds that the topics do not seem notable. Ed, Edd n Eddy's Boo Haw Haw and Outcast (Warriors), for instance, still exist as separate articles, but they probably shouldn't. It's technically not in the criteria- I think it may actually be a good addition which would serve to codify something that is (and should be) happening anyway. J Milburn (talk) 16:25, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

A good article must be factually accurate and verifiable per section 2 of the criteria. If the article's subject is not notable, then by definition, no suitable sources will exist for it and it cannot possibly pass. I don't think we need to add this to the criteria, it's just red tape. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 17:30, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

IP opened up the review for Romance (Luis Miguel album)

An IP has opened up a review page for Romance (Luis Miguel album). Given the IP's contributions and warnings it received, I doubt I would get an adequate review (but I have informed the IP's talk page just in case). Could someone please delete the review page? Thanks, Erick (talk) 17:31, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Nomination and improvements from a topic banned editor

I reviewed Pharnavaz I of Iberia, and then found out that the editor who nominated the article, User:Jaqeli, was topic banned from articles that deal with Georgia and Armenia together. I requested an outside opinion from users involved with the topic ban of Jaqeli, and while I waited for that, the Jaqeli edited the article to satisfy the problems that I found during the review process. Because of this editing, Jaqeli has been blocked for two weeks. But Pharnavaz I of Iberia now satisfies the criteria for GA. How should I proceed? May I promote an article for GA even though the editor who nominated it and brought it up to snuff is topic banned?--¿3family6 contribs 14:10, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Talk:Ransomware (malware) and Ransomware

So I came across List of Good Articles by length and noticed that in their shortest section that four articles were merged into other pages. I removed three of these redirects of their GA statuses but when I saw Talk:Ransomware (malware), it seemed that all that happened was that the article's name was changed to Ransomware. Does that mean Ransomware is a Good Article? GamerPro64 05:51, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

Yes. Why would it not? wirenote (talk) 21:06, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Stalled reassessment to be handled with some care.

Hi. I have been asked to close an ongoing GA reassessment. The original editor asking the reassessment seems to have left editing in April; moreover if you look at her user page, you'll notice that she is not exactly neutral with respect to one of the main editors of the article (which has been herself recently the subject of a painful, even if warranted, editor review), so I feel uneasy in directly asking her or having her close the assessment. However it seems that reassessments are always in the hands of the editor requesting assessment. This I find weird, since I feel closure should come from some uninvolved party, but I have little knowledge of the GA process/intricacies. Can someone advise me what to do? Thanks! --cyclopiaspeak! 10:55, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

I dumbly forgot to link the article to be reassessed. It is Gastrotricha. --cyclopiaspeak! 22:44, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

I was the editor who asked Cyclopia to draw this reassessment to a close. What is the proper procedure for doing this? Cwmhiraeth (talk) 04:54, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

I saw this a few days ago and was wondering about it. It seems to me that if there is no formal procedure for this and no resolution is likely, then a close per WP:IAR would not be out of place, with a note that if anyone wants to reopen the issue, then community reassessment would probably be best. Sunrise (talk) 09:37, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
I will do that, referencing this thread. Thanks for your assistance. --cyclopiaspeak! 08:14, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Bit of a problem

Dana boomer began a review of Rape during the Rwandan Genocide, he has not responded there since my last post on 6 May 2014, and he has not been on-line since 3 June 2014, do I need to relist the article for review? Darkness Shines (talk) 14:05, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Warren Cup

The Warren Cup article was expanded as part of Wiki Loves Pride, a campaign to create and improve LGBT-related content throughout June. The article has been nominated for Good status. It would be really great if we could have an article promoted within the month, though I know that is a lot of ask of reviewers. Really, my reason for posting is just to share that the article is available to review for those who may be interested in art or LGBT studies. Thanks for your consideration! --Another Believer (Talk) 23:49, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Add image alt text to GA criteria?

I would like to suggest adding a requirement that images have suitable alt text (Wikipedia:Alternative text for images) to the GA criteria. Alt text is useful for readers who have visual impairment, but it is very rare on Wikipedia I'm my experience. The work involved in adding alt text is not that great in comparison with all the other work needed to get an article into shape for GA review, so adding it as a requirement would not be an undue burden.--agr (talk) 17:51, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

I support this idea. prism△ 17:52, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
As do I. As a matter of routine, I already recommend the inclusion of alt text in any GA review I do. Resolute 17:53, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
This discussion should take place at WT:GA?. For what it's worth, I oppose this inclusion. Many additions of alt text aren't correct per WP:ALT. Besides, it's not even part of the FA criteria. If you want to make this sort of progress I would start there first. Adabow (talk) 17:57, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
Whether or not it is explicitly codified in the FA criteria, I wish anyone lots of luck trying to pass FAC without adherence to WP:ACCESS. Resolute 17:59, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
Alt-text used to be in the FA criteria (2009-2010) and was later dropped. There's a lengthy discussion at Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates/Alt text - I confess I haven't checked if it's currently being mandated by reviewers, though. Andrew Gray (talk) 18:08, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
Is alt text nice to have? Sure. Should it be mandated? Absolutely not. Wizardman 18:29, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
I agree strongly with Wizardman and Adabow. While I have no objection to reviewers checking for compliance with the access guidelines, I do not feel that it belongs in the GA criteria until it is in the FA criteria. J Milburn (talk) 18:35, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

The alt text situation is more muddled than I realized. I think it needs a broader discussion elsewhere. Thanks for the comments.--agr (talk) 12:19, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Shouldn't we be archiving the review?

I noticed we don't have a template and archiving process for our review pages. I think we should! I formulated a working example from the FA side. Something like this; maybe?—John Cline (talk) 16:44, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

  • Support Seems like a good idea to me. Past GA reviews stay on my watchlist, and once in a while an IP will edit one accidentally. This would be a good way to help avoid that from happening. Ruby 2010/2013 21:57, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Clarence (2014 TV series)

As the first season of this show has not even finished airing I believe it is too soon for a good article status. However, others may disagree which is why I come here. What is protocol here? wirenote (talk) 02:28, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

I would say to wait until the final episode of the season has been aired, and the article has settled down. Any article about an ongoing TV series attracts fan editing, which may or may not be constructive. In particular, consider WP:GACR item 1b "it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation" - the part about fiction; item 2c "it contains no original research"; item 3b "it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style)"; item 5[7] where it says "Nominations for articles that are unstable because of constructive editing should be placed on hold." --Redrose64 (talk) 14:14, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
Called here. I'm the nominator, and while I'm fine waiting a month for the season to end to renominate it, I anticipate less instability than what's being raised here. Even though I can't speculate, the series doesn't seem very serial in nature, and I don't expect much to change about the plot so much that it would require major expansion or reconstruction. Such changes are probably going to happen on the episode list page, which this article is not. I've milked all I can about production and reception, which I don't expect to change until the next season. – 23W (talk · contribs) 21:26, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
Brought this up at WT:TV#Quickfail GAN because first season has not finished?, since discussion has gone stale here. – 23W (talk · contribs) 03:55, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Withdrawing a nomination

How do I withdraw a GA nomination? May I just remove the template from an article's talk page and a bot will do the rest (removing the article's title from the list of articles awaiting review, etc)? ALittleQuenhi (talk to me) 08:44, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Yes. However, if another editor has begun the review page (Talk:ArticleName/GAn), then ask them to close it. Adabow (talk) 10:48, 20 June 2014 (UTC)
I assume you're talking about quickfailing List of Encouragement of Climb episodes (Season 1) as it is a standalone list? I see you have notified the nominator, in which case I would simply remove the notice from the talk page. Nobody has started the review. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 11:25, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

"Work (Iggy Azalea song)"

I personally did a lot of work on this article during the GA review. Not only do I feel it's now more appropriate for a third-party member to take over, I simply don't think I'll be able to complete it. It still needs a lot of work (I easily burnt through 40k of fluff). I ask someone take over, I somewhat recommend failure. Thanks.--PeterGriffin • Talk2Me 02:27, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

Small article GANs

I'm taking a look at some of the articles I have not taken up to GA because I felt they were too small to meet the GA requirements for broad coverage. Some of them are startups with very short histories like Tapad and ExactTarget. However, even though the article is small, I'm thinking they have adequate "broad coverage" of what is a very short corporate history. I was also thinking of Noel Lee (executive), which I previously did not take to GA, because I do not have a photo, but was later told images are not strictly required and David Williams (Doctor), which only has a half-dozen sources, but they are extensive profiles that have enough information to cover all the important aspects.

I wanted to raise the issue of small article-GAs here to get a second opinion on if these would be ok nominations? I didn't want to make a half-dozen GANs all at once and have someone get upset that I am nominating so many tiny articles. CorporateM (Talk) 14:43, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Disclosure - these are all articles where I have a COI and therefore prefer to bring them up to GA to ensure they are done properly up to the community's standards. CorporateM (Talk) 14:44, 24 June 2014 (UTC)
Short articles are fine, as long as the research is thorough and the subject is notable. If there were only one source with no details about a person, for example, the article probably shouldn't exist anyway. If you have a handful of sources, and you've written everything there is to say about the subject, go for it. Images are definitely not required for any article, just encouraged. On the other hand, I don't think every article is capable of being an FA (it's hard for a short article to have "brilliant prose" and "high-quality sources"). —Designate (talk) 16:29, 24 June 2014 (UTC)
Thanks Designate! That's what I thought, but I wanted to double-check before flooding GAN with three noms of very small articles. The list of articles where I have a COI, but haven't brought the page up to GA is growing too large. GA reviews is sort of part of my "guarantee" to the community that my COI works will be brought up to high quality standards. I have also started a related discussion at COIN here regarding the Yelp page. I have not been able to bring that up to GA due to a lack of consensus and an inability to edit boldly where I have a COI, but I'm going to see if I can come back at it fresh. CorporateM (Talk) 16:46, 24 June 2014 (UTC)
Tapad and ExactTarget are actually quite substantial compared to some of the articles that get promoted these days. Not that I haven't written a mighty stumpy GA or two. – Juliancolton | Talk 19:20, 24 June 2014 (UTC)
So something like Brilliant Earth is definitely too small though right? Maybe if the article is too small for sections and is instead in a stub-format, that is where to draw the line. CorporateM (Talk) 20:34, 24 June 2014 (UTC)
Sections are part of the GA criteria, which also says that stubs cannot become GAs. Taylor Trescott - my talk + my edits 20:40, 24 June 2014 (UTC)
Look again. Having sections is not part of the GA criteria. —Designate (talk) 21:16, 24 June 2014 (UTC)
Part of the GA criteria is complying with MoS layout which means sections and leads are required. Taylor Trescott - my talk + my edits 22:23, 24 June 2014 (UTC)
So I could separate the content into an Origins section and a Products and sourcing section then create a Lead to summarize both sections. That would make it as long as the example provided by Julian below and it would have a proper structure. CorporateM (Talk) 22:29, 24 June 2014 (UTC)
The GA Ohio State Route 365, for instance, has 316 words of prose, compared to 244 for Brilliant Earth. A couple more lines of info and some section headers and you'd be there. – Juliancolton | Talk 22:04, 24 June 2014 (UTC)
Length aside, I don't have any info from reliable sources to fill in the gap from 2007-2014 for the Brilliant Earth page. OTOH, my article on the Chartered Institute of Public Relations was promoted to GA, even though it has a 40-year gap in its history. It's also possible nothing of significance took place during the 2007-2014 period for Brilliant Earth. I'm also thinking Sig Mejdal might actually qualify. CorporateM (Talk) 22:19, 24 June 2014 (UTC)
I mean, I do think it's a good idea to try and ensure GAs are somewhat substantial. There's no length limit, but nominating increasingly shorter articles just to push the envelope usually leads to derision and compromised content quality. If it's constructive criticism you're after, WP:PR is a good alternative; for simple editorial recognition, it can take as little as a few hours to write a decent article and set it on the fast track to GAN. – Juliancolton | Talk 01:31, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
  • Length is determined by what's available on the subject. There are multiple FAs which are fewer than 5000 characters in length (I've written two or three of them), and there are subjects for which 10,000 characters would still not be comprehensive enough for even B class (say, "Earth"). If a subject is notable but has limited coverage, it can still be GA. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 02:07, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
    • One of the original goals for GAs was to recognized short articles that are good, but not otherwise eligible for FA status. Imzadi 1979 → 02:12, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
      • Though to be fair, at the time the idea that length =/= comprehensiveness was not exactly popular. There has been greater recognition of that recently, as Wikipedia has matured. (Check out the last support at MissingNo.'s FAC: "I almost think the fact that this article meets the FA criteria is a sign they need to be improved somehow. I'm not talking about length or importance, but... quality of external coverage? This article just feels weak. But it does meet the FA criteria.") GA is not just a pseudo-FAC for un-FAC-able articles. It is its own class. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 05:22, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

There is no set minimum or maximum size for a good article. If you are absolutely confident it is broad in its coverage but still accurately focused on the topic, it meets that element of the criteria. However, with a very short article, the risk of it not being broad in coverage is increased. For instance, with Brilliant Earth, the government response to ethically mined diamonds is glossed over and there's not much in the way of public response or professional reviews to the products. In the past, I have seen people take short-ish articles to GA, only to be greatly expanded and sourced during the review - which isn't really the way you should do things. However, conversely there's no point waffling on and boring the reader to death - I think by the time Mellotron passed GA, it had less prose than before I started work on it, most of which was chopping out the vast laundry lists of bands who might have played one once. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 09:46, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps the Croughton-London Rule could be extended to all classes, not just stubs? --Redrose64 (talk) 22:17, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Vandalism

This page has been suffering a lot from vandalism recently. I suggest the page to be semi-protected, anyone with me on this? URDNEXT (talk) 20:12, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

Reviewers needed (again)

Earlier this year it seemed like the number of GANs plateaued, with articles being reviewed relatively timely finally and things going ok even with 350 or so GANs. Recently that's changed, with us nearing 500 very quickly and with fewer articles being reviewed (roughly 10% at a time; 20% is the ideal mark for keeping things moving) I'm calling on us to push a bit on that front. I'd take on more but I'd rather see others stepping up and gaining experience there. Wizardman 02:16, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

I just did my very first review and will try to do more, but I am really only experienced enough in a handfull of categories (org pages, non-technical software pages, PR topics) and we don't get many noms in those categories. CorporateM (Talk) 03:17, 27 June 2014 (UTC)
Should QPQ (like DYK) be implemented at GAN too? Nominators with more than 10 successful GAs have to review an article when they fill a new nomination. --Redtigerxyz Talk 04:49, 27 June 2014 (UTC)
I used to be against the idea, but given that some of our most prolific noms have the ability to review just fine and simply choose not to do so, I'm wondering if we should go that route. Wizardman 22:56, 27 June 2014 (UTC)
While that would help cut down the nominations, it would also lead to many more half-assed reviews. So I oppose that idea. Taylor Trescott - my talk + my edits 23:11, 27 June 2014 (UTC)
You're not wrong, but right now we have practically no reviews going on. Is there an alternative way we can actually make progress here? Wizardman 13:29, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

I've submitted several GA nominations (of my own writing) and all have passed and so my confidence is good in the type of articles that I put together. I did one review at the request of a fellow editor and feel like I was not thorough enough, and even now I probably wouldn't know the full extent of items to contemplate when reviewing submitted articles, and so have little confidence or interest in doing that. Also, I have plans to submit more articles for review (I have two presently) and so there can definitely be an imbalance with editors (some may be review heavy while others are centered on developing and submitting articles). Dawnseeker2000 23:54, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Where is the review page?

I was trying to find the GA review page for 4th Army (Kingdom of Yugoslavia) and I couldn't see it anywhere, though there is a redlink named "Review" in the GA box, where am I supposed to find the review page? Thanks, Gatoclass (talk) 06:17, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Talk:4th Army (Yugoslavia)/GA1. The article has clearly been moved since the review started. Adabow (talk) 07:23, 28 June 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for the fix :) Gatoclass (talk) 07:40, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Toolbox

I am not seeing the toolbox at GAC noms such as Talk:University of Michigan Men's Glee Club/GA1 and Talk:Indian Head cent/GA1?--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 23:19, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

The community that ran Toolserver shut down today, and along with it, its tools. 23W (talk) 23:27, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
The toolbox is absent from all GA noms, and this pair of edits is why. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:31, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Clogged

The sports and recreations nom topic is steadily approaching 100 current nominations and very few of them have reviewers. We need some volonteers so it doesn't get too out of hand. I will start cutting through a couple. wirenote (talk) 23:10, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Is it normal for a GAN to not be listed?

A while back, I placed a GAN for 2013 Mudsummer Classic on July 3 (or 4 as listed), though it doesn't appear at WP:GAN, and Legobot didn't place it there. Is it normal for the pages to not be listed on the page? NFLisAwesome 18:33, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @NFLisAwesome: I take it that you mean this edit. I'm pretty sure that it's because you used the wrong template: as best as I can work out, you seem to have used
{{subst:GA nominee|~~~~~|nominator=~~~|subtopic=Sports and recreation|status=}}
but should have used
{{subst:GAN|subtopic=Sports and recreation}}
instead. Since the incorrect code is so large, the best thing for you to do is to revert your edit, and then add the proper template. Legobot should spot it within the hour. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:09, 7 July 2014 (UTC)
OK, thanks. NFLisAwesome 20:11, 7 July 2014 (UTC)
@NFLisAwesome: and there you go. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:36, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

Star Alliance

Hello fellow GA reviewer/nominators! I submitted Star Alliance 2 months ago to GAN, but someone unfamilliar with the GA criteria is reviewing my article. Anyone care to take over? Cheers! Brandon (MrWooHoo) • Talk to Brandon! 02:49, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

A bit of problem

The reviewer has become inactive and has not responded on his talk page. I tried to follow the instructions on nominating the article again, but that does not produce the desired result. Please help: Talk:Operation Zarb-e-Azb. Can we have another reviewer? Anyone willing to take over? Or else get this renominated. Faizan 16:48, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Hello Faizan! I am willing to take over the GA. I'm about to go to bed, and I'll start reviewing in about 10 hours or so. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MrWooHoo (talk • contribs)
Hello, thanks. Faizan 05:39, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Notability as criteria

This came up recently but is archived now, so I just wanted to add that Wikipedia:What_the_Good_article_criteria_are_not#Beyond_the_scope explicitly says notability is not implicitly part of the criteria. Nothing else to say, I guess—just wanted to note the discrepancy. Please ping me if you'd like a response. czar ♔ 21:37, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

Danish cities

Hi, I was wondering if anybody knew how many cities we'd need to get up to GA for it to become a good article topic. It's just @Ipigott:, @Rosiestep: and myself already have 4 of the top city articles up to GA. Would something like the 10 most populated cities be acceptable for a good article topic? As far as I know no country on wikipedia is yet to achieve this with cities.♦ Dr. Blofeld 11:12, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

The criteria for Good Topic are at Wikipedia:Featured topic criteria and includes "There are no obvious gaps (missing or low quality articles) in the topic. A topic must not cherry pick only the best articles to become featured together." So it might be wise to suggest Danish cites with a population over X,000 or similar. I would suggest asking at Wikipedia talk:Good topics or Wikipedia talk:Featured topic questions which has more traffic.— Rod talk 11:24, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

Backlog

The oldest nomination under the politics and government section dates back to 28 February. There's a huge backlog, my friends.--Skr15081997 (talk) 13:41, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

GAN blast

Davykamanzi just blasted out 7 nominations. I don't consider any of them ready for GAN. I have QFed the 3 worst. Others have a look at those remaining.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 18:52, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

What to do when the nominator has gone on wikibreak

Talk:Bradshaw rock paintings/GA1 (started 27 June): Nominator User:WLRoss is on a wikibreak and I don't think this article is a clear fail, but I need some clarifications before I can pass. Should it be kept suspended till the editor returns? --Redtigerxyz Talk 19:08, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

I am still checking my watchlist most days and am occasionally doing some editing. I am taking a break mainly from my usual level of activity due to illness in my family. I will be happy to answer or correct any concerns you have with the article. Wayne (talk) 03:24, 19 July 2014 (UTC)
I was on vacation for a bit and came back late to some of my nominations that were nominated months prior, given the circumstances with the insane backlog - waiting is greatly appreciated by me and others who have temporarily gotten afflicted with vacation/work/school bug! ChrisGualtieri (talk) 19:57, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

Time for a backlog elimination drive?

Is it time to consider another backlog drive? Seems like a rather large number of unreviewed nominations (477 as I write this). I don't mind pitching in to help, but is a more organised effort worth thinking about? -- Shudde talk 11:47, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

While I'd be for it, given the uptick in noms and downtick in reviews the past couple months I don't think people care if articles wait a year to be reviewed anymore. Sucks for those who have to wait, but if nobody cares then not much we can do. Wizardman 21:11, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Request for third opinion

Regarding criteria 3a (broad coverage) at Talk:Piotr Skarga/GA1. The review there is stalled as me (primary author) and the reviewer cannot reach consensus on whether the article addresses the main aspects of the topic. The reviewer belives that the article does not do so with regards to the aspects of Polish history relevant to this biographical article, whereas I believe it 1) does so, that 2) those aspects are irrelevant there and linking articles such as counter-reformation in Poland is sufficient, and 3) that expanding this article with requested information would divert the reader from the primary subject (biography) into side topics (history of Poland). A third opinion would be appreciated. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 07:03, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Reviewer not following process and too involved

What does one do when a reviewer hasn't followed the GA process and is too involved to be a reviewer? Specifically, please see Talk:Virginia Tech massacre/GA2 and the discussion at Template talk:Virginia Tech massacre#continuation and Template talk:Virginia Tech massacre#Deletion of links to other articles. Since the "reviewer" (Scalhotrod) hasn't closed the review, I can't ask for reconsideration. Now what?—D'Ranged 1 VTalk 17:50, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

Started a new review page, it's clear he's involved so can't be the reviewer. Wizardman 16:18, 27 July 2014 (UTC)
Thank you.—D'Ranged 1 VTalk 20:27, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

The State of GAC

I have long been an opponent of changes to WP:GAC, but the average backlog time is steadily increasing. Now it seems common for an article to take 4 or 5 months to be reviewed. I am now in favor of both a limitation on the number of active nominations by any nominator (5 should suffice) and QPQ review requirements. Other processes, such as WP:FAC and WP:PR have had to impose limitations on the number of simultaneous nominations. WP:DYK has imposed a QPQ review requirement. I think we need to do something to "fix" GAC.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 07:22, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

I agree. Reviewing GA noms is real work (if you do it properly) and I've dropped off because I have neither the time nor the inclination. Perhaps a QPQ system would solve the apparent logjam. Chris Troutman (talk) 08:23, 25 July 2014 (UTC)
I've had at least one GA nomination in the queue for the best part of two years, but I don't think it's ever gone above four. I don't mind a QPQ, as long as it's done properly and anyone caught "quick-passing" should be summarily hauled up and hosed with seafood. For me, I tend not to review any GA nominations that I don't have a good grasp of the subject, otherwise knowing what's missing (and hence would have to be added to meet the "broad in coverage" criteria) is difficult. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 09:12, 25 July 2014 (UTC)
Five still seems a lot to me. What percentage of noms currently wouldn't be there if this rule was in effect? The extra bureaucracy isn't warranted if it reduces the backlog by a handful of articles. If nominations were limited to, say, one at a time that encourages any nominator to review in itself. Though it seems a bit draconian, even frequent nominators could see their articles reviewed more quickly in a streamlined system (we could test this). Regardless, to discuss a limit we'd really need to see the distribution of concurrent nominations per editor—it may not be a big part of the problem. benmoore 10:25, 25 July 2014 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Good article nominations/Report gives some of this info. If you look at Nominators with multiple nominations it shows the top 9 nominators have between them have over 120 current nominations.— Rod talk 10:50, 25 July 2014 (UTC)
Thanks, was looking for something like that. Fair enough then, even a limit of 5 or so could have a big impact. benmoore 10:54, 25 July 2014 (UTC)
At the least we do need a nom cap. If you're nomming 7-10 articles or more, either you're working on them way too quickly and there's likely some problems with them, you're drive-by'ing, or you're writing on subjects there's not much info on. All three routes have easy alternative options should a cap be implemented so it wouldn't really affect anyone's writing. Wizardman 16:50, 25 July 2014 (UTC)
Before suggesting QPQ, I suggest people take a look at WP:DYK. QPQ is a rule there, and can often lead to bogstandard reviews-they are caught as the articles there are going on the main page. I cannot see what would catch shoddy reviews here. I think voluntary QPQ (going to an editor, saying you'll review their nom if they review yours) is good though. Thanks, Matty.007 17:05, 25 July 2014 (UTC)
Totally disagree with a QPQ. It would really just lead to sloppier reviews and while the queue will get smaller the quality of articles will get worse. I agree with capping the amount of noms by a person that can be active at once. Taylor Trescott - my talk + my edits 17:07, 25 July 2014 (UTC)
I don't like QPQ as a requirement. I think many editors consider it a moral imperative, and the fact that nominations list how many reviews the nominator has undertaken serves already to show who's a team player. Limiting to five open noms, however, does sound like something I can get behind. --Coemgenus (talk) 17:14, 25 July 2014 (UTC)
AGree, QPQ has shown itself to be a problem in DYK, it leads to cronyism and sloppy reviews. Better to limit noms to 1 active per nominator.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 17:17, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

Five open noms? This is why I dislike FA's process and find it a bit ridiculous, artificial bottlenecks. I've been commenting on nominations and I just quick failed Long Island, but those don't add to my count. I may have a lot of nominations, but they are also all notable and I've dug up all the sources I can - even getting information that the local and state government's seem to have forgotten! I'll continue to work on articles regardless of the situation, but I gave a nearly 2 month break and quite a few remain. Let's not trudge down QPQ because I'll get angry and just do the bulk of them to make QPQ unnecessary and remove that mess from GAN as soon as possible. I want to cover a vast area of civil topics with GAs and FAs, while they are definitely easier than say Neon Genesis Evangelion was, they are nonetheless excellent resources often compiling all the information in scattered sources. Not to hijack the process here... but you probably don't want to know how much I have ready to drop once I wade back into the Anime and Manga space. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 19:02, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

It is an artificial bottleneck, isn't it? Banning the 6th nomination by an editor would happen to keep the numbers down, and banning nominations beginning with vowels would happen to keep the numbers down, and banning music articles would happen to keep the numbers down. Are nominations beginning with vowels less valuable than nominations beginning with consonants? Is the 6th nomination by an editor less valuable than the first? I don't think we should just pick some system that happens to keep the numbers down unless it's based on some factor that affects the quality of the encyclopedia. The problem is a lack of reviews, not a glut of nominations. Banning nominations doesn't increase the rate of reviews; it just hides the problem, as banning articles beginning with "A" would do. —Designate (talk) 23:21, 25 July 2014 (UTC)
You guys aren't wrong, it is artificial, but do you have another solution? Since right now the GA process is on life support and it needs something to make it fixed quick. Wizardman 23:25, 25 July 2014 (UTC)
As I said - a quick fix would be me and other editors dropping basically everything else to fix the back log. I love to add content, but a proper GA review is about 2 hours of work - minimum. I know my architecture and other articles are really easy to review, I'd be surprised if someone can dig some (or any) more content on quite a few of my current nominations. I think a 1:1 ratio of review to nomination would be fair - but quite a few of us do far more reviewing. Nothing wrong with that, but I dislike that I lost the Wikicup because I can't get a few simple articles reviewed in three months time. This coming after doing many dozens of reviews just prior to my nominations. I am not really comfortable in reviewing something I know comparatively little or nothing in - makes reviewing really difficult and Bobby Fischer was one that I particularly disliked doing because the editor quit Wikipedia over it despite me fixing the last issues and deciding to pass it. I don't want that to happen again - and I can come across as a tough reviewer. We all have our strengths, but someone basically quit because I was mildly tough by my standards. For me... that's pretty hard to swallow. It is my hang up from tackling this backlog right this minute. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 01:37, 26 July 2014 (UTC)
Limiting nominations just hides the backlog. Instead of an editor listing a theoretical tenth nomination, he gets five in the queue and five in his head waiting for slots to open up. He still has ten articles he wants to nominate, but the rest of the project only sees five. In the time that he waits for a review, he might get an 11th article polished up and ready. It adds to his personal backlog even though the project doesn't know about it. The only difference is that things look better on paper. The extra articles that this editor is not allowed to nominate don't show up in the official backlog so it looks like things move through the process faster.
Another downside to such an artificial limit is a lack of variety. Limiting the number of nominations limits the diversity of options. A reviewer looking for something that interests him might have chosen one of those five un-nominated articles that were held back because of the limitation. I realize that reviewing newer articles doesn't "fix" the backlog of older ones, but it still clears items from the queue. We have several people above saying that they won't tackle nominations where they aren't comfortable with the subject matter or the subject is uninteresting. Usually that means they just don't review anything then. Both of these are just food for thought in the larger debate here. Imzadi 1979 → 06:37, 26 July 2014 (UTC)
I'll just start taking more and do a bunch of them before I got on my vacation. Artificial content bottlenecks and QPQ have been a disaster for Wikipedia - I could throw down probably a hundred or more GAs with my backlog of stuff to add on Wikipedia, but my conscience got the better of me that I might end up breaking the back of GA's sluggish process. And indeed it seems that I am the chief offender since still have so many after so long! Just imagine if my library hadn't been closed and I stuck to my original research books... it'd literally be 60-80 additional GANs from me. Also, I managed to get a lot of stuff before they transferred it over to the National Archives and I got access to a big database and Highbeam (again). I guess I got no choice, but fix more backlogs on Wikipedia for the good of all of us. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 04:13, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

I strongly disagree with the nom requirement; it's not fair to users like czar (who might want to chime in here) who work very quickly on pages whose subjects not much is written about. I think QPQ is a much better solution, but since quality of reviews appears to be a concern, I'd like to propose one of the following unconventional ideas:

  • As soon as a nom is preliminarily passed or failed, a trusted user (for which we'd have to appoint a committee or allow users to apply) comes by and confirm the nomination to see that it wasn't just speedy and shallow. If it is, the candidate is relisted for GAN. Disadvantage: This may add another layer of unfairness if there's no standard for how long it has to take for such a user to do a review-review. Also, users may not want to do this.
  • The review must have a certain byte count. Disadvantage: It's easy to just type or copy-paste in a bunch of nonsense.
  • The review must have a certain number of edits. Disadvantage: There's not as much motivation to fake it because of the effort required, but it discriminates against users who like to do everything at once.

I guess I don't feel strongly as long as there's no GAN cap of, say, 3 or fewer. Tezero (talk) 23:51, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Recruiting new reviewers

Has there been a drop-off since the large "ATTENTION NEW REVIEWERS" was added to the nominations page? Perhaps some way of encouraging new reviewers would be useful. Users could be encouraged to take on reviews if interested, and experienced reivewers could skim over the article and/or review to check for major problems. Always a tradeoff between extremely through reviews conducted by topic experts and making sure they occur in a timely fashion. I believe a similar process occurs at AfC? Experienced reviewers could then skim over every few reviews to check the quality of new reviews, and at some point, certify the new reviewer as experienced. Time-consuming at the start, but it appears to have worked quite well on other venues. --129.94.8.180 (talk) 09:21, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

I've created a subtopic for discussion of ways new reviewers can be recruited. --129.94.8.180 (talk) 09:21, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

Requesting new reviewer

I saw a recommendation to post here if a GA review was left ignored by the reviewer. User:Zanimum appears to be a decent person, although he agrees to review a number of GA candidates and then never or very much later gets back to them. Checking his talk page confirms that others have had the same problem as me. I nominated the Scarborough School, and he hasn't done anything on it in two weeks. Normally I'd say he's busy and give him time, but evidently the problem is chronic; he's accepting too many reviews and not following up on them. Would another user be so kind as to take over and finish my nominated article's review? (link) I am willing to review one that the reviewer has nominated, quid pro quo. Thank you.--ɱ (talk) 15:29, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

User:Legobot down?

Legobot has not edited WP:GAN in 2.5 days. What is up? It ignored an article that I passed last night.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 14:29, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm having a similar situation where my nomination of Someone Else (Miley Cyrus song) (and CyrockingSmiler's withdrawn nomination of Miley Cyrus videography) have not been registered by the system. WikiRedactor (talk) 15:12, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
Same here. I nominated The Chase (U.S. game show) and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (U.S. game show) on 30 July and the system ignored both of them. --Bentvfan54321 (talk) 15:23, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
Sorry about that, for some reason the jobs got stuck on labs, and it refuses to start new ones if one is currently running. I killed the stuck jobs and it should be back to its normal schedule. Legoktm (talk) 18:29, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Another solution? Co-nominations

In view of the recent proposal to limit nominations (an idea I oppose), I thought it might be timely to mention an idea I had some time ago which may have a positive effect on the backlog, while also increasing the productivity of GAN. Limiting nominations is the wrong way to go, because the problem is not a surfeit of nominators. Productive nominators are in many ways the driving force of GA! The problem is, as many have noted, a shortage of reviewers.

All review processes have this problem. GA attempts to deal with it by minimizing the number of reviewers involved in a review: to just one reviewer if possible – two or more reviewers get involved only where necessary e.g. to resolve disagreement. Even at GAR, GA/nonGA decisions are made by a single reviewer.

So what gives? In a volunteer environment, it is not easy to increase the number of reviewers, or ask reviewers to review more, and obviously one cannot have less than one reviewer per nomination.

However, it is possible to have less than one reviewer per nominator!

What I propose, therefore, is to add to GAN the facility to co-nominate a good article nomination. Any editor may add their co-nomination of an article to one listed at GAN, and in doing so, they are indicating a willingness to contribute actively to the GAN review, fixing problems raised by the reviewer, and so on.

What's the point? Co-nominations would be entirely optional, but an article with co-nominations is likely to be easier to review, because more editors will be available to work on the article. Reviewers will, of course, be free to prefer to review articles with co-nominations, which may encourage nominators to seek co-nominations from other productive editors. In this way, such productive editors become a resource, rather than a problem, GAN's become easier to review, and hence more gets done. Geometry guy 21:15, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

That's already possible. See for example the note under the nomination for rodent.[13] I've also done it a couple of times before. FunkMonk (talk) 21:24, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
Yes, that caught my eye on nominations page, and may be a convenient mechanism for adding co-nominations. The point, however, is to recognise co-nominations as part of the GAN process and encourage their use. Geometry guy 21:42, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
Interesting... What if there were a list of co-nominated articles at the top of the page? To encourage that kind of thing? —Designate (talk) 21:48, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
If the idea works, such a list would be too long! On the other hand, if advertising co-nominating (e.g. in the instructions) doesn't work, we could ask the bot to list articles with co-nominations ahead of those without - however, I'm not proposing that we do that without further consideration. Geometry guy 21:56, 3 August 2014 (UTC)111
  • I fully support modifying the GAC template to more easily support conoms- we're meant to be a collaborative encyclopedia after all! I doubt, however, that it will have much of a positive impact on backlogs. J Milburn (talk) 13:31, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Agree with this. I believe that what we truly need, though, is more reviewers. I've never not reviewed something because I didn't think its one nominator would be able to field my concerns. Tezero (talk) 14:51, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
  • I think the biggest issue with getting more reviewers is that many who are qualified enough to review are busy creating or expanding other articles, so they don't come here. I've been trying to help clear the (admittedly small) film backlog whenever I have some spare time, but it's tough for a lot of users to balance creation with review, I think. Sock (pka Corvoe) (be heard)(my stuff) 15:12, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Further benefits. Let me clarify the proposal a bit further. The kind of co-nominations I think it would be particularly helpful to encourage are those from editors who have not previously worked on the nomination. These could be nominators of other articles, or editors who are interested in the article but hesitant to be the reviewer making the final call (for whatever reason). Quid pro quo has been mentioned above. I am against QPQ reviewing, as the reviewer must be impartial (and must be seen to be impartial), but QPQ co-nominations don't have this problem, and would spread nominator expertise. Such co-nominations are a kind of middle ground between nominating and reviewing, as an independent co-nominator is effectively also a co-reviewer. They could also be a useful recruiting and training ground for new reviewers: new reviewers who have worked on many co-nominations will better know what to expect, and so be better qualified, and less easily discouraged.

Ohhhhh. I get it. Yeah, that's a winner for me. Tezero (talk) 02:11, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm not saying this is a magic bullet, but I think it has the potential to have an impact by encouraging more reviews and more editors to contribute to reviewing. Geometry guy 22:03, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Irony. Note to nominators

Over the course of my time on Wikipedia, I've nominated several articles for GA, but I've also reviewed just as many (if not more). If you are growing tired of the long wait times, maybe do the community a favor (and not be selfish) and start by reviewing an article yourself. For example, I'm far more prone to review an article listed by a nominator who's done several reviews than someone who hasn't, regardless of order/wait time. Food for thought. Cheers.--PeterGriffin • Talk2Me 04:41, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Quick request regarding images

I'm reviewing the article Morihei Ueshiba. Can someone more comfortable with image rules/copyright take a quick look at Talk:Morihei Ueshiba/GA1? Have some questions regarding the US copyright status of some Japanese photos. Would be great to get some assistance as it's the only thing holding back a promotion. -- Shudde talk 10:05, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Yet-to-be-constructed buildings

I seem to remember that future-class GACs (usually upcoming albums and films) are regularly quick failed, as a subject for which much new information will soon become available is not quite stable, but I can't find it anywhere in the documentation. Is my memory playing tricks on me? If not, does this apply to yet-to-be-constructed buildings? I ask because I was interested in taking on Panorama Tower, but am concerned that it is still too far out to really meet the GA criteria. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 11:10, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

The candidates page reads "PLEASE DO NOT NOMINATE ARTICLES ON FILMS THAT HAVE NOT YET BEEN RELEASED; AS DETAILS WITHIN THE ARTICLE MAY CHANGE, THEY WILL BE FAILED." It was explicitly written into the quickfail criteria (as criterion 5; I referred to it here), but seems to have been removed at some point- God knows why. It seems obvious to me that future albums, songs, video games, books, buildings and all the rest are simply not appropriate topics for GAs, with the possible exception of something which is a long way into the future, and so could be considered "stable". J Milburn (talk) 12:45, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Ah, that's where it is. Alright, I'll quick fail this article and give it a couple comments for further development. Would be nice if the criteria included the future-class issues. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 12:56, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Rhadamistus GA problem.

I started a review on Rhadamistus and I noticed the awkward prose and several issues. Rather than go into depth and detail and waste my time, I decided to simply run the article through the duplication detector. I checked it against the first relevant Google result and found that the vast majority of the text was slightly altered from the source. One report I failed it for, here. The editor, @Jaqeli: was upset over my failing it. Because it has a copyright violation I am allowed to fail it immediately per the Good Article criteria. As a result, the entire article needs to be rewritten in accordance with policy. I believe Jaqeli should be ashamed to have submitted it in that state, but I opened this discussion because I want other reviewers to comment on my decision to quickfail it. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 17:58, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, you definitely made the right decision quick-failing it. That is an excessive amount of WP:COPYVIO. I've tagged the article for close paraphrasing, even though it is basically all copy-paste. Good catch. Sock (tock talk) 18:06, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
(Edit conflict) I reserve quickfailing for problems I don't think can be dealt with within a few days or even weeks, such as those plaguing Speak Mandarin Campaign at the time (and continuing to the present day). Rewriting the text of an article to avoid plagiarism I don't think falls into that, at least if the nominator is active. Tezero (talk) 18:07, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
The plagiarism is virtually entire article, though; does that not make a difference? Even the parts that aren't directly plagiarised are so closely paraphrased that they might as well be. Admittedly, you're a more experienced reviewer than I am, but I think I would've made the same decision as Chris if this popped up for me. Sock (tock talk) 18:11, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
@Sock: Hi, just to clarify, it appears that the text of the article is based on Tacitus' Annals, book xii, as translated in 1876 by A.J. Church and W.J. Brodribb (see WikiSource). The page linked above by Chris is just a copy of the translated text. The article is clearly a close copy, as has been shown, but it's been tagged as non-free - is this right? Thanks, -Noswall59 (talk) 20:08, 7 August 2014 (UTC).
@Noswall59: You made a very good point. The content was actually free, that was an oversight on my behalf. Thank you for telling me! Sock (tock talk) 22:33, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Insight on page views

Please, if you will, answer this question so that I may know a consensus perspective. To what extent, if any, does or should the number of page views have on an article's potential to become GA class? Clearly, an article that maintains a high volume of traffic has plenty of reasons for being improved to our highest standards. But is it fair to assign that same level of necessary attention to improve an article that may reasonably never get more than 100 or so-odd views in a year? What would a reasonable threshold be if such a consideration were a desirable requisite?—John the Baptist (talk) 07:44, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Page views don't really mean much, I'd say. Some would argue that systemic bias would even be working against its accuracy. Also, "an article that may reasonably never get more than 100 or so-odd views in a year": I don't think we're that obscure. :P 23W 08:26, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
Thank you, I had actually nominated Boots Adams, which I believe meets the criteria. It seems to be viewed around ten times a day on average. That of course is not incredibly high traffic and I began to wonder if page views are or should be considered at all. 100 views a year was given arbitrarily and I have no doubt that we have articles with traffic as low, or lower. It doesn't reflect on or imply anything about our site's volume of traffic, or at least was not intended to.—John the Baptist (talk) 08:46, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
That's a nice-looking article you got there. And as for your point, consider that there's featured articles out there with less daily viewers than that; Gagak Item is one that comes to mind (as I think the creator has made a point of this sometime before). 23W 09:09, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
@23W: We have some fairly obscure GAs. From the articles I've written, Soeprapto (prosecutor) gets a grand total of 700 views a year (averaging 4 views a day). That's the lowest I know of from the top of my head. A lot of articles I write get under 2k views a year (Air Mata Iboe, for instance, has has 1.6k hits a year, or an average of 7 hits a day).
But to answer John's question, there is no criteria for a topic to be "well known" or "popular". This may help an article get more interest and increase the chances it is expanded, but may also make it more difficult because it's harder to guide further development (see what happens when people expand articles like information technology and tree). — Crisco 1492 (talk) 08:58, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Several of my good articles get 1 or less a day, but I've actually had people that have greatly appreciated the coverage and seen people research topics that I worked on and use those sources to do so. I think that's sorta special, but Wikipedia clearly has the best coverage of these historic properties and parks and should the day come that someone looks them up - it'll be there for them. Also, some topic areas get few page views because of the notorious coverage and development of that space, whereas others are just obscure. I've seen a lot more views on a string of developed content versus pure (near orphaned) stubs. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 15:06, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
  • I don't really have this kind of firsthand experience because the least-viewed articles I've written (typically on non-major Sonic the Hedgehog characters) have gotten re-"merged" (basically just turned into redirects and their existing sections in the list unchanged) or are planned to be, because the sources they had weren't enough, and those pages got at least 40-50 views a day. My instinct, though, is that we shouldn't try to put rules on what can become a GA by anything other than fulfilling the GA criteria for quality. That's just another manifestation of... I don't remember what it's called here, but when cultural elitists gripe about articles about video games, cartoons, etc. becoming featured articles because they're not "important" enough. Tezero (talk) 16:22, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
  • That's just editors responding to their own personal preferences and disgust that Wikipedia doesn't have a GA or FA on X, but has thousands on something they find personally "worthless" or "unimportant". Sounds like the matter to keep Eren Jaeger from just prior. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 17:21, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Stub Contest

speaking of prizey things....this is running again in September......take a look. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 14:30, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

Backlog Elimination Drive.

Because of the high backlog, a backlog elimination drive could work like the ones at AFC. You don't have to be here for long to realize that barnstars motivate editors. The AFC backlog got cleared from 2000 to 0 in less than a month. The GA backlog has around 500. They take longer but nominations come in less often too so it could work. We should give it a shot. What do you all think? TheQ Editor (Talk) 22:06, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

  • I just wish there was an easy way to sort nominations by byte size or something like that. I've been trying to review as much articles under WikiProject Television as I nominate, but some seem like more than I can chew. If there was a way to sort by size, then I'd probably be more willing to eliminate the backlog by getting all the smaller articles out of the way. 23W 22:14, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
If someone wants to manage it and get it going, then maybe it'll clear some of the backlog. As for the TV note above, quite a few of the articles in that section are under 10K of prose, and You're Whole is under half that, so that could be churned out quickly. Wizardman 04:07, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
Short prose is not necessarily an indicator that it will be an easy review or that the article isn't missing something major. I've found some careless flipping of terminology and a few inaccuracies in some, but I've been bouncing sources and ideas off those editors and occasionally picking up a few sources I couldn't have found on my own either. While GA only needs to be broad and can be allowed a few holes, I think that any editor would agree that filling in those easy holes is worth the effort. And this takes more time then the review itself in some cases! A few subjects that interest me have come up, but I dislike being out of my element for complex or detailed subjects that I have little background in. I'll take a few more reviews to do for tomorrow. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 05:41, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Good articlesTheQ Editor (Talk) 20:31, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Problem with Instructions

I seem to be the only one who has had this problem, but I've had it 3 times now. The Instructions say to add a topic to the topic= part of the GAN tag. However, when I do this, I get a message in the expanded text which says I haven't picked a subtopic. For one of my nominations, that resulted in the article being put in Miscellaneous rather than the correct place. Putting the topic in topic= AND subtopic= seems to do the trick. Shouldn't the Instructions mention subtopic= as well? Myrvin (talk) 06:47, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

The GAN instructions had said to use "|subtopic=" until August 3, when User:Srich32977 changed it to "|topic=", claiming that subtopic didn't work. Subtopic used to work for me, and the GAN template hasn't been changed since I last used it; is there anyone else for whom it doesn't work, or should we change the instructions back from "topic" to "subtopic"? It's clear that "topic" isn't working here. BlueMoonset (talk) 17:31, 12 August 2014 (UTC)
I did notice a problem with "topic" and "subtopi" too. You can fix it on an article's talk page, but it appears that the wording and/or a template should be changed for consistency.--ɱ (talk) 17:40, 12 August 2014 (UTC)
Please take a look at Talk:Gasketball. The template is using "|subtopic=Video games". But because it is not using "|topic=Video games" it is showing up at Category:Uncategorized good articles. – S. Rich (talk) 23:39, 13 August 2014 (UTC)
That is a completely different template: the GA template, used for already-listed Good Articles (GAN is used for initiating Good Article Nominations). There, you are supposed to use the "topic" parameter, though you can use a subtopic value. You might want to check Wikipedia:Good article nominations/Instructions#Passing, which discusses that parameter. I've just fixed Talk:Gasketball. I've also just restored the GAN instructions, since they were correct before your edits. BlueMoonset (talk) 00:28, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
True, these are different templates. And problems arise because they do not align in terms of topics and subtopics. When Gasketball was nominated for GA here, the subtopic Video games was used. (And Video games rendered properly.) When it was approved as GA, here, Video games was again used as a subtopic. Only the approval template does not render Video games and Gasketball showed up at Category:Uncategorized good articles. Can someone fix this disconnect? It would save editors the trouble of manually fixing the approved template topic listing. Thanks. – S. Rich (talk) 02:14, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Formal decision on nomination limit

After opening discussion about two changes to WP:GAN one week ago, it has become clear that there is consensus that there should be serious consideration about a one of the two.

Proposal: WP:GAN begin to enforce a new rule that keeps any editor who has at least five current active nominations from making a new nomination.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 05:39, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Support

  1. Support As nominator, I support this new rule. I believe that much of the backlog could be reduced if the most active participants were limited in their nominations and incented to clear out old nominations that are in the way of their nominations being reviewed.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 05:39, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
  2. Supportchanged to Oppose as per above. It's a good way to clear the backlog. TheQ Editor (Talk) 21:59, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
  3. I've grown cold to this idea admittedly, but nobody else is coming up with any other solutions, so we have to try something. Wizardman 22:43, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
    I don't mean to start an argument, but some of us have. It may be that you just don't like them. Tezero (talk) 00:05, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
    The only tother suggestion I've seen is QPQ, which has too much opposition for it to gain any traction. Wizardman 02:28, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
    Define traction. With sufficient arguments, a consensus could form for it. Tezero (talk) 03:24, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
  4. Support Not much reason to have multiple concurrent nominations that I can see. Way better than QPQ.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 16:35, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
    So you actually advise bottlenecking content production over all other options - even QPQ? I may disagree with it, but the featured process is horribly bottlenecked and some places and artificially so. I think the Good Article process is the best process for content on Wikipedia as it currently is, but multiple concurrent nominations were never an issue until reviewers dried up. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 04:11, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
  5. This really seems like the only feasible option - mostly because I hate the idea of QPQ. Taylor Trescott - my talk + my edits 03:05, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Oppose

  1. Oppose—it just shifts the backlog off-wiki onto individual editors' personal lists. It also reduces the potential variety of nominations reviewers may see and introduces a layer of bureaucracy. Unlike FAC, et al., there is no form of leadership here supervising the process: no coordinators, directors or delegates to enforce any limits. Imzadi 1979 → 06:13, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
  2. Oppose - There is no deadline. I'm not convinced that having articles queued up for weeks or even months is actually perceived as a problem by the nominator in the first place. I assume that when Tony says "blocks any editor" he doesn't really mean they should be indeffed! Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 10:44, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
  3. Sweeping the backlog under the rug and pretending it isn't there is hardly the way to reduce it. Incorrect solution to a problem that amounts to little more than inconvenience. Resolute 13:10, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
  4. Oppose, as this doesn't actually address the problem, which is a lack of reviewers. It could even slow down the rate of reviews, since potential reviewers would be less likely to see an article they are interested in reading. If the goal is to incent people to review articles, a quid-pro-quo system would do that more transparently. Hiding potential GAs just to imply quid-pro-quo doesn't seem rational to me. —Designate (talk) 21:53, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
  5. (Edit conflict) Oppose. I'm undecided on whether FAC should be time-limited as it is, but GA is arguably a more important step for articles - it's usually all that's necessary for topics, CD selections, brag lists, and such, so it's more important for GANs to eventually be gotten around to. That being said, I would like to see an incentive to review others' nominations - or even a prohibition against putting one up if you haven't reviewed one yourself (reviews could be quick-scanned after the fact by some committee or team to make sure they aren't BS-ed and that the article at least appears from a cursory look to fit the GA criteria). Tezero (talk) 21:55, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
  6. Oppose per Designate. Chris Troutman (talk) 00:35, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
  7. Oppose - Aside from concealing a backlog and making artificial bottlenecks, this is just a bad idea. Quid pro Quo made DYK notorious, and DYK already is so incomprehensible as is. DYK is effectively a shiny-star factory and it serves as a look into the future of Good Article Nominations if it were to go down that same path. Let's do a backlog drive instead and see where that goes. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 04:00, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
  8. Oppose - Have read the arguments above and feel like those arguing the quantity -vs- quality discrepancy are making valid points. In my opinion a process that curbs obviously frivolous/misguided nominations would be much more helpful than one that muffles talented, earnest editors who simply end up working quickly for whatever reason. Shoebox2 talk 18:22, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
  9. Oppose. I agree with the aforementioned assessment that nom limits create artificially smaller backlogs—the articles won't be listed, but they're still waiting for GAN reviews. I see little issue with nominated articles lying fallow for a while, and I think the best answers for the impetus to this survey are backlog drives and making a place where editors in a rush can indicate as such (either on a talk page or below the nominated article's listing). czar ♔ 14:42, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
  10. Oppose. I don't really see the point- it wouldn't actually reduce the backlog, it'd just hide it. Unlike FAC, we don't have set review times, so having article B on the list will not detract from the reviews of article A; it just means article A may have to wait a little longer. We don't need fewer nominations, and we certainly shouldn't want fewer nominations; instead, we need better nominations and more reviewers. J Milburn (talk) 20:35, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
    Better nominations? Tezero (talk) 20:54, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
    I wasn't meaning to say anything particularly important: It's obvious, I think, that nominations of poor articles sap reviewer time (and perhaps motivation, especially if nominators are uncooperative in some way). I don't know if it's a particularly bad problem, but I'm sure it could be. J Milburn (talk) 21:07, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
    Oh. I remember seeing a few particularly ill-fitted GANs related to the oddly specific topic of languages and language education in Singapore a few months ago - poor grammar, missing citations, bare URLs, ugly layout, etc. everywhere. Nominations are usually pretty close, although one issue I frequently see is poor or widely inconsistent citation formatting. The main things that keep me from taking on any given nomination are (1) lack of interest in the topic and (2) extremely high article length. Tezero (talk) 21:54, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
  11. Oppose. I've always regarded limitations on nominations as being not in the spirit of GA, and it is heartening to see others opposing on similar grounds. In short, we should not inhibit a group of productive editors (nominators) because another editorial resource (reviewers) is in short supply. Rather, we should seek ways to use all the resources we have to maximize the productivity of the GAN process. I have made a suggestion below: to recognise the value of co-nominations. Geometry guy 21:49, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
  12. Oppose--PeterGriffin • Talk2Me 03:34, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
  13. Oppose as per J Milburn. But I would suggest changing it like DYK. If you already have 5 current nominations, then you have to review someone else's nomination first before you nominate a sixth and so on.TheQ Editor (Talk) 20:28, 9 August 2014 (UTC)
  14. Strongly Oppose. While as an occasional reviewer I would personally prefer that the writers spend a bit more time on copyediting while they wait for reviews, that's hardly a justifying rationale for limiting the voluntary behavior of others. Additionally, any guideline that discourages the writing of near-GA articles is a bad one. The goal of the GA process is to encourage and recognize good writing, not just to populate itself. --erachima talk 20:34, 9 August 2014 (UTC)
  15. Oppose—John Cline (talk) 14:48, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Neutral

  1. Neutral - I was all for this at first, because I really am not keen on editors having a plethora of articles at GAN which I find it to be a bit problematic. But having editors be blocked for having over five articles nominated is unnecessary. GamerPro64 01:01, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
    As I understand it, they will only be blocked from making new noms: "blocks any editor who has at least five current active nominations from making a new nomination". I am neutral myself. Maybe there should only be a nom limit for those who do not review other articles? That could give incentive to review, without being downright qpq. FunkMonk (talk) 16:49, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
    (edit conflict)That makes a bit more sense than I thought it was. A nom limit does sound pretty good. Or maybe something along the lines of how DKY does their reviews. GamerPro64 16:56, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
  2. Neutral Initially I thought this was a good idea but the counterpoint has been made that having a variety of open noms gives more opportunities for occasional reviewers to pick things up on their specialist subject. I suppose regardless of who nominated them I'd be happy to see a load more biological articles awaiting review to increase the probability that one or more would be on a subject I'd know about, for example. benmoore 21:29, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
    Yeah, I feel bad about the huge number of unreviewed biology-related articles (also television) sitting around at any given time, but I just don't care that much about those topics; I reviewed Salamander a while ago, but that's about it. Maybe it would help to, well, canvas a bit at relevant WikiProjects, alerting them to the magnitude of this debacle. Tezero (talk) 21:57, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
  3. neutral - I really am cold on the idea but agree something has to give...so not opposing per se. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 05:29, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
  4. Neutral – It's not the worst idea in the world. It may encourage those that nominate a lot of articles to help reducing the backlog a little. Personally not a fan of having so many nominations up at once. Still not sold on this proposal though. -- Shudde talk 10:03, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation taking applications for two Wikipedian positions

Wiki Education Foundation is hiring two experienced Wikipedia editors for part-time (20 hours/week) positions: Wikipedia Content Expert, Sciences and Wikipedia Content Expert, Humanities. The focus of these positions is to help student editors do better work, through everything from advice and cleanup on individual articles, to helping instructors find appropriate topics for the students to work on, to tracking the overall quality of work from student editors and finding ways to improve it. We're looking for clueful, friendly editors who like to focus on article content, but also have a strong working knowledge of policies and guidelines, and who have experience with DYK, GAN, and other quality processes.

I'm posting here because one of things we would like to do is to help more student editors achieve GAs... but in very selective ways that don't risk flooding GAN or wasting reviewers' time with unsuitable nominations. So regular involvement with GAN will be a big plus for applicants.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:36, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

An idea: A GAN treasure hunt....

How about this. I talk to WMUK about a microgrant of £250. Someone from WMUK looks at the GAN page and secretly selects five GANs in secret. We have a month-long GAN review drive and anyone that reviews one of the 5 secret articles gets a £50 Amazon voucher. The only condition is that the review takes some effort to assess the article WRT GA criteria. Thoughts? Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 07:25, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

I love it. Let's do it. Tezero (talk) 07:50, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
Really nice idea! Any precedent for this kind of thing? I'd also suggest that the articles were chosen at random (computationally) rather than hand-picked by someone. benmoore 10:28, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
Great idea, and far better than just awarding it to whomever reviews the most. --Coemgenus (talk) 11:15, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
A problem with this idea is that none, or only some, of the selected articles might be reviewed during the time period and nobody might win a prize. A possible solution would be to generate a random list of all current nominations at the beginning of the period, and then award the prizes to the reviewers of the first five articles on the list that have been satisfactorily reviewed by the end of the period. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 12:24, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
Good point, and a ranked list could be used to make sure the prizes go to different people. benmoore 12:44, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
Yes, I like that idea too...Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 14:16, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
This sounds like an excellent idea. +1 --Gilderien Chat|List of good deeds 12:38, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
Absolutely brilliant idea (I also section Cwmhiraeth and Ben's points). Thinking aloud: I'd be worried about bad feeling if the prize went to a reviewer perceived as poor- perhaps consider having an appointed adjudicator-type-person with GAN experience who could offer a good, informed opinion as to whether the review is a solid one (subsequently delisted and deleted articles would obviously be out, but we've all seen poor reviews which nonetheless had the "right" result). As another idea, perhaps you could have three smaller prizes, but repeat the drive every few months. J Milburn (talk) 14:42, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
What I'd do is spell out that for a review to be considered valid, it should at minimum check each criterion and list as such, and that the five prizewinning reviews will be reviewed to see if this was done. Maybe add we'd expect to see a couple of issues/corrections with any GA.....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 13:34, 9 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Wait a second. Something's not right. I suggested some kind of quality control system like this for QPQ reviews above, and nobody cared because... it's still QPQ, I guess. Why does such a system make all the difference here? Tezero (talk) 15:01, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
How do you mean - am not sure I follow. My rationale for supporting some checking is the sudden incentive for quantity over quality which might arise with the running of a contest such as this. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 13:34, 9 August 2014 (UTC)
That's a perfectly good motivation, but so is the impatient, cursory reviewing that could come about if QPQ was implemented. I guess I don't see why this checking system was received well when you suggested it but nobody cared when I did. I dunno. Tezero (talk) 23:58, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

update

Right, have listed it at WMUK so let's see where this goes.....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 13:53, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Notification template

If nominator is automatically notified by bot about the current review process, templates for such purpose (such as {{subst:GANotice2}}) are unnecessary and can only confuse reviewers. If I am right, such templates should be removed from this page.--Antidiskriminator (talk) 20:08, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Alternative proposal to nomination limit: highlight single-article nominators

There's clearly consensus not to put a limit on how many nominations an editor can have sitting at the same time, and that's well and good. A more acceptable idea which approaches the same issue, however, might be to instead highlight editors who have only one active nomination. This would require @Legoktm: update the maintenance bot, which I don't believe would be technically challenging, but he may wish to comment.

I came upon this idea by noticing that there are essentially two ways that we can measure GAN backlog. One is the raw metric suggested by the counter of articles to be evaluated at the top of the current page: how long does the average article wait to be reviewed? The second method is from a customer service standpoint: how long does the average editor wait to be reviewed? I believe it is this latter measurement that is the more relevant, as it will be what determines productivity bottlenecks and frustration levels with how GAN is working.

To explain --and not picking on anyone here, these were the first two relevant examples on the current page-- User:ChrisGualtieri current has 10+ articles in the GAN queue. Several of them, however, are on review at the moment. Chris has effectively no wait time to be reviewed, it's just a question of which review he's working on right now. User:W.carter, on the other hand, has one nominated article, which is unreviewed. He has been waiting for 10 weeks. Under this proposal, we would note Carter's status as a single-article nominator, which reviewers interested in addressing this metric of wait times could then prioritize.

Major benefits I see of this proposal are that it does not force anyone to do anything, and that if successful, it should help us have better interactions with casual nominators and hopefully improve our PR. I will also note that we allow people to do a similar sort of voluntary weighting towards (or potentially, against) other members of the reviewer crowd by listing who in the queue has conducted reviews themselves. The main counter-argument I see is that this sort of highlighting is of course "gameable" by writers who choose to nominate one article at a time and wait until it's reviewed before submitting another. I consider this a potential benefit, however, as it would mean quicker absolute turn-around times and less nominations dying because the nominator went inactive before the review occurred.

Thoughts? --erachima talk 02:54, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

I do note the irony of having over 10... it is 30.... and most over 90 days at last check. I know you aren't picking on me Erachima, but nice comment on AN earlier. Anyways! It is actually because I am positioned on top that I've tried to do many more reviews than I have received. I'll be away for a week and that will halt my personal efforts, but subject matter has always been a pressing issue in most areas. By this I mean that Video games has always been very quick to get reviewers given the activity of the Wikiproject. An active Wikiproject begets reviewers more than others, mostly because collaboration, familiarity and such go with this. Also, the Roads Wikiproject. Personally, I all but halted my GANs because I didn't want to collapse the process and did more than 50 reviews to make up for it, even prior to my nominations. I think that those of us on the "top end" of the pile are trying to pick up the slack. In terms of QPQ - I'm owed about 70, but I feel ashamed that I am weighing down the system. Though Ashland Mill Bridge has been waiting for its reviewer for 25 days now, but a week more (when I return) I'll ping said reviewer if needed. But I digress! This is a good plan for us multi-nominators though, I like it. How easy is it to implement? ChrisGualtieri (talk) 03:19, 16 August 2014 (UTC)
That's a question for Legoktm, but in essence it would require name-checking the nominator whenever a nomination was listed or a review finished. --erachima talk 03:31, 16 August 2014 (UTC)
The report already does list the multiple nominators, perhaps it'd be easy to do it in reverse? I wonder if it can highlight their review counts as well, but it may not be the most helpful of a suggestion on my part. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 03:44, 16 August 2014 (UTC)
If that listing's already compiled, then the simplest and most transparent way of handling it may simply be to list number of current nominations as we do number of pages reviewed. --erachima talk 22:02, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Alt II

Maybe if the cadre of experienced GA reviewers would dedicate some time copyediting nominations it would expedite the review once started and theoretically impact the backlog. For example, one might change {{Reflist|2}} to {{Reflist|30em}} on as many nominations as they are comfortable with, or ensure article consistency on things like WP:DATEFORMAT, or WP:ENGVAR. And of course if a nomination is rife with discrepancies, the GA-copyeditor could notify the nominator that much improvement was needed before the review got underway (giving some specific examples). Failing to comply with GA-copyedit guidance could be grounds for a quick fail if the review is opened to find none of the suggestions were acted on.—John Cline (talk) 05:35, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

  • Comment I dislike GA being used as a copy-editing process. If there's a handful of issues with the text that are confusing or glaring errors or (in a memorable case this week) bad puns, that's one thing, but if the thing has pervasive wording issues that's on the nominator to fix without me walking him through every sentence. And on the other hand, if it's an issue of purely formal stuff like reflist or date formatting I wouldn't consider that a holdable flaw.
    Basically, if it would be faster for me to rewrite the text body than point out the errors, it needed to be redrafted before nomination. I'll normally hold rather than fail it for that level of writing quality, since a week is a long time and the content is usually all there, but that's a matter of courtesy. --erachima talk 06:15, 16 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Comment: "[I]f a nomination is rife with discrepancies, the GA-copyeditor could notify the nominator that much improvement was needed ... Failing to comply with GA-copyedit guidance could be grounds for a quick fail". At the discretion of the reviewer, an article "rife with discrepancies" may already be eligible for a quick-fail, as it could be "a long way from meeting any one of the six good article criteria". I can't really see how introducing this kind of two-stage review (even if non-mandatory) would reduce backlogs. I also share erachima's concerns. J Milburn (talk) 11:08, 16 August 2014 (UTC)
Is there a standard of best practice that discourages a reviewer from copyediting a GAN that they don't intend to review?—John Cline (talk) 15:22, 16 August 2014 (UTC)
Of course not- I do it often myself. J Milburn (talk) 18:09, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Nominations should be unsorted

I think that sorting them is very hard.S/s/a/z-1/2 (talk) 00:23, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

What's hard about it?--erachima talk 00:40, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Indians in Pakistan (The Novel)

Indians in Pakistan (The Novel) is a good article, but there appears to be no assessment. Could someone link to the assessment? Thanks, Parabolooidal (talk) 21:39, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't think there was one; there isn't even a talk page. My guess is that someone just added the template to the article. Tezero (talk) 21:47, 19 August 2014 (UTC)
Thanks! Can the GA symbol be removed then? Parabolooidal (talk) 23:38, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

StatisticianBot down

StatisticianBot, which runs the daily GAN report, hasn't been active since August 15, and a note on the bot's talk page hasn't had any effect. The page recommends sending email to Dvandersluis, who created the bot, but I don't do email on Wikipedia. Does someone want to try contacting him to see whether he can get the bot going again? Thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 15:29, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Missing review counts at WP:GAN

Why do half of the nominators at WP:GAN have no review count next to their name? Many are experienced reviewers.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 13:45, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

Stability

The instructions don't seem to mention whether articles about occurrring events should be quickfailed due to inherent lack of stability. I just saw 2014 West Africa Ebola virus outbreak is nominated, but to me, that is a quickfail, since the issue is not played out at all. Maybe the instructions should be made clearer on this? FunkMonk (talk) 10:04, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

If the article is not stable, a quick decline is appropriate, regardless of whether it is an "occurring event" or not. The fact that it is an ongoing event is subject to instability and that should be enough for the decline as was the case for such articles as Occupy Wall Street when it was nominated and was not stable enough for a review because it was ongoing and editors were reverting over content.--Mark Miller (talk) 03:06, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
Ok, I've quickfailed it. FunkMonk (talk) 21:48, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
It doesn't come up very often, compared to movies and other pop culture, so we haven't needed to specify that point. WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:53, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

GA Cup

We are proposing a competition that could finally put a dent into this massive backlog. Click here for details (and use the talk page there to leave your opinion).--Dom497 (talk) 01:32, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Review shopping

STATicVapor seems to be review SHOPPING. At Talk:My Nigga/GA1, I expressed highly important problems with the article. The nominator has cast aside my review and renominated as if it had no merit. I admit that I like Hip hop/R&B music and know Wikipedia policies, but am not necessarily the best WP:SONGS reviewer. The reviewer is hiding behind the fact that the song is a Hip Hop song with hard sources to find. I have reviewed hip hop songs that have details that I am saying are missing here. I am the current reviewer at Talk:Soldier (Destiny's Child song)/GA1‎, which is shaping up nicely. Notice how the research at "Soldier" puts "My Nigga" to shame. Sometimes, I push a bit hard for certain things, but I think I am stating reasonable objections in my GA1 review. I do not think the song should be renominated without any problems raised. The nominator should either apply at WP:GAR or revise the article, or give up on promotion, IMO.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 06:06, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Overwriting the old review was entirely inappropriate. Since this is a discussion about a user, though, have you notified him at all (on his talk page or the one in question)? 23W 06:16, 24 August 2014 (UTC)
He is pinged above. I just posted at Talk:My Nigga.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 06:32, 24 August 2014 (UTC)
What is the problem with wanting a different editor's review, rather then go through the difficult WP:GAR review process. It is clear, at least from my wide experience in music GA reviews, that TonyTheTiger's review was completely inappropriate. They only complained about what they believed should be in the article, that was not. Things like explaining why the radio plays an edited version of the song that uses the word "hitta" rather than an explicit word "n---a", are just not important or N. You cannot expect to have something in the article that is not covered in depth in reliable sources, since they also do not deem it notable. TonyTheTiger's review hardly addressed the article content at all, he/she did not even give a detailed review of the article, they just ran off their ludicrous complaints and failed the review. He/she also chose to not respond to my comment on the GA review page, while continuing to edit elsewhere, even though I pinged them, so they would be notified. Due to the unsuitable behavior and review by TonyTheTiger, I just wanted a more experienced editor. I was in no way review shopping, I have not asked anyone to review. STATic message me! 16:03, 24 August 2014 (UTC)
I don't understand why you think version content is unencyclopedic. Read Fuck_You_(CeeLo_Green_song)#Versions. No one watches reviews for comments made 4 days after they have failed them. I had unwatched the conversation after I failed it. In terms of "What is the problem with wanting a different editor's review", it is against policy to "not like the review" and want a new one. It is your responsibility to prove it was a bad review at WP:GAR or address the concerns before renominating. That is longstanding WP policy.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 16:19, 24 August 2014 (UTC)
You most certainly should watch for comments if you wish to review articles for GA, and again I clearly pinged you, so you saw that I commented and you ignored it. According to what policy? Your concerns were not relevant to WP:GA, so your review was invalid. There is nothing in the review relevant to address, so might as well drop this and stop being so dramatic Tony. The article deserves a review from someone familiar with WP:SONG and someone who knows how to review articles for GA status. STATic message me! 19:26, 24 August 2014 (UTC)
I was never pinged. I am looking at my notifications right now and have scrolled all the way down to July 17 and your attempt to ping me is not in the results. So I did not ignore you. You need to figure out how to ping people. That aside, you need to learn the rules at WP:GAN. You can either withdraw your renomination or I can do it for you. Your choices are 1. WP:GAR, 2. Address the concerns, 3. Give up. There is no option to ignore a review and renominate. Would you like to withdraw your nomination or have me do it?--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 21:17, 24 August 2014 (UTC)
Comment There is a policy at WP:GAR that you can renominate a disagreeable GAN fail after some time. It is not clear how long this has to be, but I would think 6 months or a year is probably about right. I have never heard of a specific length of time to wait. Typically, it is expected that in the wait time the article undergoes some changes. The more an article has changed, the less important the wait is. Alternatively, if another editor wants to renominate, the wait time would probably be fairly short. My interpretation of the wait policy would be something like 6 months if the article has changed or a different nominator wants to nominate it and about a year otherwise. I don't think the intention was to make it easier to wait than go through a GAR, which takes at least 8-10 weeks. If you have made changes that largely address the concerns given as the reason for the fail, you can renominate immediately.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 21:39, 24 August 2014 (UTC)
P.S. I disagreed with a 12 January 2014 fail of Freedom from Want (painting) and took it to WP:GAR but did not prevail on 19 April 2014 (14 weeks later). However, the interaction at GAR led to such significant changes to the article, that I was able to renominate at GAN immediately without issue. It passed at GAN on 10 June 2014‎ and at WP:FAC yesterday. I would strongly suggest a GAR, where you are likely to get a lot of feedback about the article if there are substantive issues. You may also get the feedback that my review was total rubbish with no valid concerns there. GAR is actually a very good process for an article like this. I have been on the winning and losing end of GAR discussions as both a nominator and reviewer several times. However, in all cases, I have learned a lot about the article through the process. If you really want to improve the quality of the article to a GAN level, I would start at GAR. It is far more likely to help you improve the article or get it promoted than waiting.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 21:49, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

I do know how to ping, just because you choose to lie is not my problem. As for your various "choices" you want to give me, I do not have to choose from any of them. You are not an administrator and you have zero authority over me, so quit acting like it, it is quite hilarious at times. Just let someone else review it, I see no problem in it and most users wouldn't. That is mainly because your review had nothing to do with the criteria for WP:GA, it was hardly a review at all. If you do not know how to review articles for GA do not do it, you make editing life more difficult for others. I do not think there is this point in the policy, Bangerz was nominated and reviewed three times within a month. I could compare its first two reviews to yours [14], [15], at least that article's first one actually addressed the quality and content of the article. Yours did not at all. No need for GAR, the article is ready for GA status, there are not many improvements to be made. STATic message me! 15:36, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Talk:Bangerz/GA1 is nothing like my review. I would have stood by the nominator at WP:GAR on that one as an inadequate review. My review was about the breadth and depth of the article which is WP:WIAGA item 3. Your article badly fails WIAGA. Furthermore, I was not pinged and your attempt at pining me does not show in my notifications.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 17:21, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
  • I was not trying to hide the review per se, I knew that any additionally reviewer would see that review. At WP:AN#Review Shopping., the consensus seems to be that the review was inappropriate and the reasons for the quick fail were invalid. Judging by this user's interactions with me, I strongly believe that they would not be able to perform a neutral review, on top of their incomprehension of the GA criteria. STATic message me! 02:05, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
  • The two people there don't make a consensus when one of them seems to be unfamiliar with WP:GAN. I think the counts here of 1 in favor and 1 against is where the tally should come from. We are not getting to a consensus via informal discussions. You really should have started a formal WP:GAR. If necessary, I am more than capable of performing a neutral GAN review. I don't think it makes much sense for you to be accusing someone who has been involved in about 700 GAN discussions that they are unfamiliar with GAN. I still think the standard procedure of contesting a GAN through a formal GAR is the proper procedure. You are forcing people like Black Kite who appears to have been involved in only a handful of GAN discussions to resolve a contentious GAN. WP:GAR is where people who have seen hundreds and thousands of GAN discussions convene to resolve contentious GANs. You should seek the standard resolution process there.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 02:49, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
  • The failed GA only mentions negative points, without giving any space of time to the author/nominator to fix the points mentioned. Also some of the points, like missing images, are not a reason to fail an article. Since I think this process needs to be simple, I think the article should not be stopped from being reviewed again. If more then 1 person finds objections we can always decide on a different course of action. But right now, I think this should not be a problem to anyone. Considering the use of words like "lie", "hide the review" and "review was inappropriate", I think the trust between the cooperating parties has taken a hit and a change of reviewer may be for the best. -- Sincerely, Taketa (talk) 22:46, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
  • The "lie" is not about the article. It was about him being certain I had ignored a ping that I claimed I had never gotten. It turns out that he did not correctly ping me. Actually, "hide the review" that is again him not knowing that GA discussions don't get expunged if you don't like them. "Review being inappropriate", that one may be on me if consensus feels that way. However, if you look at any discussion that needs third party resolution on wikipedia, you can probably find 3 words and phrases that make it look like the two parties should never talk again. If the review should resume, I can handle it. If the review needs to be evaluated at GAR, I can handle it. If the review stands, I can handle it. If the review needs to be excised from the history of wikipedia, I can handle it.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 02:46, 30 August 2014 (UTC)
  • As far as I can see you both did everything with the best intentions. Noone lied, I agree that the ping was incorrect, and noone tried to hide anything, that was inexperience. I am pretty sure Tony is completely neutral and can handle it, but I don't think he should. Judging by the words used, the review came across hard, even if not intended, especially if you tell someone it is a fail and they have no opportunity to reply. Ofcourse that is something easily fixed by talking. Yet, it might be more appreciated by STATicVapor, if a second review was not done by the same person. -- Sincerely, Taketa (talk) 07:26, 30 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Whatever consensus says. It is not normal to go to a second reviewer because the nominator doesn't like the first, but whatever consensus is I will abide by.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 07:32, 30 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Stop trying to twist and turn the facts of the matter Tony. Black Kite suggested that the review may need to be deleted at WP:AN, I was not trying to expunge the review at all. I just brought it up as a possible result in discussion. Multiple users have agreed that the review was inappropriate here and at WP:AN, so just give it up and let someone else review it. This is not at all about me "not liking it", the review was inappropriate and you show a lack of understanding the GA criteria. @Taketa: The ping was not incorrect, I did it in the exact same way I just pinged you. Thank you for agreeing that a second review should be done by a different person though, I do not believe Tony can be neutral at all with this review after all this. Hell, I like this idea of never talking to this user again, I feel like he/she acted completely uncivil with me from the beginning and that sure did not get better at all. STATic message me! 07:41, 30 August 2014 (UTC)
STATicVapor, it seems that you did not learn that this is not a valid ping because pings don't work when they are not in the same edit as the signature. I hope you are paying attention. In terms of consensus, it seems that you are getting the opinions of the least experienced Good article writers on WP. I have been involved in about 700 WP:GANs (over 300 as the reviewer) and never been removed from a review. I am well aware of what the WP:WIAGA are. So far you have the opinions of Black Kite who has only a handful of GA credits and Taketa who seems to have recently made his first nomination. No one with any GA experience seems to think you are suppose to be allowed to cry until you get a new reviewer. I am hoping some people with some GA experience could contribute to the discussion. the following are among the most active GAN editors: Eric Corbett, Geometry guy, Hahc21, Wizardman, EyeSerene, FunkMonk, BlueMoonset, WhatamIdoing, Gary, ChrisGualtieri, Gen. Quon, Rodw, Miyagawa, Figureskatingfan, SilkTork, Sasata, Cwmhiraeth, Hurricanehink, 12george1, Tomobe03, Sven Manguard, The Rambling Man, Dom497, Anotherclown, Sturmvogel 66. Since you have chosen not to pursue a WP:GAR, all your support is from inexperienced editors. I am hoping that experienced editors will chime in about crying until you get a new reviewer.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 13:24, 30 August 2014 (UTC)
That is called canvassing, a big no no. I do not understand why you would bother dozens of your select editors, just to prove a point. Just give it up, and let your life go on. Your constant pushing of this and uncivilness is making me believe more, and more that you are not going to be a neutral reviewer of the article. Multiple editors have supported it receiving a new reviewer and I do not know what your problem is with that happening. Every person that has commented here, or at the WP:AN thread has said that your reasons for a quick fail were not valid per the GA criteria. Including @Mark Miller:, and the aforementioned editors you deem to label "inexperienced". Articles are renominated after failing all the time and the article has been changed since then. Even some of your 'concerns' were addressed. STATic message me! 14:15, 30 August 2014 (UTC)
Read CANVASS. It says "it is perfectly acceptable to notify other editors of ongoing discussions, provided that it is done with the intent to improve the quality of the discussion". So far you have two extremely inexperienced GAN participants as your primary supporters. They are both suggesting that we do something that is not normally done. I am not trying to prove a point, I am trying to bring the voice of reason (people with experience) to the issue. Black Kite and Taketa combine for about 5 GAN reviews from what I can tell and they are your primary backers for getting a new review. 23W said wiping out the old review was wrong and Mark Miller suggested resuming the review.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 14:39, 30 August 2014 (UTC)
Quick reply: It's okay to re-list, even for silly problems. A good reviewer will look at the old review; a lax review can be handled through GAR later if necessary. On the merits, if sources do not exist for material that a reader would reasonably expect to find in an encyclopedia article (e.g., that there are multiple versions and why), then the subject simply cannot reach GA status yet. Not every subject is capable of meeting the criteria. "I wrote everything I could find" is not the same as "it addresses the main aspects of the topic". Nominations for modern songs are chronically troubled by this requirement. WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:51, 30 August 2014 (UTC)
@WhatamIdoing: I am glad you agree another person should be allowed to review. The thing is, there are not multiple versions. There is a clean version that is played on radio just like every other song played on the radio. Why would this need to be covered in the article? There is nothing about that in WP:SONG. If there were remixes that would obviously need to be covered. Does the article really need to say, there is a clean version of the song that replaces that word "nigga" with "hitta"? It is trivial, it is not a Good Article criteria and it is not an expectation per WP:SONG. STATic message me! 15:00, 30 August 2014 (UTC)
One "clean version" plus one "not-clean version" equals more than one. That means that there actually are "multiple versions" of the song, despite your denial here.
I don't care what WP:SONG says. WikiProject Song is not mentioned in the WP:GACR. I only care what's written in the good article criteria. It happens that providing a (reasonably) complete description of the subject actually is a good article criteria. Reasonable people may disagree about whether this particular bowdlerization is is part of a complete description. I think it is; Tony thinks it is; you think it's not. That's okay: we don't have to agree. Tony is fully justified in failing the article over this omission, because it is the reviewer's job to fail an article if the reviewer (not the nominator, other editors at the article, and/or various bystanders) believes it to be missing significant information. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:28, 31 August 2014 (UTC)
I happen to agree with Tony. I have opposed FAC's for the same reason that he failed the article, in that I thought it wasn't comprehensive enough. It is his prerogative to fail it if he legitimately believes it shouldn't be a GA. However, if the person who wrote the article thought it was in question, they could have asked for a second review or simply to GAN it again. --♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 16:13, 30 August 2014 (UTC)
There is an existing parameter for requesting second opinions during reviews. I don't see why the review would have to be started over for this. FunkMonk (talk) 18:12, 30 August 2014 (UTC)
I am not going to agree or disagree with the parties over the content. I will say that the review was quick declined and should not have been. Even if you did a short review allowing a few changes to see how well the nominator complied, it should have been given a chance as there were no real quick fail criteria fulfilled. However, since the nominating editor is requesting a knew reviewer, that is a different animal. Let me check something.--Mark Miller (talk) 18:47, 30 August 2014 (UTC)
Tony is a respected GA reviewer and nominator. He can be frustrating, but he should not be forced to give a review to an article he does not feel inclined to review, nor should the nominator be forced to work with an editor they feel has been unfair. The thread here was started by Tony, not Static and was about review shopping because Static reported the review and QF at AN. To Tony this looked like the nominator was shopping for a reviewer. Unfortunately I see no consensus here that supports that. Some agree that Tony should continue and others that he should step back. This is not a matter for consensus. This is up to the two editors. If Tony decides to continue the review in good faith, that is his option and can really only be removed if he is blatantly disregarding policy or being uncivil. But we have other factors here including what Tony, himself says above: "I do not think the song should be renominated without any problems raised.". OK, but Tony did raise the problems. The statement only says renominated before problems raised so...technically, Tony himself adds to a consensus that, as long as the concerns are "raised" before the next nomination. These issues have now been pointed out or raised for discussion. This seems to indicate that Tony feels (even without the tongue in check push over the technical wording) that the article should be renominated not so much that he wants to do it. Per the FAQ for GA:

The editors at the article disagree with the reviewer. Can we request that another reviewer take over?
If your GAN experience has not been good or if you disagree with the reviewer's decisions, then you can renominate the article (for a different reviewer) or request a community reassessment. You might also like to read What the Good article criteria are not.

Static is asking for another reviewer. To do so they simply need to renominate the page and another editor can then pick it up. I see no reasoning to object to the article being renominated. There are no limits to how soon an article can be renominated and the FAQ states this to be an option for this very purpose. If the reviewer is willing to re-open and return to reviewing and the nominator is willing, that is the still, best option. Static, show assumption of good faith and let Tony help you imrove the article, or just renominate it for a second/different reviewer.--Mark Miller (talk) 19:29, 30 August 2014 (UTC)
@Mark Miller: Actually, Tony started the AN thread, I still do not even know what he meant by review shopping. So the FAQ says it all, the GAN experience was not been good and I certainly disagreed with the reviewer's decisions, so it is proper for the article to be renominated for a different reviewer. So case closed. After the constant uncivilness and improper GAN, I would like a new reviewer and it has already been renominated. That is what started this thread, Tony got mad that I renominated it. STATic message me! 21:32, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

Nominator reviewing his/her own nominations

It appears that Historian7 has several open nominations in which he/she is reviewing his/her own submission regarding Ancient Rome. I am not sure if he/she has already passed some articles. Although the apparent review counts suggest that these are his/her first such submission, I want someone to look into this.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 16:49, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Tony, I think this is someone unclear on the process. I've posted a note to Historian7's talk page, and will be marking the four review pages for deletion, as a nominator is not allowed to create these pages by DYK rules. BlueMoonset (talk) 17:36, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

PapaJeckloy's problematic reviews

Today, PapaJeckloy closed two reviews: Talk:Siouxsie Sioux/GA1 and Talk:Adderall/GA1. Both are highly problematic.

First, PapaJeckloy has problems with English prose. His DYK nomination of Brod Pete ran into issues because of this, and after his claiming to have fixed all issues in half a dozen copyedits, the prose was still pretty bad (see Template:Did you know nominations/Brod Pete). GOCE was called in to improve the prose.

Second, he is involved in an ongoing sockpuppet investigation that I started yesterday after someone complained to my talk page: the checkuser has said There is more that meets the eye to this case and requires careful analysis I can't provide right now, which is worrying.

Siouxsie Sioux was the oldest nomination when PapaJeckloy took it for review, and I have put it back in the queue with its original submission date, so it doesn't suffer another half-year wait.

The review for Adderall, an extremely complex scientific article, was opened at 13:34 today with the note "Will review this one later", and was passed at 13:42, eight minutes later. It is not possible to read the article in that time (two minutes of which were spent cleaning up the review formatting), much less review it. My considered opinion is that the review should be completely reversed and the nomination put back in the queue; I'm not sure how to do that once the review has been completed, unless it involves deleting the review page and reverting all related edits, including the bot's on the article's talk page.

Under the circumstances, I think PapaJeckloy should be blocked from reviewing GANs for the present, as he is being disruptive to the process here. Perhaps a mentorship might be in order, assuming he comes through the sock investigation unscathed. Thoughts for going forward? BlueMoonset (talk) 20:19, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't think blocking is necessary; he's never going to learn and will never want to contribute further if that happens. Rather, he should be given examples of what to look out for and a request to spend more time on his reviews as GAN is a serious process. I myself failed an article way back in 2008 mainly for being too short, which I feel bad about in retrospect as it was probably fine; I just didn't understand the criteria. (I am now, and have been for years, a competent GAN reviewer.) Tezero (talk) 20:26, 31 August 2014 (UTC)
The SPI checkuser has reported back and said the accounts were "Likely" sockpuppets, though not "Confirmed". If not a block, Tezero, then given his actions on those two GAN closures I'd want him to have a mentor who would, at least for the next several, have to agree to the final disposition of a review. But, frankly, his English skills aren't up to the task of determining "well written", and I don't see that changing: if you don't have adequate skills in the language, how can you ever determine with any accuracy whether any article qualifies as a GA? BlueMoonset (talk) 04:29, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
Surely there's another way, though, BlueMoonset; "we don't want you around" isn't a good message to send. I would support adding a mentor/confirmer, at least for prose clarity. If the accounts are indeed socks, have they been used abusively? Tezero (talk) 04:36, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
The connections would not be disclosed if they were not used abusively. --Rschen7754 04:39, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
Tezero, the socks each approved one of PapaJeckloy's DYK nominations: in other words, it's likely he approved his own nominations twice, using undisclosed alternate accounts. That's certainly abuse of the DYK process. BlueMoonset (talk) 04:59, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
Oh. Yes, it is, and this is why I recently changed my mind on not thinking deceptive sockpuppetry is harmful. I don't think that necessarily affects the GAN process, as there appears to be no evidence of such activity yet, but I do think he should be temp-banned from DYK and given a stern talking-to if he hasn't already. Tezero (talk) 06:22, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
  • (edit conflict) Wizardman, have you actually read the article? Just taking a quick look, the first sentence in the "1976 Crispa Redmanizers" is confusing and grammatically unsound; I found a number of additional prose problems just in that one paragraph. I think PapaJeckloy has demonstrated his lack of competence as a GA reviewer (18 minutes from open to write-up with nothing found: no misspellings, no grammar issues, nada), and if allowed to continue without some kind of oversight will indeed do harm to GAN. I'm posting to the new review to point out some issues, but absent consensus here about oversight, he's free to ignore me since he opened the review. BlueMoonset (talk) 15:45, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
  • Precisely what I'm saying; if he doesn't get much better at reviewing quickly I'm just going to start deleting them as they pop up. The fact that he deleted the concerns on the talk page without responding speaks volumes. Wizardman 15:54, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
  • Thanks, Wizardman. I'll leave it to you, then. You might want to start with the Adderall listing; I did put Siouxsie Sue back in the nominations with its original submission date intact, and am strongly thinking of removing the FailedGA template from that article's talk page, unless you think that's a bad idea. BTW, do you do email from here? (I don't.) If so, a note to Dvandersluis on StatisticianBot's weeks-long hiatus would be welcome; we haven't had a GAN report since August 15. BlueMoonset (talk) 16:09, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
  • I undid the Adderall one, but now I'm being reverted. I don't have the patience to tackle multiple people on the same front. This is why there's a difference between assuming good faith and assuming blind faith; if we do the latter then we'd have hundreds of crap reviews passing. Wizardman 17:11, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
@Wizardman: It'd help if you {{ping}} nominators or leave an edit summary when you do this so that they (or in this case, I) don't have to search for an explanation. I'm not going to re-revert you, but as I've said earlier, reverting the article isn't really the correct way to go about this issue. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢ | Maintained) 17:19, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
FWIW, I agree there's an issue with the review. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢ | Maintained) 17:21, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
As one of the main contributors of the Grand Slam (PBA) article, I'm in favor of deleting the GA review created by PapaJeckloy. He made several questionable DYK reviews (even rejecting this one just because of a simple technicality) before he reviewed the Grand Slam article. -WayKurat (talk) 17:28, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
That article was nominated nine days after being created, not the required seven (actually, I thought it was five). Extending the requirement is generous, but I didn't know it was required. Why not just make nine days official, then? Tezero (talk) 17:33, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
Tezero, consensus at DYK was to move from five to seven days as the "new" period a few months ago. We tend to give a bit of leniency to people who are nominating their own articles for the first time if they're a few days late, as was the case here. I've posted as such to the nomination. BlueMoonset (talk) 19:07, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
I think it'd be fine to revert and delete the review; my concern with reverting and leaving the review as an existing page without going through GAR is that it results in a nonsensical article history. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢ | Maintained) 17:37, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Interested parties please participate in ANI discussion re proposed ban. HelenOnline 15:52, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Already closed; PapaJeckloy has been indefinitely blocked. (A third sockpuppet was identified, and this one was Confirmed by CheckUser.) BlueMoonset (talk) 20:10, 2 September 2014 (UTC)
This reminds me: PapaJeckloy had a GAN for Death and funeral of Corazon Aquino. As it was an article he had made no edits to and won't be able to respond to should someone select it for reviewing, I've removed the nomination. (I had spotted a second GAN a couple of days ago, but it appears to be gone already.) BlueMoonset (talk) 20:44, 2 September 2014‎ (UTC)

Removing unsourced, but useful information

I'm currently reviewing least weasel, but a problem has come up, which is that information about various subspecies had been added before the nominator started working on the article. This information seems valid enough, but it was added without citations (push "show" here[16] to see), and the nominator cannot find sources for some of it. My thought is that it would then have to be removed, even though it is useful, but is there any other opinion on this? FunkMonk (talk) 11:10, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

I think it's fine. Not everything has to be cited, especially not for a GAN. According to a few policies and pages, only information that's challenged needs a reference. Though if you don't think the GAN should pass with the information there, you could comment-out the text (see Help:Hidden text) or move it to the article's talk page with a message that it's uncited.--ɱ (talk) 11:36, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Help with GA template after article move

I moved Evolution of Worcestershire county boundaries to Evolution of Worcestershire county boundaries since 1844 after promoting it. The GA template on the talk page links to a filename for the GA review using the new page name. There's a "page=" parameter, which I've added, but for some reason the review link on the talk page is still pointing at the moved file name, not the original GA review name. Can someone show me how to fix this? Thanks. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:10, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

The easiest thing to do, I think, is to move the review subpage to match the new article name, which I have done. Does this fix everything as far as you're concerned? BencherliteTalk 12:16, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
Yes, that's fine; I could see that would fix it but wasn't sure it was the right answer, since the GA wasn't held under that title. Thanks for the fix. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:33, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Review request for Off the Air (TV series)

I know this is probably inappropriate to ask here, but could someone initiate the GA review for Off the Air (TV series)? I'm looking for it to be eligible to run for DYK along with an article of its creator, Dave Hughes (which I have stored as a userspace draft) and an expansion of a list of its episodes (which I have in my sandbox). I believe I've hit most or all of the criteria points. 23W (stalk) 23:26, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Since I just nominated an article myself, I'll take this review; however, please be patient as my time will be limited over the next few days. I'm hopeful that I can get this done sometime over the upcoming weekend. Also, in case you yourself are interested in reviewing something, I personally have 5 articles waiting for a review, but please don't feel obligated to review one of them if you have no desire to do so. Thanks, --Bentvfan54321 (talk) 23:59, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
Thank you! Could you point me to some of the articles you've nominated which you want reviewed the soonest? I have two nominations on review, which should get reviewed over the fortnight; I can probably take one more. 23W (stalk) 00:08, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
Well, Michael Larson has been waiting the longest, and The Chase (U.S. game show) just wrapped up its season (as did The American Bible Challenge), so those are probably the three best. Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (U.S. game show) is longer, and will likely require updates after the new season premieres on Monday. My final nomination, if you're looking for something different, is 2010 Kobalt Tools 500 (Atlanta). Any one of those getting a review would be much appreciated. I have to go now as my Fantasy Football draft starts in 10 minutes, so I won't be around to reply for a while. Thanks, --Bentvfan54321 (talk) 00:22, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
Good luck! (A bit too late...) 23W (stalk) 00:37, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

User:The ed17/Good articles by prose size

User:The ed17/Good articles by prose size has been updated and the shortest articles again point us toward faulty GA articles, some that don't even have talk pages. We still need some check in place for new GAs that never had a review. In the main time, can people check through the short articles on this list and clean up the faulty GAs.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 04:49, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

As with FAs, it is possible to use Catscan to find articles in the Good articles category that do not appear on the GA/all list; it is somewhat more complicated to find articles on that list that do not have associated reviews. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:49, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
Nikkimaria, How do I use this tool? What is the GA/all list?--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 04:03, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
WP:GA/ALL. I was going to suggest running this query, but on looking closer that appears to return a number of false results. Does anyone know if the GA/all list is known to be incomplete in some way? Nikkimaria (talk) 04:14, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Disruption of nomination?

User Samsara has inserted a weird disclaimer[17] after one of my nominations, due to a talk page discussion which has little to do with present GA criteria.[18] Is this acceptable? FunkMonk (talk) 16:22, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Legobot removed it, so I guess it violated some techicality. FunkMonk (talk) 22:32, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
It didn't belong there in the first place, Legobot or not. If the article is unstable at the time the nomination is picked up for review, then the reviewer will naturally note that and either hold to see if it becomes stable, or fail it. The odds are it will be quite a while before the nomination does get reviewed anyway, and whatever the issue is it will have long since been settled. BlueMoonset (talk) 01:04, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

The report

The report has not updated since August 15.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 16:04, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

TonyTheTiger, there are instructions on the User talk:StatisticianBot page on how to get in touch with the bot operator (email is apparently best) if you'd like an updated report. BlueMoonset (talk) 22:22, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
The fact that the bot owner hasn't edited in a year concerns me. We can try e-mailing him but who knows if he'll respond. Wizardman 22:38, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
He last edited at the end of November 2013, starting about four days after someone emailed him about StatisticianBot problems, and he fixed it then. The time he edited before that was about as long as between November and now. Dvandersluis has responded to emails, but only when someone sends one. Wizardman, would you like to try? BlueMoonset (talk) 00:53, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
I just tossed him one, but if he needs to be buttered up, I didn't do that. P. S. is there any indication on what is causing the bot to stop running? It would be good to know what kinds of things to try to avoid doing.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 06:23, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
The report is back. My suspicion is that something happened to terminate the job on the server—that sort of thing happens to the various DYK-related bots on occasion—and it needed to be restarted. I don't think it's anything we did; if it was, I imagine he would have said something. BlueMoonset (talk) 18:12, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Talk:David Hume/GA2 appears abandoned by reviewer

The reviewer of this GAN opened it on August 6, and hasn't edited since two hours after he finished in the early hours of August 7. The nominator responded later that day, editing the article based on the review, and has heard nothing since. I was wondering whether anyone wanted to take over the review, which has now been waiting for five weeks. Many thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 23:47, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Review begun by mistake

It appears this[19] review was begun by mistake. Could it be reset? FunkMonk (talk) 10:30, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Done. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 10:33, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

I know that copyright checking now occurs on some WP:MED articles. It would be, i think, extremely useful if current candidates for GA were also checked. There are not too many GA and they a select group of articles we advertise as "good", so I think it's important they are checked. An automated mechanism as used in WP:MED would be very handy. What would be the opinions of other users on this? Ping to Jmh649 who may have more details on this. --Tom (LT) (talk) 06:04, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

This is not how the copy and paste tool works. It only checks NEW edits within a couple of hours after they are made. Wikipedia is mirrored so quickly that checking letter is not very useful. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 12:41, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Resetting a review

So I went to try and review a road article the other day that has sat on the list for 6 months, but it turns out the nominator is hard and fast on the idea that inside reviews from fellow road article editors are cheating or inadequate or whatever. Anyways, I'm trying to reset the nom back. Admins are being robotic and won't let me just delete the bloody page to reset the nomination but keep its position in the queue. Can somebody with a pair of scissors please cut the red tape? I'm fairly certain that just deleting the GA1 page will solve the problem... or do we need to preserve that enriched content for future generations? - Floydian τ ¢ 12:33, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Zapped. BencherliteTalk 13:31, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
Awesome, thank you very much :) - Floydian τ ¢ 13:39, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Common mistakes with GAN reviews

Most cases, i see people adding their own personal criteria outside the GA criteria for reviewing GAN. This is often lead to some reviewers having different examples of GA, or possibly too many therefore different expectations. We should make a page for common misconceptions that reviewers often tend to focus on when it comes to reviewing an article for GA and maybe even FA too.

This often happens when editors rely too much on other GAs and FAs for example and find a certain group of GAs/FAs and believe it applies to all. For example, I've seen editors fail GANs over minuscule things. and i believe we should make a page or a section dedicated to common misconceptions in GA reviews so that GA reviews run more smoothly. Lucia Black (talk) 20:01, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

I assume this is about plot citations, Lucia Black? Either way, I agree with this proposal. Tezero (talk) 20:33, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
Not just that, but other misconceptions that people tend to make. Structure or other. Things like "this section should be named something ese because i saw it like that in another GA article" and other stuff. basically WP:OTHERSTUFFEXIST. Lucia Black (talk) 21:10, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
I advise Lucia Black to engage in some GAN processes as reviewer before starting that page of misconceptions. Because Tezero has experience, I ask this editor to help Lucia Black review the Klein Bikes article like I suggested, or another article that she could be interested in. 84.127.80.114 (talk) 23:25, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
84.127.80.114, where and in what context did you suggest this? I can help if you and she want, but it sounds like she's on the right track; she's certainly gotten GAs promoted herself, just like I have. Regardless, the page of misconceptions won't necessarily be accepted except as a user essay that isn't linked from the main GAN page - approval from the GAN coordinators would be needed. Tezero (talk) 01:03, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
Background: [20], [21]. I am afraid the last reference is because of a recent revert. Further discussions will not help Lucia Black; she needs to pick an article, any article, and resume editing work. 84.127.80.114 (talk) 02:26, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
I've seen GAs fail quite easily because of bad reviewers or reviewers who only go by examples and not whether the articles meet the criteria. Unfortunately, there's no "reviewing the reviewer" or a way to make sure reviewers keep the standard appropriate. I'm pretty sure a "Misconceptions" page can be made as a guideline alongside the criteria. Its not that hard.
ALSO, i'm not going to review outside any random article that i have no prior knowledge to or familiar with the topic. You can't just say i can review any article...i'm most familiar with a very specific topic. Stop forcing what you want, and thinking its going to be a changing point for me just because you say it is.
Regardless, i'm trying to focused on that some reviewers don't know anything about reviewing and do it anyways. I will only be talking about a possible section under the GA criteria. Lucia Black (talk) 06:06, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
That is a mistake. Do not focus on the reviewers, focus on the reviews. Also, we may wish to revisit some of the wording in the GA criteria...not to change the criteria, but to be more clear.--Mark Miller (talk) 06:11, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Which is why a section about common misconceptions of GA would be beneficial, so we don't have to worry about too many reviews. and i do believe there are things that can't be clarified without having a section of it own. Since there is a FAQ. Lucia Black (talk) 07:51, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

I haven't checked on the article at hand, but I do agree reviews are often very subjective. GA reviewing doesn't mean that one can prescriptively determine the format of the article; on the other hand, by putting an article up for review one is asking for someone else's opinion about the GA criteria, which may differ from your own. You may be interested to read this essay: What the good criteria are not. --Tom (LT) (talk) 06:03, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure the issues mentioned here are even "common". And before we can make a list, we need some actual common mistakes to add. Few have been provided. FunkMonk (talk) 13:01, 20 September 2014 (UTC)
@LT910001:The fact that there's a criteria means that they shouldn't be so subjective. By putting it up for nomination, we are asking it to be evaluated in general in hopes of it getting passed. Which things become an issue when they start to impose their own personal views just because they saw it from another GA article. And that shows how broken the GAN system really is. I'm glad you pointed out WP:GACN, because we can definitely find a way to work some of the information in with the current GA. I've definitely seen a lot of reviews that often ask for citation in plot even though that is one of the things that is stated not needed. And yet, i'm seeing these editors ask for it only because they see certain groups of GA articles having them.
@FunkMonk: As LT910001 pointed out WP:GACN shows something. Another habbit i'm starting to see is asking for more images but not knowing what they want. Lucia Black (talk) 16:30, 20 September 2014 (UTC)
I think expecting the GA criteria to expunge subjectivity is a category error. There are six basic criteria, only two of which (5 and 6) are able to be assessed without anything approaching what someone would call "subjectivity". The remainder are all really just judgment calls. What's the objective measure of an article's neutrality? How would we objectively measure whether or not an article is well written? We hope that GA reviewers will approach an article with a rough sense of what a "good article" is for a subject area, but even that is a wildly subjective measure. It's often not just subjective in its own right but dependent upon the subject, the available sources and (often) the nominator. Getting that sense of what a "good article" often comes from writing articles, noting characteristics of other good articles or other habits from school/work. Almost all of these will be "personal views" in the strictest sense. There are specific cases where certain expectations may be wrong (requiring inline citations for individual sentences or requiring images for all articles) but by and large any review (even a very good one) will be a judgment call. Protonk (talk) 16:31, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Talk:Yelp/GA1

user:Erachima picked up the review more than a month ago on August 15 and has not made an edit to the review page since. user:BlueMoonset noted here that the editor seems to have gone inactive. I'm sure the editor just got busy in real life. Wondering if someone else is interested in finishing the review? CorporateM (Talk) 15:28, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

  • Is there a reason why the review is transcluded twice on that talk page? Also I'd be willing to review it (and can probably work on it quickly) if I can basically just start a second review (not an actual new page, just more than a second opinion on the current review). Protonk (talk) 16:17, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
Your review would be much appreciated Protonk. I'll wait until you get around to it. I fixed the double transclusion. This article has been a bit messy, so I think a GA review will (and already has) gone a long ways in polishing it off. I'm hoping we'll get it translated for the German Wiki as well once GA reviewed. I should have noted here that I have a COI as disclosed on Talk and in the nomination. CorporateM (Talk) 16:32, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
Ok. I have some actual work to do today but I'll try and get to it tonight or tomorrow). If between now and then anyone else wants to jump in with a second opinion that's fine by me. Protonk (talk) 16:36, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
Note for watchers of this page: I've started the review, comments are welcome (of course). Protonk (talk) 13:40, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Proposal: Highlight vital article nominations at the top of the page

We want to encourage development of Wikipedia's most important articles. I think highlighting VAs would be a good incentive. Maybe there could be a box underneath the box of long-standing nominations with a list of current VA nominations. —Designate (talk) 04:02, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Eh, I think this could encourage editors to mark their somewhat niche topics as "vital", which lasts after GAN, to get a quicker review. Tezero (talk) 04:24, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
I think the vital articles get picked over and reviewed more quickly already. In any topic, the reviewers of that topic know the important subjects and tend to review them more quickly.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 04:31, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
That's true. One article I nominated on a major language of Earth was picked up in two or three days even though it was preceded in the "Language and literature" list by dozens of manga series, books, etc. going back months. I felt bad about it; I'd prefer a first-come-first-served system if at all possible. Tezero (talk) 06:14, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
Since the mechanism for "vital articles" (something that's new to me) caps the list at 1000, the threat of gaming is somewhat limited. I don't think we should list them on the page but it might be worth road testing a notice added under the review bullet "e.g. XYZ is considered a vital article in the <whatever vital article category>" Protonk (talk) 13:44, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
I guess the quota applies to level 3 and above, so I'd recommend limiting it to that. There's nominally a cap for the level 4 articles but at 10,000 it's both more susceptible to gaming and less clear that we should be directing reviewers to those articles over others. Protonk (talk) 13:51, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
I think reviews of vital articles would more ideally be limited to experienced reviewers, but I do agree that highlighting them may be a good idea. Perhaps pages with a high number of wikilinks and/or high page views could also be highlighted to offset the problems with the vital article lists. J Milburn (talk) 14:23, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
It's hard, if not impossible to specify the quality of reviews at GAN, unfortunately. I'd hope (no idea if this will be the case) that a "vital" article would attract attention from reviewers who feel we should have good articles on those topics and reviewers who feel such articles should be subjected to some tough (but within the bounds of reason) scrutiny due to their importance. I'm pretty indifferent to the notion of listing things by page views, mostly because that's a really good way to add a template to all of our articles on movies, music and sports. Likewise with inbound wikilinks (also doing that right involves basically recapitulating PageRank for wikipedia articles). In both cases we also have the problem of adding noise rather than signal. Protonk (talk) 14:31, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
I'm not sure that pop culture articles do have higher page views, and they certainly don't have more interwiki links (though I don't know about internal links). And, to reiterate, the vital lists are pretty piss-poor in places, so the fact that interwikis and pageviews are also imperfect shouldn't mean we should necessarily rule them out. In terms of specifying review quality, just a note in the "look at these important nominations" box recommending that experienced reviewers take on those articles would be sufficient, I'd have thought. J Milburn (talk) 15:55, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
I kind of like the idea of a capped list of "vital articles", though any capped list will run into endless bikeshedding over marginal changes or fury at certain things being in or out. I don't know if I can endorse the current list, but I think the concept is neat. I'm also not saying that VAs are any less imperfect than the measures you're suggesting but I suspect they're less likely to introduce a lot of noise to the page for a few reasons: 1. they're capped, so we won't have many nominations at a given time that say "HEY LISTEN!" 2. they're a list that can be worked through. When we promote a vital article it's not going to be replaced by another vital article. Eventually all of the vital articles should at least be GAs. By contrast, measures of importance which are determined by linking/views/whatever are ongoing and don't really represent a task list of things to do. There could be dozens of "important" GANs on the page and once you promote one there's likely to be another. Protonk (talk) 16:30, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
I agree that if we're looking for a list of articles to work through, the vital list (or, more precisely, a list something like the vital list) is the best bet. I just wonder if the vital list alone (especially given the fact that we would be talking about the actual vital list, rather than a given hypothetical vital list) is the best way to draw attention to the more important GA nominations. J Milburn (talk) 16:35, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

I don't think we're ever going to get a list of the most important GANs. Further, I'm not sure that's a great goal for the project. I see GAs as an ok way to identify "pretty good" content and a good way to direct valuable feedback to editors writing exactly the kinds of articles we want to see (clear, roughly comprehensive summaries of topics with good sourcing). Highlighting "important" articles might be somewhat valuable, but I don't think we should stress too much about finding a solution that does it completely. Using a list like VAs to add notes alongside nominations might help us review important articles but it also directs us to (regardless of the quality of the list as a whole) editors who are working on tough subjects which usually require a lot of work and see much more discussion than articles on narrow subjects. Even then I can only really see the value in a marker in the list (so you'd never notice it unless you were scrolling down) versus a banner on top. Protonk (talk) 16:57, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

"I don't think we're ever going to get a list of the most important GANs. Further, I'm not sure that's a great goal for the project." Wasn't that the proposal at the start of this thread? If you're opposed to the idea, perhaps that's why we've been talking across each other for the last several posts. My point is that precisely the benefits you're now talking about (helping us review important articles, directing us to editors working on tough topics) would also be achieved using other metrics of importance, such as the ones I've suggested. J Milburn (talk) 09:20, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
I can certainly think that putting a note for VAs is a good idea without thinking that it's going to point people to the "most important GANs". Protonk (talk) 14:58, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
Colour me confused. What's the purpose of the list if not to point people to more important GANs? J Milburn (talk) 19:16, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
Marilyn Monroe is a vital article, whereas colony collapse disorder is important. Does that distinction make sense? —Designate (talk) 21:35, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
No need to be a jerk about it; vital and important are pretty close synonyms in the English language. Am I taking the implication correctly that vital articles are simply ones that people look up often, while important articles are ones that contain information it is deemed necessary for the public to know? Tezero (talk) 21:46, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
Vital articles are articles on one of the various vital article lists. Designate, I was assuming that people wanted vital articles highlighted so that we could see nominations of important articles more easily. This seemed sensible to me, so I proposed other ways we might spot more important articles- specifically, page views and interwiki links. Both have their problems, but so, as you so kindly and elegantly pointed out, does the vital list. J Milburn (talk) 22:26, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
Sorry, I wasn't trying to be belligerent or snarky. It's absolutely a weird gray area. I guess it's like Wikipedia's "notability" vs. the colloquial definition of "notability". Or cable TV ratings vs. academic subscriptions. Academic publications aren't perfect or devoid of fickle public pressure, but they represent our mission better than cable TV does. Designate (talk) 23:34, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Shakespeare's sonnets nominations

Students in my class are submitting nine Shakespeare sonnets articles for GA status this week. They are all pretty similar in format and not too long. If volunteers would be willing to tackle these for review sooner rather than later, that would be great. We would love to see these reviewed, at the very least, before our semester ends and we go our separate ways. Westhaddon (talk) 19:30, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Talk:My Lord John/GA1

The reviewer of my article My Lord John had to drop out due to time constraints, and never began it. He requested a speedy deletion of the review page, which is perfectly fine (life happens to us all). But due to some talk page activity, now the article is no longer listed at WP:GAN. Could someone help restore the article in its proper place in the queue? I am unsure how to proceed. Thanks! Ruby 2010/2013 02:29, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

@Ruby2010: Hey Ruby, I wouldn't mind reviewing your article if that's ok with you? Best, jonatalk to me 02:32, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
By all means, if you're willing! :) Should I just nominate it again like normal so you can review it? Ruby 2010/2013 02:33, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
I'll start reviewing the article tomorrow (I'm free tomorrow and the rest of the weekend). Best, jonatalk to me 02:39, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
Perfect, thanks! No hurry. Ruby 2010/2013 02:43, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

James Balfour (died 1845)

I just noticed Jonas Vinther failed this article here, which I think was rather draconian, and partially over issues not directly part of the GA criteria (eg: MOS:DATEFORMAT). However, the nominator, BrownHairedGirl, who I thought was quite active, appears to have retired. Can anyone else help fix up the article? Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 17:31, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

What does draconian mean? Jonas Vinther (speak to me!) 18:35, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
I have responded at the review page. If you wish to join the discussion I suggest you do it there. Jonas Vinther (speak to me!) 18:55, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Stability concerns with Gary Cooper article

I'd like to review the Gary Cooper article but I've got some concerns with stability before we move forwards.

I noted this at the nominator's talk page for Jonas Vinther.

Hopefully if the parties involved can come to some sort of compromise, could the GA nomination continue with review, or does it need to have been stable within a period of time beforehand, regardless of calmness/compromise indicated on the article's talk page ??

— Cirt (talk) 18:43, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Unfortunately, due to ongoing disagreements and impending new changes to the article to that effect due to conflict between Jonas Vinther and Bede735, I've asked the nominator to remove his nomination. — Cirt (talk) 03:41, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
I've closed the nomination as not GA at this time, unfortunately, due to stability issues and ongoing conflicts between multiple editors. I left comments and diffs at Talk:Gary Cooper/GA1. — Cirt (talk) 15:03, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Remove GA nomination?

A user who goes by the name Jonas Vinther removed the GA nomination template from Russo-Georgian War, which has been in the queue for ages. He said that he did this because there were 15 "dead links". As far as I can tell, having dead links is not grounds for removing the nomination template. Dead links can be remedied in many ways, whether through proper citations or web archives. My understanding is that this process is meant to help improve and showcase articles, not to obfuscate those users who want to improve them. I understand the backlog here, however, having someone who wants to improve article wait for months, only to have the nomination be removed because of "dead links" is utterly absurd. RGloucester — ☎ 22:42, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Having looked at the dead links in question, they are not even truly "dead", as links to web archives have been provided for nearly all of them. RGloucester — ☎ 22:48, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
A user who goes by the name RGloucester is trying way to hard to prove a point of matter that is already settled solely in an attempt to humiliate me and have me thrown out of the cup. Jonas Vinther (speak to me!) 22:50, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
I beg your pardon? Do you live in a goblet? How was the matter "settled"? I reverted your removal of the nomination template, and hence I came here to see if I was right in doing so. I do not know anything about "cups". RGloucester — ☎ 22:53, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
Alright, I will reformulate myself. Firstly, you obviously have some personal grudge against me, otherwise you would not have gone with the whole "A user who goes by the name Jonas Vinther" thing. Secondly, the GA-criteria has a list of errors that articles must include in order for it to be a "quick fail". Dead or broken links are not listed as one of them, which was my impression when I removed the template, so what is there to discuss? Jonas Vinther (speak to me!) 23:01, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
How can I have a grudge against you when I've never even interacted with you before? Thank you for explaining yourself. Please don't be so hasty again. RGloucester — ☎ 23:10, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
Noted. Jonas Vinther (speak to me!) 23:13, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Caligula (film)

The article Caligula (film) has been given a GA class. I'm sceptical of this, seeing as the person who did that, The lad searches the night for his newts (talk · contribs), had made just 18 edits at the time that they started (and passed) Talk:Caligula (film)/GA1, and has made only 25 edits in total. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:49, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

I thought that I had adhered to GA instructions. I'd like to review more GA nominations. --The lad searches the night for his newts (talk) 02:20, 10 October 2014 (UTC)
(moved from User talk:Redrose64#GAN)
Do I have to ask permission before I pass a nomination? I didn't know that I was supposed to do that. --The lad searches the night for his newts (talk) 02:51, 10 October 2014 (UTC)
My concern is mainly your lack of experience; the thing is, your entire review of Caligula was made less than 20 hours after you registered. The review is also extremely small; there are just fourteen words, and GA reviews are normally somewhat more substantial (for example, here's one that I recently participated in, and not as the GA reviewer). Did you read Wikipedia:Good article nominations/Instructions? It advises that you contact a GA mentor - there are two people there who explicitly state that they cover films, these are Jezhotwells (talk · contribs) and Sanguis Sanies (talk · contribs), so did you ask for their advice? I notice that you have now taken on five more: Black Sabbath (film); Cult film; Mandatory Fun; Hear My Train A Comin'; and Hoochie Coochie Man, which is a big commitment for somebody with so little experience in GA. --Redrose64 (talk) 08:46, 10 October 2014 (UTC)
Especially as some of these are hefty, complicated articles. J Milburn (talk) 09:01, 10 October 2014 (UTC)
I wouldn't even say the Hastings Line review is particularly large - try looking Talk:Sega Genesis/GA2. Immediately looking at the article, I can see a lot of citations in the lead (which may or may not be problematic per WP:LEADCITE), the second and third sentences could be merged for clarity, "The film's release was controversial" - according to whom? ... "had long been involved in film production" .. "had never produced a film on its own" - so what did they do with films? ... what makes colsesmithey.com and cinepasson.org reliable sources? .... I could go on, but there are certainly a substantial number of comments that ought to be made in a GA review. I have boldly reverted the pass and restarted the review with these comments and a few more. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 09:37, 10 October 2014 (UTC)
Then unless there's objection from this WikiProject, I'm going to boldly revert the other passes. I also recommend that we change the wording on the instructions to prevent this in the future. Chris Troutman (talk) 16:07, 10 October 2014 (UTC)
I don't see that he's passed any of his other reviews, but they all start with or contain something like, "I'd suggest adding citations to the lead, infobox and image captions", which is completely contrary to the good article criteria. There's very little else to most of them. To me, this demonstrates that The lad searches the night for his newts is not ready to be a GA reviewer, since he clearly doesn't understand the process or criteria. I'd recommend that all the other opened reviews be deleted/reverted, and that he be directed to obtain a mentor and only review one article at a time until the mentor is satisfied that he can handle two, etc. BlueMoonset (talk) 22:02, 10 October 2014 (UTC)
In his defense, one of the issues that he raised ("what does X-Rated mean?") was actually an improvement to cult film. Granted, I don't think he quite understands the good article criteria very well, but he's got enthusiasm if nothing else. If someone wants to close Talk:Cult film/GA1 early, that's alright with me, but I'm willing to give him a chance, especially if someone can mentor him. Also, I'd hate to wait another two months to get a potential review started. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 02:38, 11 October 2014 (UTC)
I think this was the one review where helpful comments were made, but he's still asking for inappropriate things, like the elimination of red links. As for waiting, the GA Cup has started, and the rate of reviews has picked up noticeably. As long as he has this (and the others) under review, it can't be picked up by someone who knows what they're doing. BlueMoonset (talk) 05:48, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
OK, I understand if I appear to be stupid, but can whoever tried to have my GA reviews deleted try adding to still-going nominations (without attacking me, of course) and move ahead civilly instead of being an obstructionist? The lad searches the night for his newts (talk) 07:55, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

I don't see how anything I've brought up is "inappropriate". There was no discussion made about my review, and someone rudely deleted my listing and added their own review as if I had never passed the article. If there's something I don't understand, total disregard for my work is NOT the way to go about addressing your concerns to me! I had legitimate reasons for passing the listing which I discussed in clear terms and if you disagree with them, open a GA review, don't remove my listing! The lad searches the night for his newts (talk) 07:50, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

OK, suggestion, if my review is contested, start a review to reclassify the article and see if it still holds up to the standards which I passed it for. If it doesn't, improve the article yourself or ask anyone interested to improve it, and if no one can bring it up to standards, delist it. Work through it civilly without making attacks or obstructionist editing tactics. Wikipedia:Good_article_reassessment is where you go - not deleting my edits/reverting my listings. The lad searches the night for his newts (talk) 08:02, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

@The lad searches the night for his newts: The problem is that you're judging articles by your own criteria. For example, you criticized the existence of redlinks in cult film. This is not a part of the good article criteria, but I did fix the issue, as I think a redirect was warranted. You also asked for citations in the lead, which is directly opposed by WP:LEADCITE. I think that you might want to look at Wikipedia:What the Good article criteria are not, which is quite helpful. It is admirable that you have sought to help out at a backlogged administrative area of Wikipedia so soon after you created your account, but this really does require a certain degree of experience and knowledge that you may be lacking. I don't think anyone has said that you can't be a GAN reviewer, but you should take a mentor first. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 15:19, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Shakespeare's sonnets articles

Students in my class have improved and submitted a number of articles on Shakespeare's sonnets for GA status. I realize that there is a backlog, but my hope is that Wikipedians will step up and help make such in-class projects devoted to improvement of the site feasible on a semester basis. If these sonnet articles could be reviewed sooner (i. e. before the end of the semester), that would be wonderful.

Here is a quick link to the nominations: Wikipedia:Good_article_nominations#Language_and_literature

Thanks, Westhaddon (talk) 20:23, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

  • One question, Westhaddon: who are they citing for the paraphrasing? Such work could introduce OR into the article. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 08:00, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
    • The idea was to treat it like a synopsis, which is usually not cited. One thing to know, as reviewers, is that the status of the review has very little weight on the overall grade. It is more of an extra-credit thing. As you review, call it like you see it. Don't worry that your review will affect someone's grade. Westhaddon (talk) 02:55, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

@Westhaddon: Is this among the courses listed on Special:Courses? Also when does the semester end for your students? What's a good timeframe to review these articles where the students will be available to respond within ~7 days? Thanks, Adam (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:20, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

  • I don't have it listed on that page, no. Our semester ends on December 10. Students worked in groups to create the articles, so schedules will vary. I'd say start reviewing when you can and each group will work it out as they choose. The unit in which we did this assignment is already over, so students will be responding to reviews on their own time, as they choose. Westhaddon (talk) 16:42, 14 October 2014 (UTC)
    • Ok. If you do this in the future I think the wikied foundation can provide some support for your students but I'll probably put on my other hat (Protonk) and review some of them (this two account thing is new for me, so bear with me). This sounds a bit mercenary but do you have a sense of which students are likely to respond to review comments? Adam (Wiki Ed) (talk) 19:45, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Bot error?

Looks like a repeat of this problem; Zanimum is getting his review count incremented repeatedly for the same review. I'm at work or I'd figure out who to ping and ping them; would someone else take a look? Thanks. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:51, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

The counting is done by Legobot (talk · contribs), which is operated by Legoktm (talk · contribs). The problem from February also produced this discussion. --Redrose64 (talk) 15:41, 13 October 2014 (UTC)
Looks like a badly formed parameter caused it; status "held" instead of "hold" in this case. I made an edit that I think fixed it, but the GA passed shortly afterwards so I'm not certain that that's what did it. I'll let Zanimum know in case he wants to reset his GA count. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 00:19, 14 October 2014 (UTC)
I've changed it to "less than 204". Darn, sorry about the typo. I presume it'll provide a correct count in a few weeks? -- Zanimum (talk) 21:03, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

GA nominator Blocked

Ga nominator for Heartbleed is blocked currently for 72 hours.

Don't know how that impacts the GA Review status?

— Cirt (talk) 23:38, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

...Wait for 72 more hours? Tezero (talk) 23:40, 14 October 2014 (UTC)
It certainly won't affect the nomination: it isn't under review now, and if someone does review it, the block will end in plenty of time for a reasonably prompt response. I'd normally be more concerned with the three GAN reviews that this user has undertaken, but two are awaiting a response, and a third won't be much affected by a three-day delay. BlueMoonset (talk) 17:39, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
Okay, agreed, wise comments above by all, thank you. — Cirt (talk) 03:22, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

How long to wait for a reviewer

I nominated Ebbor Gorge back in May. On 1 October User:Squeamish Ossifrage started the review at Talk:Ebbor Gorge/GA1 and made some valid comments, which I (hopefully) addressed on 4 October. I left a note on the editors talk page on 10 October asking if anything else was needed. Squeamish Ossifrage has not edited wp at all since 2 October. How long should I wait to see if there are any further comments or issues to be addressed?— Rod talk 19:48, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

If the current reviewer has not checked the article again after you have addressed his concerns, I wouldn't mind taking over the review (as long as both the reviewer and yourself are fine with this decision). Best, .jonatalk 18:34, 18 October 2014 (UTC)
Thanks but I don't know how to check the reviewer is OK with that as they have not edited for a couple of weeks.— Rod talk 20:26, 18 October 2014 (UTC)
Looking at Squeamish Ossifrage's past Wikipedia activity, there appear to multi-month breaks at a time. Prior to the recent activity in September through October 2, there was a burst in April, and then December 2013. It looks like the user signed up for the GA Cup, and started two reviews: Ebbor Gorge and Talk:Itcha Range/GA1. My suggestion would be to check with the people running the GA Cup, and ask at what point they would consider a nomination abandoned. It isn't fair to ask either nominator to wait, but if 16 days is too soon to despair, then whenever this month's deadline has passed for completed reviews should be the longest you could reasonably be expected to wait. If Squeamish Ossifrage is still gone at that point, this is very likely another months-long break, and no point I can see in waiting any longer. BlueMoonset (talk) 20:44, 18 October 2014 (UTC)
The first round of the GA cup finishes in a couple of weeks (29th Oct) so happy to wait until then if appropriate. Squeamish Ossifrage has a submissions page at: Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles/GA Cup/Submissions but doesn't appear on the list at Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles/GA Cup/Pools/Round 1.— Rod talk 20:56, 18 October 2014 (UTC)
If the reviewer does not continue the review of the article after the first round of the GA cup, I wouldn't mind jumping in and finishing it. Best, .jonatalk 16:49, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

May two GA nominators review each other's nominations?

Are we allowed to do this? In Featured picture candidates users frequently cross-vote on each other's nominations, both pro and con but not in a way where the nature of the vote reflects personal favor or disfavor. With DYKs my understanding is that this is allowed as well with the quid pro quo system, so users may cross-check each other's work. Is this allowed for GA reviews? Please see discussion at User talk:Dennis Bratland#GA review request. Thank you, --Pine✉ 08:26, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Last I checked, asking for a review is not canvassing, if you ask one person and phrase it neutrally. Although GA has rejected mandatory QPQ, neutrally reviewing someone's nomination after they review yours doesn't seem to have been rejected. Or did I miss the memo? — Crisco 1492 (talk) 08:42, 19 October 2014 (UTC)
It is allowed.--Dom497 (talk) 19:53, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

I'm nearly done with a review at Talk:Rick Ferrell/GA1 but was wondering if someone could spare five minutes to give an opinion on the copyright status of File:Rick Ferrell Browns.jpg? I'm unsure whether there is enough evidence that the copyright was not renewed. Thanks. -- Shudde talk 04:17, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Fixed immediately after closure: renom or reopen?

@ChrisGualtieri: was able to address my concerns with Who's Your Neighbor? less than an hour after I closed the nomination as a fail, solely due to inactivity. Can I reopen the GA1, and pass? If we do a GA2, it'll just be a "quick pass" anyway, so it doesn't seem worth it to reboot. -- Zanimum (talk) 15:17, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

I would argue this is a perfect example of WP:IGNORE, but others may have a different opinion to me. -- Shudde talk 23:03, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
Meh, I don't care. I've been so busy as of late - I'd personally reopen the GA1 and change it back and pass it. GA2 would make another page that would be a rubber stamp that would be more confusing in hindsight. Strangely, I got his note before the bot did. Still catching up on Ashlawn... made those months ago when I had a lot of downtime. Now they all are getting done while I got no time. Haha. Just my luck. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 04:27, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
I've reopened and passed it. -- Zanimum (talk) 13:45, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

History of Burger King

The reviewer of this article has disappeared. Anyone interested in taking it over?--Jeremy (blah blah • I did it!) 04:58, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

@Jerem43:I'd love to do it, but I won't be able to start until this weekend. :) Brandon (MrWooHoo) • Talk to Brandon! 01:35, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

Replacing disapeared reviewer for Ebbor Gorge

Following the previous discussion (now archived) about the GA nomination of Ebbor Gorge... The first round of the GA cup has now finished and User:Squeamish Ossifrage has still not edited wp since 2 October. Therefore would someone be willing to look at the article and the reviewers comments and responses at Talk:Ebbor Gorge/GA1 and take over the review?— Rod talk 09:06, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

It's been a week without any takers, so I've put the nomination back into the reviewing pool, along with another review started by Squeamish Ossifrage on October 2. With any luck, it will be soon be grabbed by someone from GA cup. BlueMoonset (talk) 04:53, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Status?

Moved from User talk:Redrose64 § Status?
 – Redrose64 (talk) 23:16, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Aloha. I'm contacting you to find out the status of this discussion, recently archived (it should probably be reinstated to the GA talk page as it was archived too soon). We currently have the following five open reviews by the same inexperienced reviewer:

If the reviewer is interested in finishing one of these reviews, then my suggestion would be to close four of them. However, I suspect the reviewer is long gone now and is probably not coming back, therefore, I recommend closing all five as failed and relisting. Viriditas (talk) 21:23, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Update: I see there are only three open reviews. I'm going to close two of them because they are clearly too difficult for the reviewer to handle and I have a working relationship with the nominator. I'll leave "Cult film" open until I hear otherwise. Viriditas (talk) 21:28, 20 October 2014 (UTC)
Done. Viriditas (talk) 21:34, 20 October 2014 (UTC)
@Viriditas: I moved this discussion here because these matters deserve wider attention than my talk page would give. I originally started the thread, not because I knew what to do about Talk:Caligula (film)/GA1, but because I didn't know what to do about it. At the time, that editor had only started that one GA review; they started the other five later on, and again, I don't know what to do with those. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:20, 20 October 2014 (UTC)
Whatever works. Viriditas (talk) 23:22, 20 October 2014 (UTC)
I wouldn't say I've taken over the GA review of Caligula, merely that I added some comments to help move things along. I tend not to touch GA reviews unless I am sure I either have a good understanding of the subject or would like to gain one, frequently doing additional research. I can complete it if there's a strong demand, but I'd rather not have this one hanging over my head. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 09:26, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
  • Mark Miller, it's been two weeks. If you're going to take over there, please do, but if not, I'm happy to relist this one with the rest of them. Of the four that were relisted, two have been passed, one is in progress, and one is waiting for a new reviewer. BlueMoonset (talk) 04:41, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
  • I didn't get any kind of consensus so I didn't want to take it. I suggest relisting. I have a number of edits on that page...I am just unsure how many, so best not to review something I have contributed to.--Mark Miller (talk) 08:55, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Cult film

Hi there. I don't know if anyone remembers, but there was a somewhat recent discussion over a new user who opened a bunch of reviews all at once. He seems to have since disappeared, and that leaves Cult film languishing in an unclosed, abandoned GA review. It would be helpful if some uninvolved editor could close that discussion (or, even better yet, restart it). I know it's a really long, involved article, but it shouldn't be all that much work to review. I'm a somewhat experienced editor, and I've tried to make sure that it follows the criteria. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 03:30, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

For 92 edits.... that reviewing editor may not be up to the task. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 03:43, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
Chris Troutman originally tried to speedy delete four of this editor's reviews, but they're still around. The editor isn't, however—last edit was October 27. My suggestion is that any that weren't taken over above be closed: this person clearly had no idea what the criteria were. I'm going to close the Cult film review and put it back into the pool. BlueMoonset (talk) 04:33, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
Actually, I'm going to ping Mark Miller, who said he was taking over, but hasn't posted anything there in two weeks. Then, if there's no response, I'll put it back into the pool. BlueMoonset (talk) 04:35, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Backlog

All the articles listed in the backlog list on the nominations page are already under review, and there is a different list on Wikipedia:Good article nominations/backlog/items. Can someone who understands the system take a look. Dudley Miles (talk) 18:27, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Uh... they are not all under review. Not sure why you say that. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 18:49, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
The list has changed to be the same as Wikipedia:Good article nominations/backlog/items since I posted. Corrected or something with my computer? Fixed anyway. Dudley Miles (talk) 19:13, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
Oh, it updated about 10 minutes prior to your post. It updated at 18:18. The bot takes care of it automatically. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 19:28, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

All-China Women's Federation

The nominator is inactive. Therefore, I posted on the WikiProjects listed on the talk page of the article. The funny thing is, I posted on every single WikiProject that the talk page listed (here, here, here, here, and here) yet there has been no response from a single one of these WikiProjects. Could someone be willing to take over the review? The nominator is now inactive. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MrWooHoo (talk • contribs) 01:48, 29 October 2014‎ (UTC)

MrWooHoo, the nominator only ever worked on this article, and hasn't posted to Wikipedia since the end of April, over half a year ago. If no one is interested in addressing the issues with the article—the single-paragraph intro is a significant one, since it needs to be two or three paragraphs by WP:LEAD standards—then you'll have to fail the nomination at some point. If you've finished your review, why not put the article on hold for the standard seven days. If no one steps up to address the issues, then fail it; it can always be renominated at some point in the future when an editor takes an interest in the article again. BlueMoonset (talk) 21:47, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
Thanks @BlueMoonset: That's basically what everybody has been telling me. Brandon (MrWooHoo) • Talk to Brandon! 22:52, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Talk:September Morn/GA1

Wilhelmina Will took up this review on 23 October (going on three weeks ago) and has left a grand total of 3 comments since then. I've pinged the user both on the nomination page and his/her talk page, but no response. Could somebody else take up the review? — Crisco 1492 (talk) 02:59, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

Drive-bys

I'm seeing what I hope can stay a relatively minor issue. User:Mr. Guye nom'd several articles of significant importance and length United States and Physics, among others) that, while not bad, do have surface issues. Drive-by noms aren't forbidden, but he has two in Cloud and Storm that were reviewed, yet he hasn't touched, and has instead continued to nom articles despite showing no interest in actually wanting to improve them post-nom. Wizardman 22:26, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

The articles are so technical and Cloud in particular is in desperate need of a rewrite. Some of the cloud genus details far surpass the depth given on subpages and the information did not trace back to the sources. The fact Mr. Guye did not work on any of them was a red flag to me. Most pages do require at least some reworking even if they largely meet the GA criteria and merely haven't been submitted. These nominations seem to have been done on depth, size and importance and not on the actual writings and issues therein. Considering the number of dead links and improperly sourced information on Cloud... I think it may be best to fail them. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 05:40, 11 November 2014 (UTC)
Update: StewdioMACK (talk · contribs) nominated the article G.I. Jeff for GA candidacy with zero contributions to the article itself. Please also see my comments at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Saturday Night Live/archive1. — Cirt (talk) 16:22, 12 November 2014 (UTC)
Cirt, StewdioMACK has been editing on Wikipedia for under a month, and has 58 total edits. I think both of these nominations should be reverted immediately and a courteous note be placed on the user's talk page pointing out what a nomination entails in terms of participation and the quality required, and perhaps suggesting these are premature given the lack of experience. Although Mr. Guye has about two orders of magnitude more edits, a somewhat similar note should be left on his talk page, though offering the option of his working on the various nominations or withdrawing them: nominating isn't a vote of confidence, it's a commitment to do the work necessary to see the nomination through to success. BlueMoonset (talk) 01:20, 13 November 2014 (UTC)
I agree with your recommendations, BlueMoonset, what do others think? — Cirt (talk) 01:23, 13 November 2014 (UTC)
I agree with BlueMoonset's recommendations as well.--Esprit15d • talk • contribs 14:12, 13 November 2014 (UTC)
I do want to add that the ones that have already been reviewed should just be failed to preserve whatever suggestions reviewer have offered, in the case that future reviewer come along and want to improve the article.--Esprit15d • talk • contribs 14:15, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

User:Jonas Vinther is insisting it is not his responsibility to list nominations that he passes at WP:GA

Yesterday, I had a bit of back and forth with Jonas Vinther on his talk page regarding listing Broadway Hollywood Building at WP:GA. Eventually, he said he would do it tomorrow. This was at 23:08, 15 October 2014 (UTC). Since he is a self proclaimed Danish Wikipedians his tomorrow has come and gone. Not only has he blown off the commitment to list the article properly, but also when he promoted Utah Beach to GA at 23:46, 16 October 2014 (UTC), he again opted not to list it at GA. He has been involved in over 40 GA reviews. Presumably he never lists the articles he promotes at WP:GA. I don't know how many other articles he has promoted without listing, but he is shown to have participated in 44 reviews (based on the GAN counters) and he oddly list his reviews on his talk page with GA Icons. There are 40 such icons. I presume this means he has passed 40 articles. I have no idea why he lists reviewed articles with these Icons on his page.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 03:41, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

P.S. I am just noticing that he has been involved in 44 reviews including 2 that are currently on hold. Meaning at most 42 have concluded and 40 have passed. This is extremely odd. His reviews may need to be evaluated.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 04:26, 17 October 2014 (UTC)
I apologize if I'm missing something, but why can't you just look through his contributions? Tezero (talk) 04:31, 17 October 2014 (UTC)
Tezero, I apologize, but are you suggesting that I follow his editing forever and make it my responsibility to help him complete his GA promotiong forever by watching his contributions? Wouldn't it be better if we just convinced him to do his own promotions properly?--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 05:57, 17 October 2014 (UTC)
Well, no, TonyTheTiger, not forever, only for the ones he's already done. I guess I took it somehow that he was no longer reviewing articles, but if he continues despite being warned, discretionary sanctions might be in order. (And this is only if he can't be reached to at least give a list of ones he's done.) Tezero (talk) 06:15, 17 October 2014 (UTC)
I think my point here is that I was seeking confirmation that it is the reviewers responsibility to follow the instructions at WP:GAN, which include listing passed articles at WP:GA. I don't think anyone but Jonas Vinther, himself should be asked to rummage through all the articles he has passed and properly list them. I don't understand why you suggested that I do so. I have no idea what type of sanctions you think might be in order. I think he just needs to understand that he is sort of messing up the system by not listing his promotions at GA and it is no one's responsibility but his own. Do you disagree?--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 06:42, 17 October 2014 (UTC)
Oh, it's absolutely his responsibility. I was just thinking about ways to fix the problem given that he doesn't seem to be willing to take responsibility. Tezero (talk) 12:19, 17 October 2014 (UTC)
If he is unwilling to follow the instructions at WP:GAN, he should not be allowed to review. The fix is not to tell other people to run around behind him fixing his reviews.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 12:54, 17 October 2014 (UTC)
That's what I meant by "discretionary sanctions". Tezero (talk) 13:08, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Jonas has had something like three or four trips to this talk page in the last fortnight. I saw his attention to win the GA Cup at all costs, and thought "that'll end in tears", and it looks like I was proven right. I don't recommend a trip to ANI as I think he'll calm down and back off the GA reviewing for a bit. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 09:10, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Woah, Woah, Woah, Woah! Easy people! TonyTheTiger, I have said I will list them. We had a discussion about this yesterday and I said I will list them all today. There is really nothing to discuss! I have never insisted not to list them, now your just making things up. I will list them ALL TODAY! Jonas Vinther (speak to me!) 13:28, 17 October 2014 (UTC)
Well, normally reviewers do it right away. Please be sure that you do list them. Tezero (talk) 13:31, 17 October 2014 (UTC)
I can guarantee everybody I will list them all today. The reasons I didn't do it when I started reviewing was because I didn't know you could or had to list them. I know this now, and will list them all today. Is everyone happy? Jonas Vinther (speak to me!) 13:39, 17 October 2014 (UTC)
I'm sorry. I assumed you were being belligerent and lazy. Tezero (talk) 13:54, 17 October 2014 (UTC)
I also didn't notice you had to do this when I started reviewing articles, but noticed it since. Can't a bot do it? FunkMonk (talk) 08:31, 19 October 2014 (UTC)
That actually makes sense... LazyBastardGuy 16:37, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

I agree with the whole bot decision. Best, .jonatalk 16:50, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

  • I don't program bots, but I feel it might be a bit much to ask a bot to figure out which section to list articles at on WP:GA. The subcategories their have gotten quite refined and the bot would not be able to simply look at an article talk page parameter and list things accordingly. However, whether or not the bot is ever programmed to do this, it does not change the issue that Jonas Vinther, has not followed the instructions and despite twice promising (on the 15th he said tomorrow and on the 17th he said today) saying he would complete the instructions listed at WP:GAN, it remains an empty promise. I am tiring of Jonas Vinther's empty promises.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 18:22, 19 October 2014 (UTC)
TonyTheTiger, do you really have nothing better to do? Have it ever occurred to you I might have real life responsibilities and other Wikipedia projects going on? It doesn't matter if I list them today, tomorrow or in a week - as long as they eventually gets listed. Geez, chill out will ya'? Jonas Vinther (speak to me!) 21:56, 19 October 2014 (UTC)
@Jonas Vinther: It doesn't matter about external issues/things going on. A responsibility of the reviewer is to list the article per the GA instructions. Really, it shouldn't take more than a minute.--Dom497 (talk) 19:52, 20 October 2014 (UTC)
All is now listed. Jonas Vinther (speak to me!) 19:21, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
Jonas Vinther, I took a quick look at your listings and am curious about the differences between the Danish and English alphabet. It seems half of your listings are not according to alphabetical order in the English alphabet. Is there a difference between the English and Danish alphabets?--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 19:36, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
The Danish alphabet has 29 letters. The first 26 are the same as in English; there are an extra three after Z/z: Æ/æ; Ø/ø; and Å/å. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:50, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
The alphabetical order is the same in Danish as in English, the three extra letters come after Z. I'm from Denmark too, by the way. FunkMonk (talk) 20:01, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
Do the Danish experts concur that even to the Danish eye about half of Jonas Vinther recent WP:GA listings appear to be out of alphabetical order?--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 20:09, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6-8
  7. 9-15--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 20:34, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
I'm completely lost here! I listed all in alpha' order? Jonas Vinther (speak to me!) 21:25, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
Take Tony's first example. You place "st" in the middle of the "sc" section. Sorting is done by the first letter, then second, then third, etc. So: Aa, Ab, Ac, Ba, Bb, etc. Sincerely, Taketa (talk) 21:56, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

I've been just lurking here and really don't care about this, but I think if some of you would have just took some initiative to list these instead of trying to build a case against the guy, this would be a non-issue. Just a member of the community expressing my opinion. InTheAM 21:45, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

InTheAM, I don't know how closely you have been following, but basically, Jonas Vinther seems to want to get permission to not follow the promotion instructions at WP:GAN. I view his haphazard cooperation as a further attempt to encourage us to grant permission for him to not follow the instructions. Everybody has enough things to do with their own interests and trying to guide the newbies. If you have regs that want to create a lot of work for everybody else, that does not fly with me. His attempt to list things in the most problematic way conceivable does not make me any less interested in him assuming responsibility for completing the GA instructions on his own. I don't want to have to follow him around to make sure he does what is right.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 22:04, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
TonyTheTiger, if you continue to make stuff up, I will report you. Jonas Vinther (speak to me!) 23:29, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
It is not me who has been shirking his responsibilities and doing half-assed stuff. You are surely old enough to know the alphabet. I am not making up the alphabet or the fact that you either have trouble with it or were just causing problems.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 00:07, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
What are you going to report me for? The fact that I have been complaining that you did several dozens of reviews without following the instructions or the fact that I am complaining about how when I finally got you to follow instructions you messed up.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 00:09, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
There was a big family get-together today, so only now came on Wikipedia. To answer the questions: The Danish alphabet is, as already explained, the exact same as the English one, exact the last three letters (Æ, Ø, Å). The reason there is some confusion is because I arranged them alphabetically by the first word in the article name. I wasn't aware you had to go through each letter alphabetically, but I know that now so I will fix them. And Tony, what I meant about reporting you if you continued to make stuff up is that you, with this edit said "Jonas Vinther seems to want to get permission to not follow the promotion instructions". I have never said or indicated this, this is pure guessing which I take personal. Like Taketa said, it's like you're trying to build a case against me! Jonas Vinther (speak to me!) 22:02, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
Jonas Vinther I imagine you are enjoying making me the bad guy here, but since you are 1 for 1 on listing articles since the prior issue, now is as good a time as any to ask when you plan to clean up the old listings.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 03:03, 28 October 2014 (UTC)
TonyTheTiger, I'll have time to do it today. Jonas Vinther (speak to me!) 13:41, 28 October 2014 (UTC)
Sorry, it was InTheAM that said that, not Taketa. Jonas Vinther (speak to me!) 22:05, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
Jonas Vinther, I will offer a rare apology for stating that you "seems to want to get permission to not follow the promotion instructions". You have not actively sought such permission. You may have been confused on who was suppose to list GA promotions. However, the reasoning behind your haphazard listings that you were putting the S's with the S's and such but not really alphabetizing is perplexing to me. I will WP:AGF and assume that you will properly list all promotions going forward. Although we all make mistakes, I expect that you will do better than 16 out of 31 next time.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 23:05, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
Jonas Vinther, After I reminded you on October 28, you pinged me regarding which listings needed correcting. I replied pointing you to this October 22 edit. Can you tell me how you are progressing on cleaning these up?--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 16:02, 2 November 2014 (UTC)
Hi Tony. I'm currently involved with a four GAN's and one FAC, so I've putted the issue in question on hold for a few days. Jonas Vinther (speak to me!) 16:07, 2 November 2014 (UTC)
Jonas Vinther, I am trying to get an understanding of the progress, but it seems that your excuses not to make progress are getting more imaginative. The following is my understanding of your progress:
  1. You said that you did not understand which pages you had listed incorrectly.
  2. You said that you were overwhelmed with other responsibilities on WP.
  3. You said your were correcting your listings, but did not feel that St John Passion structure was incorrectly listed at Wikipedia:Good_articles/Music where you have listed it between Schubert's last sonatas and Schwingt freudig euch empor, BWV 36, alphabetically.
You mentioned that you were "currently correcting the listings", but I can not find any that you have yet corrected. Please explain your progress. Please don't leave another excuse on my talk page. If you have a new update, leave a comment here.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 02:34, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
TonyTheTiger, to end this whole thing I'm going to do the rest immediately. Quick question though, exactly how many letters do you have to go through alphabetically before you can list an article? Jonas Vinther (speak to me!) 02:42, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
@Jonas Vinther: the short answer is: all of them. That is how alphabetization works. Imzadi 1979 → 04:36, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
@Jonas Vinther:, when is "immediately". I still can not figure out which ones you have already done (if any). P.S. I dong get your question about "how many letters do you have to go through. If Imzadi1979's answer is not satisfactory, please rephrase.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 12:09, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
TonyTheTiger, you don't have to answer it as IMadil1979 already have. Jonas Vinther (speak to me!) 13:11, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
TonyTheTiger, I have now corrected all of these. Jonas Vinther (speak to me!) 13:46, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
@Jonas Vinther: I checked one. The very first one at Wikipedia:Good articles/Music has not been corrected. Sc, St, Sc is not alphabetical. - Taketa (talk) 15:32, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
OK, will re-check that one. Jonas Vinther (speak to me!) 15:53, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
It's done. All have now been corrected. Jonas Vinther (speak to me!) 15:55, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
@Jonas Vinther: Comments (ec)
  1. How is this corrective?--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 15:58, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
    I don't see how that is not correct? Jonas Vinther (speak to me!) 16:04, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
    Rather than move it to correct alphabetical position, you delisted the article.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 16:36, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
    On my computer the article is not delisted and can be found under Media and drama? Jonas Vinther (speak to me!) 19:53, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
  2. Rise seems to remain malplaced after your effort--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 15:58, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
    I also don't see the problem here? Jonas Vinther (speak to me!) 16:04, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
    You have placed Rise between Risk parity and Robinson Crusoe economy alphabetically.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 16:36, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
    I don't understand, if they alphabetically listed what's the problem? Jonas Vinther (speak to me!) 19:53, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
    1.) Ragnar Nurkse's balanced growth theory; 2.)Risk parity; 3.)Robinson Crusoe economy alphabetically. Please tell me where you think Rise should be placed alphabetically in this set.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 20:04, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
    Well, "Rise" starts off with "Ri" so it should definitely be before or after "Risk parity". The third word of both titles are the same, but the fourth is not. E comes before K, so it should be before "Risk parity".— Preceding unsigned comment added by Jonas Vinther (talk • contribs) 20:19:36, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
    Since you understand, how can you say "I also don't see the problem here"--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 00:45, 8 November 2014 (UTC)
    Because Rise is listed before Risk parity? Jonas Vinther (speak to me!) 13:26, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
    For some reason you understand where Rise belongs alphabetically, but seem to be challenged in terms of being able to actually move it to the right location in the list.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 21:03, 13 November 2014 (UTC)
  3. Your effort to correct these edits with these edits leaves Walther von Brauchitsch and Charles Heaphy out of place.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 15:58, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
    What do you mean? Jonas Vinther (speak to me!) 16:04, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
    They should be alphabetical.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 16:36, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
    Even after re-looking the article, I still believe it is alphabetically listed?
    1.)Thored; 2.)Walter de Beauchamp (nobleman); 3.)Wehha of East Anglia. Why is it necessary for me to ask you where Walther von Brauchitsch belongs in this sequence?--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 20:08, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
    Because "Walter de Beauchamp (nobleman)" starts off with "Walt" like Brauchtisch, it should obviously be before or after that title. Since Brauchitsch has an H in his first name it should be before.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Jonas Vinther (talk • contribs) 20:19:36, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
    If you understand this, you should not have too much trouble making the proper correction.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 00:45, 8 November 2014 (UTC)
    I'm sorry, but didn't I place Brauchitsch before Beauchamp? Jonas Vinther (speak to me!) 13:26, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
    It seems that these entries are in the W part of the alphabetical listing where the issue is wheather Walter comes before Walther.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 21:06, 13 November 2014 (UTC)
  4. Your effort to correct these edits with these edits did not correct Battle of Halmyros, Battle of Borgerhout, Battle of Kolubara, Meteor-class avis, Italian cruiser Umbria, Turuma, and Dunstanburgh Castle.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 15:58, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
    Will re-look the ones you mentioned. Jonas Vinther (speak to me!) 16:04, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
    Thanks.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 16:36, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
  5. Also, why did you list Charles Heaphy at both history and warfare?--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 16:00, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
    A mistake. Will fix it. Jonas Vinther (speak to me!) 16:04, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
  6. What gives with this edit?--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 21:14, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

TonyTheTiger, all should now be corrected including Battle of Halmyros, Battle of Borgerhout, Battle of Kolubara, Meteor-class avis, Italian cruiser Umbria, Turuma, and Dunstanburgh Castle. Jonas Vinther (speak to me!) 15:51, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Talk:Brian Hill (swimmer)/GA1

Can someone please take over the review at Talk:Brian Hill (swimmer)/GA1. I am really busy currently and don't have time. I am sorry for the problems this may cause. - NG39 (Used to be NickGibson3900)Talk 05:03, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

Notability missing from GA criteria

Did you know that notability is not mentioned in the Good article criteria? Please see the discussion posted at WT:GA?#Notability missing from GA criteria. Prhartcom (talk) 16:39, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Talk:Sungei Road/GA1 nominated in March, awaiting unnecessary second opinion since 10 September

On 10 September, the reviewer, NickGibson3900, requested a second opinion "from someone who knows more about the area than [he does]". The article is not complex (the concerns were easy to deal with) and he is not a new reviewer, so I do not see why the nomination needs a second opinion. I nominated the article on 2 March and although I understand there is a huge backlog, would like someone to follow up on this soon. --Hildanknight (talk) 11:14, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

Note that the GAN report lists Sungei Road as the second oldest nomination. The reviewer, NG39, posted above requesting someone take over another of his reviews. --Hildanknight (talk) 08:06, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

Messed up nom.

Hi, I was trying to nominate Animatronics but I think I did in incorrectly because I mistakenly hit the link to create a page thinking I should do that to complete the nom. and only afterwards realized that it says to do so only when / if I were going to review the article. Could someone help me fix it please. Thx. David Condrey log talk 10:43, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

No worries, I have tagged it for speedy deletion. Adabow (talk) 21:18, 18 November 2014 (UTC)
Thanks. I was unsure what the proper action would be. I still want to get this nominated though.. Thx David Condrey log talk 21:23, 18 November 2014 (UTC)
It will remain in the nomination queue. Only the review page which you created will be deleted; potential reviewers will then see that no review has been started, and can then take up the review themselves. Adabow (talk) 23:00, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

What if an IP takes up a GA review?

An IP has taken up the GAN for Sonic the Hedgehog 2. The FAQ here says that such a review is not allowed, but a remedy is not provided. Tezero (talk) 15:37, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

The review page should be speedy deleted and the nominator informed on their talk page that reviewers must have registered accounts (and have experience). I suspect this is someone who just clicked on a link and got a bit more than they bargained for. I've marked the page for deletion; once it has been deleted I'll update the article talk page to show the article isn't under review. (I don't want to do that now, as it could cause a collision if someone tries to open a new review while the old page is extant.) BlueMoonset (talk) 17:54, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Bot having trouble marking reviews as passed?

The bot seems to have a problem marking new reviews that have closed as a pass. It blanked Morden tube station once without comment [22] which I assumed was a glitch, then it did it again [23] I then double checked the talk header, which is now this which as far as I know is correct ... and Legobot silently took it off the queue with a summary of maintenance again! [24] What's going on? Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 11:29, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

87,578

Abandoned nominations

For those who've abandoned GAN's they started reviewing, should there perhaps be a set point at which it's best to close as unsuccessful? The backlog would otherwise be held up for an indeterminate length. Snuggums (talk / edits) 06:05, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

How would it be fair to the nominator if the nomination was closed as unsuccessful because of an MIA reviewer? Gloss 06:30, 18 November 2014 (UTC)
Beforehand, a note would be left on the review page reminding both nominator and reviewer of review and lack of activity. If it goes unanswered for a certain amount of time, the nomination would be closed. The nominator could renominate afterwards. Snuggums (talk / edits) 06:42, 18 November 2014 (UTC)
Nominations can sit on this page for over half of a year, so telling someone "just renominate it" is much easier said than done. If the nominator goes inactive on the review, it's fair to say to close it as unsuccessful after fair warning, but if a reviewer goes inactive, it's probably better to just ask here for a new reviewer - there's often someone around willing to pick those reviews up. Gloss 06:46, 18 November 2014 (UTC)
If I wait six months for a review, which the reviewer abandons, then my nomination is closed without review and I am asked to renominate, that would discourage me from writing further GAs. I hope that does not happen with Talk:Sungei Road/GA1. --Hildanknight (talk) 08:00, 18 November 2014 (UTC)
what rules are in place if a reviewer does abandon? It should be cause to block accts in my opinion. Its detrimental to further collaboration.. More so than a simple vandal any day. If you can't do somethin right, you best off not do it at all.David Condrey log talk 21:10, 18 November 2014 (UTC)
@David Condrey: Both nominators and reviewers are humans, who may have busy schedules and may have to abandon nominations (or reviews) due to unforeseen circumstances. I sometimes take two months to fix all issues raised by a reviewer. Since I really appreciate patience from reviewers, I believe reviewers similarly appreciate patience from nominators. "If you can't do somethin right, you best off not do it at all" is not how Wikipedia works. --Hildanknight (talk)

Gender inequality in the United States seems to have stalled again, the nominator disappeared back in April and the current review seems to be dead in the water. If I had to pick one to IAR and fail due to lack of activity, that would be it. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 14:36, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

@Ritchie333: How about I change the GA nominee template at Talk:Sungei Road to point to GA2 (not yet created) instead of GA1, per IAR? --Hildanknight (talk) 15:24, 19 November 2014 (UTC)
I don't think that'll help you, I'm afraid. You need someone with a subject knowledge. I've done quite a few geography articles, but I wouldn't know the Sungei Road from the Falls Road from the Old Kent Road. Sorry. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 15:23, 20 November 2014 (UTC)
Why? I review lots of GANs outside my normal areas of interest, and appreciate others taking on mine in the same fashion. In fact, in a recent review I started of Antemoro people I explicitly said I didn't know anything about the subject going in and was only reviewing to learn. A diverse reviewer pool helps reduce the likelihood we'll be speaking to an echo chamber - if nothing else, it increases accessibility. Tezero (talk) 15:41, 20 November 2014 (UTC)
I can certainly appreciate that sentiment, granted, but my point was more than nobody has been prepared to give the requested second opinion on the original review. If you'd like to pick the review up and finish it off, I'm sure that would be very much appreciated. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 15:44, 20 November 2014 (UTC)
Ritchie333, I'd personally rather not with that one specifically, because of my own strong feelings against the way the mainstream social justice movement and academia conceive social inequality, which could cloud my ability to be neutral. I'll gladly take another, though, if you've got any ideas. Tezero (talk) 04:25, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

Current procedure

This is not official by any means, but in my experience we do not fail the nomination if the problem is reviewer abandonment. After suitable notifications establish that the nominator is still interested (if frustrated) and the reviewer has either disappeared or is no longer interested, the nomination is put back in the nominations pool with its seniority intact, and gets picked up sooner rather than later. This is like what we've done when an incompetent reviewer starts up a bunch of reviews, and they need to be unwound without penalizing the nominator. I would be opposed to the proposal that initiated this section to close the nomination as unsuccessful, as the only failure here is on the part of the reviewer. I do agree that at some point the review needs to be considered abandoned, and effectively taken away from the reviewer who abandoned it—we've had to do this many times in the past, and it will continue to happen. BlueMoonset (talk) 03:42, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

If anyone seriously started failing articles due to reviewer inactivity, then I'll just revert them, since that's stupid. Either take it up yourself or just place it back in the queue, which takes maybe two minutes. Wizardman 03:53, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

User:Aplikasi abandoning reviewing process..

Hi, I just want to inform here that the two articles I nominate which have been reviewed by Aplikasi have been abandon by him during the reviewing process. After seven days, when I ask him on Facebook on what suggestions, problems or improvements should be done on the articles to meet the GA status, he did not replied to my message instead deactivating his facebook. I requested if there is any reviewers can continue the reviewing process. ~ Muffin Wizard ;) 00:57, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Huh? What do you mean, Facebook? User:Muffin Wizard, why don't you try to communicate to this editor on their Wikipedia User Talk page? This editor appears to be taking a short Wikibreak as they have not edited for the past week; be patient; they will probably return soon. What are these articles that you nominated? Prhartcom (talk) 05:30, 21 November 2014 (UTC)
@Prhartcom, I had email him before and he gives his Facebook link for easy contact, but the facebook has since been deactivated. From his last message, I don't thinks he want to reviewed it anymore. But nevermind, another Wizard already help me to delete the reviewing forms. Anyway, thanks! The articles I nominated is Kuching and Tawau. ~ Muffin Wizard ;) 06:08, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

Poor closure of GA review

An editor has failed the GA review for the Russo-Georgian War article. He cites "NPOV" issues, but has not actually said what these NPOV issues are. He says the article is "unstable", but the "edit war" he referred to was long resolved before the review started, and was merely the product of IP vandalism. He did not give the submitting editor nearly enough time to respond to his concerns. In fact, I fear that the reviewer has a severe bias himself, and has failed the article as a result. This seems unacceptable. A well-meaning editor who has been working on this article for months, who has suffered a five month queue, was not even given the light of day. I'm starting to become quite cynical about this GA process, as it seems that it really is a system that drives editors away, rather than helping them improve articles. RGloucester — ☎ 19:14, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

Would someone please help me here? This is a travesty, and the fact that I can't even get someone uninvolved to comment is not very encouraging. I fear that the editor who had been working on the article is now gone for good. I'd like to get some kind of fairness, here. It is quite clear that this review was conducted inappropriately. RGloucester — ☎ 00:59, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
RGloucester, I will re-review the article for GA-status before the end of the month. Jonas Vinther (speak to me!) 01:19, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
I cannot thank you enough. If you will, please leave a message on UA Victory's talk page so that he knows all is not lost. RGloucester — ☎ 02:01, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
@RGloucester: I don't see why you couldn't have just posted this at the review page or on the reviewer's talk page. 23W 02:40, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
As you might imagine, I wanted the opinion of uninvolved parties. RGloucester — ☎ 05:07, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
  • The person means well, but simply does not know the GA criteria. Namely "Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute." and proceeds to go through its entire history when "day to day" is the issue. The editor constitutes sentence structure as a reason to fail under 1b which is simply not proper - the editor has a deep issue and is cherrypicking and caught in the act of deliberately making issues to further an agenda. A second review to the actual neutrality of the article is needed because I simply cannot believe that a sentence of "Foo began shelling... as early as....", cited to a reliable source, is clear enough to warrant a failure of the MOS. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 05:23, 23 November 2014 (UTC)
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